Cannon (Bitter Slayers MC #3)

Chapter 1

*~* Cannon *~*

Walking into the mechanic's shop, I find Smoker in his office, which is unusual. He’s normally under a vehicle’s hood or has a vehicle on one of the hydraulic ramps, so he can get to something or other.

Seeing he’s concentrating on his computer monitor, I quietly look over his shoulder.

When he suddenly bursts out laughing, I jump a damn mile.

“Jesus Christ, Smoker. You nearly gave me a heart attack.” I hold a hand over my chest as emphasis.

“Serves you right for being nosy. You should have knocked,” Smoker chuckles.

“What’s got you all excited, anyway?” I ask him, still trying to see what he was laughing at.

“Well, I always thought those YouTube videos of dumbass customers with their vehicle repair requests were staged, but since opening the shop I know how dumb some people can actually be. I’ve had one in this morning because the car won’t start after they stopped for a coffee on the way to their work.

We had to recover it from town. I just tried to start it and it has no fuel.

The warning light is on and everything. There are no words sometimes. ” Smoker shakes his head in amazement.

“I don’t think there’s anything in this world that can surprise me any more, brother.

It’s not like when we were kids and everyone had at least some common sense.

” I shake my head as I watch the next clip on his monitor.

Someone has taken a vehicle into a tire shop because a tire has gone flat, but when the camera pans closer, literally half the alloy wheel rim is missing.

“Anyway, what did you want me to take a look at? It’s not like you to want a second opinion on something. ”

“A second opinion was just an excuse to get you here, but I wanted you to see something. I have a customer who has fallen on some hard times with his finances, and he’s got something that he asked if I was interested in. It’s out back. Come and cast your eyes over it.”

Walking through the workshop, I wonder what he thinks I could possibly be interested in seeing.

Since I got my hog, I haven’t been remotely interested in any other vehicles.

My bike is my everything. Going from the workshop into the sunshine makes me blink several times, and when my sight is back to normal, I can’t quite see what the excitement is all about.

“Well? What do you think?” Smoker looks at me as though I should be jumping up and down with excitement.

“It’s a pickup truck,” I say dumbly.

“No shit, Sherlock! But it’s not just any old pickup truck, is it?” He persists.

“No. It’s a black pickup truck. An old black pickup truck.” I emphasize the old because it sure doesn’t look like the newer types on the road these days.

“You can be such a dumbass at times, Cannon. It’s an F150, Harley Davidson Special Edition.

She’s a beauty, too. The guy has had her from new and done all sorts of extra little touches to her.

She was originally only rear-wheel drive, but he’s put a modern gearbox in so she can be two or four-wheel drive, and she has high and low ratios, too.

Go and look at her properly. She has your name all over her. ”

Having had my interest piqued by the mention of Harley Davidson, I give in and take a closer look.

I can’t see a blemish anywhere on her paint job, and I see she has some nice pinstriping going on with some fancy little filigrees here and there.

Nothing too gaudy, just nice little highlights.

There’s a roll-top cover over the back so I can’t see what the truck bed is like.

I raise my eyebrows at Smoker, and he responds with a huge grin.

“Under there is a ramp and clamp system to hold a bike in transport. You could go on a road trip for as long as you like and never get tired of riding your hog.” Smoker wiggles his eyebrows, as he knows I’ve not been on a road trip in years.

“You should have started a sales business rather than mechanics, you know that?”

“Ha. You’re just an easy target for a sale like this. Come on, man. It has your name all over it. I thought so when he used to bring it in for odd jobs, but when he said he was thinking of parting with it? I thought it has to go to you. I don’t see anyone else giving it the love it deserves.”

“Let me think about it,” I say while opening the driver's door and slipping into the seat.

“What is there to think about? If he puts it out there for sale, it will be gone in an instant. You don’t have time to think when something like this comes on the market.

You either say now, or you lose the chance of a lifetime.

I thought you’d snap his hand off for this beauty.

If you don’t buy her, I will.” Smoker shakes his head at me and I can see the disbelief in his eyes.

“She is a beauty, Smoker, but…”

“Fuck you, Cannon. If there’s a but then I’ll have her myself. You total numbskull.” Smoker turns to walk back into the workshop.

“I’ll take her. Tell him I’ll take her. Wait. How much am I paying?”

“Leave that to me. I’ll do a deal that gets him out of his financial hole but doesn’t put you in one.”

Smoker damn near skips back to his office and I walk around my new toy a few more times. Each time I find something else I hadn’t noticed before, and I am definitely falling in love with this truck.

Back at the clubhouse, Whack calls me into his office as soon as I walk inside. I used to wonder how he knew when someone turned up until I overheard one of the prospects call him from the gate.

“Well?” he asks.

“Well what?” I respond as I take a seat.

“Don’t be an ass. Did you buy it?”

“Is nothing sacred around here? Do you really have to have your nose in everyone's business? Can’t we have any privacy at all?”

“You want privacy? Join a fuckin’ monastery. Take a vow of silence and become a monk. You’re halfway to the chastity bit, anyway. When was the last time you dumped your swimmers anywhere other than the shower tray?” Whack grins, and without knowing why, I take offense at his jibe.

“Fuck you, Whack.” I storm out of his office and into the compound.

With nowhere to go, I just stand there and gawk around at the houses springing up.

Breaker and Fury both have houses now, and although very different, they are both stunning in their own right.

Maybe I should put my name in the hat for the next plot, just in case.

Listen to me. Just in case what? I need somewhere to build a garage?

Stomping back to Whack’s office, I find the door still open, so march back in and throw myself into the same chair I had so recently vacated. Leaning back in his chair, he steeples his fingers and glares at me.

“I don’t want to know what brought that on, but you need to know that I won’t stand for that kind of behavior. You’ve been getting touchier and touchier in recent weeks, so you'd better get to grips with whatever is causing it, or you keep it under control.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I wasn’t aware I was getting touchy, or if I am, what is causing it.

“Yes, I bought the truck.” It’s the only thing I can think of to say, but it comes out as moody as fuck.

“Get the hell out, Cannon. Go make some other fucker's life a misery. I’ve enough on my plate without my VP adding more shit to the pile.”

Leaving the office, in a respectful manner this time, I close the door as I go. It’s too early for a drink, and I don’t drink much anyway these days, so I go back out to my hog. I’m halfway to town before I realize that I don’t have my helmet on, and I don’t know where the hell I’m going.

Hearing a bike closing in on me from behind, I check my mirror and see Hellion sliding up to my right. I slow down and wait for him. As he pulls alongside, we stop and he reaches out, offering me my helmet.

“You’re a hard-headed bastard at times, but you still need this, brother.” He gives me this lopsided grin he has a habit of doing, and I can’t help but thank him and grin back. “Where are we headed?” He asks, and I can only shrug my shoulders.

“Follow me,” Hellion says as he pulls away, and I drop in behind him.

We head out of town and follow some country roads into the back of nowhere.

He turns up a dirt track, and I eat his dust for a mile or so before he stops and hops off his bike.

He doesn’t wait for me, just walks away, and I follow along.

Walking around a bend in the trail, I see him sitting on a rock and looking out over a fantastic view of a valley.

Sitting on a rock of my own, I just stare out, taking it all in. I have no words, and he doesn’t seem to mind as we sit there in silence.

“I don’t know…”

I begin to speak, but Hellion just shushes me, then he says, “You don’t have to know.

Sometimes there isn’t a ‘know’, it’s just how we are for a time.

When I recognize I’m being like you, I come up here and take it all in.

I watch the farmer in his field, struggling against nature to grow his crops.

I look at the town down there and think of all the families struggling to make ends meet.

There’s a bar at the end of Main Street, and most weekends there is a police cruiser floating around just waiting to go break up the fights.

I don’t know why but just sitting here and watching the world go by, thinking of other people struggling, I get to thinking.

Hey, maybe my life isn’t so bad after all.

We don’t have it bad at the club anymore.

Whack made sure that we got away from the illegal shit and got our noses clean and our acts together. ” He takes a moment and then continues.

“Most of us have a better life than we saw for ourselves when we left the service. Hell, I couldn’t see past my next drink for at least a year.

It was a server at a roadside diner who snapped me out of it.

She ripped me a new one in the parking lot one day when I was feeling particularly sorry for myself.

I wasn’t as drunk as she thought I was, but I was drunk.

She told me what her life was like, living with two kids who didn’t appreciate her and a husband who thought beating on her was a Saturday treat. ”

“That's what made you go cold turkey?” I ask.

“Hell, no. I got so drunk that night that the hangover lasted damn near a week. The next time I went to the diner though, she had a black eye and a split lip. I followed her home that night and beat her old man to within an inch of his life. Her two sons were old enough to have stopped the beatings but didn’t care about her other than the money she brought in.

I made her pack her belongings, and I threw them into the old junker I was living in.

I drove her for miles to a town far away and gave her every last cent I had.

That’s what made me go cold turkey. I don’t know what happened to her, but I know she never came back to that diner.

” Hellion looks thoughtful, and I have to wonder why he never looked for her again.

“I guess I was lucky that I never spiraled when I left the service. I dropped straight into MC life and apart from the nightmares, never looked back.”

“All this talking has made me hungry. Let’s head back and see what’s on tonight's menu, shall we?” Hellion stands, we walk slowly back to our bikes, then head home.