One
Amarillo, Texas
Colin
His father told him once, when he was a boy, that it was a man’s responsibility to find his place in the world. A man needed a port of call, a livelihood, and some hard-won pride to hand down to his sons.
But the man who’d told him this had never really been his father, had he? His real father had lived a few miles down the bayou, raising the only son he cared to claim, while Larry O’Donnell woke every morning to a lie, one he threw himself into cheerfully.
The dumb bastard.
Colin didn’t want to think of either father – true or fake – but Remy Lécuyer made himself known in the back of his mind, same as Larry. The old friends, both buried in New Orleans soil, stood at the edge of his consciousness, watching him, breath held against what they wanted to say, wondering what he would do.
Well, first things first, he needed to take a piss. He’d sort the rest out later.
The bike he’d been attempting to rebuild in NOLA hadn’t been fit for travel, or salvage, so he’d left it behind, cramming his meager belongings in well-worn leather duffels and buying himself a one-way Greyhound ticket. The bus had jarred and jostled him the whole way, and finally dumped him here, at the edge of a long pale dirt driveway, the house at the end just visible in the fading light. It was long and low – did bikers not believe in second stories? – and the same color as the desert soil around it. His new home. The Texas clubhouse of the Lean Dogs Motorcycle Club.
It was a long walk for a full bladder, and there was no one around, so he dumped his bags and decided to take care of business right there, out in the open. As he did so, he drew in a deep breath of the evening air, felt the breeze tug at his hair, and took stock of his surroundings.
His wanderings had taken him far from home, but he’d never been to the Texas panhandle. It was nothing like the South he knew, that was cluttered with green forests and humid air. This was dry, cool and windswept, the vegetation scrubby, the soil loose and sliding away as he watched. Not a Southern place, a Texan one, and he had no idea what to make of that.
Finished, he zipped up and collected his bags. A strange weight settled across his shoulders, one that surprised him. He’d been to countless cities and had the scars and wild memories as souvenirs. But he’d never stood at the threshold of a new adventure and suffered heart palpitations, not like now. “If you can survive in Amarillo with those boys, then you belong in this club,” Bob Boudreaux had told him before he’d been given his transfer papers. The NOLA president had laughed darkly. “That Candy, he knows how to make real men out of boys like you.”
Boys. Like he was fifteen or something.
Feeling heavy in the legs and uncertain, Colin began the long trek to the clubhouse.
Night had closed over the landscape by the time he pushed through the rusty chain link gate. A massive razor wire fence surrounded the property, but the gate up at the street had been rolled back, the way unbarred. This one was paltry by comparison, and squealed when he swung it back. It led into a scrubby dirt yard littered with cigarette butts and crushed beer cans. The house itself was boarded with vertical wood siding, its small windows covered from the inside with waxy curtains that glowed gold with the light behind them. Flowerpots flanked the door, filled with nothing but dirt, studded with more cig butts.
All of it was mildly repulsive, nothing like the tidy, homey exteriors of the New Orleans and Knoxville houses.
Colin debated knocking, and tested the knob instead, let himself in.
The contrast with the exterior was immediate and startling. He stepped into an entryway flanked by half-walls studded with pegs that held jackets, hats, helmets and a few rain ponchos. The walls were paneled in a new, clean pale wood, and the first things that hit him were the welcoming scents of hops, good food, and Lysol.
Stepping out of the entryway, he found a large common room decorated with leather, rough-cut wood, iron, and cow hide, all of it tasteful and classy, like a high dollar Texas hotel rather than a honky tonk. Two longhorn heads were mounted above the bar, which was heaped with bottles and dripping with glasses. The floor shone from a fresh waxing and there were no signs of clutter or mess save a glass ashtray here and there on the heavy plank tables. Brown saddle leather sofas were tucked beneath the windows, and four wall-mounted flat screen TVs played four different football games.
Two men who could only be identical twins sat at a table with longnecks, watching Oklahoma play Tennessee. A third man sat at the bar and turned, taking note of Colin’s appearance with a slight nod. His eyes were large and an eerie shade of blue, starkly visible across the distance. Familiar eyes; he’d seen them somewhere else. His bottom rocker read England.
The twins seemed absorbed, so Colin headed toward the Englishman, hoping for the best, braced for the worst. Story of his life.
He dropped his bags when he reached the stool and stuck out one giant hand. “Hey. I’m Colin. Bob sent me up from NOLA.”
There was a beat, a moment of appraisal in which those blue eyes tracked down and then back up him, flat, cool, and giving nothing away. Then the guy accepted his shake, firm grip despite the height disparity between them. “Fox,” he said, nationality confirmed by his accent. “You’re Mercy’s brother.” Not a question.
“Half-brother,” Colin said firmly.
Fox tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Lots of us have half-brothers, I ‘spect. You met mine, I’m sure. Walsh.”
That’s where the eyes came from. This brother had dark hair instead of Walsh’s blonde, and the faces weren’t quite the same – the noses, the angles of their jaws. But the eyes were a dead giveaway. And they shared that spooky calm that belonged on a much larger, more physically imposing man.
“Ah. Yeah, I did. You guys aren’t in the same chapter.”
One brow lifted. “Neither are you and your brother.”
“Fair enough.”
Fox slid off his stool and picked up his drink – something amber in a low tumbler. “You’ll be wanting to walk to Candy, then.”
“Um…yeah.”
“Follow me.”