I should get on my bike, instead I hear myself say, “One drink.”
Her grin widens instantly like she knew that’s exactly how this was going to go. “Perfect,” she says, turning toward the door. “Try not to break anything else in my parking lot while we’re inside.”
Then she glances back over her shoulder at me as she pushes the door open. “And Ghost?”
I stop a step behind her. “Yeah?”
“That whole mysterious silent biker thing you’ve got going on?” she says. Her eyes flick briefly over my shoulder where the three men had been standing a few minutes ago. “It’s working.”
Fucking hell, she’s got a set of balls on her. The back door swings open and the warm noise of the bar spills out into the night. Music, laughter, the dull crack of pool balls hitting each other. It’s a sharp contrast to the quiet that had settled over theparking lot after the three men peeled out of it a few minutes ago.
Rae steps inside like she owns the place.
Which, from the way she moves behind the bar, she kind of does.
I follow her through the doorway, ducking slightly out of habit as I cross the threshold. The smell of beer, fried food, and old wood wraps around me again, familiar and comfortable in a way bars always are. A couple people glance up when we come back in, their eyes drifting toward the door like they’re trying to figure out whether something interesting just happened outside.
Rae doesn’t give them time to ask.
She slides behind the bar with practiced ease, grabbing two bottles from the cooler without even looking down.
“Sit,” she says, nodding toward a stool near the end of the counter.
It’s not really a request.
I take the seat anyway, resting my forearms loosely on the bar while she pops the caps off both bottles with the edge of the counter. One slides across the wood toward me, stopping neatly under my hand.
She keeps the other one for herself.
“That’s on the house,” she says, taking a sip. “Wayne will complain about it later, but he’ll get over it.”
I glance down at the beer before lifting my eyes back to her.
“You always buy drinks for strangers who fight in your parking lot?”
She leans one hip against the counter and studies me again, the same curious look from outside settling back into place.
“Only the useful ones.”
My mouth twitches slightly.
Around us the bar has returned to normal. The truckers at the far end are arguing about something involving highway construction, and the guys at the pool table have started another game like nothing unusual happened tonight.
But Rae’s attention stays on me.
“So,” she says after a moment, taking another drink. “You just wander around small towns solving people’s problems for fun, Ghost?”
“Something like that.”
She snorts softly. “That’s the most non-answer I’ve heard all week.”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“I run a bar,” she says. “It’s practically a job requirement.”
She taps her bottle lightly against the wood and tilts her head again, the same thoughtful gesture she keeps making when she’s studying me. “You from around here?”
“No.”
