“I didn’t say love.”
Hot Mama smiles. “You didn’t have to, baby.”
Across the yard, August laughs so loud the sound cracks through the dark.
I press one hand to my heart.
Lonerock isn’t safety the way I imagined it.
It’s a different outlaw world, one built by women who learned the hard way that rescue without shelter is just another prayer nobody answers.
I haven’t run into peace.
I have run into a commune, a mother’s past I can’t see clearly, and a sisterhood that feels warm until I remember warm things can still burn.
But my son is laughing.
And for tonight, that is enough to keep me standing.
Chapter Twenty-One
Derby
The road west doesn’t give a damn about a broken heart.
Good.
I don’t need sympathy from pavement. I need miles. I need wind hard enough to peel the first layer of skin off my thoughts. I need Widowmaker loud beneath me, black engine snarling between my knees, her pipes cracking across state lines like she is cussing right along with me. I need gas station coffee that tastes like burnt pennies. I need cheap jerky, bad motel sheets, rain in my collar, sun in my eyes, and every stretch of road between Kentucky and Oregon to learn her name.
Amelia.
August.
Amelia.
August.
The names ride with me.
Not the way love songs and poets like Royal would make it sound. More like a bruise I keep pressing with my thumb to make sure it still hurts.
It does.
Every mile.
She told me not to follow.
I follow.
That should make me a bastard.
Maybe it does.
But I ain’t riding to drag her back. I ain’t riding to throw her over my shoulder like some outlaw fairy tale. I ain’t riding because she left and my pride can’t stand the sight of an open door.
I’m riding because I woke up in a cold bed after giving her the only good thing I knew how to give.
Choice.