“You heard me, Gracie. Stop talking,” he said.
Gracie panicked. She started pounding her fists into Connor’s chest, but he didn’t budge. She cried and wailed, and then she collapsed to her knees in a crying mess.
“Connor, I got no beef with you or your gang. I just want us all to walk out of here and forget any of this happened,” Buck said.
Connor thought for a moment, looking to his sister crying on the ground. I could see his embarrassment at having her by his side.
“Gracie, get up,” Connor said.
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her from the loose gravel. She didn’t resist; she seemed to have lost all interest in what was happening.
Connor pulled her back and sat her on his motorcycle. She sat without a sound, motionless. Then Connor turned back to Buck and me.
“Buck, I got nothing against you. I was just tryin’ to do right by my sister. When you said you were gettin’ married to Tara, I thought you were joking. I had a feeling you were just saying that cause you didn’t want to end up with Gracie. I don’t blame you; if she weren’t family, things would have been different.
“Get outta here, Buck,” Connor said. He backed up, eased onto his cycle, and kick-started it. “You got a hell of a girl there,” he added.
“I really do,” Buck said.
Buck turned and started walking back toward me. I was glad things had ended so easily, and without a fight. But then again, I did miss watching Buck get ornery.
“I’m the only one you should ever love,” shouted Gracie, and then she turned her gaze on me. “He would love me if you were dead!”
Gracie held up a revolver, taking aim straight at me. I started to duck, but everything moved incredibly slowly. I looked at Buck, who had a horrified expression on his face.
I could remember the first time I saw him. He wasn’t as big then, but he was scrappy. I wondered if he ever thought about me when we were younger. I knew I wouldn’t be able to dodge the bullet at this distance, but I supposed there were worse ways to die.
I closed my eyes as I heard the shot, waiting for the pain that would follow, but it never came.
I opened my eyes a second later to see Buck hovering over me. Blood poured from an open wound in his shoulder. I stared into his big eyes, and he into mine.
“I love you,” Buck said.
“Don’t die,” I squeaked out.
“Ugh, it’s just a shoulder shot,” he replied. “I didn’t like that tattoo anyway.”
He collapsed on top of me. I hadn’t realized how much he really weighed until then.
8.
Everything was a blur the rest of that night. We ended up at a hospital where he got his shoulder sewn shut. I stayed with him the whole time, and we exchanged knowing glances.
He wasn’t the man I remembered at all. I wanted to hold him and never let him go. I knew he would always be there to protect me, and that was a feeling I never wanted to lose.
Connor turned in his own sister for what she’d done. I think he knew that if Buck decided to go after her, she wouldn’t make it far. Connor even visited him in the hospital to make amends.
The next morning the hospital released Buck. He was built like a tank, and it would’ve taken a lot more to do him in.
I met him out front with his motorcycle, the old hand-me-down he received from my father. With his arm still in a sling, he hopped on the cycle.
“I think I’ll take the lead on this one, Buck. You can’t brake with only one arm,” I said.
“This is my bike; I’m the only one in this saddle,” he said.
I cocked an eye at him, the same look my mother had given me a million times. It had always worked on my father when he was alive, and it looked like it might just work with Buck.
He let out a drawn-out sigh and scooted to the back seat of the bike. I hopped into the driver’s seat and he threw his arm around my stomach.
I finally felt like I was home.
*****
THE END
MOTORCYCLE Romance – Outlaw Bad Boy Biker
1
Jennifer Walters groaned as her six-year-old son leapt atop her. She was in bed, and after opening one eye and squinting at her alarm clock, she saw it wasn’t even seven in the morning. In fact, it wasn’t even six thirty.
“What are you doing up so early?” Jennifer asked the little boy. His name was Jaxson, and he had the same blond hair his mother did, though his green eyes were his father's. That man was long gone, out of the picture and out of the state. It was just Jen and Jaxson, together in Arizona, in a small town named Harrisburg. It was dusty and hot, and Jennifer owned a small bar right at the end of the main drag, a place called Chuck’s, named for the man she had bought it from. Chuck’s was the local biker hangout, and there were plenty of bikers in and around Harrisburg.
“It’s not early, is it?”
“Six twenty is pretty early,” Jennifer groaned. “Go back to bed.”
“I don’t want to. I’m too excited about school.”