Rydin' the Storm Out (6 page)

Molly took a few calming breaths to allow her face to return to a normal color. Gunnar smirked at her and flicked his eyes to Ryder, noticing his growing look of disapproval.

***

When they pulled up to Molly’s house later that evening, she turned to Ryder. “Would you like to come in for a drink?”

Ryder looked at her and nodded. When they got inside, Molly asked what he would like to drink. She had warmed up at Jeremiah and Joci’s house, but now she felt a little chilled. Probably nerves.

“I can make hot chocolate if you’d like.”

“That would be great.”

Molly put the milk on the stove on low. “I can give you a tour of the house if you’d like.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“I’ve rented this house for several years now. The landlord is an older man and we have a verbal agreement that when he’s ready to sell, I can buy it. It’s older, but I love the woodwork and arched doorways. I’ve spent a ton of time painting and fixing it up. Sometimes the money has been tight so I do little things when I can. Freelancing means that sometimes I don’t have a steady income. But the work has been coming more frequently now so, hopefully, purchasing it won’t be an enormous burden. I just love this neighborhood.”

Molly finished mixing the cocoa into the pan of warm milk and poured them each a cup. She handed Ryder his cup and motioned with her hand to the little kitchen table by the sliding glass doors.

As they sat, Ryder asked, “What do you do in your free time, Molly?”

She smiled. “I love to read books. I work in my yard. I spend time with my friends. What do you like to do?”

Ryder smiled. “My brothers and I always find something to do. We work out in the basement. We shoot pool. We throw the football around. We spend time with my parents or my grandparents. Of course, we ride a lot in the summer. What about your parents or siblings?”

Molly scrunched up her face a little bit. “I don’t have any siblings. My mother’s in a nursing home, not far from here.”

“Sorry. Do you see her much?”

“She doesn’t really know who I am. I used to go more often, but it makes me so sad that I only make myself go about once a month now.”

“What about your father?”

“Did you need more hot chocolate? How about something to eat? I know it’s cold outside, but I have ice cream.”

***

Ryder noticed she didn’t want to talk about her father, so he would let it go for now.

“I better go,” he said. “Work tomorrow. You’ll be taking pictures of the build next weekend. I have a ton of work to do this week leading up to that, but can we get together afterwards on Saturday night?”

“I would like that very much. I’ll see you then.”

Molly walked him to the door where he turned and quickly kissed her before he lost his nerve. His lips gently sliding over her lips, his hands holding her face, his breathing accelerating, lost to the taste of her. He stepped away and kissed the tip of her nose, then turned and walked out the door.

The week flew by in a blur. Molly spent Monday with Joci and Jeremiah going over the pictures in greater detail. They discussed the pictures they wanted hard copies of and the ones they wanted for gift giving. Molly gave Joci all of the digital pictures, then presented her idea of using the boys in the shop’s advertising.

“I want to show you something else. Look at the pictures of your sons. The three of them together are HOT!” Molly’s face flamed bright red as she quickly looked down at the picture of Ryder, JT, and Gunnar. “I think you could really do some fabulous promotions using the guys on posters and ads. Put them in some biker gear and you’ll have the women lining up to get in the doors. When the women come, the men follow.”

“You’re right about that, Molly. Not that I want to pimp the boys out, but looking at them all together like that, I can see the potential. Jeremiah, what do you think?”

“I think you ladies are on to something. Let’s use the clothing we sell here and put them in front of our bikes and see what kind of response we get.”

“Okay. I’ll set it up with you after we speak with the boys. For now, we have a build from the Veteran’s Ride this weekend.”

“I’m excited to be a part of that. Thank you, again.”

***

Ryder felt light on his feet all week. He thought the ride on Sunday had gone well. He liked having Molly ride on the back of his bike. He just liked being around her, period. He liked that his parents liked her, too. She was smart, talented, and independent and yet, there was something about her. She was vulnerable and had things that were painful in her past. She didn’t want to talk about her father that was for sure. She was alone in this world, or so it seemed, except for her friends. More than ever Ryder felt lucky as hell. He had a big loving family to lean on. And, he wanted to make sure Molly had him and his family. He wanted her with him all the time. Now that he had gotten to spend some time with her, he realized maybe his mom was right—he would move heaven and earth to be with her and to make her happy. But, what if he screwed up?

Ryder was walking through the shop and found his dad working on his bike. Ryder walked over to see what he was doing; he didn’t work on the bikes much anymore.

“Hey Dad, what’s up?”

“Hi, son. I’m working on a backrest for your mom. She said it was a bit uncomfortable the other day. I want to tilt it out on the bottom. Can you hold this?”

Ryder leaned forward and pulled the bottom of the backrest out while his dad tightened the screws in the back.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Ryder, you can always ask me anything. You know that.”

Ryder swallowed. “I like Molly. A lot.”

“Mm hm. We could see that.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to fuck up.”

Jeremiah stood and looked at Ryder. Setting his wrench down on the top of the bike lift, he grabbed a rag and started wiping his hands.

“I assume there’s a question coming.”

“Yeah. Well, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but, well when JT and I were growing up, well, you didn’t really have any girlfriends. We…I don’t know what to do. I mean, I want to be with her and spend time with her, but, it’s just always been us. You know?”

Jeremiah’s lips formed a straight line as he held Ryder’s gaze. He nodded once and walked around the bike and stood in front of Ryder.

“I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t actually teach you boys how to be a good boyfriend. Is that what you’re worried about?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m not blaming you, I just, well, until Mom, we didn’t have women around. Am I supposed to do something different? How did you know what to do when you met Mom?”

Taking a deep breath, Jeremiah slipped his fingers in his front pockets. “I didn’t know either, Ryder. I waited an eternity to press the issue with Joci. I knew she was scared and I didn’t want to scare her away, so I dragged my feet until I thought I would go out of my mind. I finally just told her I wanted to be with her and I knew she wanted to be with me and that’s the way it was going to be. Not exactly romantic or smooth, but I knew I couldn’t wait any longer.”

Ryder nodded. “I remember what a crab ass you were back then.” Ryder smirked and Jeremiah laughed.

“Well, so I guess we all learn as we go along. I guess you need to ask her out, spend time with her. Ask her what she likes and what she wants to do and don’t waste a lot of time. If you know you want to be with her, take a page from my book and don’t wait forever. Simple. The rest will come.”

***

“Come with me, Tammy. I can take some ‘before’ pictures and then we can go out and grab a bite to eat. We can call Cara and Suzie and ask them to meet us.”

“Sounds good. I’ll be over in about half an hour. This should be fun.”

Molly and Tammy walked around the outside of Danny Schaefer’s house. Tomorrow, the contractor and the crew that Rolling Thunder put together would be adding an addition to his house. Molly wanted ‘before’ pictures so a photo montage could be put together for the Veteran’s Ride DVDs that Joci was going to burn. The DVDs would be sold for ten bucks each to raise additional money for next year. It was a great cause, and it was a labor of love for Jeremiah.

The sun was low in the sky and the lighting was phenomenal. Molly was capturing the sun setting and the light peeking through the trees in Danny’s yard. There was a gorgeous flower garden. The summer flowers have long since died, but these fall flowers, Mums, in burgundy and dark orange, as well as different varieties of kale, were so lovely. Molly stopped taking pictures of the house long enough to snap a few flower pictures with the setting sun in the background. Some of these shots were destined to make great screen savers. Molly was lying on the ground on her belly, to get a close-up shot of the flowers.

“Can I help you?”

Molly spun her head around to see a handsome man, leaning on crutches, looking at her from the front door. At a closer glance, she saw that he had a leg missing from the knee down. Molly stood up, hung her camera around her neck, and walked over to him.

“Hi, I’m Molly. I’m not sure if you remember me from the Veteran’s Ride. This is my friend, Tammy. I’m the photographer hired to take pictures of the build tomorrow. I wanted to snap some ‘before’ pictures and thought I would do it today in case I didn’t get here before the workers do in the morning. I’m sorry if I bothered you.”

Molly was watching him closely. He looked annoyed and stiff. And who could blame him? He didn’t know who she was or what she was doing wandering around on his property.

“You think they’re going to trample on my flowers?”

Molly looked into his dark brown eyes. They were sad eyes but nice to look at.

Her voice shaky, she said, “No. Sorry, I walked through your flowers. They are so beautiful with the sun setting…I couldn’t help myself.” Lowering her voice, Molly said, “Sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

Danny’s shoulders relaxed a little. “May I see?”

Tammy smiled at Danny. She had been nervous when he walked out. It occurred to her then that it probably wasn’t a good idea to trespass on a soldier’s property. Especially one who had been injured, and he probably had guns in his house. Geez, they were stupid girls sometimes.

Danny swung his gaze over to Tammy and then back to Molly. Molly pulled her camera up and turned it on. She hit a few buttons and brought up the pictures she had been taking. She smiled at Danny and turned the camera around so he could see them.

“You can scroll through the pictures by pushing this button.”

Molly pointed to the button Danny needed to touch to move through the pictures. Danny leaned into his crutches and scrolled through the camera. He smiled a few times and looked up at Molly and Tammy.

“You have a good eye for this. I guess I haven’t taken the time to enjoy those flowers at all. My mom planted them to make my house feel ‘cheery’ or something. Thank you for pointing out that I have beauty at my house.”

Danny was quiet a little while. Both women were looking at him and wondering what to do next. Danny cleared his throat.

“Name’s Danny. Would you like to come in and take ‘before’ pictures of the inside?”

Molly raised her eyebrows and smiled. She looked back at Tammy, who was smiling at Danny.

“We don’t want to put you out, but it
would
be nice to get some before pictures of the house on the inside. Thank you.”

Danny turned and walked into the house, leaving Molly and Tammy to follow. They walked in behind him and closed the door

Danny pointed toward the wall on the west side of the house. “They’re going to knock that wall out and put the addition there.”

Molly walked over and started taking ‘before’ pictures of the room. She knew it would look much different in a few days.

“I
do
remember you. I thought you looked familiar, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen you,” Danny said.

Tammy observed Danny as he started to relax. His hair was short, military style and sandy brown in color. He wore a day’s worth of growth on his jaw that made him look rugged and sexy. He was thin and ripped…and hot. As if he could tell she was looking at him, Danny turned his head and looked at Tammy. Their eyes met for a few beats. Tammy blushed and looked down. Danny chuckled.

“How does this happen, Danny? Will you have to go and stay somewhere else for a while or can you stay here?”

Danny turned and looked at Molly. “I can stay here. They’ll frame the addition up first. They’ll put the windows in and insulate and then they’ll knock the wall out to allow the access. I have the plans on the table in the dining room. Do you want to see them?”

Both women nodded and Danny walked them into the dining room. They looked at the plans and he pointed out where they were standing and where the additional bedroom and bathroom would be. Molly immediately started snapping pictures of the plans; some up close, some from farther away. She snapped pictures of Danny and Tammy looking at the plans. She walked around and snapped pictures of the living room from this view. The constant click of her camera was all that was heard for a while.

“Does she always do that?” Danny asked, in a lowered voice to Tammy.

Tammy smirked. “Yeah. It’s her thing. You’ll get used to her. She does have a good eye and she just loves this stuff.”

Molly heard them and blushed a little. “I’ll make sure you get the digitals. You can do what you like with them, but it’ll be pretty cool to see the ‘before’ and ‘after.’ Sometimes after a while, you forget what things looked like before. I’ve painted and worked on my house, not to this degree, but, months and years later when I come across the pictures, I’m still amazed at what it looked like. It’s what hooked me on photography in the first place. It’s a beautiful way to memorialize the past.”

Danny nodded. “Yeah, I was just looking at pictures of myself graduating from boot camp. Back when I had two legs. It’s bittersweet.”

Tammy looked at Danny. Yeah, she supposed that would be bittersweet. Poor guy.

“Sometimes it can be. We can’t always control it, but change happens every day. By the way, thank you for your service. It’s appreciated more than you’ll ever know.” Tammy smiled at Danny.

Danny nodded.

“Hey, we’re going to head out and grab a bite to eat. Would you like to join us?” Tammy asked.

Danny looked into Tammy’s beautiful brown eyes. She was petite with long, sandy-brown hair, and she was HOT. He hadn’t dated since he had lost his leg. He didn’t think any woman would want to have anything to do with him with only one leg. But…Tammy seemed interested.

He swallowed. “Nah. Thanks, but I think this’ll be a very full weekend. I have a few things to do around here before tomorrow. I appreciate the offer.”

“If you change your mind, we’re going to Nicki’s in De Pere. Please feel free to stop in. I’ll buy you a beer.” Tammy flashed her brightest smile. Danny swallowed again and cocked his head at her. She was flirting with him! That hadn’t happened in months.

They left Danny’s house and headed to Nicki’s to eat.

“So? What did you think?” Tammy was looking at Molly with a huge grin on her face.

“About?”

“About Danny. Pretty hot, isn’t he?”

Molly started laughing. “Do you have a crush on Danny? You so have to come to the build tomorrow. You can help me out by moving my stuff around and you can see him again. I think Joci and her sisters-in-law are bringing food and helping out where needed as well. Jeremiah won’t let Joci do much so, if nothing else, you can talk to her so she doesn’t get bored.”