The girl watched his face.
Then said:
“She told me you’d probably look scary.”
The older biker coughed.
The first man opened his eyes.
“Did she?”
“She said not to care.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
“What else did she say?”
The girl reached beneath her sweater.
Pulled out a thin chain.
A small silver locket rested against her palm.
The biker recognized that too.
His wife had worn it.
Every day for fourteen years.
He had bought it for her before either of them had enough money to buy anything that should have survived four decades.
After she died, the locket disappeared.
He had assumed their daughter took it.
Apparently she had.
The granddaughter opened it.
Inside were two tiny photographs.
One showed her mother as a teenager.
The other showed the biker’s late wife.
The child said:
“Mom told me if something ever happened and she couldn’t come home, I was supposed to find the man in the old picture.”
The biker’s voice failed the first time.
He cleared his throat.
“What did she tell you about him?”
The girl looked directly at him.
“She said he was her dad.”
No one at the booth moved.
Then:
“And she said he was my grandfather.”
The biker stared.
The older man behind him slowly stood.
At another booth, one biker heard enough to notice.
Then another.
Within seconds, half a dozen leather-vested men around the diner were looking toward the child.
The first biker raised one hand without taking his eyes off her.
“Sit down.”
he said to his men.
Nobody argued.
The girl noticed.
“You’re their boss?”
“No.”
The older biker snorted.
The first man glanced toward him.
“Not helping.”
The girl almost smiled.
That made something break inside him.
Not badly.
Just enough.
He slid out of the booth but did not approach her.
Standing made his size more obvious.
Six foot four.
Heavy shoulders.
Thick arms.
The child instinctively looked upward.
The biker saw the movement and immediately lowered himself onto one knee.
Not touching.
Just making himself smaller.
“Your mother is my daughter.”
The girl nodded.
He had not expected saying the words aloud to hurt.
They did.
“Where were you when you saw her last?”