Page 28 of Come Ride With Me
Bell had a daughter. A beautiful, tenacious and passionate daughter. She’d come here all the way from Paris to save her father’s company. And, from what he’d heard from Rock, she’d done it. Earl was gone, customers were pouring in and Mica had re-instituted the childcare and profit-sharing benefits. She was doing what she’d said she would do and that was a good thing.
Still, Nash didn’t want her to do good things. He wanted her to mess up royally and have to run back to Paris with her tail tucked between her legs. It was a temptingly round tail, but whatever.
The staff was getting to know her. Rock said she ate with them in the lunchroom two days in a row and she liked fried pork chops. Rock loved to eat any and every part of the pig so that was music to his ears.
Nash didn’t care.
Yet, he definitely did. A fact which only pissed him off more.
He’d really liked Mica and he couldn’t remember when the last time he’d ever really liked a woman before. She liked bikes, or she was coming to like bikes and she was adventurous and caring. He’d watched her more than he wanted to admit while they’d been at the fundraiser. The way she’d talked to the children and helped the smaller ones with the games until they won a prize had been touching and very telling about the woman she was. Even if he hadn’t known her full name at the time.
He’d spent two hours on his laptop searching for the magazine article that featured Michel Lynette Monroe. He’d found it and had smiled at how fresh and pretty she looked sitting next to a woman who clearly should have been on the other side of a camera herself. There had been no question of what had first attracted Bell to Ms. Cecile Monroe, an absolutely stunning brunette with lively blue eyes.
Mica was Bell’s daughter alright; they had the same forehead and high cheekbones. The same tenacious spirit and burning curiosity. The same love of business, it seemed, as she was now the owner of Bellamy Motors.
And if Nash didn’t know better, he’d think he’d been falling in love with her.
It was a good thing his phone rang at that moment because he was driving himself crazy having these same thoughts over and over again.
“Yeah?” he answered not really in the mood to talk even though he’d welcomed the intrusion.
“Nash man, you gotta do me a huge favor,” Henley spoke from the other end.
Squeezing the bridge of his nose Nash sighed. “I don’t gotta do anything, Hen. What’s going on?”
“I’m locked up. I just need you to go over to my place and get that bag from inside of the Cheerios box. Bring it down here and bail me out.”
Nash had gone still the moment his brother began speaking. “Dammit Henley! How many times are you going to do this?”
“Look, I don’t need all this talkin’. Can you just go get my money and get me the hell out of here?”
“I’m not gonna keep bailing you out, man. You’ve got to get yourself together,” Nash told him.
“You’renot bailing me out, Nash. It’s my money, remember?”
That wasn’t the point and it was so like Henley to not get that part at all.
“What did you do?” he asked after a heavy sigh.
“I didn’t do anything,” Henley grumbled.
It was his typical response and Nash was tired of hearing it.
“What did they arrest you for?” he asked because it seemed his brother needed the shit broken down for him.
Henley swore. “Are you gonna get the money or not?”
“No,” Nash replied and disconnected the call.
He was tired of Henley and his antics. His brother simply refused to learn. No matter what Nash said, Henley was determined to walk his own path, even if that path was sure to lead to extended jail time, or worse, death. But hell, maybe it was time Nash let him do just that. Maybe it was time Henley spent some hard time in jail as Nash had done all those years ago. He really believed that, and yet, he’d already moved from the recliner and picked up his keys from the table near the door. He was walking out of his apartment in less than five minutes, cursing his brother every step of the way.
There was a sense of dread—much heavier than he’d felt after first receiving Henley’s call—when Nash walked into the police station. That could’ve been attributed to the two men dressed in suits with dour looks on their faces, standing near one of the desks in the front area of the room. They each had their hands in their pockets, pushing their jackets back so that the gun holstered on their side was visible. Deputy Ferris, who Nash had known since high school, was talking quietly to the men. He looked up and greeted Nash with a nod before coming over to speak with him.
“Hey, Ferris,” Nash greeted him because they’d had an occasion or two to chop it up while sitting at the counter having a meal at Lola’s.
“Nash,” Ferris said as he accepted Nash’s outstretched hand for a shake. “I assume Henley called you.”
“Yeah, he did. What’s he in for this time?”
