Free The Bogus Biker by Judy Nickles

well-fitting jeans, a yellow tank top, gold hoop earrings, and subtle but well-applied makeup. She found Tiny Sam and Jake at the kitchen table drinking coffee, eating three-day-old cinnamon buns, and laughing like they’d known each other all their lives.
    Jake winked at his daughter, and Sam’s eyes moved over every curve revealed by the tank top, a look Penelope couldn’t describe as anything but lecherous. She swept past them and poured herself a cup of coffee, then leaned against the cabinet.
    “I was telling Tiny here about the Toney twins’ trip to Nashville,” Jake said.
    “Sam,” their visitor said. “Tiny’s at the bottom of Pine Branch Creek.”
    “Huh. He better be wearing concrete boots, or he’ll surface somewhere between here and Danville by the end of the week.”
    Sam grinned. “Definitely concrete boots. And by the way, I’ll get that bike out of your garage if you’ll unlock it for me.” He hesitated for a second. “Of course, I can pick the lock just as quick.”
    “I’ll just bet you can,” Penelope said rolling her eyes. “What are you going to do with the bike.”
    “Don’t send it swimming in Pine Branch Creek, too,” Jake said. “It’s a nice one. I checked it out this morning, and it’d be a shame to…”
    “Don’t you even think about it, Daddy! That riding mower is all you need to be tooling around on.”
    Jake lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Henpecked, that’s what I am.”
    Sam slapped at his pocket when something buzzed.
    “You wired?” Jake asked.
    Without answering, the other man got up and strolled into the dining room.
    “He’s a nice sort of fellow,” Jake said.
    Penelope shrugged.
    “You got the hots for him, Nellie?”
    Penelope barely turned to lean over the sink before coffee spewed out of her mouth. “Daddy, really!”
    “You skitter around him like dry leaves in a stiff breeze.”
    “You have a sudden urge to move over to the old folks’ home?”
    Jake winked. “I want a room next to a good-looking woman.”
    “With or without teeth?”
    He laughed and got up, leaving his mug and a scattering of crumbs on the table. “I’m going uptown and see what kind of action I can find. Be back sometime.”
    “Good riddance,” Penelope muttered, but she couldn’t help smiling as she watched him saunter out to his pickup, carefree as a kid—and twice as loveable.
    “Your daddy gone?” Sam asked when he came back to the kitchen.
    “Uptown looking for action. Or so he said.”
    “What kind?”
    “At his age, it won’t be too serious.” Penelope brushed the crumbs from the table into her hand and tossed them in the sink.
    Sam sat down and held out his mug for a refill. “How long were you and Travis Pembroke married?”
    Penelope had a wild impulse to pour the hot coffee over his hand but managed to get it in the cup instead. “Why is it any of your business?”
    “Just curious, that’s all.”
    “Sixteen years. We married as soon as I finished high school.”
    “Isn’t he a lot older than you are?”
    “Only five years. He finished the university and came home the year I was a senior.”
    “Swept you off your feet, huh?”
    “I guess.”
    “When did you manage to work in nursing school?”
    “When Bradley started first grade, the bus brought him half-way up the road to the Point, and someone was always there to meet him, either his grandmother or Mrs. Bessie, the housekeeper.”
    “Worked out then.”
    “Good thing it did. I moved back in here with my parents when Bradley was twelve so I could take care of my mother and decided three years later to get rid of Travis before he got rid of me.”
    “Probably not a bad idea. How well do you know Travis Pembroke?”
    “What kind of question is that? I was married to the man.”
    “That doesn’t mean you knew him.”
    Penelope stirred her coffee. “I guess it doesn’t at that. He likes money, which he has, and anything in skirts, which he can get.”
    “Was he ever into