Page 7 of Biker's Babygirl

I love my job. I do. I love it even more than my motorcycle. But it breaks my heart sometimes.

Ginny

There is only one thing to do. I make my decision quickly; in the scant seconds I still have left to make one. I play dead.

Good practice,I think, forcing my lips to stay flat.Since I’ll soon get all the experience in that area I could ever want.Dead attwenty.The number hits me in my hollow, empty stomach like a punch and I feel nauseous all over again.I’ll never get to taste my first martini. Or maybe I would have been a margarita girl. Or even wine. I’ll never…

Stop.I silence my pity party before I give in to the tears that threaten.This could work. This might work. It does, sometimes. In… cartoons.I gulp and hear footsteps coming closer.

I can feel him. I am fighting so hard to keep my eyes closed and stay still. It is an internal, emotional struggle that almost makes me wish he would put me out of my misery already.

“Hey, guys. I… I’ve got something over here.”

Guys.So, there’s more than two of them. I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m not. But man, it sucks.

“Alive, you think?” another voice asks. Male.

Dead. Dead, dead. Just leave the little dead girl and walk away. Let her be someone else’s problem.I didn’t grow up religious, and God knows Lucas isn’t, but I pray to every god I know.Please, please, let the poor never-tasted-alcohol girl live to see another day!

Even though I know this meager, starving, freezing existence is no way to live, I want it more than I ever thought possible.

Stop it, you idiot! Stop thinking so hard and just… play dead. You can do this.Be still. Be… dead.I push out my anxiety and try not to breathe visibly.

“I’m going to call the police.”

“Yeah, I think that’s for the best.”

And all of a sudden, I forget about not breathing and playing dead and zone in on the wordpolice. I shoot up and shout, “No! Don’t!” And then I freeze.

They follow my lead and freeze, too—three men, looking down at me, stunned.

The whole forest, the wholeworld,seems to hold its breath as my voice echoes around us.

CHAPTER THREE

Ginny

“He’s not dead,” the oldest man of the group remarks dryly.

But my eyes are glued to the one with the phone. He’s still holding it up, and my sole mission in life—since clearly, it’s not to convince them I’m dead anymore—is to get him to put it away.

“Listen. Please, don’t. You can’t?—”

“Can I give you a hand, son?”

I blink up at the man who’s clearly ignoring my pleas. The sun is right behind him, and it’s hard to see much of him, but there’s alotto see. He’s huge. An actual mammoth of a man, so much so that my mouth immediately goes dry.

But my silence doesn’t deter him in the slightest. If anything, he moves in closer and offers his hand.

I hesitate. There’s no way I’m taking it. But how can Inot? What reason do I have not to? What excuse am I going to give for laying here, waiting to either starve or freeze to death?

There’s nothing I can say. They found me. There’s nothing I can do.Are they too deep in Lucas’s pocket to, like, buy me a Big Mac before they haul me back to his lair to be murdered?

My hand is shaking, but I put it into his giant paw and close my eyes, sending up silent prayers one more time as he hauls me out of my self-made ditch. As soon as my feet plant on the firm earth, I start to sink. I don’t know if it’s because I’m so weak, or because I’m scared shitless. Probably both.

But Mr. Muscles easily holds me up, and I attempt to tug away from him, but he won’t let me. His strength is so much greater than mine that I stop trying almost immediately.

My focus changes and my head swivels toward the one with the phone. I’m relieved to see that he seems to be staring at me rather than dialing. “Listen, the thing is…” I swallow hard. “You don’t want to call the cops.”

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