Ride With Me, The Biker President's Love

Chapter 1: Two years ago I had blood on my hands and a baby on my hip and I didn't look back. That's what you're supposed to do, right? Don't look back. Lot's wife looked back. Lot's wife is a pile of salt. I learned that in Sunday school before I stopped believing in God. I looked back anyway. Big mistake. Huge. Because the black sedan was still there. Headlights off. Engine running. And a man was standing by the driver's door with his hands in his pockets, watching me like he had all the time in the world. I ran faster. Lily didn't cry. That's the part that still messes me up, two years later, sitting in a diner at six in the morning with a coffee going cold in front of me. Two years old and she didn't make a single sound. She just put her little hand on my neck and held on. Babies know when mama is running for her life. The blood wasn't mine. I need to say that first. The blood was Damon's, and he was alive when I left him, and that's all I'm gonna say about t

Chapter 3: "Relax," he said. "I'm not the one you're running from." I want to be clear about what happened next, because it wasn't brave. It wasn't a movie moment. I didn't slap him or pull a gun or say something cool. I laughed. I don't know where it came from. It just came out of me, this ugly little laugh, the kind you do when something's so messed up the only other option is crying. My hands were shaking. My eyes were burning. "Relax," I said back. "You're standing by my car holding my real name in your pocket at one in the morning. Yeah. Relax. Great advice." He didn't smile. But something in his face changed. His eyes moved, just a little, over my face. Like he was checking something. "Your hands are shaking," he said. "You said that already." "You didn't stop." "It's been a long night." "Where's your kid?" The ground went out from under me. I said, "What?" "Your kid," he said again. Same voice. Same calm. "You got a daughter. Two years old. You cal

Chapter 5: I stood there with Lily on my hip and a picture of the worst night of my life hanging on a wall like it was art. "Who took this," I said. Kael didn't look at the photo. He was still looking at me. "Man named Webb. He was mine." "Was." "He's dead now." The room went real quiet. Lily was pulling at my shirt collar, saying something about crayons, and I couldn't hear her. "How did he die?" I said. "Not like that." Kael pushed off the doorframe. "He had a heart attack two years back. He was sixty-two. He was a retired guy who did odd jobs for me because he liked to feel useful." A pause. "He wasn't a killer, Ella. He was a watcher. He sat in his car and he watched and he wrote things down." "What kind of things?" "Things like: she got off work at eleven forty. She went to the diner on Fourth for coffee because her kid was asleep and she didn't want to go home. She didn't sleep much." My hand tightened on Lily's back without me telling it to. "You had

Chapter 7: I didn't even know I was crying until Lily said it. That's the thing about crying. When it's the real kind, the kind that comes from somewhere under your ribs, you don't feel it happening. You just look down and your shirt's wet and your daughter's staring at you like you grew a second head. "Mama?" Lily said again. Her little voice went up at the end. Scared. "Mama." I wiped my face with the back of my hand. "I'm okay, baby." "You're not." "I'm okay. Look." I crouched down and held out my arms and she came running and I hugged her so tight her feet came off the floor. "Mama's okay. Mama just got some dust in her eyes." "You're lying," Lily said. I looked over her head at Kael. He was standing by the door with his phone in his hand, watching me. Not saying anything. His face was doing that thing where he wasn't moving a single muscle but you could tell something under the surface was working. "Give me a minute," I said. "You got two," Kael said. "The

Chapter 9: Kael was between us before I could move. Not aggressive. Not even tense. Just — there. His body angled so he could see both of us at once, one hand out flat toward me, the other one loose at his side. Like he was born doing this. "Ella," he said. "Look at me." I looked at him. My eyes were doing something weird. The hallway was spinning a little. "Breathe," he said. "I'm breathing." "You're not. Breathe." I breathed. "Good. Now sit down." "I don't want to sit down." "Sit down anyway." I sat down. Right there on the floor of my hallway, back against the wall, in my pajama shorts with my knees up. My mother was still standing by the door. She hadn't moved. She had her hands in her pockets and her shoulders up around her ears like she was cold. "Colleen," Kael said. "That's your name, right? Colleen." She looked at him. "How do you know my name?" "I know a lot of things. I want to know how you got up those stairs." "The door was open." "Th