The little girl stared at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou will?\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n
The gray-bearded biker smiled gently.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut ninety-three dollars isn’t enough to bring people back,\u201d she said sadly.<\/p>\n
The old rider’s eyes filled with tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, sweetheart.\u201d<\/p>\n
He carefully wiped the dust from her cheek.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut maybe your mama isn’t as far away as everybody thinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The child blinked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mean she’s not in Heaven?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean,\u201d he said softly, \u201cwe’re going to find out together.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the first time in days, the little girl smiled.<\/p>\n
Not a big smile.<\/p>\n
Just enough to let hope back inside.<\/p>\n
The old biker stood and pulled his phone from his vest.<\/p>\n
Within minutes, the rumble of engines echoed across the desert.<\/p>\n
One by one, motorcycles rolled into the gas station.<\/p>\n
His brothers.<\/p>\n
Seven weathered riders.<\/p>\n
Confused attendants and travelers watched in silence.<\/p>\n
The little girl gasped.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many!\u201d<\/p>\n
The old biker knelt beside her.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were looking for your mama all by yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed toward the bikers.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow you’ve got eight old men helping.\u201d<\/p>\n
The child looked around in amazement.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mean\u2026 all of you?\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the bikers grinned.<\/p>\n
\u201cSweetheart, we’ve ridden through blizzards and bar fights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cA missing mama? That’s personal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The little girl hugged her ninety-three dollars against her chest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then she suddenly froze.<\/p>\n
\u201cWait!\u201d<\/p>\n
Carefully, she removed one crumpled dollar bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need gas.\u201d<\/p>\n
The entire group fell silent.<\/p>\n
Several bikers looked away, trying to hide tears.<\/p>\n
The gray-bearded rider smiled and gently folded her fingers back around the dollar.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, little bird.\u201d<\/p>\n
He kissed the top of her head.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou keep your money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis ride’s already paid for.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy what?\u201d<\/p>\n
The old biker smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy love.\u201d<\/p>\n
And as eight motorcycles roared to life beneath the desert sunset, a little girl climbed onto the front seat of the old rider’s Harley and held tightly to his vest.<\/p>\n
Because somewhere out there, her mother was waiting.<\/p>\n
And after spending so long searching alone\u2014<\/p>\n
hope had finally arrived on two wheels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The little girl stared at him. \u201cYou will?\u201d she whispered. The gray-bearded biker smiled gently. \u201cI will.\u201d \u201cBut ninety-three dollars isn’t enough to bring people back,\u201d she said sadly. The old rider’s eyes filled with tears. \u201cNo, sweetheart.\u201d He carefully wiped the dust from her cheek. \u201cBut maybe your mama isn’t as far away as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}