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be far at all. I’m just gettin’ to a good part of the story. Remember that first night?”
     
    He smiled, but Bibi didn’t know if he was remembering or simply smiling at her because he loved her. Either way, it made her eyes prick.
     
    “I’ll be back in a lick, Hooj.” She kissed him on the lips, and then she got up and left Monica and her husband to do their thing.
     
     
    ~oOo~
     
     
    She checked in on Margot, planning to sit with her dear friend for a while, but Margot was having a bad day. Her bad days were violent, so she’d been sedated. Bibi sat at her bedside for a while, and then she went to the little café in the atrium and had a coffee and picked up a sandwich and a soda for later. It would be Hoosier’s dinner time when she got back to his room, she knew, and he liked to eat together.
     
    Spending aimless time in this place depressed the hell out of her. As nice as it was, and as good and conscientious as the staff were, the San Gabriel Center was still a place that didn’t offer people much hope. Hoosier’s wing was the only part of the whole, sprawling place where there was a chance the patients would ever leave. Everyone else lived here and, unless their money ran out, would die here.
     
    Money. Though their medical insurance was covering only a fraction of the cost of this place, money wasn’t much of a concern for Bibi and Hoosier. The club was earning as well as she could ever remember any club Hoosier had been with—and he’d been with three—earning. As President, his cut was substantial. But the fire had burned up several hundred thousand dollars that Hoosier had hidden away in the walls and floorboards of their house, and she knew they’d feel that eventually. As far as Bibi knew, none of the cash had been discovered. It had apparently been reduced to ash
     
    The fire had burned so intensely and completely that virtually nothing had been left but ash. The investigation was over. The fire had been declared arson, but she and Hoosier had not been held responsible, so eventually, insurance would pay out. Then, and after Hoosier was back and healthy, they would begin to build a new life.
     
    Wouldn’t be the first time they’d rebuilt from destruction.
     
     
    ~oOo~
     
     
    Hoosier was freshly showered and dressed when Bibi got back to his room. His meal had arrived, but it was sitting untouched on the table across his bed.
     
    He was waiting for her, she knew.
     
    “What you got tonight, Hooj?” She lifted the cover off his plate. “Oh, meatloaf and mashed. Not bad.” She set her sandwich on the bedside table and cut his meat for him. He’d learned again how to use his utensils, but cutting was still a challenge.
     
    She smiled, thinking about his deft way with a knife before.
     
    “You know, I still don’t know what on God’s green earth possessed me to take a ride home from you that first night. You could’ve been a slasher. Hell, you could have been the Night Stalker. Or wait—he was later, wasn’t he? You remember that guy? Ramirez, I think his name was? Yeah, yeah, that was later. Anyway, there was somethin’ about you from right off. That damn smile of yours. Like a naughty gentleman. Did funny things to my heart.”
     
    She finished, and he picked up his fork and got a bite of meatloaf to his mouth. Bibi unwrapped her sandwich and sat on his bed, facing him across his bed table. “I sure am glad I did take that ride, though. Changed my life.”
     
    They’d been together ever since.
     
     
    ~oOo~
     
     
    They’d mounted up and pulled away just as Tony and friends came out the front door, so Biker Boy—Hoosier—didn’t take the time to try to tell her how to ride. That was okay; she knew. She tucked her big skirt around her legs so she wouldn’t flash everyone her plain white panties, and she held on.
     
    She’d intended to hold his hips, just the bare amount of holding to stay securely seated as he hit the throttle, but the muscles along his