But Jack didn’t give her much time to ponder her situation because, as soon as he had the clearance, he eased his motorcycle out into the night, leaving her no choice but to chase his tail light. She wasn’t sure where they were going. She had to keep up with him or lose contact altogether. And then she’d be a sitting duck. Alone and vulnerable.
Like Max had been.
So, before she could even think about losing sight of the red on the back of his bike, Annabelle eased her own out after him. The Night Rod responded like a dream. She’d expected it to shoot out from under her like a pit bull on a leash of dental floss, but as she exited the garage and executed the turn out onto the main road beyond the parking lot, she found that it basically handled just like any other bike. Same principles. Just a lot more power.
Jack led them down several empty streets, taking turns she wouldn’t have expected them to take. She realized, eventually, that they were being evasive. Did Jack think they were being followed? Annabelle hadn’t noticed any headlights. But then, someone following them probably wouldn’t have used headlights. And there was no way they could have heard the sound of a car over the roar of their own motorcycles. So, she guessed it was a possibility.
But not for long. No car in the world could keep up with the bikes they’d chosen. Especially when their riders were deliberately trying to lose them.
Now Annabelle not only wished she had a helmet; she wished that she had a helmet with a radio inside. As Jack turned one last corner and she found that they were just across the street from an exit onto the freeway, she experienced another jolt of apprehension. She knew that Jack was going to take them both out onto the interstate.
It was dark. She wasn’t wearing protective gear. Her bike was big and it was fast and it was brand spanking new.
Jack, you trust me way too much…
As she’d anticipated, he switched on his turning signal and eased on out onto the highway, picking up incredible speed as he neared the junction. She slowly twisted the throttle and was struck with the real difference between the V-Rod and Harley’s other motorcycles. If the wind hadn’t been hitting her so hard, she’d be breaking into a sweat. The bike was really, really fast. Not as fast as Jack’s, but quite a bit more speedy than was strictly sufficient.
They hit seventy miles per hour in a very few short seconds and kept the speed steady. Jack let off of his own throttle momentarily and kicked back to run even with Annabelle. He looked over at her and their eyes met. The gaze held for longer than it should have before Annabelle broke it and looked back at the road in front of her. Motorcycles tended to go where their drivers were looking. Look left, the bike goes left. Look right, it goes right. Look down, guess where it goes?
She just happened to have enough experience with motorcycles to know how to keep the bike from doing whatever the hell it wanted to just because she chose to enjoy the view. But it wasn’t wise to get too side tracked, so, Annabelle trained her gaze a good fifteen seconds ahead of them and kept it there for the time being. Jack rode steady beside her.
After a while, Annabelle relaxed into position and began to notice things. The road was newly paved and easy on the tires. That was nice. No distracting bumps; just the steady, comforting vibration of the engine between her legs.
There was no wind, which was strange, but a pleasant change. Wind jerked the bike around and caused tension to ride up the biker’s arms and shoulders. No wind was good.
The night was cold, but not as cold as it had been. Though this last winter had been relatively mild, Minnesota was never balmy in May. Tonight, however, was a truly mellow night. It wasn’t clear and there weren’t any shooting stars or anything magical like that, but the overhead cloud cover kept what warmth there was down on the ground.
And it wasn’t raining. The black top was dry and because it was a week night, it was more or less empty. It stretched on and on.
She chanced a glance down at her gauges. She had a full tank of gas. Jack had set her up. How far could she get if she wanted to? Could she leave the state? Head for the sea side? On a Night Rod, how long would it take her to get there?
In the last ten years, Minnesota had iced up her bones and rimed over her soul. Some days, she felt like she would never thaw out. She felt like she could walk through the desert, trudge from dune to sandy dune, and the frost around her heart still wouldn’t melt.
She had come here a decade ago to help her mother, Rachel, who underwent a lengthy surgery that left her handicapped for several years. In that time, Annabelle finished her BA at “The U”, the University of Minnesota, and then signed up for graduate classes. At the same time, she acquired a job at a health sciences university. She was a natural and a quick study. She learned a lot about graphic design and learned it well.
When her mother’s doctor suggested that his patient move somewhere warmer, her mother listened. Rachel and Annabelle talked it over for a long time. The truth was, Rachel was well on the mend and no longer truly needed Annabelle’s help. So, after much deliberation and wringing of the hands, she agreed to move to Florida even though her daughter couldn’t follow.
At the time, there was just too much for Annabelle in the Twin Cities. A good job, classes, the Minnesota Wild – she was a big fan – and the winters hadn’t yet gotten to her. Plus, there was Jack. They’d been friends for four years by that point, and though she’d had friends for longer, she’d never had any that were closer.
Annabelle’s mother had been forty when she’d given birth to her daughter. So, to Rachel, Jack had seemed just as young as Annabelle. Their age difference didn’t much phase the woman. In fact, nothing much phased the woman. And Rachel liked Jack. For some unknown and, to Annabelle, entirely ironic reason, her mother thought Jack was safe.
It was one of the reasons she’d agreed to leave for Orlando in the first place. Rachel figured Jack would protect Annabelle from the world.
Well, she’d been right on that count.
But who was going to protect her from him?
Annabelle chanced another glance away from the road, this time at her handsome assassin companion. Did he know that she dreamt about him at night? Did he have any clue how amazingly attractive she found him? Charismatic? Powerful? Did he know?
Why was she thinking about this right now? Was it the ride, maybe? Was she still high on pain killers? Whatever the reason, she couldn’t seem to help where her thoughts were sliding.
And they were sliding, inexorably, toward Jack.
Did he know that, for some reason she didn’t care to evaluate, she not only didn’t mind his occupation all that much, but she was… well… intrigued by it? Something about Jack holding lives in his hands made her weak in the knees. And that was wrong, wasn’t it? It was wrong! After all, he was a killer. He was paid to end lives!
Still, she believed that Jack was not the kind of person to take a life that didn’t deserve to be taken. She held on to that belief tooth and nail. There were so many nasty people out there. She’d been up close and personal with a few of them; if they ever came across Jack’s path during his career, she could not feel sorry for them.
In that light, Jack appeared to be more a vigilante, really. An outlaw, but one on the side of the good guys. He was strong and fast and very, very smart. He embodied an ultimate form of power, and that was a definite turn on.