Faith: Biker Romance (The Virtues Book 2)

Title Page

Copyright Page

Also By

Dedication

Title Page

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

Call To Action

Also By copy

About The Author

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Let there be light, sound, drums, guitar.
 
Let there be rock ~ AC/DC

We’d been inside Enlightened Pathway for almost an hour. If I looked at one more inspirational Christian book, I thought I might just drop dead right there to meet God and speed the process along. My mother danced from row to row, humming to herself. The monthly trip was her favorite thing, and she still thought it was my favorite thing, too.

At fifteen, I had already started to question the church, and just shy of my nineteenth birthday, I grew tired of the runaround answers and sideways glances from pastors. As I reached womanhood, the church felt less like comforting arms and more like a place you went every Sunday and Wednesday, rain or shine. I saw it as more of a social gathering. A social gathering where I had no real place.

Despite being raised with the same children in Bible study and VBS for years, I felt no connection to any of my friends. They felt the light of God on them, and that was the thing that separated us. I kept up the act, of course, because I couldn't imagine what my parents would do if they discovered a non-believer right under their noses. Colorado Springs wasn’t exactly an atheist's town.

I saw my mother came around a corner with a stack of books, and I snatched something off of the closest shelf at random. I flipped it open to somewhere near the front and read
Genesis teaches us the answer to the all-important question, “Where do I come from?”

She had a wide grin on her face. “Faith, would you mind? This lady’s arms are getting sore from all these great books!” She saw my nose buried in something, and I thought she would squeal with delight. “What did you find, angel?” It was close enough to a squeal. I counted it as a win.

I turned the cover, reading the title for the first time, but trying to sound like it wasn’t. “All 66 Books of The Bible Explained and Applied.” It sounded like the dustiest reading ever, but I smiled up at her.

Her eyes seemed to grow larger. “Want to add it to the pile?”

I nodded, placating her for at least another month. “Sure, Mom. If you don’t mind.” It would collect dust on my nightstand like the others before it.

“Mind? I’m going to borrow it as soon as you're done, silly girl.”

She turned back to the fiction section, leaving me with a stack of seven books. The sunshine filtering in through the windows graced my skin, and I turned toward the storefront. With a quiet sigh, I looked around, hoping to find anything to distract me from the monthly Question of Faith at the bookstore.

In the fall, Colorado gives the impression of the most peaceful and beautiful wildfire washing over the city, and on the outskirts near the mountains, it is only amplified. The barren and snow-covered peaks of the Rockies give way to growth as one descends.
 
The brush turns to trees, aflame with the changing colors of autumn.
 
Looking west, it was a beautiful tidal wave of deep tones.
 
The wind brought that calming scent of leaves and earth.
 
The city was beautiful, but my existence in it was anything but.

I stared into the autumn day, wishing I was anywhere but trapped inside God’s bookshop. I lowered the pile of Christian books, and before I knew what I was doing, my body carried me toward the door. I turned back to my mom, and my mouth opened, but I couldn't find the right words. There
were
no right words. The shopkeeper gave me a smile, as if she knew I was about to escape and taste some much needed freedom.

The heat of summer was still in the air, and I relished the warmth of the sun on my skin. My tan would soon begin to fade, so I drank in as much of that blissful sunlight as I could. I looked back in through the window to see my mother buried in some book, so I figured I could disappear for a little bit without her being too worried.

A breeze blew down the small street, teasing the hem of my long dress with the promise of flight. I smiled as I felt it graze my legs and ambled down past the small shops in Western Colorado Springs.

My father’s words came to me as I stared off at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains: “The military’s been very good to the Vincini family, Faith.”

It had kept my father employed for my entire life, but it also never allowed us a vacation outside of the town. There was something so restless inside me. Any chance I could get, I talked with my older sister Esther and her husband in California. I loved hearing about their trips to the Pacific Ocean, and I dreamed of the day I could dip my toes in.

I headed down the street, closing in on the railroad tracks. I looked back and decided I’d cross the tracks and then come back on the other side of the street. Hopefully by then, my mother would be done adding to her collection.

As I passed over the endless steel rail, the wind picked up again. It was more blustery this time, and I reached down to grab the bottom of my dress as it tried to escape me. The wind picked it up, and I pushed it back down, flattening it against my thighs. That’s when I heard the whistle.

I almost wish it had been from a train; at least then it would have been a warning instead of a catcall.

I don’t know what made me turn toward him instead of ignoring him completely. Maybe I thought it was part of the adventure, or maybe it was the autumn heat. Whatever the cause, a smile crept onto my face as I looked to see whose lips the whistle had come from.

The first thing I thought of was Tom Sawyer. My mother had read it to me when I was younger, and the image of the clever, adventurous little boy always stuck with me. This was no boy, but that childlike, mischievous glint was in his eyes. He had a boy’s eyes, but a man’s body.

He was leaning up against an old wooden fence that did little to shield the shops from the sound of the passing trains. His jeans were rolled up, and he had his white t-shirt tucked in. James Dean was the next image in my head, and that devil-may-care attitude that screamed “cool.” He had a smile that matched the tone of his whistle.

There was something about him that just looked
timeless
. He could have stepped out of the fifties. Nothing he wore screamed 1986, and I’m sure I stared at him because of that. Everyone my age worked so hard to follow fashion, but not this stranger.
 

I tried to get angry. My mother and father’s conservative parenting had taught me that attention from the boys was bad. The
worst.
My father excelled at religious rants relating to sexuality, and my mother had already started pushing me toward certain boys in church, dull boys too shy to look me in the eye. This was no boy, and he couldn’t look anywhere but my eyes, which was at least better than his eyes wandering downwards.

My heart jumped, not because of the whistle, and not because of the man standing a few feet away, but because of what I was about to say.

“Is that all you can manage? A whistle?” Standing between the two infinite strips of steel, I put my hands on my hips.

He smiled wider. “No, but it only goes downhill from there.”

Redness rushed to my cheeks. My heart was pounding hard inside my chest. I stole a quick glance back toward the bookstore, wanting to make sure my mother wasn’t outside searching for me. The street was almost bereft of cars, let alone people. I turned my attention back to the man with the mouth.

He stopped laughing at his own wit and pushed himself upright from the fence. “Sorry, but that’s the best way I've found to get a pretty girl’s attention.” His voice was smooth enough to match his attitude, deep and rich.

The thumping in my chest only grew faster and stronger. My mind was already screaming at me to turn around and meet back up with my mom. My feet had other plans. I smiled at him, even though I recognized the flattery.