Eve: Drink Of Me (F&L Story #2)

Eve: Part 8

Part 8

May 20, 2010 Thursday

Clint couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned all night, and when morning came, he decided a hobby might just be the thing to work through his frustrations. He called in to the clinic, rescheduled his appointments with a junior oncologist, and set out on his bike to the country where his long-time friend Maisy lived.

She was out in her front yard, tearing through her front flowerbed with a vigor that amused him. Maisy barely reached his shoulder, and her slight frame reminded him of a child, but he’d never tell her that. With her wild curls flying around her head, she was a tornado of action with everything she did.

“Clint, what brings you out here?” Maisy removed her gardening gloves with her teeth and smiled up at him, craning her neck to look him in the eye.

“Had to get out of the city for a while,” he said, slipping from his truck. “And I was hoping you still had that old cruiser you wanted to sell.”

She pursed her lips at him. “Sorry, doc, Randy finally sold that heap to the Miller boys down the street. I told him not to, but it’d been growing cobwebs for a while out in that old barn.”

“Well, shit,” he mumbled.

“I thought you just bought a bike,” she said, waving him out of the sun to her wrap-around porch.

“I did, but Jerry suggested that I find a hobby to work off some steam.”

“Ah,” she said, nodding her head. “And how is my wayward cousin? You tell him that I’m gonna kick his butt if he misses one more Sunday school class. Damn man shows up for the sermon, but burns rubber afterward.” She sighed and asked if he wanted some tea.

“Sure, thanks. You think Randy might want to sell that old Honda of his, then?”

“Hell, no,” she exclaimed, disappearing into the house. She returned a few minutes later with two glasses of iced tea. “Ran joined this club a last month, and now he’s riding almost every weekend. But we’ve got my Indian still. I haven’t rode since my accident, and I’ve been thinking of getting rid of it. It needs some work, though.”

“Your Indian Chief? You’re getting rid of it?” He couldn’t believe it. Maisy had that bike for twenty years. She’d crossed the country twice on it. It was her baby. Her love. Her reason for meeting her husband, Randy.

She gulped her drink. “Yeah,” she moaned. “It kills me, but I can’t get the nerve to get on it again. And I’d rather someone I know and trust have it.” She grinned up at him. “I’ll sell it cheap.”

A 1953 Indian Chief Roadmaster. Clint nearly wet himself. And she’d sell it cheap. Hell, did they even make parts for those anymore? It might cost him an arm and a leg – and a few vital organs – to restore such a thing of beauty, not to mention just financing the sixty-thousand dollar bike. And Maisy’s had hot pink hearts shooting off from the tank. A true road beast decked out in girly décor.

He didn’t hesitate for long. “How much?”

She winked, pulled him down to whisper in his ear. His eyes popped out of his head. No way. “You’re shittin’ me,” he said.

“Nope,” she said. “The insurance itself is pulling me under. It’s yours if you want it.”

“Oh, I definitely want it,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. God, how he loved his friends. Loyalty paid off, that was for sure. “I’ll call my bank and get you your money by the end of the day,” he promised.