Page 48 of Hell on an Angel
“I want you to promise me if your hip starts hurting, you’ll let me know. Deal?”
“I promise.”
Like she said, there was always next year. Throwing a leg over the saddle, Cree dropped into the seat and fired up the bike. Signalling for her to climb on, he waited for Kennedy to tap his shoulder, letting him know she was ready.
Pulling out of the parking lot, they headed for the freeway and eleven-and-a-half hours on the open road.
At the first gas stop, the sun was out warming up the day. It wasn’t anywhere near hot, but it felt good to have something other than heavy snow and sleet-laden clouds hanging overhead. A message from Teller had Cree calling in. “Hey, brother.”
“Cree, it’s good to hear your voice.”
“You sent a nine-one-one. What’s up?”
“Have you seen the weather?”
“No. We got on the road about three hours ago. We’re right outside Sault Ste. Marie. I’m fuelling up, then we’re gonna hit the road again. Is there something I should be aware of?”
“There’s a storm that’s gonna hit Montreal late tonight. You might want to make plans to stay in Deep River with Eros.”
“Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll keep you and Player in the know.”
“Safe travels, brother.”
Cree hung up and looked at the sky. It was sunny and blue at the moment. “Kennedy?”
“Yes?” She saw the look and knew something was wrong. “What is it? Is Player hurt?”
“What? God, no. That was Teller informing me there’s a bad storm moving into Montreal tonight. We either need to push hard to make it or plan to stop for the night in Deep River.”
“Would we be able to get out of Deep River in the morning?”
“Not sure.”
Kennedy squared her shoulders and made her mind up. If he could make it, she could too. “Let’s plan to stop if we get caught in the weather. Other than that, we ride.”
“Damn, you’re sexy.”
They loaded up and took off. If they were lucky, they’d make Deep River in enough time to meet Eros and make Montreal before the storm hit. That was an enormous if.
At their next gas stop, Kennedy went to pee while Cree fuelled up. When he met her inside, she was purchasing snack packs and small bags of nuts along with two bottles of water. “Hang here while I hit the head,” he told her.
“Do you want anything other than this stuff?”
“Nah, that works, and it’s fast.”
Kennedy paid for the items and stepped aside to wait for Cree. A TV playing the local weather caught her attention. She saw the information on the storm that was on its way through the area. They weren’t going into it—they were trying to outrun it.
When Cree walked back up, she pointed to the TV. “There’s a storm heading this way,” she told him.
The weather panned to Montreal and the storm Teller had warned him about. “Okay, there’s two fucking storms, one behind us and one coming ahead of us.” There was nothing they could do but get on the road.
Moving Kennedy along, he took the bag of peanuts she handed him, peeled them open, and ate them in one mouthful. Washing them down with the water was all Cree had time for. Kennedy would have to eat on the bike because they needed to get back on the road ASAP.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Stop-and-go traffic had them creeping along. Kennedy pulled up the GPS app on her phone and got an update on the delay. According to the app, there was a large pile-up on the freeway and it had shut everything down. Kennedy quickly started looking for an alternate route.
Tapping Cree on the shoulder, he leaned back against her so he could look at the phone. Flipping up her visor, she told him the freeway was shut down. “If we take the next exit, that puts us on highway eleven. We can connect to highway sixty, which will kick us back onto the Trans-Canada Highway in Renfrew.” She pointed to the different changeups until Cree had an idea. “It won’t shorten our ride time, but it will keep us moving instead of sitting here.”
