Free Survivor: Steel Jockeys MC by Evelyn Glass

ever, and holding out his hand to Ruby who, predictably, ignored him. It was strange to look at her for the first time though. as they'd been so close for the past hour and a half. She sat stiffly on the back of the bike, looking straight ahead, her gray-green eyes big and deep and sad. Her hands were shoved in the pockets of her sweater, and her curly chestnut hair looked like a squirrel's nest with its knots and tangles, partially plastered against her olive skin. Her lips had become chapped and she chewed on piece of loose skin nervously. Joe, realizing he was staring, grabbed for the gas pump before his emotions got revealed any further.
     
    It was an almost physical agony, knowing how wrong Ruby had it, how Fox had her so completely brainwashed that she didn't understand that it was Fox who had betrayed them. On the other hand, Joe wasn't guiltless himself. What a mess. If only there was a movie that he could rewind to get Ruby to see that night through his eyes. Then, even if she still decided to condemn him, at least she'd know that Kyle’s culpability had had not been one of malice, but failure.
     
    "Are you sure you don't need to use the bathroom, at least?" he ventured carefully, as he watched the numbers on the pump tick up, mentally measuring the figure against the dollars he had wadded up in the money clip in his pocket. Whatever he had left over after paying was going to get his bike out of the impound lot. "There's not a whole lot between here and Fresno." She ignored him. "Ruby?" he called again.
     
    No sign of her. He turned around in a circle, but only saw a pickup pulling up under the lights and a grizzled guy exiting, opening a pack of Camels and some beef jerky. He raced to the door of the store, heart starting to thump, pushing hot blood into his head and chest, grim realization making his boots seem to stick to the pavement as if it were wet cement.
     
    He should have done more--she'd been terrified, he cursed himself. And he'd only been able to offer awkward overtures and smartass comments to assuage her fears. Now he was paying the price. "Ruby?" he shouted.
     
    His stomach did a somersault as he remembered what he'd stashed in the Harley's right saddlebag. Frantically, he reached down for it, only to find a gaping void. Ruby's handbag, wallet, and cell phone were gone, and so was the gun.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
     
    She barely looked ahead of her, but over across the service road, there was a sign reading "dead end". She glimpsed the outbuilding of a farm, surrounded by fields and behind that, brambly woods. Maybe if she made it in there, Joe couldn't, or wouldn't, follow her. Sure, he rode a bike like a demon--it had been impossible not to notice that for the past hour and a half as she sat with her thighs up against the curve of his back, desperate not to get too close or comfortable, for fear that it would lead to letting her guard down. He rode recklessly into the wind, his body as hard and solid as the chrome beneath them, sheltered her from the wind so that that it took the bite out of the ride, almost as if he were doing it on purpose. But would he go blindly chasing her into unfamiliar woods without a ton of chrome underneath him?
     
    Far away, from back in the parking lot, she thought she could hear him call her name. It wasn't an angry shout; more concerned, almost desperate. Anyway; it was too late. She steeled herself. She was already on her feet and halfway across the torn-up soybean field behind the service station, overgrown with branches and weeds. It was larger and wider than it had looked from the parking lot. She was already exhausted and disoriented from the events earlier that day. The soil beneath her was wet and poor, as if some farmer had rightly abandoned it, and it oozed into the cheap stitching of her ballet flats, miring her feet with every step. This was her one chance, she knew, and she'd already taken it.
     
    Suddenly, a noise halfway between a moan and a scream welled