Page 45 of Ridin' Free
“Alright. So—talk to me. Tell me somethin’.”
I stared at him for a moment as I thought back over the last thirty-six hours. There wasn’t much to tell, which was how I ended up admitting, “Georgia called.”
I watched as his smile fell and the warmth in his eyes was all but snuffed out.
Maybe I needed a lesson in appropriate date conversation, after all.
“Not exactly the topic I had in mind, but I’ll bite,” he replied.
“She told me what happened.”
“Fucker got less than he deserved,” Twister said cooly.
I didn’t disagree, so I merely nodded slowly in response.
“Her, too, if you ask me.”
I didn’t know why, but I felt compelled to tell him the truth; to absolve my mother of a measure of guilt. Or maybe I wanted Twister to know he hadn’t done wrong by letting her off the hook. Regardless of the reason, I admitted, “She—she doesn’t know.”
Twister’s brow furrowed with a scowl at the same time our server returned with our water and a basket full of warm bread rolls. I looked up at him, murmuring a pathetic thank you, then shifted my gaze back onto Twister as we were left alone.
He was still staring straight at me.
“You never told her?” he asked, his voice more surprised than judgmental.
I reached for a dinner roll and immediately began picking it into pieces.
“I never told anyone. Not until…you.”
Even as silence began to envelope us, I didn’t bother to look up. I couldn’t. I hadn’t meant to steer us into such deep waters.I hoped my obvious attempt at avoidance would be his hint to move on to the next topic.
Instead, he reached across the table and grabbed hold of one of my wrists. His hand was warm, his fingers unyielding, but his grip was gentle. He squeezed me once, and I dropped the bread before peeking over at him from beneath my lashes.
His brown eyes, shrouded by his thick eyebrows still furrowed in obvious concern, were not warm or the slightest bit amused—the way I preferred. There was an intensity in his gaze that made me want to squirm. I wondered how many of my secrets he could see as he stared right through me.
“You grew up in Colorado? With just the two of them?”
“Yeah.”
“But he’s not the reason for your knife.”
It was a statement wrapped around a question—a question I had no intention of answering. When I yanked at my wrist, silently insisting he let me go, he lifted his hand in a show of surrender.
Being the smart man he was, he then shifted tactics in order to keep me talking.
“How’d you find your way to Gillette?”
“Moved to Cheyenne when I was twenty-four. Got a job at a bar down there. Learned the ropes. Met a few Stallions. When they told me about Steel Mustang opening up, I thought I’d shoot my shot.” Before he could ask a follow up question, I posed one of my own. “What about you? How’d you find your way to the Stallions?”
He sat back in his chair, relaxing a bit as he replied, “Pops and I never really got along. Appreciate the hell out of him. Taught me how to work hard and how to lead. My mom always said we were too much alike. Maybe that’s true. All I know is when I turned eighteen, I got the hell outta dodge. He alwayssaid I’d come crawlin’ back, so I made it my mission to prove him wrong.
“Bastard shouldn’t have taught me the ins and outs of a motor, or maybe he’d of been right. Found my way to a garage and got myself a job doin’ the only thing I could think to do. Met my first Stallion at the gym. We hit it off. He told me about Stallion Motors, I switched shops, and the rest—well, you know what they say.”
Quirking an eyebrow at him, I replied, “That’s a hell of a lot of history you skipped over. Vice President? Store manager at Horsepower Auto-Supply? What, you just climbed that ladder?”
Before he got a chance to respond, our server arrived with our dinner. After he was sure we had everything we needed, he left us to our meal, and I refocused my attention across the table.
Twister must have felt my gaze. Without looking up from his steak, he sliced a bite and said, “When I first started at the shop, there was no auto-parts store. Soon as it opened, I volunteered to make the switch. Worked my way to the top—good ole fashioned way.”
