Dead Men Motorcycle Club Page 3

  The tension and grim determination went out of his face all at once and he smiled at me. I hadn't expected that at all. If I'd had to guess, I would have said he never smiled, but when he did it was hard to imagine him doing anything else. "I'm Cash," he said, not bothering to explain his title or the way the others had scuttled away when he gave them a hard look.

  "I gathered that," I told him, "I'm Emma. Thanks for that."

  "Not a problem. Those guys are pretty rough around the edges. I don't think they're quite ready to accept a woman in the garage yet. Give them time and we'll see."

  I didn't know if I really believed him about time making all the difference. I suspected that the bruise that was currently forming on Mike's jaw would be a bigger obstacle to continued harassment than anything else. I thought about the sheer power that he'd used against Mike and took a moment to look down at his arm. He was tightly muscled but not in a bulging, unattractive way. This was a man who had built his strength through work, not work-outs. Along his forearm was a dark tattoo depicting a long snake that was coiling around a mountain.

  "Is that Jörmungandr?" I asked him, pointing to the tattoo.

  His eyes went slightly wide at the name. "You know Norse mythology?" he asked.

  "I'm from Minnesota," I explained to him, "Vikings are pretty important back home."

  He grinned widely at me. "I didn't know much about that stuff when I got it done. I just thought it looked cool. But my uncle gave me a book about it all, and I'm totally addicted now. I was thinking about getting Odin on the other arm, maybe."

  I pulled the rag out of my back pocket and rubbed my hands with it. "That would be pretty sick," I told him, "I always thought he was pretty cool with his ravens."

  He smiled naturally and again I couldn't see him any other way. The forcefulness and anger I'd seen in him just a couple minutes before seemed like a mask. This was the truth of the man that I was seeing before me.

  I reached out and tapped him on the vest, my finger brushing against his patches. "So," I said, "President, huh? And what is it you do around here, Mr. President?"

  "Oh," he said, "Well, aside from keeping the rabble in line, I don't get into the garage much anymore. I'm always busy dealing with club business. I barely have time to keep my own bike in shape, honestly."

  "I could take a look at it for you," I blurted out. I suddenly worried that maybe I'd overstepped myself. This was my boss, and he was a biker besides. I didn't know whether he was the sort that would take offense at the thought of someone else, someone he barely knows, touching his bike.

  He seemed uneasy. "Hmm," he said, "You know your way around a bike? I admit it could use a looking over. I think the steering feels a bit tight."

  "Yeah," I told him, "I've been working on bikes almost as long as cars. My dad rode, once upon a time, and he always made sure I knew what I was doing. I can even fix your lawn mower." I smiled sweetly at him, hoping a bit of humor would lighten the mood that had suddenly turned tense between us.

  "Is that right?" he said "I mean, about your dad. Did he teach you to ride, too?"

  I shook my head. "Not really, no. He sold his bike when he bought the garage, and always told me they were too dangerous. I think he was worried about his only daughter bashing her brains out on the pavement."

  "One sec," Cash said, holding up a finger. He turned and walked over towards the office. A few seconds later he came back with a black helmet in his arm. It was old-style, with no fancy face mask or any of that. He tossed it to me gently and I caught it.

  "There," he said, "No brain bashing."

  "I don't know..." I said, unsure about my role in all of this.

  "I insist," he said, "You work in my garage, and I won't have anyone working for me who doesn't know how to ride."

  I smiled back at him, unable to escape his impeccable logic. Plus, something about Cash had a power over me. The truth was that I was excited at the prospect. I'd always held it against my dad that he wouldn't let me ride. He'd come out of it without more than a few scrapes. I wasn't some delicate flower that couldn't handle a bike.

  "Let me just finish the oil change," I told him.

  "Nuh-uh," he said, "I'm in charge here and I say we ride. I'll get Vickers to finish the oil change; Seems like your talents are better suited elsewhere."

  I grinned at him, happy that the unwashed thug was going to get a bit of just desserts. "Meet me out front in a few minutes and I'll give you your first lesson," he told me with a friendly smile. Whenever he smiled, it seemed to subtract ten years from his face. He was easily in his mid-30s, but when those blue eyes of his were twinkling, I could swear he was no older than I was. Someone who was a bit more granola than I might say that he had a young spirit. Whatever it was, he had me hook, line and sinker.

  He walked back towards the office and I cleaned myself off a bit. He might be willing to let me work on his bike and even take a ride, but I was sure he wouldn't want me getting oil on it. When my hands were clean I tossed my rag in a bucket and went over to a dirty mirror that was hanging on the wall. I gave myself a looking over to make sure I wasn't too filthy. I definitely looked like I had been working in a garage all morning, but everything was still in place. I wondered what Cash saw when he looked at me. Was I a pretty young mechanic that he felt like protecting, or did he see the woman I was underneath the grime?

  As I walked out towards the lot, I found myself thinking about his smile and little else besides. Every time he flashed those white teeth at me, I felt like I was being pulled a little more closely into him. He was a man of such extreme opposites, all contained in one place. His fierce temper was obvious from the way he'd dealt with Mike, but his cool manner had been put on display shortly after. His cut and his jeans were well worn and well loved, with a layer of road dust that was permanently attached to them. On the other hand, he was clean shaven and his hair had been recently cut. He took care of himself, but he lived a life of danger and lawlessness. The more I thought about it, the more his planned tattoo made perfect sense. On one hand he had the serpent that would devour the Earth and on the other, he would have the force of justice that protected us all.

  I found his bike easy enough. It was parked just outside the garage and had 'Cash' stenciled on the gas tank in silver. I flipped the helmet over in my hands, getting slightly nervous about the lesson he was going to give me. Even if he was warming to me, I knew this was all part of my test. I was sure he was serious about not having someone in the garage who couldn't ride. I might be a woman, and I'd never be one of the Dead Men, but that didn't excuse me from the rules. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and nervously waited for him to arrive. I spotted Vickers inside the garage, stepping towards the open hood of the Toyota. He looked out at me with a scowl and went to work, completing the oil change.

  I didn't mind a little enmity between myself and Vickers. As long as Cash liked me, I was sure he wouldn't step out of line. Motorcycle clubs have a strict hierarchy and Cash was the president. If he said I was off limits, I was sure the others would respect his decision. A thought crossed my mind - what if Cash didn't just want me off-limits. What if he wanted me for himself? My mind spun at the possibility, premature though it might have been. I was taken with him, certainly, but was that really the life I was looking for here in San Viero? I'd come out west to be free. Being with a man like Cash was a lot more like being kept than I felt comfortable with.

  As if to complicate my thought process as much as possible, Cash stepped out of the business office just then. He was wearing a helmet similar to the one he'd handed me and a pair of dark sunglasses. He grinned when he saw me standing next to his bike.

  He stepped over to me and put his hand softly on my shoulder. I could feel the strength in his fingers, but unlike Mike there was gentleness as well. "Get that helmet on, Em," he said, "you're going for a ride."

  Chapter 3

  Cash started me out with a very slow ride around the lot. I was sitting on the back of the
bike with him driving. I was hardly some scared little child who couldn't handle the speed, but all the same he insisted that it was a good idea to get used to being on the back of a bike slowly. By the time we'd completed our third lap, I could see that a handful of Dead Men had gathered outside to watch what was happening. They jeered at us, but I got the feeling that most of it was meant for Cash, not me. To see their fearless leader riding in slow circles around the parking lot was like seeing a grown adult with training wheels on their bicycle. No matter how uneventful, it's still amusing.

  When Cash had decided that I'd had enough of the slow going, he told me to hold on tight. I gripped my body to his. I could smell the deep, musky scent of him clearly when I was that close. His leather vest smelled of a hundred different things, as he doubtlessly wore it everywhere and through everything. He was, of course, a walking contrast. Though his clothes were a mix of scents, from food to smoke to the completely unknown, his hair smelled like he'd just come from the salon. I could have sworn there was a hint of lilac. Rather than destroy my image of him as a hard motorcycle club president, it softened that image into something more human. When you're confronted with a group of people that might as well be characters from a movie, it can be hard to remember that they're just people like you or me. The human touches that Cash bore were a constant reminder that president of the Dead Men was just a title - at his core he was a man like any other.

  When he felt that I was tight around him and he was pleased with the way I held my hands together around his chest, he twisted the handle and the bike peeled out of the lot, to the collective cheers of the other Dead Men present. I couldn't help but smile at that. The rush of being on a fast-moving motorcycle, combined with the thrill of being the center of attention for these men was intoxicating. I'd spent the last day desperate to get into the garage so I could spend my time with familiar feelings, but now I was craving the unknown. I wanted nothing more than to feel the road flying beneath me and this strange, dangerous man against me.

  We drove down the main street of San Viero. When we passed by the restaurant where I'd gotten breakfast, I saw my grumpy and world-weary waitress watching us through the window. I wasn't sure if she recognized me as the stranger who had sat down to breakfast that morning, but it seemed likely. In a town this small, everybody knew everybody, and strangers were noticed wherever they went. Some part of me rejoiced at the thought that I might already be earning a bad reputation in the town, at least amongst the people who didn't like the Dead Men. I figured that the same people who were so set in their ways as to disapprove of a female mechanic were probably the same ones who disliked the motorcycle club. If they mistrusted me for two reasons at once, that seemed a lot more efficient.

  I grinned at the thought as we tore through town. Every store along Main Street seemed to be full of people who couldn't help but stare at us as we rode by. Surely these people saw bikers every day, but for some reason they still stopped to watch. I guess that's just part of the charm of a small town - nobody's too busy to pay attention to anything loud or out of the ordinary. Back home, it takes a gunshot or someone screaming "fire" to get people's attention.

  When we reached the end of main street and the shops began to give way to small homes, Cash slowed the bike down and brought it to a stop. He turned back to me, with his hands still on the grips. He had a wide grin on his face when he saw that I couldn't contain my smiles.

  "You want to give it a go?" he asked.

  "Really? I mean, I'm serious that I've never driven one of these before."

  "I trust you. Besides, if you mess something up, I'll just make you fix it."

  I laughed and hopped off the bike. We traded places, and he held me as I found my footing on the machine. He got on behind me and I could feel the opposite of what I felt before. Now it was his body pressing against mine. His hard muscles were tense against my back, and his strong hands held against my body. Some women might feel uncomfortable with a stranger in such a position, but it seemed only fair to let him get his hands on me when I'd already done the same to him.

  "Alright, you know which is the throttle, right?"

  I laughed. "Yeah, I got that much," I told him.

  With only a couple more instructions, we were off. I started slowly, much as we'd been riding in the parking lot. I did a wide U-turn across the empty street and headed back towards Main Street. As we rode, I gave the bike more and more speed. By the time we reached the restaurant, we were going nearly as fast as when we passed by the first time. The roar of the engine between my legs was glorious, and the feeling of his hands holding onto my midsection wasn't bad, either.

  If anything, the stares on the way back were even more incredulous. But if I thought the reactions of San Viero's civilian population to a woman riding a motorcycle through town were wild, that was nothing compared to what happened when we arrived back at Peasant Motors.

  I pulled the bike into the lot, and I could feel Cash tense up behind me, though he said nothing. As soon as I pulled up slowly in front of the business office, I saw what he was tense about. The gathered members of the Dead Men, five of them total, burst into laughter upon seeing our arrival. If witnessing their leader riding in slow circles around the parking lot was funny, seeing him on the back of a bike with a woman at the handlebars was downright hilarious. I leaned back and said, "Sorry, boss," but he just grinned and shrugged.

  He hopped off the bike and I did as well. I took off my helmet and halfheartedly tried to fix my hair. Fortunately, as short as it was, helmet hair wasn't really a problem. Cash walked over to the laughing group of bikers and jokingly feigned punches at a few of them. The laugher soon died down into quiet chuckling and a lot of smiles. It was nice to know that the relationships between the Dead Men weren't always about fist fights in the garage.

  "Hey Em, let me introduce you around," he said. I already loved the way he called me Em. A few people had shortened my name like that in the past, but it never seemed as endearing as when Cash said it. I walked over to him with the helmet under my arm.

  "Okay," he said, pointing to each of the five bikers in turn. "This is Emmett, Walsh, Ticker, Kurt and Hep." I nodded to each of them and they smiled back as their names were called. They looked just as I had expected. A couple of them were overweight, a couple had beards. All of them had tattoos and all of them wore the cut of the Dead Men. There wasn't a morose face amongst the crowd, though I expected that if Vickers or Tubbs had bothered to show their faces, there might have been.

  "Emma here is the new mechanic," he told them. By now I was sure that word of my presence had spread amongst the club, so there was no look of surprise from any of them. Walsh, the oldest of the bunch, and certainly the widest, clapped his hand on my shoulder and said, "Welcome to Peasant, Emma. It's the best garage in San Viero."

  "It's the only garage in San Viero," the thin one on the end named Hep said, and that sent the whole group into a brief fit of laughter, Cash included. I smiled along with them, glad to finally feel included.

  Cash turned to me and said, "Alright, I trusted you to ride my baby. Now I'm going to trust that you know what you're doing inside of her, too. Take her into the garage and give her a look over. You know that clicking sound we heard out there? Find it and you'll be my hero." I had heard the sound he was referring to and I already had a few ideas of where to start looking. I gave him a quick mock salute and walked back to the bike.

  The group of them watched me walk the bike back into the garage. Their stares seemed a lot less threatening than the ones I'd received earlier, though I didn't doubt some of their feelings were similar. Still, I guessed it was clear to them that Cash was expressing some interest, and I doubted any of them would dare say something out of turn. At least, I thought Cash was interested. To be honest, it was hard to tell. His manner was so malleable that it was hard to get a fix on his true opinion about anything. One moment he was dark storm clouds and the next, he was a bright and shining day. As I put down the kickstand and
gathered up some tools and a fresh rag, I was thinking about the way he'd smiled at me when we got off the bike. This was a proud man, and he was being openly mocked by his fellow bikers. I had to feel good that he was willing to endure such treatment on my account.

  I have to admit that my head wasn't in the game when I was getting my hands into the bike. I did everything right, of course. I'm a professional, after all. However, I was working slowly. Every step of the way, I imagined the life that Cash shared with his bike. I was sure he'd been in and out of every part on the thing many times. Every piece I held in my hands was connected to him more strongly than anything else he owned. There are only so many kinds of people in the world who have such a close connection with a machine. For most people, machines are just a way of making life easier. This bike was more than that to Cash. It was more than a way of getting from Point A to Point B. This was his purpose, or at least heavily invested in that purpose. It was an extension of him. I thought I had a strong connection to my Charger, being that I'd put so much effort into getting it running just right. I knew it was nothing like this though. My Charger was just a car. This was a mount,a trusty steed, carrying him forth like a knight from some story book.

  In my mind, he was every bit the fairytale knight, too. The way he'd carried me off from the lot of Peasant Motors and the way he'd rescued me from the evil gremlin seemed like high fantasy. I was still no damsel in distress, but I had to admit I like the thought of being his fairytale princess. I wondered if my Dad would approve, but only for a moment. In the end, I was sure he'd do just the opposite. Dad had grown to dislike motorcycles and all the people who rode them. He'd seen friends turn from lively hobbyists to drug-crazed sadists by this life. He always said he was lucky to get out alive, and he meant it. If he knew I was idealizing Cash into some version of Prince Charming, he'd probably sigh in that way he did that made you feel guilty for everything you'd ever done wrong in your entire life.