dresser. It was almost 8:00. Then she looked at herself a final time in her bedroom mirror and said aloud, “Wet wins.”
With that, she walked downstairs and announced to her parents, “I’m going up to the diner for a couple of hours for some coffee and girl talk. I should be home before midnight.”
“Have fun,” her mother answered.
“Call if you’re going to be later than that,” her father instructed.
“Love you,” Raina said as she started out the door.
Her mother’s voice responded, “Love you, too, honey.” Raina paused in the doorway waiting for her father’s voice, but heard nothing. It would be nice to hear him say it just once in a while.
At exactly 8:00 p.m. she pulled into the parking lot of Dottie’s Diner. Remembering to park her car toward the back of the lot, she hurried inside. A waitress offered to show her to a table, but she said, “Meeting somebody. I’ll just wait up by the counter until they arrive.”
A few minutes later, Raina could hear the roar of a half-dozen or so motorcycles. Most of them pulled up and parked directly in front of the doors, but one parked farther back in the lot near her car. Three male and three female bikers entered noisily. They were almost a caricature of how people thought bikers should act. They were loud and vulgar and distractive to everyone in the place, but Raina could see from their faces as they glanced over at the counter that it was all an act. One of the girls, who was carrying an oversized purse, looked over at her and nodded toward the restrooms.
Oh , she thought. I’m supposed to be in the restroom. She hurried toward the back of the diner and entered the restroom. The Reaper Girl entered immediately behind her.
“Put these on,” the girl said, holding up a set of leathers and a long, blond wig.
A few minutes later, two Reapers Girls left the restroom. One went back up front with the rest of the Reapers, who suddenly settled down and began examining their menus. The other turned and went out the back door. Shortly thereafter, Neil Gunn pulled out of the parking lot with a Reaper Girl riding on the back of his bike. Her long, blond hair was flowing behind them as he headed out of town toward the Crossed Reapers’ clubhouse.
Raina had never seen the inside of a motorcycle club clubhouse. It reminded her a little of some of the bars she and Daddy had eaten in while traveling in small towns, only cleaner and brighter. There was a small bar, obviously self-serve, along one wall. Two pool tables took up the main portion of one room, and a very large-screen TV was mounted on the wall of the adjoining room. When you adjusted for economic status and preferences, it was actually not very much different from the country club Daddy insisted they eat out at every Sunday afternoon.
Neil was looking at her as though expecting her to say something.
“Just like the country club, but no swimming pool,” she said with a grin.
He grinned back. “They have a small pool. We have a large hot-tub. That almost counts.”
“How large?” she asked, and he motioned with his hand toward a back deck than ran the length of the house. The hot tub, though empty, looked as if it could hold at least a dozen people. You could almost swim very short laps in it.
Raina gasped slightly as they walked onto the deck. It wasn’t the hot tub that surprised her, it was the view. The ranch the Reapers had purchased sat on a slight rise just outside of town. That meant that standing on the deck, you could see the lights of the entire town of Porter, and beyond that, in the moonlight, vast stretches of Texas cow country could be seen in the back ground. It was truly beautiful.
“Can we sit out here and talk?” she asked.
Neil responded by saying, “Here?” pointing to a couple of padded chairs and a padded couch-like bench, “or in the hot tub?”
“Here, for now.” she answered,