Kristen Ashley - Raid

I was living a narrow life and that narrow life made me uninteresting.

Boring.

Nothing.

I was twenty-eight years old and my great-grandmother, who had lived nearly a century, had a more active, fun-filled life than I did.

This was insane.

It was even more insane than falling in love from afar with a nine year old boy and hoping like heck I got picked for his tug of war team at my Grams’s annual picnic. Which I did, sickeningly gratifyingly, three years in a row, even though he never noticed me and thus didn’t care. It was more insane than harboring that crush all through high school and even when he was away for years.

It was certifiable.

“And now it’s done,” I told my reflection.

Then I did what I never did.

I made a decision and acted on it.

I went to my kitchen, got a pad of paper and made a to-do list.

Once done, I immediately started on my list.

First up, I called Betsy at the salon and told her I needed a new style and she was in charge.

“Ohmigod, Hanna! I’m moving people around right now! You have to come in tomorrow! I… can’t… wait!” she exclaimed.

I went in the next day and got a trim, flippy layers and highlights.

Then I drove straight to Bob’s car dealership and bought myself a pearl white Nissan Z.

It was awesome.

The next day I drove my new Z into town, walked into the travel agent and booked a vacation on a cruise ship.

After that I walked down the block. Something caught my eye at the bike shop, and, even though it wasn’t on my list I turned and went right in.

I did not go back to Rachelle’s except for the occasional coffee, but those were only flybys.

I did not see Raiden Ulysses Miller.

Not for five months.

What I didn’t know was…

He saw me.

Five months later…

“Voila!” Bodhi shouted.

He shifted back. I saw the results of his ministrations, threw my head back and laughed before I looked back down at my girl. My pink and white daisy Schwinn now had opalescent white and pink streamers mixed with twirly silver ones streaming from the handlebars.

I looked at Bodhi, who had straightened away from my bike. I jumped up and down twice while clapping, and cried, “It’s perfect!”

And it was. It was over the top, cutesie, girlie, perfect.

I loved it.

I loved it so much I rounded my girl, threw myself in Bodhi’s arms and hugged him, exclaiming loudly, “I love it!”

Bodhi hugged me back, giving me a side to side shake.

Since the day I bought my Schwinn five months ago, Bodhi and I had become friends.

Good friends.

He was not like any of my other friends. He was a laidback cycling-slash-boarding dude (definitely a dude) who owned his own bike shop mostly so he could close it whenever he wanted and go biking or snowboarding whenever he wanted, which was often.

When he was working, it was not unusual to walk into his shop, shout his name and have him come out of the side office on a cloud of smoke and whiff of pot fumes. It was so blatant I honestly didn’t know how he didn’t get tagged by the Sheriff. But he didn’t.

It had to be karma. No incarnation of Bodhi would hurt a fly, I didn’t care how many times he thought he’d been reincarnated, and according to Bodhi, there were a lot.

That winter, Bodhi and his girlfriend, Heather, taught me how to board.

I knew how to ski, kind of. I’d been to the slopes with my parents and brother a lot in my life. When I got older, since I didn’t enjoy it, I usually shopped or hung out at a lodge, drank cocoa and read while they hit the slopes.

But snowboarding was a blast. I loved it, and since Bodhi and Heather loved it a whole lot more than me, we had a ball.

So when the snow started melting and I could climb on board my Schwinn, Bodhi and Heather showed me the ropes of getting around. They also let me borrow a used trail bike from the shop and they took me out on trails.

It was amazing. I’d lived in Willow, thus Colorado, all my life but I had never seen the fabulous places and beautiful vistas I saw with Bodhi and Heather.

Mostly because I hadn’t gone out and looked.

Now I did, all the time. Even when Bodhi and Heather weren’t with me, I’d rent a bike from Bodhi and hit the trails.

Heaven.

The last five months I’d also worked hard to expand my business so I could enjoy my new lifestyle that included living, but also included such things as lift tickets, board gear, bike racks and insurance on two vehicles.

Thankfully, my expansion efforts worked so when I needed help with packing and shipping, I’d hired Heather.

She was as laidback as her boyfriend and she took me up on the offer. It was a good fit for both of us. She worked when there was work to do. It could be two hours a week, it could be twenty. She was up for anything and I needed someone who was flexible.

Heather definitely was that.

So I spent a lot of time with them, and Bodhi was helping me trick out my bike. I had a lighted, woven daisy basket. I had a hot pink, retro bike bell. I had a bright headlight and flashing taillight.

And now I had cutesie, girlie streamers on my handlebars.

I had it all.

Bodhi, arms still around me, suddenly whispered in my ear, “Dudette, GI Joe checkin’ you out. Three o’clock.”

It was such a bizarre thing to say, I leaned back in his arms. My face split in a huge smile, and I looked in his eyes.

“What?” I asked.

“Total GI Joe. As in GI Joe, whoa,” he muttered, and we both were wearing shades so he had to jerk his head to his left to indicate what he was referring to.

I looked right.

And saw Raiden Miller standing outside his Jeep, wearing a skintight army green tee that was straining so much at his biceps it looked in danger of ripping. He also had on tan cargo pants, boots, and unbelievably cool gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses which did, indeed, seem to be trained on me.

I felt my breath start burning in my lungs as I mentally rewound the hit-the-town-for-errands preparations I’d done that morning.

Light makeup.

Blown out hair.

Pink, cuffed short-shorts and a white cutesie top that had a little ruffle around the collar and capped sleeves. On my feet were pearlescent pink slim-strapped haviannas.

Oh God, I matched my bike.

No! I matched my bike!

Thank God I’d worn my own fabulous shades, pink on the inside of the arms, black on the outside, but the frames were silver and shaped like cop glasses. They rocked.

“Seriously, they should update the doll to look like him,” Bodhi went on, and I looked back at him to see he was still eyeing Raiden. “Every kid in America would buy that doll.” He turned to me. “Boys and girls.”

He was absolutely not wrong.

I pulled out of his arms, lifting a hand to tuck my hair behind my ear, acutely aware that Raiden Miller might be watching these movements.

In the last five months I’d let my hair grow, and Betsy said if I kept it up with just trims to the flippy layers she’d cut into it that it would be down to my bra strap by the 4^th of July. This was because it grew so fast. Now it was halfway there. Long, thick with highlights and lowlights in it that Betsy said, “gives it lift and personality.”

It definitely had that. With its natural health and shine and my being in the sun all the time making the blonde even blonder, even I thought it looked pretty great.

Still, it wasn’t big hair, like Raiden’s cool, pretty skank.

I put Raiden out of my head (kind of) and opened my mouth to ask Bodhi how much for the streamers so I could get the heck out of there when Bodhi kept talking.

“I’m a dude, so even though he’s wearin’ shades, I can tell you, as a dude, you in those shorts, his eyes are aimed at your legs.”

At his words, I wondered if legs could blush. If they could, mine would have done just that, even though it was just coming on June and they were already tan since I was on a bike so much.

“I also know this seein’ as he’s lookin’ down… at your legs,” Bodhi finished.

Okay, definitely, legs could blush. I knew this when I felt the heat hit them.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked, taking Bodhi off the subject of Raiden and my legs. Moving to my basket, I was wishing for the first time I didn’t have a daisy basket that any six year old girl would be in throes of ecstasy over, but, suddenly I was realizing, any twenty-nine year old woman should think twice about.

“Was fifteen, seein’ as they’re custom-made by Heatherita, but since you gave me a hug, and I give discounts for hugs, we’ll call it square at ten,” Bodhi answered.

I grabbed my wallet. A long, Coach slimline pocket wallet that was made of a silvery champagne leather that I had to have the minute I saw it, but right then I worried was glitzy and ostentatious. I pulled out a ten and a five and extended the bills to Bodhi.

“Girl, I said ten,” he told me, but I shook my head and my hand.

“Take it,” I urged.

He had a bike shop to keep open, a pot habit, expensive hobbies and a questionable work ethic.

He needed the five bucks.

His shades held mine, then he took the money because he knew better than me that he needed it.

“You rock,” he said quietly.

“So do these.” I ran my finger through the streamers, something else I now had second thoughts about. Then I thought… forget it. I liked them. So Raiden saw me on a cutesie, girlie bike wearing a cutesie, girlie outfit that matched it.

I had my cop glasses.

I had a groovy friend who made me laugh and taught me to snowboard.

And I probably wouldn’t see Raiden for another five months.

So what did I care?

I mounted the bike, wishing I was pedaling home instead of pedaling further into town to run some errands for Grams. Raiden was parked, and thus obviously in town for a reason, and that reason might mean I’d run into him again. I turned around to face town.

“We goin’ out on the trails this weekend?” Bodhi asked, and I threw him a bright smile over my shoulder.

“Absolutely,” I answered.

He grinned back.

I dipped my chin to look at my feet and again tucked my hair behind my ear as I pushed up the kickstand and put feet to the pedals. I also looked out the corner of my eye Raiden’s way.

Just to check.

I felt heat hit every inch of my body making it tingle when I saw that now he was leaning back against his Jeep, arms crossed on his massive chest, shades, it appeared, still on me.

He had a sexy smile playing about his mouth and he looked settled in, like he was enjoying a show.

What on earth?

Okay. Whatever. It wasn’t every day a guy saw a twenty-something woman on a six year old’s dream bike wearing an outfit that matched her bike. So he had a show.

Again, whatever.

This was what I thought.

What I felt was idiotic.

I had to let it go, but more, I had to get out of there, so I took off, shouting to Bodhi, “Later!”

“Later, girl!” Bodhi shouted back.

I pedaled away and felt funny, hot and strange while picking up Grams’s meds from the pharmacy and grabbing cat food for Grams’s cat, Spot, at the pet store.

These feelings only died down when I was paying for Spot’s food.

The meds were important, of course. But although Spot couldn’t see the cupboard where Grams kept the tins of his food, he could sense when they were getting low and he got antsy.

Grams and I had learned the hard way that when Spot got antsy, something needed to be done about it.

I could have picked up the meds the next day when I usually did Grams’s big shop for the week. But since Spot only accepted two different flavors of a special brand of cat food that had to be bought at the pet store and Grams was running low, I’d pedaled into town, and unintentionally made a fool of myself the first time Raiden Miller’s attention turned to me.

I loved that cat, no matter how ornery.

But at that moment I cursed him to perdition.

I’d bought the food and was heading out of the store when Krista, the owner of the store, called after me. “Is it still cool if I go over to Miss Mildred’s on Saturday to learn how to make her biscuits?”