Tex’s Angel (Savage Legion MC #11)

Chapter 12

Tex

I didn’t think I was hearing right for a moment when Clara pretty much came onto me. I know I was gonna play it cool, but when a woman lays it all down for you, then only a fool would refuse. Especially if that woman was the one you were jerking off to in the shower. When I suggested that we could do something at the weekend I didn’t have anything in mind. I shrug and steal a sip of coffee before I answer. “Maybe we could ride down the West Coast and spend the day at the beach?”

“I love the beach,” Clara says. Her lips curl up into a smile as she adds, “Maybe we could rent a cabin and make a weekend of it?”

Holy fuck! If I needed any reassurance that we were on the same page, then that’s it. “Let’s see what’s available,” I say as I immediately start searching online.

When I find something that looks suitable, I hold out my phone and flip through the images.

Clara shifts closer to me, “It looks beautiful.”

“I’ll see if they have an opening.”

I go to their website and find that every room is filled. “It’s a holiday weekend, so they don’t have any vacancies. Maybe we could spend the day at the beach and then stay at our club’s cabin by the lake?”

“Or we could skip the beach and spend time on the lake. I have huge blow-up floats. I’m sure Levi would love them.”

“No Levi. This is you and me going on our first romantic getaway.” I stop. Suddenly thinking that I’d misread the situation. “Was this a romantic getaway or have I just made a grade A ass out of myself?”

She flushes a cute pink, “No, I was kind of thinking it might be, but you and Levi are a package deal.”

Something about her saying that makes pride surge through my chest. The few times I have hooked up with women, when they find out I’m a single dad they lose interest PDQ, “We are, but he’s a teenager. He doesn’t want to hang out with his old man all the time.”

She nods but looks concerned. “Won’t he be upset if we leave him behind?”

“I doubt it, but let’s ask him.” I type out a message letting him know we’re going to the lake and asking if he wants to come. Almost immediately I get a reply.

Levi: Ugh, I’m not gonna be the third wheel to you and our neighbor. You can enjoy the skeeters, I’m gonna stay with Evan.

I read his message and laugh. Then relay it to Clara, leaving out the bit about playing third wheel. “He says no thank you and tells us to enjoy the mosquitos. He’s asking to stay with Evan. I’m going to text Rigs and ask if it’s okay.”

Rigs voice comes from the bar area. “You don’t have to text me. I’m right here. What do you need, brother?”

“I was thinking of taking Clara out to the cabin, but Levi doesn’t want to go, he seems to think he’s staying with Evan.”

Jus then Rigs phone chimes, and he reads the message. “It’s Evan asking if Levi can spend the night. I’ll let them know that we talked and it’s more than okay.”

I comment, “I was worried that you might be going to the biker rally at Sacramento with everyone.”

“No. Mattie’s legs have been giving her trouble. She’s not up for a road trip right now. Normally, we’d have brothers fighting over that cabin but like you said, everyone is going to the rally.”

“Lucky me,” I murmur, giving him time to type out his text.

“Okay, we’re all on the same page. You guys take off whenever you want. We’ll take good care of Levi. Evan’s been talking about him like he’s the kid brother he never had. He’s so used to being the youngest round here I think he likes the chance to show someone the way.”

I can’t help but smile. “I got that from watching them together as well. Tell Mattie I said hi.”

“Will do, Tex. You’re going to keep a security team out at Clara’s place while you’re gone, right?”

I nod. “I was planning to. Is that alright?”

“Damn straight it’s alright. If you weren’t planning on doing so, I was gonna do it myself.”

“I don’t know if Wade is gonna continue camping out there with the prospects. He’s got a lot going on right now.”

“Either way, we’ve got it covered. I guess Brittany must be wearing him out.”

I jolt forward in my seat. That’s the first I heard of him hooking up with the club girl, “Believe me, crazy is the last thing that man needs in his life right now. I probably should have a word with him before I leave.”

Rigs frowns down at me. “Or you could mind your own business. I’ve been watching them together. He seems a lot happier, and Brittany seems more… well normal, when she’s around him. That dude’s not stupid. He knows what he’s getting himself into with her and in my opinion it’s a hell of a lot nicer than what he had before.”

I hold up two hands, “I get what you’re laying down, brother. I’ll leave it well enough alone and we’ll see how it goes.”

“That’s good idea brother. Now you two get outta here and have your little getaway.”

“Thanks again, Rigs.”

I just get a grunt in reply, so I take Clara to our room to gather up our stuff. Scratching my head, I say, “Did you know about Wade and Brittany?”

She just kind of shrugs. “I’d seen them talking, but hadn’t realized it was like that. Wade seems to be drawn to broken women. Maybe she’ll be the one he can fix?”

I snort a laugh, “Not fucking likely. If life were that easy, every crazy woman in the world would be wifed up.”

“I used to think that crazy men and women should marry each other and leave normal people alone, but I guess in order to have a functional life at least one person has to have their shit together.”

Not wanting to keep on talking about other people’s love lives when it looks like mine might be getting a head start, I change the subject. “We’re gonna have to stop by our homes. Neither of us bought any gear that’s appropriate for the lake, I’d ask the prospects to drop off stuff, but we only send out a team at sundown.”

We gather up the stuff we think we might need and head home. This is the first time we take my motorcycle. I didn’t anticipate having her on the back of my bike, so I snag one of the spare helmets.

“Y’all up to riding on the back of my bike?”

“You mean to the lake? I want to bring all my blow ups.”

“Not the lake. I’ve been riding my bike back and forth to work and your house. Left my truck at my house.”

Glancing down at the small rucksack in her hand, she quickly puts it on her back. “I’d love to ride on your bike, I’ve always wanted to try.”

Something loosens in my chest, and we head out to my motorcycle together. We’re not walking hand in hand, but it sure feels like we are. It’s the anticipation of having her sitting behind me, and her legs wrapped around my hips. I immediately start to get hard and reach down as inconspicuously as possible and adjust my junk, what is it with this woman? The last time I had any problems with uncalled for hard-ons was when I was a teen.

***

I take the scenic route to our houses so I can enjoy having her on the back of my bike for as long as possible. Clara doesn’t seem to mind. In fact she wraps her arms around me more firmly and lays her cheek against the back of my cut. I decide that I don’t fucking care how long we’ve known each other. If this weekend goes well, I’m putting her in my property cut. Being my old lady while we’re getting to know each other is best, cause every fucker in the world will know she’s mine.

We pull up outside our houses and immediately hear her alarm going off. “Don’t leave my bike. Y’all stay put until I can ensure it’s safe.”

“Fine but I’m calling the police,” Clara says.

“I already hit the emergency code on my phone. They should be here within a few minutes,” I say.

Jumping off the bike, I race round the house to see if there’s any sign of a break in. The back door is wide open. I pull out my gun and squeeze through the open space. Once I make it inside, I realize how badly I’ve fucked this one up. Someone had spray painted her wall with insults like, fucking liar , betrayer , and shame faced bitch .

I clear every room myself, and it’s obvious that whoever did this is long gone. As I open the front door Clara rushes in. I watch her heart break when she sees all the graffiti on the walls. “Why would anyone do this?”

I put my arm around her shoulders. “I don’t know, darlin’. I’m sorry, I thought we only needed someone here at night.”

“It’s not your fault this crazy man keeps harassing me.”

My Clara is saying all the right things but she’s also clinging to me. It’s how I know she’s feeling vulnerable and helpless.

Fifteen minutes later a bunch of law enforcement officers I had trained show up from the county sheriff’s office. They swarm me and Clara, and I do my best to explain what’s been going on. I tell them how it was a nuisance-type thing that our security company was looking into.

They take statements from both of us and declare her house a crime scene for now, which pisses her off. I talk them into allowing her to take some clothes, since the perp never made it to her room. All the graffiti was on the bottom floor of her home.

Clara sits quietly on her porch as I interact with my peers. It looks like she’s retreated inside herself. As I talk to my colleagues, I notice that a couple of them are talking to me differently, their tone dismissive. I wonder what the fuck is wrong, then realize that this is the first time they’ve seen me in my Savage Legion cut. I’ve been kind of secretive about being in the Legion because I know how my brothers in blue like to think all MCs are shady.

They fully understand the difference between one percent clubs and law abiding clubs like the Legion. The thing is, they can never seem to let of their personal bias against MCs in general. It’s an emotional reaction, not a logical one. I don’t want to hazard a guess as to how long it’s gonna take for my supervisor to learn that I’m a fully patched brother of the Savage Legion MC.

By the time the crime scene techs arrives, I’m loading up Clara’s stuff into the back of my truck and tying it down. We go inside my house, and I begin to gather up all the things that are important to Levi and myself. My train of thought is that if they’d hit her house, they might hit mine for helping her. I load everything up and snap down a soft cover over the bed of my truck, so nothing goes flying out when I’m doing eighty down the interstate. As a precaution, I call one of the prospects to come and get my motorcycle. It’ll be safer at the clubhouse than in my garage.

Clara and I sit on my porch swing and talk about random things until the prospects come and remove my bike. I hate to see it pull out with another rider, but I love my bike too much to take a chance on it being vandalized. A group of prospects are arriving to guard Clara’s home. They’ll wait at my place until the crime scene techs clear out. They aren’t allowed to go onto her property until the police clear the crime scene, though as it’s mostly just vandalism that shouldn’t take too long.

***

By the time we’re on the road it’s late afternoon. We make a pit stop at a grocery store so I can get us some provisions and when we eventually arrive at the cabin, it’s after dark. I can tell that Clara is mentally and physically exhausted because she doesn’t talk. Instead she just sits quietly and stares. Nothing I do or say seems to interest her at the moment. All I can do is encourage her to eat a few cheese crackers and tuck her in bed. I walk around the room, making sure there’s a nightlight on and that all the windows are shut and locked. I’ll take the other room tonight, I know we’d talked about having a romantic getaway, but there’s something about breaking and entering that blows any romance outta the window.

I do a walk around outside, just to make sure there’s no danger before locking up the whole cabin, setting the security alarm, and linking my laptop to the exterior security cameras. I’m intent upon doing everything I can to make sure Clara is protected from whoever is stalking her. Maybe coming out here wasn’t such a great idea, but fucked if I was gonna let some lowlife asshole dictate my life. I lay down on the sofa with my laptop on my chest and rotate between viewing the outside cameras and investigating her soon to be ex-husband. Tonight I set my mind to looking into his associates to see if any of them fit the build of the man who showed up on the security camera at her house. My police skills come in handy because I can sign into the state’s law enforcement portal and pull information from there. But after my work colleagues seeing my Savage Legion vest, I wonder how long I’ll have access for. Pushing that thought to the back of my mind I get to work.

I know that Zen said Chris was squeaky clean but I thought there would at least be parking tickets or maybe he’d been late paying his taxes but there was literally nothing. He graduated from college with good grades and rolled right into a nice job.

I go back to viewing the cameras as I think this situation over. No man on earth is this clean. I go back to look through his family, stopping to pay attention to each member. I look up images of each of them on social media, study the photos they’ve uploaded, and pay attention to what they do for a living.

That’s when I find it. His maternal aunt works for the mayor, as his executive assistant. She posted a picture of the two of them together at an official function. He’s gazing at her like he doesn’t have a wife waiting for him at home.

Gotcha!

If Texas is any indication, small towns can be corrupt. Local town mayors have a lot of political clout, enough to make small and sometimes big issues disappear. And many are willing to do it for the sake of a pretty woman.

I pick up my phone and text Zen, our club IT specialist.

Me: I just found out that Christopher Collins’ aunt is the administrative assistant for Mayor Arnold.

Zen: How in the fuck did I miss that?

Me: IDK, I was searching through his family’s social media and found a photo of them together. I’m gonna send it to you.

I take a second to pull a link and sent it to him.

Zen: I see now why you have reason to suspect he might be willing to spot her a little favor here and there. Give me twenty-four hours.

Me: Right now he’s my only suspect so I want to know all his dirty secrets.

Zen: I’m on it, brother.

When the screen goes blank, I set my phone aside and fall asleep with my laptop on my chest while looking at the feed from the outside cameras.