“Yeah. I’ll meet you back at the campsite,” Ghost assured him as he pulled the repair kit out of the leather bag strapped to his swing arm. The Evil Dead MC owned forty-four acres of land halfway between Sturgis and Deadwood. They’d bought the property back in the eighties and used it for a campground for their national meet during Sturgis Bike Week.
“All right then. See ya back there.” Shades lifted his chin to him and the rest of his brothers pulled out.
As the sound of their engines faded over the rise, Ghost bent down and got to work plugging his tire.
It took Ghost about fifteen minutes to repair his tire. Then he mounted up and pulled back out on the blacktop. A few miles down the road, he turned off into the gravel parking lot of a remote roadhouse, the neon beer signs in the windows calling his name. The lot was crowded with bikes, but not nearly as many as it soon would be. The rain earlier in the day had slacked off and riders were starting to get back out.
Ghost rolled slowly across the lot, gravel crunching under his tires. He found a spot and parked. Dismounting, he headed toward the front door, stretching his neck from side to side to crack his spine like some people cracked their knuckles.
As he came through the door, he looked around. The place was medium size, rough-hewn wood floors and rustic décor, with tables on the right and a bar on the left.
He made his way through the crowd and found a place at the far end of the bar where it curved around to form a short L shaped corner. Beyond the end of the bar was a doorway leading to a short hall that contained the bathrooms and a back door. From his spot at the corner end of the bar, Ghost could see both the front door and the back door. And that wasn’t by accident. Sturgis, Deadwood and the surrounding towns were crowded with many one-percenter clubs, many of which didn’t get along, to put it mildly. Not a problem for a member if you were traveling in a pack, not so if you were the sole patch from your club in the place when another club walked in. Some bars were claimed by certain clubs as their territory while they were in town; other small places like this were not.
Ghost ordered a beer and surveyed the crowd. It was the typical biker crowd, riders decked out in leather against the chilly, rainy day. Although the Sturgis Rally was held in August, the South Dakota weather was always unpredictable and changeable. Temperatures could vary anywhere from the low fifties to the upper eighties. Today had started out wet and windy. It was temporarily clearing, but the horizon looked dark and the wind had picked up again.
A couple of women with bandanas around their heads and braided hair, laughed at the jokes the men at their table in the corner were telling. A jukebox up front blasted out some music. He’d picked out only one other patch when he came in, but it was just that of a member of a military veterans club, nobody that would give him any trouble.
Ghost quietly sipped his beer, keeping to himself. It had been an honor taking JJ to get his club tattoo today. He’d glanced over at Shades while JJ sat under the needle, and he knew they’d both been remembering when they’d gotten their ink. It had been years now, but every now and then, like today, it seemed like just yesterday.
Ghost signaled the bartender for another beer and leaned on his elbows, his arms folded. Movement through the doorway behind him caught his eye, and he twisted his head, peering over his shoulder to see the back door open and a young woman dash in. His eyes swept down over her, taking in everything at once from the low cut bright pink tee shirt that proclaimed in big block letters, Punk Rock Rules to the pair of black leather hot pants with the fishnet stocking under them and cute little high heeled ankle boots. She may be wearing black leather, but she looked more like something off a London runway than blending in with any of this crowd. His eyes returned to her face. She had long dark hair and the heavily lined and shadowed eyes that also could be found straight out of some fashion magazine. But there was something else… something about her rang familiar to Ghost. He just couldn’t quite place it.
That feeling was quickly pushed aside by the expression on her face. She looked frantic, terrified, and maybe even desperate. Ghost frowned.
What the fuck?
She jerked to a stop when her eyes hit him, sliding down and taking in his cut and the patch on his back.
Ghost had seen that reaction in women before, the ones that saw the cut and backed away. But this was different. This was downright terror.
She stood beyond the doorway, still in the back hall, just out of sight from the crowd in the bar.
Ghost’s frown deepened, and he straightened from the bar, but before he could react, his attention was drawn to a commotion at the front door. The crowd had suddenly gone quiet, and he saw the reason. Four members of the Death Heads MC had just come through the door. They stood there, just inside the entrance, their eyes sweeping over the crowd. And then they began moving, their eyes traveling slowly and painstakingly over every person at every table.
They were searching for someone, Ghost realized.
And then the terror he’d seen on the girl that had come through the back door clicked, and his head jerked back to look. She had her back to him now as she stood at an old pay phone, her shaking hand punching at the buttons, oblivious to the danger that had just come through the front door.
Ghost glanced back to the Death Heads moving through the bar. If he was going to get involved, he had only seconds to do it. If he had any sense, he’d stay the fuck out of this shit. But something about the terrified look on that girl’s face wouldn’t let him leave it alone.
“Fuck,” he cursed as he pushed off the bar.
***
Jessie held the receiver tightly to her ear, relief flooding through her when she heard the dial tone. Thanking God the old pay phone was still functional, she punched in 911 with trembling fingers hoping the call would go through even though she had no coins to feed into the slot.
Suddenly, she felt a presence at her back and the smell of leather enveloped her. She sucked in a breath as a muscular arm reached over her shoulder, two fingers pressing down on the cradle, disconnecting the call, the other hand yanking the phone out of her hand and hanging it up. Then, before she could react or spin around, the man grabbed her by the upper arms and was herding her into the women’s restroom. The flimsy door banged against the wall as he shouldered his way through, pushing her ahead of him.
It was a small room with only two stalls and a low counter with double sinks and a cracked mirror on the wall above.
She whirled as the man turned and locked the door before turning back to face her. Her mouth fell open when she realized she was staring into the face of the man she’d come to Sturgis to find. Her shoulders slumped in relief. Thank God.
And then she watched his shocked expression as he got a good look at her face. It had been years, but something in her looks must have registered. She’d been seventeen the last time he’d seen her, and she could tell he was struggling in his mind to place her.
“Hey, Billy,” she whispered. Her eyes moved over him. In the seven years since she’d last seen him, he’d matured. His brown hair was longer now, brushing his now much broader shoulders, with the top half pulled back in a band. He had a close cut beard now, too. And there were a few more lines radiating out from the outer corners of his golden brown eyes.
And then he frowned as if suddenly putting the pieces together. Or maybe it was the sound of her voice that had triggered his memory.
“Jessie?” he asked in a stunned whisper as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. They searched her face.