Innocence Burned(4)

His baby.

His bike.

He knew she’d be here waiting for him, but he wasn’t expecting her to be gleaming and ready the moment he arrived. He stepped forward and ran his hand across the chrome handlebars. Truth be told, she was the real reason he came back. The nineteen eighty six Harley Sportster his father bought him on the day he was born had become a piece of him over the years.

They’d spent hours and hours in this garage customizing her until she held little resemblance to the machine from the showroom floor. It was this bike that taught him everything he needed to know about motorcycles and it was on this bike he’d learned to ride.

“Son, you need to remember this if nothing else.” His father pressed his hand down on his shoulder. “It’s not the bike that makes the man. It’s the man who makes the bike. It doesn’t fucking matter if your bike is worth twenty large or a lousy hundred bucks. You make the bike yours and she’ll be there for you as long as you take care of her. Even bitches can come and go but you and the bike, you go on.”

Houston straightened, familiar bitterness rising inside him. That might be the only piece of wisdom he’d ever keep from his old man. When his father had been arrested for accidentally shooting his wife during the fight with JD, Houston stopped talking to him and refused to visit him in jail.

As for his bike, he looked at her now as the life preserver he’d been looking for. Or maybe the anchor that would help life make sense to him again. Either way, he planned to figure out the right answers on the open road. He strode back into the house and dug his leather jacket out of his bag. He grabbed a smaller backpack and shoved a few necessities inside before returning to the garage.

From the moment he saw the bike he knew what he was going to do. There was still one place where the world didn’t matter and he was free. On the highway with the wind at his back.

Houston swung into the saddle of the bike, flipped the switch to start the engine and reveled in the rumbling steel underneath him. Oh yeah.

With only a vague destination in mind, he pointed the bike west and returned the way he arrived. He decided the obscurity of the big city’s waterfront was exactly what he needed.

He had a feeling not answering the Wrath summons would cost him dearly down the road. But it wouldn’t stop him tonight. If and when he returned to Sultan, he’d face the bitterness in Axel and the consequences with JD. Tonight he would be free.





Chapter Two





Isabella



With the sound of blood rushing in my ears, I grabbed onto the door handle and fought not to open the cab door and fling myself out of it. My heart raced and my chest ached as panic rushed through me. I’d run the minute I got the chance, but I couldn’t escape the feeling I would be caught.

A quick look outside the car window and I had to be free of this small space right now. “Stop the car.”

The cab driver looked at me in the rearview window for a few quick seconds before swerving to the side of the road. “We’re still a couple of blocks away from the Edgewater Hotel, ma’am.”

“I don’t care. This is good.” The meter read sixty-five dollars and some change. I definitely wasn’t far enough away. But I needed to get the hell off the streets and out of sight before someone caught up with me. I dug through my purse and pulled several large bills from the roll of cash stuffed inside. “I’ll give you an extra hundred dollars if you swear you’ll admit to no one you saw me tonight.

“Lady, I don’t even know who you are.”

I raised my brows and smirked at him. “Trust me. Someone is going to ask.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

When she didn’t respond to his question he continued. “Fine, I never saw you. Happy?”

I met his gaze in the rear view mirror. “There’s no such thing as happy. Only pain and utter disappointment.” I pressed the bills into his palm and hurried from the cab before he questioned me further. I’d already said too much and every second I wasted on a stranger meant a chance of being caught.

A few more minutes in the cab to the hotel would have been the smart move, but with a panic attack threatening, I had to get out. I crossed the street to the waterfront and race-walked down the semi-deserted pier. The few stragglers still hanging out in the infamous Seattle mist watched me from the corners of their eyes. Maybe seeing a woman walk down a pier in the poofiest princess wedding gown wasn’t a normal occurrence. I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was getting some fresh air and slowing down the speed of my racing heart.

I was free. For the first time in recent memory I didn’t have an escort or some asshole watching my every move. And yet, fear still gripped my insides.