“Where’d you find that?”
“Dad’s toolbox.”
Graham frowned.
“You were in my toolbox?”
Cassie looked at him.
“Focus.”
Maria laughed.
Graham muttered something under his breath.
Cassie continued.
“I learned the club started because several veterans came home and couldn’t figure out how to be home.”
“Not because they wanted to be dangerous.”
“Not because they hated society.”
“Because they didn’t know where else they fit.”
She looked at Graham.
“My dad once told my mom that riding kept him alive.”
Graham’s face changed.
Cassie saw it.
“You heard that?”
“I was twelve.”
“You were supposed to be asleep.”
“I was twelve.”
Graham nodded.
“Fair.”
Cassie faced the room again.
“I want to understand what that means.”
“I want to understand what the Iron Wolves gave him that doctors, family, and time couldn’t give him by themselves.”
She closed the notebook.
“And if I tell the story, I want to tell it right.”
Nobody laughed.
Hank stood slowly.
His knees cracked.
He looked at Graham.
“You approve this?”
Graham shook his head.
“That’s the wrong question.”
Hank raised one eyebrow.
Graham looked at Cassie.
“She gets through the door because she’s my daughter.”
“Everything after that, she earns.”
Derek spoke.
“What if she gets in the way?”
“Then tell her.”
“What if she can’t keep up?”
“Leave her behind if she refuses to listen.”
Cassie looked at him.
“Dad.”
“You said you wanted the truth.”
Derek smiled slightly.
Graham looked around.
“No special treatment.”
“No private club business unless members agree.”
“No names in her project without permission.”
“No recording when someone says stop.”
“If she breaks trust, she’s done.”
Cassie nodded.
“I agree.”
Hank looked around.
“Anybody object to one trial ride?”
Silence.
Derek stared at the floor.
Maria finally spoke.
“One ride.”
Then she looked at Cassie.
“You complain, we remember it forever.”
Cassie nodded.
“Understood.”
Maria smiled.
“Good.”
Cassie thought the hard part was over.
Three days later, she learned how wrong she was.
The first ride left Rusty’s Bar at seven on a Saturday morning.
Temperature:
Forty-eight degrees.
Cassie wore thermal layers under jeans, riding boots, gloves, and a borrowed armored jacket Maria had insisted on checking herself.
She would ride behind Graham rather than take her own smaller motorcycle.
The route went east through back roads toward the Cumberland Plateau before circling south.
Roughly one hundred and seventy miles.
Cassie had imagined beautiful roads.
She got them.
She had imagined wind.
She had underestimated it.
She had imagined freedom.
She had not imagined what three hours on a motorcycle did to a person’s hips.
By the first stop, her legs felt permanently bent.
Graham parked.
Cassie climbed off.
Or tried.
Her right boot caught slightly.
She stumbled.
Derek saw.
He laughed.
“Doing great, National Geographic.”
Cassie straightened.
“I’m fine.”
Maria appeared with water.
“She’s lying.”
“I am not.”
Maria handed over the bottle.
“First long ride kicks everybody’s ass.”
Cassie drank.
Graham stood nearby pretending not to listen.
Maria continued.
“Don’t try proving something by dehydrating.”
Cassie nodded.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Maria lit a cigarette.
Graham looked over.
“You’re still doing that?”
Maria exhaled toward him.
“You’re still giving unwanted medical advice?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’re both consistent.”
Cassie smiled.
Maria leaned against the guardrail.
Below them, the Tennessee hills folded into one another beneath red maples and orange hickories.
She looked at Cassie.
“Your father tell you why I’m here?”