Rough Ride (Riding with Honor)

  Rough Ride

  Other Books in this Series

  Slow Ride

  Wild Ride

  Long Ride

  Rough Ride

  Riding with Honor series book 1

  Rebecca M. Avery

  This is an original publication of Rebecca M. Avery

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are being used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012

  Rebecca M. Avery

  Cover Design by George Guignet (Miserable George)

  miserableg@mindspring.com

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

  2nd Edition

  Library of Congress Catalog

  ISBN-13: 978-1481144179

  Rough Ride

  Rebecca M. Avery

  To Karen for encouraging me to write in the first place and Kim who believed this was good enough and made me keep going even through the rough parts. Thanks a million.

  Chapter One

  This trip had gone to hell in a hand basket. Sitting alongside the highway only a short distance from her destination, Lilly Warner sighed in frustration. She left the hotel early for the last leg of the journey to her sister’s house in Florida. Now here she sat. Not more than ten or fifteen minutes from her final destination, according to her GPS. The car would not start and she had no idea who to call for help.

  If only the stupid thing could make it to the next exit she would at least be in her sister’s neighborhood. Now along with the cars rushing past along the busy highway, she would have to walk a good ways to get to the exit ramp. Just as she opened her car door a tow truck slowed down and pulled over in front of her car.

  “Oh thank God!” she breathed aloud to the bright blue sky.

  The gratefulness left as quickly as it appeared when a man stepped out of the tow truck. Tall with a large build, he appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties. He had dark salt and pepper streaked hair and a mustache. He also looked like a member of some motorcycle gang as there was a chain attached to the front belt loop of his pants that disappeared around his hip to his back pocket. The t-shirt he wore even advertised some motorcycle shop.

  If not for the friendly lopsided smile that displayed across his face she would likely have locked her car door and dialed 911. He was quite handsome for an older man even despite his rough appearance.

  “We need to get you off the highway ma’am. I can hook your car up to the truck here and take you to the repair shop I work at if you’d like. It’s just one exit up,” he said as he approached her car.

  “I would appreciate that and thank you for stopping, you likely saved me a very long walk,” she replied, stepping out of the vehicle and watching traffic carefully.

  “My name is Richard, but my friends all call me Dickie. Why don’t you have a seat up there in the truck and I’ll get your car all hooked up,” he said.

  She made her way to the front passenger side of the truck and made every attempt to maintain her dignity as she hauled herself up into the seat. Her clothing and height made the task that much harder. At only five foot five inches tall in her high heels, climbing up in the monstrous truck was a feat.

  Once inside she took her cell phone from her purse and tried calling her sister again. Upon receiving Sherri’s voicemail she left a message telling her to call back when she could and that she had car problems and was on her way to a repair shop. Several minutes later Dickie climbed up in the driver’s side and they headed towards the exit dragging her car behind.

  Upon exiting the highway and pulling into the repair shop Dickie parked the truck and helped her out. The building looked like it may have been an old gas station at one time that had been remodeled many years ago. Though run down in appearance it was apparently a popular establishment. Several cars and motorcycles were parked down an alleyway that ran alongside a fence starting at the street and disappearing alongside the building.

  “You can sit in the office while I take a look and see what’s going on,” he said pointing towards a doorway through the open garage bay.

  Stepping inside the tiny office area, she could not believe the mess. Piles of papers were stacked everywhere including in the only available chair. A shelving system ran the length of the side wall and overflowed with papers and opened boxes containing more papers and files. The desk chair was inhabited by a frail looking elderly woman who was ninety if she was a day.

  The woman was thin with perfectly styled, white hair and wore light makeup with red lipstick that Lilly could hardly keep from staring at. Her voice was pleasant but gave away her age had her weathered face and hands not already done so.

  “Well I’ll be. Can I help you miss?” the older woman asked.

  “My car broke down and that man… Dickie…towed it back here and is looking at it now. He told me it would be ok to wait in here until he’s done,” she replied.

  “Why of course. Just let me move some of those papers out of the way and you can sit down. It gets worse and worse every time I come in here. I’m Edna, and what’s your name?” she asked.

  “Lilly. It’s nice to meet you. Don’t worry about me. I’ve been driving for a while so I don’t mind to stand,” she replied.

  “I’m just here trying to help my grandson Bobby. He owns this shop but his bookkeeping and office skills are sorely lacking. I keep hoping he’ll hire a nice, smart girl to run the office, but he only seems to hire tramps that hang out in the garage for a week and then quit,” Edna huffed. “I’m too old to do this kind of work. I don’t know anything about computers and as you can see the paperwork isn’t real organized. I’m not sure I really even do any good, but it keeps my mind active so…I keep coming by.”

  “Anything I can do to help?” Lilly smiled at the look of exasperation on the poor woman’s face.

  “Are you any good with computers?” Edna asked.

  “I know a little. What are you trying to do?” she replied.

  “As I’m sure you’re aware, it’s tax season. And I need to find all the paperwork for this past quarter’s sales and enter it in this program so we can send the file to the tax preparer. I found all the sales receipts I could so far and was going to try and enter them but when I click on the program it just brings up a message,” Edna sighed.

  Lilly made her way around the desk and watched as Edna clicked on the icon. She recognized the bookkeeping software instantly, having used it often for the numerous charity organizations she had helped run before… Shaking her head, Lilly shut down that train of thought and tried to focus on the message the program generated.

  “I think it needs to be updated. I’ve used this program before and they usually send a disk with the updates on it to you through the mail,” she said.

  “Oh! Good Lord! It’s hard to say where that might be in all this mess,” Edna said, clearly overwhelmed.

  “Do you mind if I take a look? I know what it would look like so I might be able to spot it easier,” she suggested.

  “Please, by all means. I’ll even share my lunch with you if you can find it,” Edna offered with a smile.

  She smiled at the woman and proceeded to shuffle through several stacks that appeared to be a month’s worth of mail. After several minutes of digging Lilly found an envelope containing the updates for the software and quickly opened it.

  “Here you sit down here and I’ll get Dickie to bring in another chair and maybe between the two of us we
can figure this out,” Edna said as she stood and made for the door.

  Lilly sat down at the desk. After moving more piles of papers off the top of the computer tower she put in the CD and the install program came up. She began the installation and unable to stop herself began sifting through the pile of paperwork Edna had laid down on her way to the door.

  The stack contained invoices for repair work, all handwritten. She excelled at office work but after she and Darren married, she conceded to staying home to run the household as he had wanted her to. Now that she was on her own, she wanted to go back to work… to feel needed and like she was contributing to something other than being one half of a marriage.

  Darren’s life insurance policy was substantial but it wouldn’t be enough to live on forever and besides… Her sister Sherri was right… she needed to start living again. A job might just be the thing.

  Once her car was repaired and she made it to Sherri’s house, she’d start looking for job opportunities in this part of the country. Having married when she was in her junior year of college, she’d only ever worked part time or as part of her internship to graduate.

  After graduating they moved to Long Island, near her in-laws and were quite happy for the next ten years. All that changed two years ago with Darren’s car accident and her fairy tale life had crashed along with him.

  Now she was alone other than her sister. Their parents died when she and Sherri were still in high school. She had been unable to conceive and though she and Darren talked about adopting a child, it just did not happen. After the accident she sold off the large home that was too painful for her to live in and moved into an apartment in town.

  Then when that had also proven too painful she decided to drive south and stay with her sister for a while. Now here she was in small-town Florida, after moving most of her belongings into storage, packing some of her clothes and driving for the past two days.

  Darren had never really approved of Sherri or her lifestyle. Unlike her, Sherri was a party girl and hung around a very rough crowd. Sherri had been there for her though when Lilly’s life had crumbled down around her.

  Many late night phone calls and a little more than a year later, Sherri convinced Lilly to come down and stay with her for a while. Lilly wasn’t sure what her sister’s life was really like now. She knew it was a far cry from the lifestyle she’d lived for the past decade.

  She began sorting the piles of papers around her into several piles. She made one pile for invoices or money coming into the business and another for bills or money going out of the business. A third stack was created for unopened mail and a fourth for miscellaneous paperwork that she was unsure about.

  She cleared a fairly good portion of the desk area around the keyboard, mouse and monitor when Edna returned with Dickie in tow. Dickie carried a chair for the older woman and Lilly smiled that this gruff, leather and chain wearing man was being so respectful. He carried the chair around and sat it next to the chair she was sitting in.

  “Well look at that, there’s a desk under there,” he said smiling at her.

  “Land sakes, you started without me,” Edna said, sitting down in the chair Dickie provided and smiling at her.

  Dickie walked back out to the garage area while she finished up the installation of the software upgrade and was able to successfully open the program. She explained to Edna how she had separated the piles of papers and offered to move out of the way. Before Edna could reply, the office door opened and looking up she was stunned by the man who approached them.

  He was even bigger than Dickie with muscular arms, shoulders and a chest that was squeezed into a black t-shirt which accompanied dirt streaked jeans that fit nicely on his frame. He had very dark brown hair that was almost black in color hanging in curls to just past his shoulders. Women would kill for hair like that.

  A matching goatee covered his chin but didn’t hide his well-defined lips and white teeth. Dark brown eyes sat below very dark arched eyebrows that made him appear as though he was scowling. On closer look, maybe he was scowling… at her!

  “Oh Bobby, I’m glad your back!” Edna said. “I want you to meet Ms. Lilly. Her car broke down and Dickie’s out there working on it. She helped me fix the computer program and now that it’s running we were going to work on some of this paperwork. She already cleaned a good patch of the desk off.”

  The dark eyed man stared at her and somehow she could feel his burning gaze. It made her unusually aware of her own body, as well as his. She could feel herself blush and she looked away from him. She couldn’t meet his eyes as they seemed to burn straight through her. He was so not her type and she was surprised at her physical reaction to him.

  Handing a bag of what smelled like lunch to Edna he said, “You don’t need to do that, Gran. Eat your lunch and I’ll run you home here in about a half hour.”

  He pulled a large fountain soda out of the drink carrier in his other hand and sat it on the counter. With that he glanced again at her, and quickly looked away. Then he left the office. She could not remember feeling so uncomfortable or awkward around a person in her life. She let go of a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  “Maybe I should just get a cab to run me to my sister’s house. I could always have her bring me back when my car is ready,” she offered.

  “Now I owe you half my lunch and I’ll never eat it all anyways. He always forgets I don’t eat as much as he and the other boys do. He always gets me way too big of a sandwich and French Fries too.” Edna replied “Would you mind to work while we eat though, I could use all the help I can get if we’re to get his taxes done on time this year.”

  With that Edna laid out a napkin for herself and one for Lilly and then spread some fries on each. Then after tearing the sandwich apart, she sat Lilly’s half on a napkin and took a bite out of her own.

  She began entering the information from the stacks into the computer, while Edna continued going through papers on the desk adding to the four stacks. They ate and talked while they worked. She had never met anyone like Edna. She asked all kinds of questions but somehow rather than seeming nosy, she seemed to genuinely care. Lilly talked about her educational background and mentioned that she might start looking for a job once she got settled. As they finished up the last of the food, the door to the office opened and Dickie entered.

  “Bobby wants to know if you’re ready to head home Gran?” he said

  “I suppose. We’ve done a week’s worth of work in a little more than an hour. Bless your heart for helping an old woman,” she said smiling and patting Lilly’s hand.

  “We need some parts for your car that we don’t have here at the shop. We work mainly on motorcycles so I’ll have to get what I need at the parts store once I drop Gran off at home. It shouldn’t take me more than a half an hour as it’s just round the corner,” Dickie said to her.

  Edna gathered her purse and a few other items and followed Dickie out to the garage. Lilly was unsure if she should stay and wait or maybe call her sister to pick her up. She had tried calling earlier while riding in the tow truck with Dickie but no one had answered. Unsure what to do, she decided to continue working and help out Edna.

  She worked steadily until she realized that she could now see the entire top of the desk. Glancing up at the clock she discovered that nearly three hours had passed since Edna left. She had devoured the busy work like a starving man presented with a buffet.

  Worry set in when she realized that no one had come back in to the office to update her on her car situation. Did they even remember she was here?

  Saving the work she had entered into the computer, she stood and made for the garage attempting to step over and around the piles of paperwork scattered about. Opening the door of the office she peeked out into the garage area. Her car’s hood was up and Dickie appeared to be messing with something while a younger man, she hadn’t met, sat half in the driver’s side attempting to start it.

  He was wearing a welding ma
sk and bent over a large rounded piece of metal with a welding torch in his hand. His muscles bulged in the tight t-shirt and none of them seemed to notice she even existed. As she slowly made her way to her car and the young man sitting in the driver’s seat noticed her.

  The younger man looked to be in his early twenties with short spiky blonde hair and blue eyes. He wore slightly baggy jeans with a red t-shirt and a matching red hat that he had turned backwards. His arms were covered in tattoos but he smiled at her as she approached.

  “Hey Dickie, you’ve got company,” he said.

  Moving out from under the hood, Dickie sighed heavily, “I think it might be the starter, and the parts store will have to order one. Can I give you a lift somewhere? I will start back in on it first thing tomorrow, but I don’t think there’s much more I can do to it today.”

  The blonde man exited her car and walked over to Bobby who had turned off the welding torch and pulled off the mask. After indicating he was leaving for the day the young man walked out of the open garage door and headed down the street on a motorcycle a few minutes later. She relayed her sister’s address to Dickie who looked over at Bobby.

  “I can take her it’s on my way and the opposite way for you,” Bobby said.

  Oh God. She would have to be alone with this dark brooding man who made her nervous and left her feeling flushed.

  “You sure you don’t mind?” Dickie replied. Bobby simply shook his head no. A man of few words it seemed. With that Dickie headed out of the garage and hopped into the tow truck which was now parked next to another truck with tinted windows.

  “I just need to get a few things out of my car if that’s ok?” she said quietly and moved to the rear of the vehicle.

  Grabbing her small overnight bag which held her personal grooming items and makeup along with a small handheld bag which contained a nightgown, a skirt and blouse for the following day, she quickly closed the trunk again.