COME RIDE WITH ME

  A.C. Arthur

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. Mica

  2. Mica

  3. Mica

  4. Mica

  5. Nash

  6. Mica

  7. Nash

  8. Mica

  9. Nash

  10. Mica

  Author’s Note

  Other Contemporary Romance

  Stay in touch with A.C. on the web!

  An Artistry Publishing Book

  come Ride With me, Copyright © 2016 by A.C. Arthur

  First Edition: 2016, Second Edition: 2024

  www.acarthur.com

  All rights reserved. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, locations, events and incidents (in either a contemporary and/or historical setting) are products of the author’s imagination and are being used in an imaginative manner as a part of this work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, settings or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover and Interior Design by IBDesignz

  To Louise Brown

  Every page you turned to read, every smile or encouraging word you gave,

  Every moment that was spent in your presence, every laugh or shocking gasp

  You had because of something I wrote.

  I will miss them all, but I will miss you most.

  Introduction

  Dear Reader,

  I’m back again, this time with a re-release. I originally wrote Come Ride With Me about nine years ago. It wasn’t published until 2016 as a part of the Undercover Bosses boxed set with a list of amazing authors! The boxed set was on sale for a limited time, but Nash & Mica made an impression. About a year later, I decided to not only re-release this novella, but to also expand the world of the Platinum Ryders. The idea for three more stories came to me and I quickly jotted them down. I had covers made for each story and planned my writing schedule and release dates. Then, I became sick. Honestly, I’d been sick most of that year, but after being hard-headed for way too long, I finally stopped everything to take care of me.

  By the time I was healed, I was behind on so many projects that I had to regroup and prioritize. Long story short (even though y’all know I don’t love writing short stories, lol), the Ryders were indefinitely delayed. I would often look back at those story ideas and wonder if I’d ever get to write them. As time went on, I knew that to complete the series I would need to re-introduce Nash & Mica. I also knew that their reintroduction needed to serve a bigger purpose, that I wanted these stories to build into a different aspect of Arthurland, but I wasn’t sure where they were meant to be just yet. Well, now I am. 😊

  The story of the accountant and the mechanic is a sweet one, with an unexpected soft enemies-to-lovers vibe. And I say “soft” because Nash & Mica’s instant attraction never really allowed them to stay the course of true enemies, regardless of the circumstances surrounding them. Together, these two will continue a legacy and set the stage for not only more stories for the Ryders, but also, introduce you to a character who will venture into the lives of another Arthurland family in an impactful way—all while finding a love connection, they never dreamed was possible.

  So, settle in and enjoy the ride!

  Happy reading,

  ac

  Chapter 1

  Mica

  She needed some mood music.

  Mica dug into one of the three duffel bags she’d tossed into a corner of the small bedroom on the second floor and pulled out a case full of CDs. Of course, she might be one of the few people left who, one, still owned a portable radio/CD player and two, liked to pop in a CD and listen to her favorite tunes, versus having a playlist set on her phone. She didn’t care, Mica loved her old-fashioned ways, in some respects. And besides that, there were so many artists and/or companies removing their older music from streaming services that having her collection was a saving grace.

  Closing the top of the CD player on the dresser she waited until the familiar strands began and when they did, she started to dance. Aretha Franklin’s Respect blared through the room and probably down the stairs and throughout the first floor of the huge colonial brick house she’d inherited, along with the garage in the backyard and all the land surrounding it. She also now owned a motorcycle dealership, which she had no clue what she was going to do with. All courtesy of the father she’d just met two years ago. The man who had died before she’d been able to make it back to the States to get to know him better.

  That was the sad part.

  It was also the part of this situation that Mica was doing pretty good at keeping a distance away so that she could deal with everything else. Today was the first day.

  …of the rest of her life. That’s what Pam would have said.

  Pamela Edmunds, Mica’s best friend for the past five years, had stayed in Paris where she was now working on her master’s degree in Global Communications. Mica and Pam were roommates freshman year at The American University of Paris and continued to live together the following year in an apartment that Mica’s mother, Cecile, helped finance. Cecile was born in France and lived there until she was sixteen and her mother met an American movie producer, who moved his new wife and stepdaughter to L.A. Cecile’s teenage hobby of photography quickly led to a renowned career when her first internship after graduating high school, led her around the world. Ten years later, Cecile became pregnant and moved to Paris to settle down.

  The original plan for Mica, once Cecile decided to move back to L.A. to be closer to her ailing mother, was for Mica to study International Finance and then travel the world until she found the place that best suited her to settle down. Cecile was adamant about a person having their perfect space and doing exactly what their heart desired.

  “It’s the only way to ever truly be happy,” Cecile said on more occasions than Mica wanted to recall.

  Now, at twenty-five years old, Mica wondered if her mother’s happiness had come at a higher price than Mica would’ve wanted to pay. Cecile never told Mica who her father was. If not for the postcard from a place called Destine, Virginia and a man’s tender words of acknowledgement, two years ago, Mica would have never known a thing about Bellamy Anderson.

  Today, she stood in the house that was still in his name, about to drive one of the cars that he’d purchased, to travel to a motorcycle shop that he’d loved with his last breath.

  Even Aretha’s liberating lyrics couldn’t take the weight of that knowledge away.

  Still, Mica danced around the room—even if she were moving to her own rhythm, as Pam would undoubtedly say. Mica wiggled her hips as the black slacks slid easily up her slender legs. Her blouse was ivory and sheer, so before putting that on, she found a camisole that wasn’t too wrinkled and pulled that over her head. When the blouse was buttoned and tucked neatly into her pants, she added a belt and then stood in front of the floor-length mirror. Still moving as if she really believed dancing were her true calling instead of crunching numbers, Mica surveyed the outfit. It was professional…no, wait, it wasn’t. She reached across the bed and grabbed the black jacket she’d remembered to take out of her suitcase last night and hung in the bathroom with the hope that the wrinkles would fall out by morning.

  Surely there had to be an iron somewhere in this house, but she hadn’t found the time to look for it in the two days she’d been here. It didn’t matter anyway; her goal wasn’t to be pretty and perky—that was much more of Pam’s style. Mica was the quiet one, the smart and inquisitive one and she was fine with that because it freed her from all the pretenses and other nonsensical things that she thought women went through to impress, not just men, but other women as well. Mica wasn’t into impressing anyone, or at least she hadn’t been before.

  Today was different. It was the first day in a new life that she was committed to succeeding in, no matter what.

  “You cannot go in there with your tortoiseshell glasses, even if they are Burberry, and slick business suits, expecting those bike guys to respect you as their new boss,” Pam had told her just a week ago as she’d packed her suitcase.

  “Why should how I look matter? I own the company now, that’s the bottom line. They can either like it or leave it,” Mica replied, still not thinking too much on the subject.

  Pam shook her head and long raven black, bone straight weave moved with the motion. Her friend had paid almost four hundred dollars for the hair, which had originally blown Mica’s mind. But it was gorgeous and made Pam look more like a five foot, eleven-inch mocha skinned goddess than she did normally. Mica had immediately run her fingers through her own shoulder length hair that tended to frizz when it rained, curl when it was wet, and look otherwise bland if she didn’t stand in the mirror with a flat iron each morning—something she rarely did.

  “It matters because men are basic and how they decide to treat you from the first moment they meet you is based on your looks.” Pam said this in the way that she said everything about men, dating and relationships, as if she were one of those single TikTok gurus with all the expertise.

  “I don’t need them to like how I look,” was Mica’s co
meback. “I simply need them to tell me how a thriving motorcycle sales and maintenance shop is now swimming in debt and almost nearing a bankruptcy declaration.”

  Since the terms of her father’s will had been revealed, Mica had read every financial statement from the start of Bellamy Motors twenty years ago, up until last month. She knew their steady sales customers had names like Night Hawks, Classy Cougars and Platinum Ryders and that their best sellers were the Suzuki and Yamaha sports bikes, with BMWs and Ducatis rising in the last six years. She also knew that in the last three years, the dealership had begun losing more money than they earned and that most of the repairs were now being taken care of by a third-party shop, which, in actuality, translated to another liability for Bellamy Motors.

  “They’re not going to tell an outsider anything,” Pam told her frankly. “Especially not an outsider that’s just inherited a business she knows nothing about. They’re going to either feel intimidated by your new title or insulted that your father chose to leave the business to an inexperienced daughter he barely knew, instead of one of them that’s been there for years.”

  Pam was right. Mica decided that when she was on the plane. Nobody at Bellamy Motors was going to welcome her with open arms, so she had to come up with another plan. Grabbing her crossbody purse, she slipped it over her shoulders and headed out of the bedroom.

  The stairs creaked as she stepped on each one, her hand trailing down the thick glossy banister. The front door was a few feet away from the bottom of the stairs. To her left was a mudroom, while to her right was the huge living room with a television big enough to serve as a movie screen for at least half the neighborhood. She grabbed the briefcase she’d just bought yesterday and filled with all the papers about the company and headed out the door to her first day of work.

  Nash

  One of the buttons to her blouse was undone giving Nash a clear view of the black bra that snapped between two palm-sized breasts. He swallowed hard and forced himself to look away, or at least to act like he was looking away.

  Her face was angular, high cheekbones, glasses with frames that were way too big and lips just thick enough to make his dick jump with anticipation. She’d pulled her brown hair back from her face and she wore a black pant suit that fit her well but hid too much. He wanted to see more. Now.

  He frowned because he was acting like a teenage idiot.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, grabbing a cloth he always kept hanging on a belt hoop of his work pants.

  She’d been looking around the shop as if she were genuinely interested in the stone-gray walls and bike parts scattered about. Hip Hop music blared from the overhead speakers because Rock had arrived first this morning and he loved Drake like the dude was his long-lost brother. Her gaze had scanned just about every corner of the place before finally landing on him. Soft green eyes, long natural lashes, and full brows—not arched in that crazy dramatic way some women were wearing these days. She didn’t belong here. Nash knew that as surely as he knew he was getting turned on by what he was certain was an insurance salesperson.

  “My name is Mica,” she said, her voice clear and confident. “I was sent by Mr. Finksburg. I’m the accountant.”

  Shit! A damn number cruncher, with a sexy as hell accent, was giving him a hard on. That was worse than if she had been an insurance salesperson.

  “Nash Waters.” He managed to say after wiping his hands as clean as they were going to get and extending one to hers for a cordial shake. “I’m the shop manager.”

  She looked at his hand, then up to his face, down to his hand again, all before shaking her head and taking a step forward. When she grasped his hand Nash let out a slow, almost steady breath. She had a strong grip to go with her confident voice and interesting mouth.

  “Nice to meet you, Nash,” she said, before pulling away slowly.

  She had soft hands that moved over a keyboard all day. Nash clenched his rough and calloused fingers at his sides.

  “Need me to call Earl? I think he’s in early today,” Webby, one of the best free-hand painters and airbrush artists on the east coast, yelled from the back end of the shop.

  “Nah, I’ll take her around to the offices.” Nash volunteered without looking back at Webby. “This way,” he told her before turning and walking toward the glass sliding doors.

  Bellamy Motors was on the corner of Haven Drive and Nunnery Street, in Destine, a medium-sized town located just outside of Alexandria. The back end of the building—where the lovely Ms. Mica, had come in—was the shop side. In other words, Nash’s territory. There was a showroom facing the Haven Drive entrance which displayed most of the bikes they had for sale. Another rectangular shaped bullpen area was where the sales staff were seated and upstairs were the business offices, where Earl Banyon, the general manager and Mickey Arkin, the finance manager were located. Nash figured that’s where the numbers lady needed to be.

  “What do you do back here?” she asked just as the automatic doors that separated the shop from the hallway leading to the showroom opened and Nash walked through.

  “That’s the shop. We disassemble, repair, reassemble, and paint the bikes there. Out here,” he told her because he sensed there would be another question coming shortly. “Is the showroom where we spit-shine and showcase the bikes in the hope that some lucky rider will pay the stated price. Back there are the salespeople, they sell the bikes. And up here is for the fancy ones, like you.”

  The moment he’d finished that sentence Nash chanced another look at her. He was having a hard time trying to pinpoint the one thing that had completely captured his attention about her. Because there were just so fuckin’ many things that had slammed into his gut like a bulldozer. Her skin was this luminous honey hue, her eyes, and lips while startling in their own right, sort of paled in comparison to the sprinkling of milk chocolate-colored freckles over her entire face. For as cool as he thought any one of those attributes may have been on their own, together they took his breath away.

  “I’m not fancy,” she said.

  “Your accent sure is.” The words came before he could think to stop them.

  She blinked as if he’d said something wrong, or possibly offensive. Her recovery was quick and one end of her mouth tilted like maybe she was going to smile. She didn’t. But she did reply, “I’m from Paris.”

  Nash nodded. “I don’t think I know of a fancier spot than Paris.”

  She shook her head and then shrugged. “I’m just the accountant.”

  No, Nash thought, she wasn’t “just” anything.

  “Up these steps back here, that’s how we get to the business offices. I suspect you’ll want to speak to Earl Banyon, he’s the general manager,” he said, his mouth already feeling dry.

  Nash didn’t normally do this much talking at work, or ever for that matter. He wasn’t what some might call a ‘people person’, yet here he was acting as her personal guide, just because her smooth looking skin and those wide green eyes had reached out and grabbed him by the balls the second she walked into his shop.

  “I thought, ah, it was my impression that Bellamy Anderson ran this business himself,” she said.

  Nash stopped at the top of the stairs, turning slowly to see her looking up at him from the step below. He hadn’t heard anybody call Bell by his full name in years. Everyone knew and loved him as Bell.

  “He was here every day. His every hope and dream in the world is right here with these bikes and his customers. He was Bellamy Motors. There will never be any question about that,” Nash stated, his chest all of a sudden tight with emotion.

  The funeral had been two months ago, the grieving should have been over. He should have been back to normal. Then again, nothing ever happened as it should have. If it did, Bell would still be alive and Nash…well, he wouldn’t be standing here right now realizing how good this little accountant smelled.

  “Earl takes care of the paperwork. He makes sure all the bills are paid and all the customers are paying. Bell liked being on the floor, selling to his people as he used to say. That’s where he was at his best, matching the bike to the rider and watching them ride off into the sunset.”