She Defended a Lonely Biker, and Her Town Never Saw It Coming

a small container of banana pudding and feeling inexplicably nervous.

Hank stood when she came in.

“You made it.”

“I said I would.”

Ellie was nineteen and all eyes.

Big, bright, tired eyes in a face made delicate by treatment. Her hair had thinned, but she wore a headscarf patterned with tiny yellow flowers and held herself with a kind of dry wit that made continue reading …