I’m not that nice…There’s a lot you don’t know about me…
Tara shook off her doubt. No, she couldn’t be wrong about him. Or…was it that she didn’t want to be wrong?
“I don’t want you seeing this guy again,” her father stated.
She glanced at her mom, who usually stuck up for her but had kept quiet so far this morning. Jackie met her gaze. “We don’t want you getting mixed up with trouble, honey.”
Her soft tone implied what none of them would ever say. Like Annabel.
Tara fought frustration. She wasn’t Annabel and Wes wasn’t trouble. They’d met him for all of two minutes; they didn’t get to know him as she—
She stopped that train of thought and reminded herself that she didn’t really know Wes that well, either, no matter what she felt when she was with him. Especially considering that all the while she’d tingled from what she thought was an undercurrent of sizzling, mutual attraction, he simply thought of her as ‘nice’. She’d felt like a complete idiot for throwing herself at him only to have him push her away.
“He’s a lying piece of dirt,” Charlie muttered around a bite of bacon. “Telling me you aren’t his type but then I find out he went back to the fair with you.”
Tara sat up straighter. “What?”
Charlie drank half of his glass of milk before pointing his fork at her. “He told me you were ‘nice and all’, but not his type, then he goes and gets all cozy with you at the fireworks. I warned him once, next time I’m just going to bust his nose.”
“There’s not going to be a next time,” her father stated, but Tara only half-listened as she suddenly wondered if ‘nice’ meant boring. Not his type? So, what was his type? By his own admittance, he’d pretty much done whatever he wanted growing up, with whomever he wanted, and now she found out he’d been in a gang. She supposed it wasn’t hard to see how a small-town girl like herself wouldn’
t hold much appeal compared to the worldly women he must be used to.
She wondered what he’d say if he knew she had her own Harley in her garage. Of course she rarely rode it anymore, but still…she had a Harley—that had to count for something, right? She could be worldly.
“Did you hear me?”
Tara flinched as her dad’s voice cut into her thoughts. “What?”
“I said, I forbid you to see that man again.”
Tara took a moment to process her dad’s edict. Then she carefully set her fork down and lowered her hand to her lap to clench her fingers in her napkin. This had gone far enough, them telling her what she could or could not do every time she turned around. She wasn’t some sixteen-year-old child to be locked away in a glass—
I think it would be nice, knowing someone cares that much.
Wes’s wistful words echoed in her head, and Tara took a deep breath, then another. Okay, fine. She’d give them the benefit of the doubt, the same as she would Wes’s past. One more calming breath, and she summoned a fairly natural feeling smile.
“I love you, too, Dad.”
They all stared at her as if she’d gone crazy, and when she considered what she planned to do, she figured they were probably right.
***
Catching the edge of her inside door as Sugar pushed past, Tara jabbed the garage door opener, then tugged her top back into place. The zippered black leather vest went perfect with her dark hair and the tattoos that hadn’t begun to wear off yet—thanks to the baby powder she’d dusted on her arms after her shower. Due to the summer heat, she’d donned a short pair of cut-off jeans, but then wondered if her calf-high leather boots were too much and opted for barefoot with a fresh coat of burgundy polish on her toenails.
It was ten-thirty, she’d sexed herself up as much as she dared between the clothes, a messy ponytail, and extra makeup, and now she had no time to lose taking her bike apart before Wes showed up for his suit that hung, pressed and bagged, in the house. Well, not completely apart, just enough to install the new shocks Charlie had picked up for her a couple months ago after he’d taken it for a ride to run the engine.
With any luck, Wes would offer to help when he arrived, and she could figure out if this version of her was any less boring than last night’s version of her—in his opinion, anyway.
She cast a nervous look out the open garage and down the street, both to make sure Wes wasn’t early and that her parents and Charlie hadn’t decided to cancel their weekly bike ride. Safe on both counts, she made sure Sugar was nearby, then put her bike up on the lift. She hadn’t worked on a bike in forever—since moving out of her parents’ house, come to think of it—but it was just like riding a pedal bike, you never forgot how.
All the nights working in the garage with her dad and brother after Annabel’s death flooded back, and she paused with the memory. They’d talked for hours while taking apart and rebuilding bikes, old and new, but never about what happened. And two years ago, after the two of them chased away the third boyfriend in a row, Tara had had enough of the silence and moved to her own house to live her own life.
She hadn’t looked back, especially when her dad and Charlie had gotten worse instead of better with their overprotective ways. Thinking about it now from Wes’s perspective, she felt a small pang for the times she’d undoubtedly missed with them the last two years. It was nice to have someone who cared, she admitted, but why couldn’t she convince them to trust her judgment?
Locating the correct hex head wrench to loosen the bolt on the upper shocks, Tara found herself thinking of Wes and what he’d said last night about his mother not caring about what he did. And his dad…God, she couldn’t even imagine. Much as her dad bothered her at times, she couldn’t imagine having grown up without him. The gang must’ve been the only family Wes had known, and she didn’t blame him for wanting to belong somewhere. At that age, he wouldn’t have known any better. How admirable that he’d risen above that to build his own business. She wanted to know a man with that strength of character.
It didn’t take long to get the old shocks off on the first side and as she reached for the new part, Sugar came nosing over and licked her leg. Sitting on the cement floor, surrounded by tools, bike parts, and cleaner, Tara could only shift her knee away from the dog’s tongue.