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So, she didn’t tell her husband that she wasn’t getting on a Greyhound after all. I wonder how he would feel if he saw her now. I might be letting this one off at the first stop. I would never have picked her for a cheater. Damn.
She hung up the phone and turned to the breakfast that was set out on the table and said, “Yum. That looks delish.”
Cruz smiled at her, but he couldn’t help feeling disappointed. He wondered what else he was going to find out about this woman, now that he knew she had a husband and a child back home while she was riding with a bunch of bikers she hadn’t met yet. And some of them were the Jokers!Fuck.
4
THE BIG UNKNOWN
With the Jazz Fest on,it was busy in the city, so the bikers had decided this year to meet up at Lafreniere Park. It was a ten-minute ride from where the two had stayed, and the weather was beautiful…just like the man Eden had her hands wrapped around as she snuggled in behind Cruz. She was wearing new leathers and a better helmet that she’d bought at his friend’s store earlier. They were more comfortable than the clothes she was wearing when he’d picked her up yesterday.
She noticed that every time, before he got on the bike to ride, he would check it out...like he was looking to see if there was anything amiss. She wondered why that was…the bike looked like it was brand new.
When Cruz pulled into the park with Eden on the back of his Heritage Classic, some of the guys were already there waiting. Cruz introduced Eden to Ryder and Jigsaw from the Southside Skulls in Boston and their old ladies.
Chance, Grayson, and Razor from the Jokers MC arrived soon after, and after Cruz had introduced them to Eden, they sat about talking for another half hour before his brothers from the Phoenix Skulls arrived. They’d been staying a little further out overnight, at a house owned by the Skulls that their nomads used whenever they were in the area and didn’t want to stay at the Jokers club. Finally, Finn, Boots, and Collin arrived. With four Phoenix Skulls including Cruz, two Southside Skulls and three Jokers, nine bikes would meet up with two more nomads at Baton Rouge.
“We’ll be ready to roll soon, guys,” Boots said.
Cruz turned to Eden and said, “How many names did you remember?”
“All of them… I think,” she said.
“Really? You got a photographic memory or something?” Cruz asked.
“Ryder and Storm,” she said. “That one was easy. Just like the song.Riders on the Storm.”
“Yep, got that,” Cruz said.
“Jigsaw and Kimber. A puzzle and a gun,” she said.
“Ah, I see. Name association?” he said. She nodded. “How do you know about Kimber guns?”
“My husband,” she said.
Yeah, don’t remind me. Tomas.Before he could ask her about her husband she said:
“Chance and Sharon.”
“Yep, got that. And how did you remember those two?”
“Sharon took achanceon Ozzy,” she said. He was laughing out loud now. The others were looking at them.
“Next.”
“Grayson and Poppy,” she said. He raised his eyebrows and waited for her to tell him how she’d remembered those two. “Poppy was the name of my doll when I was little.”
“And Grayson?” he asked. He saw a change in her. The smile had fallen from her face, and she looked down at the ground. “I’m sorry…are you OK?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “It’s nothing, really. A guy called Grayson Hugh sang a song…makes me a little sad.”
Cruz could see she was more than a little sad. He even wondered whether she was fighting back tears as she put the sunglasses she was holding in her hand back on. He didn’t want to continue with that conversation, but he made a mental note to look up this Grayson Hugh guy and see what songs he sang. He much preferred when Eden was happy and smiling, even if she was someone else’s wife, and there was never going to be a relationship between them.
She quickly said, “Razor and Kayleigh,” as if to move on from some sort of painful recollection.
“I’m sure Razor was an easy one,” Cruz said.
“Yeah, it sure was.”It’s what I need, to get rid of my gray pubes.She smiled at that thought.Maybe something could happen here?She felt a glimmer of hope that there was more to Cruz and Eden than just two people on a trip. There was something different about him. Like he could understand her. Accept her. She was still thinking about that when she heard:
