Sapphire watched as the other man, the one who had been standing behind the ponytail man, struggled between his feeling of loyalty and the fear of what was about to happen. The hesitation burned away like water on a skillet just as both Joel and Hayden stepped into the light pouring out from the front office. Carved from granite, their faces were masks of seething rage promising violence. Without preamble, the man nearly tripped and fell getting on his bike, ignoring his friend who called out angrily after him. With another kick up of gravel and dirt, the bike sped out of the motel parking lot and onto the highway, disappearing into the void of country darkness.
Surrounded now, the lone biker stared back at Joel and Hayden, anger and fear fighting back and forth across his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but Joel cut him off.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" Joel asked, stepping even closer into the light, and for the first time, Sapphire could see the long black tire iron hanging in his right hand.
Panic began to grip her once more.
"I was just-"
Not waiting to hear the rest, Hayden stepped fully into the light reaching for the man's throat. Sapphire felt the thud against the building as Hayden slammed the man into the wall below her. Pushing the curtains fully aside, she tried to get a better view.
Blue and red lights flashed off the trees and pierced through the darkness as two sheriff SUVs came barreling into the parking lot.
"You better hope they take you to jail," Hayden growled before shoving the man one last time against the wall and backing away.
Relief washed over her, making her knees feel weak. Tiredly she watched as four officers emerged from the vehicles. Looking back down at the group beneath her window, she froze when she caught Joel's piercing eyes looking up at her. How long had he been looking at her?
His hard expression did not change as he crooked his finger, silently commanding her to come down. She swallowed and stepped back from the window.
Sapphire looked to Blanche and nodded assuringly. "Everything is fine now," she told her, though Sapphire was sure not everything was fine—she was most likely in trouble. "The sheriff's department is here," she continued in a soothing tone to the frazzled woman, "and Joel and Hayden too."
"Oh, I bet Herman called them when those terrible men pulled up," said Blanche. Holding a hand up to her chest, she looked worriedly off into space as she talked. "I'm so glad, dear. I'm just so glad."
Remembering the man with the ponytail's disgusting words, Sapphire shuddered. She was glad, too. Her heart was still beating wildly, and her hands were on the verge of shaking like Blanche's. Wiping off the kitchen countertops and making a quick cup of tea only took a few extra minutes. Standing at the bolted stairwell door, Sapphire said her goodbyes to Blanche, whose face still looked a little drawn. Turning the lock back, she opened the door and nearly screamed at the shadowy figure coming up the stairs.
Stepping into the light from the apartment, Joel stopped at the second step. "I was wondering if I was going to have to come carry you down. Come on," he gestured for her before looking over her head to Blanche, who still sat at the dining room table. "Hey, Blanche. Sorry for the scare, the sheriffs got it taken care of now."
"Oh, I know, dear. I was more worried about Sapphire. As much as I love her company, she doesn't belong in a place like this," she said, her voice solemn.
Sapphire could feel Joel's pointed stare on the side of her face and refused to look at him. Opening her mouth, she looked at Blanche's kindly face and planned to argue her case, but the grip around her wrist startled the words out of her head. She looked back at Joel in shock.
With a firm set to his lips, he gave her a challenging stare. "Yeah, don't worry," he said to Blanche while his eyes never left hers. "She's coming with us."
Chapter ten
Whenwasthelasttime he had a woman on the back of his bike?
Not a woman—a kid.
Hayden scowled at the correction and resisted the urge not to increase the speed. If it was just him, he would have let the night's wind and the speed take care of any unwanted thoughts, but not now. Now he had the twin grips of a girl buried in his shirt at his waist and the gentle swell of her breasts against his back. It made him tense all over, a complete contradiction to his usual relaxed posture as he rode. She and the snooty little tilt of her chin and the cut of her serious cinnamon eyes made him tense all over. Remembering her face peering out behind Blanche's curtains, looking down at them with worry weighing down her brow, made him even angrier. He could've killed that piece of shit Tyler then and there.
The night was still young—he might still.
Pulling the bike to a stop behind Joel's at the side of their café, Hayden listened to the sound of his bike's powerful engine die down to a constant idling thrum before kicking out the stand and killing the engine. Hayden paused, waiting for her movement behind him—but nothing came. Bracing his feet out wider, he turned his head and peered over his shoulder. Wide brown eyes blinked at him for a second before he heard the hasty mumbled apology.
The gentle grip on his long-sleeved shirt tightened as she unsteadily braced herself and swung off the bike.
Settling the heavy bike onto the kickstand, he dismounted just as Joel walked over to them with the keys jangling in his hand.
Joel looked to Sapphire. "Normally, we park our bikes in the back," he explained, pointing to the back of the building where they could all see a tall ten-foot wooden fence, "and go through the back kitchen door. But we got to get back to the bar."
The front of the building, which faced the old downtown street, was quiet and dark. No one else in town lived in their business as they did. Save for the two street lamps, one on either side of the long street, they were the only signs of life.
Sapphire didn't say anything. Holding the straps to her backpack out from her shoulders, she pressed the bag tight to her back and kept quiet as Joel led her through the dark café and toward the door that led upstairs. Unlocking it, Joel went up first, followed by Sapphire.
There was something lethargic and unsteady about her movements that worried Hayden. From the moment she stepped off his bike, he could see the exhaustion in her pretty face. The usual spark of indignant fire in her was nothing but a flickering little flame, dangerously close to extinguishing. Closing the door behind them, Hayden brought up the rear in their little procession up the long stairwell. From her slow steps, he was half afraid she would fall.
The thought only made him angrier. Herman had told him what Tyler and his friends had said outside the motel. The things they had yelled to her. The things they planned to do to her.
