It’s Christmas Eve and cold as hell for Oklahoma. We are below freezing early this year. The roads are iced over, so I am sitting here in my cabin by myself. I am wondering why the hell I didn’t just stay at the clubhouse tonight, at least then I wouldn’t be alone. This four-bedroom cabin seems like a tomb. My brother, Rye, was well on his way to being drunk and I am sure by now he is cock deep in one of the bitches around there. I am staring at the fire in my fireplace and feeling old. I thought by now I would have me an ol’ lady, children and a couple of grandkids running around. In my twenties; I was sowing my wild oats and didn’t care for having the same woman around every night. Hell, Rye, Whiskey and I shared many women together and with others. It was a different time then. We had a club to organize and build. We did that with blood, sweat, and hard work. We were the Black Brothers. We were making sure we kept our territory as we fought for respect and we earned it the same way. We were ruthless at times, but we were fair to people who deserved it. Anyone that came up against us didn’t live to tell the tale. I’d like to say those were the days to remember, but I don’t know if I would even believe it. Our thirties were more of the same, but by then we had let drugs and alcohol shade our better judgement. We turned the club outlaw and there were only a few things the BlackPath MC wasn’t into. We drew the line at human trafficking and if anyone touched a child then they were dealt with by club justice with no mercy. Whiskey was killed when we were in our late forties, Rye and I felt the pain of losing our blood brother to our core. We three thought we were invincible. The saying goes “ten-foot-tall” and bullet proof and that is exactly what we thought we were, but Whiskey was the glue that held the BlackPath MC together. Our two nephews, Cameron and Trent, had prospected and became members. Our club was growing and with the addition of Driller and Chief, our hopes were high. Then Whiskey was taken from us. He’s the only one of us brothers that had children that we knew of and he had a direction he wanted the club to go in. Some of the BlackPath brothers were lost when tragedy hit our family. Rye and I wanted retaliation for the blood of our brother and we did get it, but at a high price. The damage was done and when it was put to the vote Chief was given the President patch. Rye and I could live with that. It was the natural order of things. The leader of a motorcycle club hands the reins over to a son. The younger generation carries on, but Chief wanted to put the club in a different direction than what Rye and I were used to. Chief wanted security for his children. We’d been outlaw too long and staying on the right side of the law stuck in our craw. We decided it was time to reach out and move north. Rye and I had land in a few states we had bought along the way, but we chose Oklahoma, the thing is we weren’t ready to be put to pasture just yet. We had BlackPath blood still coursing through our veins and weren’t ready to hang our patches up, so with a little convincing we were given the go ahead to start a new chapter of the BlackPath MC in Oklahoma. Some of the brothers decided to go with us and we have picked up new members along the way. We ride the middle of the fence when it comes to being law abiding citizens. Isn’t that the point in life? Freedom. We stay close enough to the right side to not piss Chief and the Texas chapter off, but we aren’t above putting someone to ground for fucking with us. I always thought there was time. I am well into my fifties, hell, who am I kidding, I am knocking on sixties door. Rye met the milestone two years ago and we are both alone. The random pussy stage is gone. The drinking all night leads to a couple of days of a hangover. The club has been our life but Rye and I both know the day will come when we will not be able to keep this life up forever. Our time is getting close to running out. Tick tock goes the clock of life and the only way to stop it is to stop living. I haven’t thought of myself without including Rye or the BlackPath MC in a while, but we all go out of this world alone. It will be my path to travel alone. Not long ago I thought I had someone to enjoy my chrome days with. That’s right, I said it. Bikers don’t go gray or silver we go chrome. Laugh your ass off at me, it doesn’t matter. Bikers are a special breed that don’t age like a fine wine but more like an aged whiskey in my circumstances, the taste of a bourbon.
The one woman that caught my eye and then held my attention was Kat Steel. She is the only woman who has kept my attention for years. I knew Kat when she first started hanging around with the Feral Steel MC. I have known or guessed some of her hidden secrets for many years. When she was first at the Feral Steel clubhouse she was a meek innocent little thing. Too innocent to be hanging around a clubhouse full of bikers. The first time I laid eyes on her she took my breath away with her sweet soul. It echoed off her in every way. She had this light about her. None of the Feral Steel MC deserved her. Steel and Chainz, his brother, didn’t deserve her sweet goodness. Kat had a shit childhood with parents that were obsessed with appearances and the good book. I’ve never read anywhere in that book where it says to abandon your child when they are in need, but Kat made the best of the situation. Steel should have taken better care of Kat’s innocence, but she was thrown into the club life and to hell with the consequences. The consequences that neither-nor Chainz or Steel lived to see. The fall out is still going on. Kat grew into a strong, take no shit, woman that stood alone and answered to Devil, her only remaining child, for all their sins. I tried to be there for Kat, but she has built a strong wall around that heart of hers. I tasted that sweet body of hers, but she won’t let me near the one thing I crave. Her heart. I know I sound like a sniveling teenager in love for the first time, but I am a man that knows who and what I want. Kat is around, and she even stays with me a lot of times. When she graces me with her presence in my bed but after we have fucked each other, she is gone to the spare bedroom. She won’t let me hold her all night long. She won’t let me tenderly make love to her. We talk about our families, hers being Devil and his family and mine the club for so long, but now I have Tara. I know, I know. I sound awful even to myself, but after all these years of living my life the exact way I wanted to and now to know that I can’t, is messing with my brain thoughts. I have a woman I want for more than one night, but if I push too hard she runs. I am too damn old to chase her, because once I catch her, the whole alpha biker thing is not going to work. She has lost too much to my lifestyle; a son, a daughter, and a husband. A husband that she never even knew. I want to share my life with her, but she doesn’t want it.
Then there is my daughter that I never even knew I had, Tara. For over twenty years I have had a daughter and the bitch that had her never even let me know. We are strangers. Not that we would have been good parents together, hell, not even that I would have been around to be a dad, but I should have been given the choice. Now at my age, I am trying to build a relationship with a daughter that I never knew existed and Tara knows nothing about me or my lifestyle. Tara knows nothing about having a father and I know nothing about having any children, let alone a daughter. We are making our way one slow step at a time.
You think I would be a man with regret, but I am not. I can’t be. The whole thing about living your life free and ignoring most people’s laws without the restraint of boundaries set by some, is accepting your own mistakes. Accepting the consequences of your own actions. I do, and my ma used to always tell me that “everything happens for a reason and with a design in mind.” Not everything in life is chosen by what we do but by our reactions and I understand that. I accept it and embrace it. There is a reason for Tara coming into my life now and I need to be patient and the reason will be shown to me in its own time. Could be because I have not the slightest idea how to deal with babies or children. I’ve watched Chief and Driller, my nephews, with their children. Then there is Devil and Callie with their children, but it looks like work that I have no time for. If knowing myself makes me an asshole, then I am an asshole. Ma always said know your strengths but damn sure know your weaknesses, and I do. Tara is an adult and adults I know how to deal with. I may not have been there for her growing up, but I can damn sure deal with anyone that hurts her now, and I will. We’ll find our way, eventually. At least we have each other now, but here I am on Christmas Eve alone with my thoughts.
I walk over to the fireplace and bank my fire, so I can hit the bed and try to get some sleep. I just want to get tomorrow over with. Tara said she would call me tomorrow to check in and I am looking forward to talking to her. I hear a soft knock on my door. I look at the clock on the wall. It’s late for most people and I don’t know who would be knocking on my door this late at night. I stand up and take my hideaway gun off the shelf next to the fireplace. I put the screen over the fireplace and I hear the knocking again. I walk over and look out the window and I can’t believe my eyes. Kat is standing there with shopping bags in her hands. I walk over to the door and open it.