I watch her decide to be terrified and do it anyway.
“Okay,” she says.
And there it is.
The next bad idea.
The public one.
The one where I put my hand on her back only if she says yes.
The one where half the town sees Amelia Welles walk into the Fire Pit beside me.
The one where Jeremy Vale hears the story we choose.
I should hate it.
Instead, standing in my kitchen with cereal in my cabinets, dinosaurs on my floor, and a woman I barely know looking at me like I might keep my word, all I can think is that tonight somebody is going to learn the difference between a man who cages a woman and a man who stands beside her while she burns the cage down.
Chapter Eight
Derby
My Harley’s name is Widowmaker.
Not because I named her that.
A man shouldn’t name his own bike something that dramatic unless he’s trying too hard, and I have many flaws, but that ain’t one of them. I bought her half-wrecked off a man in Bowling Green who needed bail money more than horsepower. Blacked-out Softail, old-school bars, pipes loud enough to make church ladies clutch pearls three counties over, and an engine with a temper worse than mine.
First week I had her, the throttle stuck and nearly sent me through a tobacco barn.
Second week, I laid her down in gravel avoiding a deer and came up with half my arm bleeding and one boot missing.
Third week, I outran two deputies, a hailstorm, and a woman in a red Camaro who claimed I had promised to marry her after a parking lot quickie behind a steakhouse.
I had not.
Probably.
By the end of that month, Oaks said any woman jealous enough to compete with my bike better have a funeral dress ready, because the Harley would win.
Widowmaker stuck.
Now she sits in my driveway shining black and mean under late afternoon sun, chrome catching fire where the light hits, and Amelia is looking at her like I have asked her to climb on the back of a dragon with commitment issues.
“No,” she says.
I lean against the seat and cross my arms. “No what?”
“No.”
“That was clear as mud.”
She points at the bike. “We are not riding that.”
I look at Widowmaker, then back at her. “You got something against American engineering?”
“I have something against dying before dinner.”