Free Lone Rider (Motorcycle Club Romance) by Kelly Lawson

 
    LONE RIDER
     
    Tom yanked the keys out of his motorcycle and clipped his helmet on the handlebars before standing up with a sigh. He’d been on the road for nearly nine hours and his body was beginning to ache. He’d decided to stay the night in a small town, but he needed a drink before he chose a place to bed down for the night.
     
    A few months prior to this day he had decided that he needed to get out of his boring life, his boring job, and search for something. He wasn’t sure what he was searching for though, he just knew that he needed to change his life, he needed something new. He wanted fulfilment.
     
    Tom made sure that his motorcycle was secure before he opened the door to the bar. The place was small and intimate, with low lighting and only a few patrons sitting at the long bar and a few others playing a game of pool. Tom kept his head down before taking a seat the furthest away from any of the other customers at the bar.
     
    “What can I get for you, sweetheart?”
     
    “Whatever is cold and on tap.” Tom fished his wallet out of his pocket and glanced around the bar. He had expected it to be some tacky, run down hole in the wall, since it was a fair way from downtown, but he’d been pleasantly surprised when he walked inside. The walls were painted a dark red and the bar was stretched across one wall, a wide variety of alcoholic drinks behind.
     
    “Here you go.”
     
    Tom finally looked away from the scratched wood and up at the woman that placed the sweating beer in front of him. He wasn’t sure what it was about her but he couldn’t help staring at her. While she wasn’t naturally beautiful, there was a certain element to her that caused him to stare like a pervert.
     
    “You can stop staring.”
     
    Tom blinked and handed her the money, shaking his head when she tried to hand the change back to him. It wasn’t that much really, and Tom hated loose change rattling in his pockets. He spun on the barstool and looked at the people in the bar. Most of them were balding men with obscenely large stomachs poking out of the bottom of their shirts.
     
    “Haven’t seen you around here before.”
     
    “Sorry?” He turned back around and took a sip of his beer before smiling at the woman behind the bar.
     
    “I said I haven’t seen you around here before. Are you new or just passing through?”
     
    “I’m Tom and I’m just passing through. I’m on an adventure, you see.” He took another mouthful of his beer and watched as the woman wiped the surface down before sitting on the stool that was behind the bar with a smile.
     
    “Well, I’m Caroline and this is my bar. What adventures are you going on, Tom?”
     
    Caroline. The name seemed to fit the dark haired woman. He found himself shrugging before he started to talk, he wasn’t sure why, but he wanted to tell Caroline all about his adventures.
     
    “My life was boring me, so I decided to get out of it. Sold my house, put all of the furniture and stuff into storage and just got on my bike and started to ride. So far I’ve been to Vegas, Ohio, Mississippi and Washington, and now I’m here in good old Texas to see what I can find.”
     
    “Why did you leave? What was so boring you decided to leave everything you knew behind?” Caroline leaned her elbows on the bar and rested her chin in her clasped hands, still smiling.
     
    “I was an accountant, believe it or not. I just couldn’t do it anymore, it wasn’t me. So I needed a change, and I had nothing really at home for me anyway.”
     
    “I wouldn’t have placed you as an accountant with all the tattoos and your look.” Caroline gestured to him and Tom looked down at his uncovered forearms. It had taken him almost thirteen years to fill both of his arms up with tattoos and he didn’t regret a single one of them. He just shrugged and downed the last of his beer.
     
    “My boss was a bit of a prick; he made me cover them up all the time anyway. I needed to do