His Forbidden Bride: 50 Loving States, West Virginia (10 page)

M
eirton isn’t exactly a city
, or even a small town. It’s more a collection of brick buildings and maybe a hundred or so houses gathered around one main street. However, it’s big enough to have a local police station, and most importantly, a hardware store.

After dropping John off at the station, I find what I need at the family-owned store. But by the time I check out, I’m already thinking twice about my plan to meet John at the town’s only diner for lunch.

The hardware store cashier isn’t mean, but he does seem awfully confused by a black woman coming into his store to buy an oscillating saw.

“You shopping for Father’s Day?” he asks me, voice suspicious.

Then he looks even more confused when I tell him I’m a doctor over at UWV/Mercy and need the tool to cut off my boyfriend’s cast.

He frowns me all the way out the door, and I’m relieved to pass the time until I’m supposed to meet John at a cozy little independent bookstore next to the shop.

Sipping on green tea, I buy a Karin Slaughter novel I haven’t read yet, and it feels a little like serendipity when I spot a baby name book on my way to the cash register.

The lady behind the cash register perks up when she sees the titles of my two books. “Oh, so you’re expecting a baby! I should have known. You have that glow about you.”

“No,” I answer with a laugh, though she’s strangely not the only person who’s accused me of glowing. A few days ago, my attending straight up asked if I was seeing somebody. I’d demurred and shifted to the topic of the research I’d be doing in Seattle in the hopes that would put her off her question.

“It’s for a friend,” I tell the cashier for the same reason. To avoid any more questions. To avoid labeling John before I leave him behind.

“Oh, well then! Congratulations to her,” the cashier says. “Strange, I usually have such a good instinct about these things. Knew my sister was having a boy before she even opened her mouth to tell me she was pregnant. My mama swears I’m psychic.”

I don’t have the heart to break down all the scientific evidence against the existence of psychic powers. Or to tell her the glow is due to the fact that I’ve spent the last four weeks getting sexed beyond my wildest dreams by the sweetest, hottest, most understanding man I’ve ever known.

No wonder I’m grinning from ear to ear when I enter the diner where we agreed to meet. The place looks like it hasn’t been renovated since it’s founding back in the sixties, when Meirton was a major coal town. And yes, as a matter of due course, tinny mullet rock is playing on the speakers overhead.

But the waitress behind the counter greets me with a happy, “Hey, hon! Sit anywhere you want.”

So though it’s doubtful I’ll find much of a vegan selection in a place like this, I feel comfortable enough to find an empty booth next to the window. But then I frown when I glance at my watch. It’s ten minutes past the time we agreed to meet and John’s still not here.

“
How’s it going?”
I text him.

“Good. Almost done. I’ll be there in a few.”

“What can I get you, hon?” asks the same waitress who greeted me, coming up to the table with an order pad. She looks like she’d be perfectly cast in the role of a weathered, small-town waitress with frosted blond hair.

I order John the meatiest thing on the menu and tell her I’ll be eating the salad that comes with it, so please bring them both out at the same time. Then I pick up my phone to check my brother and mom’s Twitter feeds.

My mother is having “an inspiring time” on her sermon tour across America. And apparently Curt just killed it as BuhBouncye, a taller and plumper version of the Queen B, in a Montreal nightclub last night. Looking over his feed, my heart lets go of a little pang because I didn’t even know he was working on a new character. Strange, I’d come to West Virginia to get away from my family, and I’d chosen Seattle because it was close, but not too close to them. But now even that compromise doesn’t feel like enough. Because the closer I move back to them, the farther I’ll be moving away from John.

“Hey, Doc,” John drops into the booth seat across from me.

“Hi!” I quickly switch the phone off and smile at the backpack he’s carrying. “Mission accomplished?”

He nods, but looks tense. “Yeah. The police had a few more questions for me before they’d give me back my bag, though. Sorry I’m late.”

“A few questions must have been a lot,” I observe, glancing at my watch. “I dropped you off over an hour ago.”

“They got a menu?” he asks, looking around.

I’m about to tell him I already ordered when our conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the waitress with our food… and the unholy sound of several motorcycle engines.

Both John and I turn to look out the diner’s plate glass window just in time to view something I’ve only ever seen on TV. A white motorcycle gang, in what I can’t help but refer to as “full costume” after growing up in L.A. and my one semester at performing arts college. They look straight out of central casting with flat black helmets, patched up denim vests, and a ton of tattoos. A few of them even have face tats.

Maybe I’m just imagining things, but every single one of them seems to be staring at us as they cruise by on their bikes. Not Harleys, I can see from here. And the lack of brand identification let’s me know they are in fact a real motorcycle gang, and not actors hired to look like one.

I watch them pull up to a dive bar a bit further down the street. And my heart pinches a little less tightly when they start removing their helmets and filing into the club. Many of them are shouting so loudly, I can hear them from where I’m sitting through the plate glass.

“The New Rebels,” the waitress who brought us our food says, drawing our attention back to her. “They’re based a few towns over, but sometimes they come over here to drink at that bar down the street. Damn nuisance if you ask me. Just hope they don’t come in here looking for food.”

As if called forward by her wish not to have them in her establishment, two of the bikers make their way back up the street and crash through the diner door. Stomping in their big boots toward a small table right across from us.

“That section isn’t open,” the waitress says, not bothering to cloak her irritation.

“It is now, sweet tits,” the bigger of the two men answers. He points at John’s plate. “I’ll take the same as him.”

“Me too,” his companion says. He’s skinny with a paunch. Probably in his late twenties, I think to myself, but with the dark, under eye circles and patchy skin of a man twice his age. Twenty going on forty because of what I can only assume are a number of shitty lifestyle choices.

The waitress huffs away, but I have a feeling she’ll be a lot faster with their order than she was with ours. At least, I hope so.

A chill runs down my back when they both turn in their seats and openly stare at us. My earlier sense, about this maybe not being the best town for an interracial lunch outing, comes back strong. And I peek over at John to see how he’s handling their aggressive double stare.

John doesn’t look remotely intimidated. In fact, he returns their hard stares with one of his own. “Can I help you?” he asks, flat and mean.

The bigger biker has the word “PRESIDENT” patched across the right side of his denim vest, and I’ve watched enough episodes of
Devil Riders
to know that most likely means he’s the leader of the gang that pulled up to the bar. He looks from John to me. Back to him, then back to me again.

“Heard you were at the police station earlier, friend,” he says to John while continuing to squint hard at me.

Cold dread seizes my chest. This is bad, and only going to get worse if we stay here. I throw a twenty down on the table and scoot out of the booth.

“C’mon let’s go,” I tell John.

“We’re not done eating yet,” John answers, his eyes never leaving the bikers.

“I know, but I’m not feeling well and I’d really like to go. Right now. Please,” I whisper.

“You don’t feel well, Doc?” John asks, worry replacing the hard edge in his tone.

I nod, happy to lie if it means avoiding what I know will be a confrontation. A really bad one.

“Okay,” he says, as if my welfare matters more than anything else in his world. “C’mon, let’s go.”

But before we can move forward, the biker president stands up. “Would you look at that?” he observes to the skinny biker with a snicker. “His nigger bitch is scared of us. What’d we ever do to her?”

And just like that, John’s quiet deference to my supposed sickness disappears. In an instant he’s launching himself at the biker president with the reflexes of a crazed and dangerous animal.

“John, no!” I scream.

But he’s already throwing a punch before I’m done begging him not to. His fist slices across the biker president’s face so hard, blood spews from his meaty nose.

So hard, the man falls right at the other biker’s feet.

The skinny biker’s mouth drops open at the sight of his leader groaning on the floor. But then his face goes nasty and hard…right before he pulls a very big gun from beneath his jacket.

My heart screeches to a stop, even as behind me, chaos erupts. The mullet rock playing overhead is completely drowned out by a soundtrack of patrons yelling, “He’s got a gun!!!!” and running toward the door.

I don’t run. Though I grew up in Compton with strict instructions about what to do when guns were whipped out, I find myself unable to take any kind of cover, unable to leave John with these violent thugs. I’m too afraid for him on several different levels, starting with his head injury and ending with potentially fatal gun shot wound.

“Shoot him!” the fallen biker yells from the floor. “Show ‘im what happens when a nigger-fucker messes with The New Rebels!”

“John, don’t!” I shout when he takes a step toward the huge biker, good fist curled tight. “Please don’t, baby…”

This time, John actually seems to hear me. He raises both hands in the universal sign of surrender. “Okay, okay…” he starts to say. “I don’t want any more trouble—”

—only to whip his good hand out, faster than a snake. He snatches the gun out of the younger biker’s hand. At the same time, he places a sneaker-clad foot on the neck of the biker he knocked to the ground. Effectively holding one biker down while holding the other at gun point.

Yet his voice sounds calm as a summer day when he says, “Now, I think you two owe my lady an apology.”

“I’d fucking let you put a bullet in me before I ever say sorry to a nig—” the biker president starts to choke out.

But he’s interrupted by the skinny biker’s frantic, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, ma’am. Please don’t kill me, sir. Oh God, please don’t kill me! I wasn’t really going to use it. I swear!”

John accepts the biker’s apology with a squint of his glittering blue eyes. Then he transfers the gun from the small biker to the big one. “How about you, Bubba? What you want to do here? Apologize or die?”

To his racist credit, the biker president actually seems to consider sticking to his fucked up morals for a few seconds. But I guess a gun is a helluva persuader, because he finally mumbles, “Sorry,” not quite looking at me or the gun.

I try to answer them, open my mouth to diffuse the situation as best I can before the police arrive. But I don’t feel right. The restaurant is hot and the world is spinning.

“Doc? Doc?” John’s voice says, farther away in the distance than it should be.

That’s the last thing I hear before I’m stumbling down, down…

* * *

T
he next thing I know
, I’m being shaken awake.

I open my eyes and find myself flat on my back with my legs being held in the air by the diner’s waitress. Meanwhile, a paramedic I’ve met a few times at UWV/Mercy is shaking me awake, yelling, “Dr. Dunhill! Dr. Dunhill! Wake up, doctor. Come on back to us.”

I blink, woozy and confused. “Monty?” I ask.

“Good, she’s coming to.” To the waitress, Monty says, “You can drop her legs now.”

“Where’s your uniform?” I ask when I’m free to sit all the way up.

Monty grins, glancing down at his simple short sleeve button-up and jeans ensemble.

“I was pulling up to have a bite to eat with the wife and kids when that ruckus broke out. I started hustling Shannon and the kids back to the car and then a waitress came out yelling they needed a doctor inside. So I locked the family in the car and responded to the call.”

He throws a wry look at the crowd gathered behind him. Strange. All the patrons who went running as soon as a gun was drawn now seem to be back in triple fold. I can only thank the good God this isn’t L.A., where the first instinct of every person in the place would have been to pull out a camera phone and roll tape.

But then I notice someone is missing from the crowd. “Where’s John?” I ask, scanning the surrounding faces, none of which belong to him.

The paramedic grimaces. “I was afraid he might be telling the truth when that John Doe told the police he was here with you. They hauled him away, along with those two bikers.”

“It wasn’t his fault!” I start to explain. Then feeling silly, I let Monty help me all the way to my feet before explaining, “He took the gun off the biker. Oh my God, I have to go get him! Where exactly is he?”