Vindication: A Motorcycle Club Romance (5 page)

In that instant Bridget knew:
Toby
Cary.

She knew. She knew it was him, but
she had to be sure. “Honey? Can you tell me your name, please? I want to help.”

He was breathing fast, crying.
Whatever was happening was right outside his hiding spot, now, and the yelling
of the adults had mutated into wordless, frightened screaming.

Desperate, Bridget said, “Toby? Is
that you, Toby?”

Something hard hit the door and the
boy cried out.

“Toby,” said Bridget, trying
desperately to keep her voice down. “Toby, please, tell me if it’s you!”

A woman screamed, and the call cut
off.

Bridget stood at the counter with
tears in her eyes for a good thirty seconds, listening to the dead air of the
phone at her ear, before her brain caught up with what had happened. She
frantically brought up the number and tried to call it back, tried to get Toby
or whoever it was to pick up and answer her. But she could only sob helplessly
and listen to the line as it rang and rang.  

~
FIVE ~

Ghost

Ghost whistled quietly as he switched off his bike and
gazed up at the façade of The Academy of Il Santo della Florentina. The private
school was at the end of a long, twisting road up one of the prettier green
hills in the section of LeBeau that Ghost rarely had reason to visit. It wasn’t
like white collar bankers were out hiring the MC for jobs, and Ghost wasn’t
sure he owned a pair of pants that weren’t jeans, let alone anything as fancy
as what some of the dudes in this part of town were wearing.

He got more weird looks riding his bike
through these streets than he did walking through Shadyside. Even the fluffy
white cotton balls that rich people somehow mistook for dogs yapped wildly
anytime he came within view. LeBeau, as a whole, was a pretty little place to
live; this section of town took it to the extreme. Eyeing some of the
storefronts and residences, Ghost decided he wasn’t a fan of a lot of the
modern architecture the new money was bringing in.

But this school, now
this
was
beauty. Someone with very old money had converted a Catholic mission from the
1800s into a private academy for students in the primary grades, and they were
smart enough to do as little renovation to the original structure as possible.
Looming at the end of a bright white walkway was the main entrance, once the
façade of the chapel itself. A great archway curved over the door, and cut out
of the blazing tan sandstone within it, a geometric shape that reminded Ghost
of the way the Star of Bethlehem always looked in Christmas nativity displays,
with its compass-like points and round, inner glow. The door was flanked by two
domed towers that still held rusty, ornate iron crosses at their peaks. A stone
fountain as old as the mission sat off to one side of the walkway, surrounded
by a horseshoe bed of colorful desert wildflowers.

The rest of the academy fanned out
villa-style from the main chapel, terracotta-shingled roofs baking in the sun.
Around the perimeter, a sturdy, modern chain-link fence had been built. The
heavy wooden doors at the entrance looked original, and were still flanked by
statues of some old, bald saints in big, ugly robes. Stacked against the clear
blue sky, the building was pure old-world charm.

When he had prodded Sid for
information about Bridget, Sid had told him that she was a teacher. It wasn’t
the usual occupation of his conquests, but that hadn’t worried Ghost a bit. He
was great with kids for some reason—because the universe was a giant joke, he
assumed. It took Sid a couple of minutes to remember the name of the school,
and that was only after Ghost pulled out his smart phone and started searching.
Once they found it, he couldn’t blame the old timer for forgetting it. It was a
damn mouthful. Even the tasteful, modern sign hanging above the front entrance
looked like it was struggling to keep the whole thing up there.

“Fuck,” he said to himself. “This
place is the goddamn Ritz.”

He was hesitating. Maybe Jase was
right. If Bridget was working here, maybe she was out of his league.

He shook his head. Ghost had never
felt nervous about approaching a woman, and he wasn’t sure it was nerves he
felt now… it couldn’t be. Maybe he was just hungry. It had to be that. What had
he eaten today? He huffed his own breath for a clue and was revolted at the
smell that came wafting back at him. Quickly he dug into his saddlebags until
he found a container of months-old mints, and chewed five of them.

“She’s just a woman,” he told
himself. “A beautiful Valkyrie next to which all women pale in comparison… oh,
fuck, get a hold of yourself, man.”

With a shake of his head, he climbed
off his bike and began to walk toward the school. The closer he got, the less
sure he was that he would be able to just walk inside and find her. Every car
he passed in the parking lot was a luxury model; rich people did not tend to
fuck around when rough-looking hooligans invaded their space.

Instead, Ghost beelined toward the
chain-link fence. A motley throng of kids were running around the recess yard.
They all wore matching uniforms, traditional Catholic school garb that didn’t
seem to inhibit the insanity of childhood released into the wild. Kids climbed
all over bright-colored gym equipment and played games that, from a distance,
looked like complete nonsense. Ghost shielded his eyes and tried to see if he
could spot Bridget out there with them.

“You’re not supposed to hang around
schools, you know. You look creepy.”

The voice piped up from beneath him
very suddenly. Ghost looked down to find a skinny little kid squinting up at
him, using the cape of his Batman action figure to shield half his face from
the sun. He was pale and weak-looking, uniform clean of dirt, his hair so soft
and freshly cut that he looked like he should be in some catalog playing with a
room full of expensive toys no reasonable parent would ever buy. He looked up
at Ghost curiously.

“Oh, really, smart guy?” said Ghost.
“Well, you’re not supposed to talk to strangers, so I guess we’re both idiots.”

The kid laughed; it was a tight,
closed-lipped thing that told Ghost it was probably something he didn’t do very
often. Ghost bent down to his eye-level through the chain-link fence.

“How come you’re not playing soccer?”
Ghost gestured to the loud match at the other end of the school yard.

The boy shrugged. “I don’t really
like sports.”

“Eh, me either. Too many rules.
What’s your name?”

“Toby.”

“Hi, Toby. I’m Ghost.” He wiggled his
fingers awkwardly through the holes in the fence, and Toby took them with a
giggle and shook them.

“Your name’s Ghost?” said Toby.

“Yeah, my parents were really into
Scooby-Doo.”

Toby didn’t seem like he got that
one. Instead he pointed and said, “Is that your motorcycle?”

“Hell yeah, it is. Her name’s
Barbara.”

“Do you get to ride it every day?”

“Sure do. Even some days I probably
shouldn’t, because of the weather and whatnot, but like I always say, YOLO.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, some cool-looking kids
were saying it. I figured you could tell me what it meant.”

Toby laughed. “Well, it sounds
stupid.”

“You might be onto something there,
bud. Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know a teacher named Bridget Dawson, would
you?”

Toby’s eyes lit up and he took a big
breath. “That’s my teacher! Miss Dawson!”

Ghost smiled. “Toby, I sure am glad
it was you who decided to risk his precious little life by coming up to the
fence to talk to a leather-clad stranger. You’re obviously my lucky charm.”

Toby seemed like he enjoyed hearing
that. “Do you know Miss Dawson?”

“I’m friends with her grandpa.”

“Oh, she told us he fought in the
war!”

“He sure did. I’ll have to tell you
some of his stories sometime. They’re pretty brutal.”

“I get in trouble if I play war
games. My dad broke my Call of Duty disc.” This last part came out pained.

Ghost didn’t like hearing that, and
not just because he firmly believed every kid should grow up hearing war
stories and playing war games. He pointed at the Batman doll. “Hey, I have a
duty you and the Dark Knight can call for me.”

“What?” Toby laughed.

“One sec,” said Ghost. He stood up
and pulled his tiny notebook and pen from the inside pocket of his cut and,
leaning precariously on the chain-link fence, he penned a note for Bridget
asking her to meet him outside by the fountain. He folded it up and handed it
through the fence to Toby.

“Take this in to Miss Dawson for me
real quick, while recess is still on. Can you do that?”

Toby took the note in a tight hand
and smiled. He nodded. “Yeah!” Immediately he turned and ran on heavy feet for
the school, clutching Batman in his elbow.

“Toby, wait!” Ghost hollered after
him.

Toby came to a sliding halt and
turned. Ghost stretched his fingers through the fence again, only this time, a
twenty-dollar bill was stuck between them. Toby jogged back up to the fence and
took it from him with a curious gaze.

“Don’t ever do a job without asking
what’s in it for you, first,” said Ghost. “Now, off you go!” He made a
whip-cracking sound and Toby was off again, both the note and the money crushed
tightly in his fist. Ghost watched him wheel around kids jumping rope and
playing with giant rubber balls before he disappeared inside the massive
building.

With that done, Ghost took quick
steps back toward the front entrance of the Academy. He tried to sit casually
on the edge of the fountain so he would look cool when Bridget came out, but
the edge was way too tiny, and he decided he wouldn’t look very cool if he fell
the fuck in. Instead, he thrust his hands into the soft patch of wildflowers
around the fountain and pulled out a grip of tiny pink and orange blooms
attached to their stems—as well as their roots, and some clods of dirt.

Ghost was eyeballing the ugly ends of
the bouquet when he heard the heavy front wooden doors open. He whirled quickly
with the flowers held up. Bridget stood by the closed doors, her arms folded,
an almost bewildered smirk on her face. She wore tight black pants and a
scoop-neck white shirt that made Ghost salivate. Her shiny blonde hair was
pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail, revealing big, blue gems on her
earlobes. His favorite part had to be the black leather boots pulled up to her
knees, ready to climb on the back of his bike and ride away with him.

That disapproving look on her face
drove Ghost insane. He smiled mischievously at her, and it only made her smirk
tighter. Already he could feel his dick getting hard at the thought of kissing
those angry, beautiful lips.

“I should have you arrested,” she
said.

Ghost held the flowers out further.
“I can think of a way to get me into handcuffs that’s
way
more fun.”

Bridget scoffed and rolled her eyes,
but the smile on her face was genuine. She walked toward him, arms still
crossed, her boots clacking on the old cobblestone. Whatever resistance she
might have felt toward Ghost seemed like it was slowly, surely melting away. After
all, she could have ignored the note. But here she was, smirking at his jokes,
coming close enough that he could smell her lilac and jasmine body wash.

She stood in front of him and raised
an eyebrow. “And you’re enlisting my hapless students on your quest to get to
that fun, huh?”

“Hey, Toby came up to me,” he said.
“And he got paid for his work. I’m not a monster.”

Her eyebrows rose. “That is
surprisingly decent of you,” she said.

“
Surprisingly
? Ouch,” he said,
grasping his chest in mock pain. “I haven’t even had a chance to prove how indecent
I am yet. Can’t we have our honeymoon phase first, where the magic of my sexual
prowess makes you ignore all my flaws for a while?”

Bridget flushed, and there was a
sparkle in her eye when she met his that sent a wave of lust rushing through Ghost’s
nerves. That she still wanted to resist him only made it worse. “I don’t think
it’s possible for you to be
that
good at sex.”

Ghost stepped forward just a bit.
Bridget didn’t retreat; in fact, the look in her eyes was curious. Asking what
he was going to do about it. Ghost leaned over until his lips hovered right
above her ear, close enough that he could imaging he could almost hear the
quickened beat of her pulse.  “But you’re just
dying
to find out if I
am, aren’t you?” he whispered.

For a split second, Bridget closed
her eyes as she inhaled sharply. Her skin flushed again, and she licked her
lips as Ghost pulled back and leaned over her face. She opened her eyes and
looked at him. Her glare was trying to be angry, but in her eyes was pure,
unadulterated lust.