1
TEX
The first thing that hits me when I ride back into Colorado is the cold. Not the kind that bites, but the kind that settles. The type that gets into your jacket, your bones, and your thoughts. It’s the sort of cold that makes everything feel sharper, like the world’s holding its breath. Or the world is holding you at knifepoint. The feel of cold, hard steel at your throat.
It was just one of the many reasons I loved this place.
I sucked in a breath, letting Colorado settle back into my lungs and my bones.
I was home.
Part of the allure of club life, at least for me, had been because I had wanted to see the world. I loved my family—my brotherhood—but I’d always had an itch to travel and to see different cities and different skies in equal measure. The women and the whiskey that came with the life were good too.
I’d been working with another chapter for a couple of months, helping out, when a member had been unable to ride due to an injury, and truth be, I’d still be there if I hadn’t beencalled back by my prez, JD. But when your prez called, you came right back home. No bitchin’, no hesitation.
I cut the engine outside the bar JD told me to meet him at. Cold Brew wasn’t the usual bar the Kings of Anarchy frequented, but I’d been there a couple of times over the years. I looked up and down the road, taking stock of my surroundings. The bar was on a busy road in Rocky Pines, plenty of lights illuminating the night sky coming from restaurants and surrounding bars.
Rocky Pines was constantly changing. What used to be a small cattle town was developing into a busy and vibrant tourist town. I both loved and hated it. It was good for business, no doubt, but entitled tourists buying up land and property for their second homes and developing their own personal savior complexes was a personal peeve.
Not to mention that my business was knowing people, and new people constantly coming into town made my job harder than it needed to be.
Gravel crunched under my boots as I swung off my bike and stretched my body up to its full height. After several hours hunched over, I was ready for a cold drink and a warm bed. Yet I knew it would be a couple more hours before I would get any sleep. JD had made it clear that bringing me back was urgent, and clearly something had gone down in my absence.
I left my bike parked next to the other Kings’ bikes and headed across the lot. A couple of locals were talking outside with beer bottles in their hands, and they glanced my way then looked right back down at their drinks again as I passed them.
Inside, the bar was warm and loud, all wood and neon and the smell of beer long soaked into the aging floorboards. A sign on the door announced that a singer was supposed to be playing tonight, but the stage was currently empty. A mic stand and a battered stool sat lonely in the middle of the small stage, and it made my fingers itch for my own guitar.
I ordered a whiskey, took the first sip, and let it burn down my throat with a satisfaction that only good whiskey ever gave me.
“Been a while,” the gruff-looking barman commented.
“Sure has,” I replied.
“We don’t get many Kings in here these days,” he said. “Tonight’s a busy one though.”
I knew what he was trying to ask without asking. Were we here to cause trouble? I couldn’t answer him honestly so I stayed silent.
“Got a lot of tourists tonight,” he commented, and I nodded in agreement. “Like to keep it that way.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” I replied.
I held up two fingers for another drink, and he grabbed a glass and poured me another double.
He slid it over. “This one's on me.”
I nodded my thanks and he took away my empty glass. I took a deep breath as I let the noise of the bar wash over me: the music from the jukebox, from people talking and laughing, from glasses clinking, and the sound of a pool cue hitting a ball somewhere in the back.
I was accustomed to always being on guard, even when it looked like I wasn’t, and I never really relaxed—not unless I was fireside with a guitar in my hand. There was something about the strings on a guitar that made the tension in my body loosen and my muscles finally relax.
JD appeared at my shoulder, clapping me on the back. “Tex, good to see you, brother.”
I turned at the sound of JD. He was president of the Kings of Anarchy Colorado and he was my good friend. We’d grown up together, but where he had stayed and grown roots in this place, I was constantly on the move, never settling long enough to growanything but a beard that I could shave off in the morning and a night of memories with a new woman.
I smiled and stood, and we both leaned in, slapping each other’s backs.
“How was the ride?”
“It was long, brother.”
