Old Ghosts: Gypsy Riders MC (5 page)

It was halfway through the day, when we were completing our math lesson that I saw Rosie quietly staring at her worksheet and biting her lip in confusion. When I walked over to her, her worksheet was completely blank.

“Are you okay, Rosie?” I asked quietly, as I leaned over to her.

“Yeah…” she said, for the first time her voice lacking in confidence.

“Are you sure?” I prodded.

“Yeah, I guess…” she looked up at me, her brown eyes full of sadness. “I just like words better than numbers.”

I smiled, and leaned over to whisper in her ear.

“Me, too!”

She looked at me with surprised eyes.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yep. But, it’s important to learn them and how to use them, just as much as words. And, sometimes they can even be fun, believe it or not.”

She looked at me skeptically.

“I don’t know about that…” she murmured.

“It’s true. You just have to spend some time with them. Sometimes words come easily to people. Sometimes numbers do. Maybe you’re just a word person, but it doesn’t mean you can’t do both.”

She stared at me pensively for a moment, then a small smile spread across her face.

“Okay, I understand. It’s like at home. Reaper is much better at making pancakes than my daddy is. But daddy makes the best cupcakes ever!”

I burst out laughing at the vision of Mike making cupcakes and Rosie laughed with me.

“If it’s okay with you, Rosie, how about I ask your dad if I can give you a little extra tutoring in math? Before long, you’ll be the first one in the class to finish those worksheets!” I said it before I thought about what the offer entailed. We weren’t allowed to be in the school very long after school ended because of deep budget cuts, and I didn’t consider where this tutoring would actually take place at the time.

“I would love that, Ms. Daisy!” Rosie beamed at me, her gratefulness shining in her eyes.

****

“Tutoring?”

Mike was standing in the exact place Reaper had been yesterday, and I struggled to breathe, let alone get the words out coherently. I reminded myself that I was a professional, and if I could handle a class full of seven year-olds, I could just as easily handle Mike.

But then he walked in. No, scratch that. He didn’t just walk in. He strutted in, and I swear I heard loud, pounding rock music in my head as I watched him slowly walk across the linoleum floor of my classroom at the end of the day.

He was a few minutes late again, and by the time he arrived, it was just me and Rosie in the room.

“I’m sorry I’m late again. I’m not always late,” he said, greeting me with yet another warm, enveloping handshake and a breathtaking smile.

Every muscle in my body tightened as he held my hand for just a fraction too long, before once again, holding my gaze steadily. And once again, I couldn’t break away.

Was it going to be like this? Was he really going to stride in here and steal the breath out of my lungs and the air from the room, practically putting a spell on me, every single time? If so, I didn’t know how in the hell I was going to be able to resist wrapping myself around him in every way possible.

“Yes you are, Daddy,” Rosie said quietly, as she stood at his side, watching the two of us stare at each other.

“What, honey?” he asked without breaking eye contact with me.

“Late. You’re always late.” She said it simply and easily, with no trace of accusation or disappointment. She stated it as a simple fact.

“Oh,” he said, finally glancing down at her quickly before looking at me again. “Yeah, she’s right.”

We laughed at the same time and Rosie just shook her head at both of us.

“Well, it’s good to know yourself, I guess,” I said to him. He was wearing his leathers again today, a black t-shirt tightly stretched across his chest under his patched vest, his arms bare, muscular and covered in tattoos. A snake wound around his huge bicep, and I glanced at it quickly before looking back into his smiling eyes.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” he replied, his voice almost a whisper.

Work, Daisy! You’re here to work!

“Oh!” Yes, work. “I wanted to talk to you about Rosie.”

Immediately his expression went from flirty to concerned.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Oh, no, nothing’s wrong. It’s just that she was struggling a little with her math skills earlier,” I said.

“Oh?”

“Yes, and well, um…I wanted to offer some tutoring for her. It probably wouldn’t take long to get her up to speed, but I think she could benefit from a few one on one sessions.”

“Oh, okay, alright.”

His gaze was too intense and I looked away from him as I spoke. Unfortunately, I looked down and right at the huge bulge in the front of his pants. His jeans fit him like a second skin, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination.

I looked away again quickly, my eyes darting around and trying to land on anything but another one of his amazing body parts.

“Well, how do we go about doing that?” he asked.

“Unfortunately, we can’t use the school after hours. I’d be happy to tutor her from my apartment, it’s not far from here. Or we could go to a coffee shop or something, if you are uncomfortable with that. I could do it right after school.”

“I wanna go to your apartment, Ms. Daisy!” Rosie began jumping up and down excitedly.

“Oh!” I said, laughing.

Mike laughed at Rosie, and caught my eye once more.

“I don’t have a problem with her coming to your place. I can just pick her up there afterward.”

“Okay. We could start tomorrow if you want?” For a brief moment, I heard a nagging voice in the back of my head asking me what the hell was I doing inviting an outlaw biker to my house. “Should just take an hour or so.”

I ignored it as I heard Mike’s deep rumbling voice agreeing and asking me to write down my address and phone number for him.

“Yay!” Rosie was still jumping up and down excitedly. “I get to see Ms. Daisy’s apartment! And, Daddy, did you know that Ms. Daisy said math can be fun?”

We both laughed at that.

“Oh, did she now?” As I handed the slip of paper to Mike, his fingertips brushed mine and I felt a jolt of electricity shoot through me. “I think you’d better believe her then!”

He slipped the paper into the inside pocket of his cut and winked at me. I melted inside, even though I stood there like a stuttering statue in front of him.

“So…um…we’ll see you tomorrow then.”

He leaned in close again as Rosie collected her things behind him and he whispered, “Thanks for being so nice to Rosie, Daisy. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

His lips brushed my ear seductively as he pulled away from me.

I nodded silently, trying to smile through the crushing feeling in my chest as they walked out of my classroom door.

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

“Rosie, your breakfast is ready! Hurry up, or you’ll be late for school!”

The sound of her footsteps bounding down the hall made me smile. When she rounded the corner of the kitchen, she flew into my arms and gave me a huge hug.

“Good morning, daddy!”

“Good morning, baby! You give the best hugs!” I said to her as I sat her back down on the kitchen floor.

“Because I learned from the best!” she replied.

“Who? Sandman?” I asked, teasingly.

“No!” she erupted in a fit of giggles.

“Reaper?” I asked again.

She laughed louder, and just like every time before, the sound of her laughter was like medicine to my soul.

“No, silly!”

“Oh, okay, I got it! lil’ Mike!” I said.

She rolled her eyes at me as she shook her head.

“No, you! YOU taught me to give the best hugs! You are my daddy, after all!” Her pretend exasperation charmed me even more.

“Oh! Me? Huh. Well, how about that?” I asked, as I sat her breakfast down on the kitchen table, in front of where she was now sitting.

I leaned down and kissed her on the cheek as she began devouring her eggs and bacon, while lil’ Mike sat at her feet, intently watching for anything she might drop for him.

Sometimes, it caught me off guard how much she looked like Rose. I gazed down at her, her face full of joy and innocence, and felt my heart swell with pride. I’d done a lot of bad things in my lifetime, but Rosie was turning out alright. I was proud of her, and I was proud to be her father.

“Daddy, don’t forget I’m going for math tutoring at Ms. Daisy’s house this afternoon!”

“I didn’t forget, sweetie. I’ll pick you up there at four o’clock. Make sure you are on your best behavior at her house, okay?”

“Of course I will be, Daddy. I love Ms. Daisy. She’s the best teacher I’ve ever had!”

I laughed.

“She’s only the third teacher you’ve ever had, Rosie.”

“Well, I know, but she’s a lot funnier and smarter than Ms. Star and Mr. Forester. And prettier.”

“Oh, well, okay then, Rosie, whatever you say.”

“She is pretty, don’t you think, Daddy?”

“Ms. Daisy?” I asked, my heartbeat quickening as I said her name out loud. “Sure she’s okay, I guess.”

Rosie laughed at my comment.

“I know you think she’s pretty, Daddy.”

“Oh, you do, huh? And how do you know that?” I asked. My daughter was way too observant.

“I saw the way you smiled at her, that’s all. Don’t worry I won’t tell her.”

I burst out laughing, and hustled her out the door to the bus stop before she could go on.

“Get to school, missy! C’mon, I’ll walk you to the stop.”

We walked hand in hand down the block to where the school bus was just pulling up to the corner. I kneeled down and looked into her pretty eyes. Rose’s eyes.

“I love you, sweetheart. Have a great day and I’ll see you at four o’clock on the dot!”

“Okay, Daddy. I love you, too!” She kissed me on the cheek. “Bye!”

I watched her run away, her black curls bouncing around her head as she turned to wave one last time before climbing onto the bus.

I sighed as I walked back to the house, turning my thoughts to the day’s events ahead of me. Or, rather I tried to think about the things I was supposed to think about. The club. The job coming up next week. The risk involved. What our plan would be should something go wrong. And what I was going to cook for dinner for Rosie later.

But I couldn’t concentrate on any of those things, because my mind was completely preoccupied with thoughts of Daisy. She had been on my mind since the first moment I met her, and that was not a good thing. In fact, it was a terrible thing.

She was Rosie’s teacher, dammit
. I kept reminding myself of this fact, as if it was going to have some magic effect of turning off all thoughts of her. But that didn’t seem to matter one bit to my hardening cock. I kept thinking about the last time I saw her, the strap of her sundress threatening to fall off her sexy shoulder, the shy but determined way she insisted on meeting my gaze, the little blue flecks in her eyes when she did, the curled locks of her long wispy blonde hair falling around her shoulders like delicate feathers — and that smile. Those brief moments she stopped being shy, and flashed her smile at me, it was like a punch to the gut. Or, to the groin. Maybe both.