Wild Fire (Chaos)

Chapter One

Movie Star Gorgeous

Dutch

Dutch’s phone rang while he was in the T-U-V section

at Fortnum’s Used Books.

He pulled the cell out of the back pocket of his jeans and

checked the screen.

Jagger Calling.

He loved his brother, but it was hit or miss if he’d pick up

a call from the guy.

This was only because Jag was all about good times. Getting

drunk. Getting laid. Getting out of town for a change of scenery, doing it on a

long ride, and doing it in order to get drunk or laid in a fresh locale.

Jag was twenty-six, it was his time to carouse.

At least that’s what their ma and Hound said.

Dutch was twenty-eight, and apparently it was his time to

carouse too.

At least that was what their mother and Hound urged him to

do.

Dutch just wasn’t feeling it.

Not anymore.

Not that he ever did. That was not the kind of guy he was.

He could see getting a buzz on, and he did.

But being around dudes who were so drunk, they were either

sloppy or turned into assholes, not so much.

Jag never took it that far. His brother just got happy(er)

and (more) sociable when he got a buzz on.

Jag’s puking-and-being-an-asshole days ended that night

their motorcycle club, Chaos, voted Jagger in as prospect. Then they made him

drink to the verge of alcohol poisoning. After that, with the mother of all

hangovers, they made him clean up after himself and everyone else who’d

over-imbibed.

Come to think of it, that was when Dutch’s getting-drunk,

puking-and-being-an-asshole days ended too. Before Jag’s. When the brothers had

taken Dutch on as a recruit and made him do the same thing.

These were the ways of Chaos, Dutch had learned.

Even shit that didn’t seem to have a purpose, had a purpose.

Tack, their retired president, was that kind of guy, that

was where he led the Club, and he’d cemented them there, all so he could hand

that kind of Club down to his son.

Something he did.

In other words, no man wanted to be around another man who

could not handle his booze. Who didn’t know when to stop. Who got to the point

he was puking and being an asshole.

So you learned right away in Chaos that wasn’t the brother

to be.

And they found a way to teach that lesson and made you that

kind of brother.

He ignored the call, shoved the phone back into his pocket

and slid the volume from the shelf.

Vonnegut. Bluebeard. Hardback.

Dutch opened the book and saw, in subtle pencil written at

the top right of the opening page, $5.00.

Vonnegut hardback, five dollars.

A freaking steal.

He set it on top of Rabbit, Run and retraced his

steps to the M-N-O section.

He checked and it was a negatory.

They almost never had a copy of Confederacy of Dunces,

which sucked.

So he retraced to E-F-G and hit gold.

Ellison. Invisible Man.

He snatched that up and headed to the Young Adult section,

even though he knew it was a fool’s errand. He’d checked every time he’d come

to Fortnum’s for the last year.

He was right.

It wasn’t there.

He hit up the T-U-V section again, just in case it wasn’t in

Young Adult.

Nope.

Not there either.

Dutch then walked back up to the front and saw Duke, as

usual, was behind the book counter.

The man’s eyes came direct to him the instant he’d cleared

the stacks.

Duke was a mainstay at Fortnum’s. An ex-English professor

who, decades ago, left the university politics, track to tenure and rat race

behind, dropped out and made his life about his wife, his bike and his job at a

used bookstore.

Dutch liked Duke, respected the man, but he didn’t like the

look in Duke’s eyes these days when Dutch would come to the store. He further

wasn’t big on the looks Duke and Tex would exchange when Dutch was around.

Tex was a Vietnam vet, an ex-recluse, and an inveterate cat

lover. So much of the last, there were dozens of pictures of cats, all Tex’s,

tacked haphazard on the wall behind the coffee counter under the shelves of

cups and mugs.

The man was also a lunatic. And it was against all odds that

huge, loud, bad-mannered, cat-loving dude was the best barista in the state and

at least everyone in Denver knew it, so even now, when it was one in the

afternoon, there was a line ten strong in front of the coffee counter.

But even with all that, Tex was a good guy. Solid.

Like Duke.

Family, the folk at Fortnum’s. Duke, Tex, Indy (the owner of

the store), Jet, one of Indy’s best friends who also worked there, their large

posse.

Dutch had a family like that. A big one of MC brothers and

their women and their children.

Good, solid folk, down to their bones.

And yet…

“Invisible Man, this for you, or someone else?”

Duke asked, taking Dutch’s attention, and Dutch realized he was so lost to his

thoughts, he was working on autopilot and hadn’t noticed he’d approached the

register and laid down his books.

“Someone else,” Dutch answered.

“You read it?” Duke asked.

“Yeah,” Dutch told him.

“Whole world should read it,” Duke muttered, jabbing a thick

finger against the screen of the tablet that stood in for a till.

“Yeah,” Dutch agreed. “Listen, you wouldn’t have any copies

of The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas that haven’t been shelved yet,

would you?”

Duke shook his head. “Not many givin’

up that book. We get one, you want me to call you?”

He could go to Barnes and Noble, easy.

With Tex as her barista, not to mention Indy and her crew

all being the subject of those books that had been published, so folks came in

all the time, Indy wasn’t hurting for customers, or cash.

Still, Dutch bought his books exclusively from Fortnum’s.

And he had a lot of books.

He had no idea why Fortnum’s was his go-to. It wasn’t about

buying local or any of that other millennial shit.

Thinking on it, it was the fact he liked the vibe.

It was the fact that walking in there was like walking into

someone’s house.

Like coming home.

To family.

Shaking off his thoughts, he agreed, “That’d be cool.”

“You wanna stay for a cup o’ joe

and a talk?” Duke asked, and Dutch hid his surprise.

The man hadn’t approached. Not in word or deed.

There were the looks he gave Dutch, the ones he exchanged

with Tex.

But he never said dick.

“No, got shit to do this afternoon,” he lied.

He had no shit to do that afternoon.

Or at all.

Ever.

“Boy—” Duke started.

“I’m not a boy,” Dutch bit.

His temper wasn’t usually short, but these days, it could

be.

This was why Duke blinked.

He then said, “Son—”

“I’m not your son either,” Dutch returned.

“Right then.” Duke’s voice was no longer a friendly rumble.

It was tight. “First, my age can’t have escaped you, considerin’

all this gray hair and wrinkles, so you are a boy to me, and you will be until

you’re sixty and I’m dead. And second, any man’s a man at all, a man that’s

younger than him and obviously struggling is his son. A son he looks after.”

Christ, was he not hiding it?

“I’m not struggling,” he lied again.

“Dutch—”

“Brother, just ring me up so I can get on with my day,”

Dutch demanded.

Duke was silent a beat.

He then finished ringing him up, and Dutch paid.

“No bag,” he grunted.

Duke slid the books over the counter toward Dutch.

Dutch had turned, avoiding Tex’s eyes as he did, and started

heading toward the door when Duke called, “You know that door is always open,

but the one to my cabin in Evergreen is too, man.”

Duke was good people and Dutch had acted like an asshole.

So he lifted a hand and flicked out a finger to indicate

he’d heard Duke’s words before he walked out the door.

It was early November, and cold, and he’d had a trip planned

to Fortnum’s on his agenda that day, so he was not on his bike.

He was in his truck.

And right then, he walked the five blocks to his vehicle

huddling into his leather cut. A spot that even five blocks away was considered

a score in an area that had grown popular over the years, to the point all the

good shit was smushed in with all the trendy shit.

Trendy, like there was a fucking tiki bar, for fuck’s sake.

As the years had gone by and the new edged out some of the

old, Fortnum’s had become the bastion of old-school cool on South Broadway in

Denver.

And Dutch hoped like hell the millennials—of which he was

one, but he wasn’t a fan of his membership—got bored with Broadway and returned

it to the freaks and geeks and antiquers and gays and

hip cats and hipper pussycats who knew true cool came from a vintage clothing

shop, not a Free People catalog.

He climbed into his truck as his phone rang again.

He checked it.

It was Jagger.

He ignored the call, started up his truck, and embarked on

the only other item on his agenda that day.

He headed to King’s Shelter, a safe place for runaway kids.

King’s provided food. A bed. TV. Some counseling if you took

it. Some tutoring, if you took that too.

Mostly, it was a no-pressure place for kids who couldn’t

hack home so they wouldn’t be on the streets. They could get a decent meal,

sleep in a clean bed, take a shower and catch up on their reality programs.

Right, that wasn’t entirely accurate.

There was food, clean beds, and a huge TV.

But also, there was pressure.

That said, Juliet Crowe, the woman who ran the place, made

an art of making pressure seem like no pressure.

If there was a way to reconcile shit at home, she’d find it,

and reconcile that shit.

If there was no way, she’d figure out an alternate avenue

for a kid that didn’t include hanging downtown, falling into dealing, using, or

whoring.

It was just she was a dab hand at finessing that shit.

He parked at the shelter, got out, grabbed one of the books,

and headed in.

Chances were probably seventy-thirty the kid wouldn’t be

there.

Dutch’s day looked up when he saw him there.

He didn’t hesitate moving right to the guy who was not at

one of the couches around the big sixty-incher, watching some show where three

bitches were wearing skintight mini-dresses and four-inch heels, shouting at

each other and pulling each other’s hair.