Page 9 of Open Road

“Valdosta.”

“Georgia. That’s a ways.”

“I know.”

Rose tugs on the jacket again. “Mama, can we see the clubhouse?”

Janie looks at the dead car, the empty highway, and me. This time it’s different from the first look, different from all the looks since. Something is underneath the assessment, making a decision that the assessment alone couldn’t make.

“How far did you say?” she asks.

“Forty minutes.”

She looks down at Rose, who looks up with the absolute confidence of a child who hasn’t yet been taught that the world doesn’t deserve it.

“Okay,” she says.

I pull out my phone. Creed answers on the second ring. “Yeah.” It’s nearly three-thirty in the morning, but he doesn’t sleep like other people.

“Bringing two in,” I say. “Woman and a kid. Need somewhere safe.”

A pause because he is running the numbers, reading the angle from forty miles away. Creed has known me twenty-two years. He’s hearing something in my voice I haven’t admitted to myself yet.

“Define safe,” he says.

“From a husband.”

Silence.

Then, “Gate’ll be open.”

Done. No conditions, no questions. That’s what years of trust and friendship bring.

I put my phone away.

Janie is watching me, and she doesn’t ask about the call. She is also smart enough to know what she needs to know and disciplined enough not to reach for the rest.

“The bike,” I say. “Rose rides on the tank, in front of me. You ride pillion, behind me, arms around my waist, feet on the pegs.” I meet her eyes. “She’ll be held. Both of you will.”

Janie looks at the Softail. She does the math—the width and height of the tank, the distance between her arms and the ground, working out exactly how much of herself this requires her to hand over.

Quite a lot.

She knows it.

“Okay,” she says.

She goes to the trunk and pulls out a bag, small, tight, packed by someone who knew they’d be carrying it fast. The leaving has been rehearsed enough times that it’s become efficient.

Rose gets lifted onto the tank. She grabs my forearms with both hands the second her weight settles and grins like we are absolutely about to do something excellent. Warm and small between my arms, she smells like sleep and kid shampoo. I reach into my saddlebag, pull out my sunglasses, and set them on her face.

“Mine now,” she announces and then giggles.

The sunglasses sit crooked, and she doesn’t fix them. Neither do I.

Janie gets on behind me. Careful about where her hands land and how much contact she makes, finding the pegs with her feet before letting her weight commit. Her hands come to rest at my sides. They’re barely there. A woman taking up as little space as possible.

Every careful inch of it, registered.