Page 3 of My Ex-Military Biker

I shake that memory away and slow down, pulling over twenty feet past her.

The silence after the engine cuts is total. No wind. No other traffic. Just heat and stillness and the sound of my own breathing.

I sit on the bike for three seconds. This is still a choice. I could start it back up. Keep riding.

Someone else will come along eventually…

I get off the bike.

The movement pulls the wound wider. Fresh blood, warm and spreading. I feel it and file it under problems to address shortly. Walk back toward her. My boots are loud on gravel in the quiet.

She looks up when I'm still ten feet away.

Her eyes are clear. That's the first thing I notice. No tears. No panic. Just shock.

She sees the blood on my shirt immediately. I watch her eyes track to it, assess, move back to my face. She stands. The movement is economical, brushing gravel off the dress without appearing to think about it.

Then she takes two steps toward me.

She's looking at the blood. I'm looking at her.

Round face. Full cheeks. Wide mouth. Her body is soft everywhere the dress shows, which is her shoulders, her arms, the heavy curve of her breasts above the neckline. The dress is fitted through the bodice, pulling tight across her chest and ribs before flaring out at the waist into all that fabric.

I look back to her face before the looking becomes obvious.

"Car trouble?" I ask.

"Yes."

Her voice is steady. I file that information too.

"How long have you been here?"

"I don't know. Twenty minutes, I guess. I wasn't really tracking time."

"You know where you are?" I ask.

"No."

"Bloomfield's three miles that way." I nod east. "Nearest gas station with a tow truck is eighteen miles back the way you came."

She absorbs this without visible reaction. Looks at her car. The hood is up. No smoke, but something under there gave up. Looks back at me.

"How bad is it?" she asks.

Takes me a second to realize she means the wound, not the car.

"Not bad."

"Can I see?"

I lift my shirt.

I watch her eyes track the length of the cut. She doesn't touch it.

When she looks back up, her evaluation is clear before she speaks.

"That needs to be cleaned and dressed properly. What you've got now won't hold."