Chapter 5: Daddy's Roads

Rafe left that night with the hawk flap rolled in a towel and a promise to come back on Friday.

I didn't tell him yes, and he didn't ask again.

On Thursday afternoon the lot filled with the sound of three motorcycles.

I was in the bay finishing a pair for a livestock hauler, and I knew the engines before I looked up.

Kendra rode in front.

She had a new Harley, black and chrome, and the tank was painted with blue koi and copper scales.

I put down the airbrush.

Two women from the club rode behind her, the ones from the diner counter.

They parked in a line and took off their helmets.

The drivers in the far lot stopped talking.

Kendra swung off the bike and walked toward my bay with both arms open.

"Stephanie," she said. "I hate how things are. I wanted to come out and say there are no hard feelings."

She smelled like larkspur.

I stood very still.

"Nice tank," I said.

"Isn't it? I did it myself."

She ran her hand along the paint. "Dutch gave me your old sketches. They're so good, Steph. I had to try."

"With my mother's Iwata."

"I thought it deserved to be used."

She said it warmly, with her head tilted, as she had at the bar when she told me I was lucky.

That was the worst part. She hadn't changed her face at all. It had always been this face.

I walked out of the bay and stopped in front of the bike.

The drivers had drifted closer, six or seven of them, coffee in their hands.

Birdie stood on the back step.

"Can I look?" I asked.

"Of course!"

I crouched beside the tank and studied the koi.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Caught Him in the President's Office, So I Painted My Own Name from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.