Page 56 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies
A banner for the holiday festival flapped like it wanted to confess something.
I took the south lane home because I knew the ridge would glaze by dusk.
“Eyes left,” I say.
The wind leans aside just long enough to show a dark geometry where the shoulder slopes into a drift.
Not a stump. Not a rock. A car, half swallowed.
Rule one in these hills: you do not pass a stranded vehicle in weather like this.
Rule two: you do not let sentiment steer. You let procedure do it, because procedure carries people home.
“Hox,” I say. “Radio Roman. Short call. We’re making a stop, mile twenty-two south, probable exposure in a vehicle. Wren, rear doors, two wool blankets, med kit on deck.”
I drop out of the cab and into snow that takes my knees.
The wind is a hand in my chest.
The car sits with its nose kissed to the drift, windows filmed in white.
I scrape a circle on the driver’s glass with my glove and peer in.
Her face forms out of frost like I dreamed it there.
“Marisa,” I say before I can stop myself, and the name fogs the glass and comes back to me.
Pale.
Lips edged with blue.
Coat not good enough for this, zipped to her throat.
Two small shapes against her body.
She lifts her eyes to mine.
I see recognition.
I see relief.
I see something like apology and I do not have time for it.
Door. It sticks, then gives.
The cold reaches in like a thief and puts fingers on her cargo. She tries to talk. “Deacon.” The sound is thin. Enough.
“Talk to me later,” I say. “Right now we move.”
Right side baby first.
He is warm where he should be, too quiet where I want noise.
Pulse fast, breath shallow, the small bird flutter that says cold tried and did not get its teeth in yet.
I slide him out with the blanket, put him under my coat, turn, and Wren is there with a second wool like a magician proud of the trick.
“Truck,” I say. “Back seat. Heat on high. Rub his back, hum whatever a fool hums, keep him loud.”
