His scruffy salt-and-pepper beard looked like it had survived a wind tunnel, and his leather vest was emblazoned with enough patches to start a quilt. A helmet dangled from one hand, and his eyes—those mischievous, twinkling blue eyes—landed on Maggie like they’d been waiting all day just for her.
She froze, mouth open. “You…”
Jo Ellen gave her a little nudge. “Turns out hedidleave his number in that helmet after all.”
Brick strolled closer, his smile growing and making the creases around his eyes even deeper.
“Mags, I liked you before. But springin’ you from jail?” He dipped a little closer and held her gaze. “Now, that’smykind of girl.”
Maggie blinked, then did the only thing she could do—she laughed. One of those startled, out-of-body giggles that slipped right past her ego and straight from her soul. Because of course this ridiculous, grizzled, helmet-toting biker was the one to show up.
He grinned wider. “There’s the laugh I’ve been dreaming of.”
Still stunned, Maggie managed, “How…how did you?—”
Jo Ellen leaned in. “It turns out Brick knows every deputy in Okaloosa County on a first-name basis. Brings them his homemade cheesecake on birthdays, holidays, and days that end in Y. They owed him.”
And he used his cop favor for her. Maggie inched back, seeing him in a new and grateful light. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“Come on, Mags.” He gave a wave to the woman at the front desk. “Thanks, Mary Beth. Tell that daughter of yours to stay off Harleys.”
She laughed. “I will, Brick. And thanks for the cheesecake.”
Feeling like she was in a bad, bad dream, Maggie let Brick lead them through a thick glass door. A sticky Florida night greeted them with all the subtlety of a wet towel.
Maggie looked around, her chest squeezing. “Where’s the car?”
“Angel drove the T-bird to Frank’s house,” Jo Ellen said. “He’s going to park it in the driveway with a little note and we can go get our stuff tomorrow.”
Maggie stared at her. “Then how are we supposed to get home?”
Randy appeared from the shadows with two shiny Harleys parked behind him.
Brick stepped forward like a magician presenting the grand finale. He held out the helmet. “Only one way, Mags. Wrap them legs around me, woman, and let’s ride this hog.”
Her mouth dropped open again. “You cannot be serious. I’m…I’m…I’m wearing linen pants.”
He threw his head back and laughed, then put the helmet over her hair. “And I’m wearing denim dreams, baby. Come on.”
She turned to Jo Ellen for backup. “Tell me we’re not doing this.”
“We are absolutely doing this,” Jo Ellen said, adjusting the chin strap on her own helmet. “They’ll have us home in forty-five minutes and we can sneak into our apartment with no one the wiser.”
“Ooh, I like a woman who sneaks in past curfew.”
“Will you shut up?”
Brick just laughed again, taking Maggie’s hand and walking her toward the bike. She gave a fleeting, desperate look to Jo Ellen, who was laughing with Randy.
She sighed and looked up at him, barely seeing him through the thick edge of the helmet. “Thank you, Brick.”
“Pleasure’s mine, darlin’.”
With no fight left in her, Maggie tightened the chin strap with trembling fingers, slung one leg over the bike, and settled behind Brick.
“Hold tight,” he said, voice low and gravelly. “And you can scream if you want. It’s kinda hot.”
She smacked him in the shoulder. “Just drive, you numbskull, and donotdo that tipping sideways thing that makes my heart stop.”
