THE KITCHEN ON OLD MILL ROAD
Chapter I: The Thunder on the Porch
The storm rolling over Blackwood Ridge was the worst the county had seen in a decade. Gale-force winds bent the pines, and horizontal sheets of freezing rain battered the worn wooden siding of an isolated, aging farmhouse.
Sitting under the shelter of her narrow front porch, wrapped in a modest blue dress and a knitted beige cardigan, was seventy-eight-year-old Margaret.
Through the curtains of torrential rain and flashes of lightning, the thunderous roar of heavy engines shook the valley. Pulling into her gravel driveway were eight drenched, mud-spattered motorcycles, their chrome frames dripping water under the lightning flashes.
Dismounting into the downpour was Vance, the massive, grizzled president of the Blackwood MC. Standing over six-foot-four in a soaked black leather vest, with blood and road grime smeared across his temple and scarred forearms, Vance looked like a force of nature. His brothers waited cautiously behind him by their machines, shivering in the gale.