the helmet he’s offering me, pulling it on and strapping it beneath my chin.
“Alright, if that’s how you want it. So, where to? The night’s young and clearly can’t get any worse. How about I take you out and we have some fun? You can think of it as a bad-date chaser.”
I know I shouldn’t be going anywhere with him. I’m too shaken up over my disastrous blind date. The alarm bells ringing at the apartment tonight were obviously wrong. It wasn’t Ellery’s snake I needed to be worried about, it’s Sam’s. Unfortunately, I don’t have it in me to say no to my rescuer right now.
“As long as we’re going someplace that doesn’t require footwear,” I say, climbing onto the bike behind him. I tuck my skirt beneath my thighs so as not to expose myself to all of Harlow County on the ride.
“Keep your feet up and hold on tight.”
I wrap my arms around Sam and lean forward, laying my cheek against the supple leather of his jacket. The softness of it acts in conflict to the hard muscles beneath, and it has me feeling things I have no business feeling. Sam kicks the motorcycle into life, and the power of the engine rushes through me. I strain my ears, listening for alarm bells over the bike’s deep rumble, but I can’t hear them. If there’s ever been a time for my senses to warn me about making a mistake, it’s now.
“You ready to go find us some trouble?” he calls back to me.
Too late, I’ve already found it.
Sam steers us down a winding dirt road encased by hundred-year-old oak trees. The smell of cologne on his neck is making it very difficult to concentrate and I find myself in jeopardy of losing my balance when he pulls hard to the right. My cheek sticks a bit to the back of his jacket as I lift my head to see where he’s taken me. Sam brings the bike to a stop outside a dingy looking building on the bank of a small lake, and cuts the engine. The silence of the night air seems even louder than the full throttle of the Harley.
I unwrap my arms from around him so he can dismount the bike first. My dress has crept up during the ride and Sam gets an eyeful of my pale thighs when I swing my leg around the bike and grab the hand he’s offering, rising unsteadily on my shoeless feet. “Where are we?” I ask, eyeing the old house with skepticism.
“This here is the best little whiskey bar in the good state of Texas,” he says, stowing our helmets in the saddlebags. “It’s called Clara’s after the owner Clara Sanchez. It doesn’t look like much but she’s got whiskey in this joint that dates back to your granddad’s granddad, not to mention one hell of a dance floor out back.”
To say Clara’s doesn’t look like much is like saying Ellery thinks feet are just ‘okay.’ The place is a dump, and I mean no disrespect to dumps everywhere. The paint is peeling from the house, the old porch is weathered with age and appears to be rotting in places, and it’s likely the landscaper was Freddy Krueger. The only thing missing is a chainsaw and some old baby dolls with scratched-out eyes.
“I can see by your face you’re not going to take me at my word, but you’ve got to trust me. You’ll love it.”
Sensing my hesitation, Sam comes close to me and places his hand at the small of my back. The feel of him so near has me trembling in my non-existent shoes. I look up, meeting those earnest hazel eyes, and I know my willpower’s on its last leg.
“Come on, Ellie. Trust me.”
Sam keeps his hand on my lower back the entire walk up to the bar’s front door and by the time I step onto the old pine floors, I’m ready to climb him like a tree. Luckily the bar proves to be a welcome and startling distraction. As opposed to the mangled and grimy exterior, the inside of the bar is warmly lit by old gas lamps and the crooning melodies of olden days emanate from a vintage jukebox in the corner. I breathe in the sweet smell of matured liquor in oak caskets and look around at the mingled patrons. I was expecting a rough-looking crowd—butchers with bloody aprons, possibly some small children with black eyes crawling backward on