Colter (Shady Valley Henchmen #9)

Chapter One

Colter

“Do I want to know why there are four bras in the freezer?” Detroit asked. He had four steaks in his hand that he moved to a platter in the fridge to defrost.

“Three words,” I said, shooting him a smirk.

“Let me guess: Raff, Saint, and Syn.”

“Bingo.”

“Been a bit since the club was this insane,” Detroit said, shaking his head.

“You’re up and out early.”

“The kids and Everleigh all got a stomach bug. I’ve been forced into quarantine because, as she says, ‘One of us needs to not have their head in the toilet all day.’ And I’m bored as shit over there. Figured I’d hit the gym, but I stopped here to defrost some steaks.”

“Because no one in your house is eating and you hate cooking just for yourself?”

“You know me well.”

Detroit used to cook for the club multiple times a day. But becoming a husband and father had stolen a lot of his time.

In his absence, the diner in town had been getting a lot of business from us. And the prepared food section at the supermarket.

We’d each tried our hand at cooking. But, well, I’d spent most of my adulthood eating prepared meals or MREs in the military.

Raff spent most of his time on the road, eating fast food or gas station hot dogs.

Syn had been living in a damn storage locker for years with no way to cook.

And Saint, well, Saint had been in prison.

Though out of all of us, he was the only one who could cook a half-edible meal. I figured that might have to do with having to raise his much younger brother. He made a mean breakfast omelet and had a hand with the grill, but without anyone to make sides, those nights were just… meat.

“When’s the last time you guys had something halfway healthy to eat?” Detroit asked. He dug around through the dozen or so clamshell containers in the fridge in search of vegetables to make as a side.

“When’s the last time you cooked for us?” I shot back.

That got a huff of a laugh out of him.

“Well, I guess I’m hitting up the food store after the gym.”

“Ah, morning,” a woman’s voice said, making both of us turn to find her standing just inside the kitchen.

I remembered her from the night before. Pretty, blonde, petite.

She’d been hanging on Syn’s every word. Her hair was dry and tangled in the harsh morning, and her red, hungover eyes had raccoon liner smudged beneath.

She’d stolen one of Syn’s tees that she had knotted over her party dress.

Her heels must have been stashed in her purse because she was wearing one of the sets of slides the club kept stocked for, well, exactly this purpose.

Who wanted to do the walk of shame in icepick heels?

“Morning,” I said over the rim of my coffee cup. “Want some coffee?”

“Actually, ah, I’m… missing…”

She sighed, closing her eyes.

“Pink, purple, black, or beige?” Detroit asked, walking over to the freezer.

“Purple,” she admitted, shaking her head at herself. “Thanks,” she said, taking the bra from Detroit, folding it in half, and shoving it into her bag. “Why did we put them in there again?”

Detroit looked at me.

“That part is a little blurry for me too. It was after the strip poker but before the topless karaoke…”

The woman let out a laugh/groan hybrid.

“So… my phone.”

“I lined them up by the door,” I told her.

I’d crashed earlier than the others. I didn’t know if I was getting old or boring (or both) but the liquor had hit me hard, making me too tired to even think about taking a woman up to bed.

So I’d gotten extra sleep and woke up to straighten the disaster of the living space before Slash happened by and saw it.

“You need a ride into town? I’m heading to the gym.”

The woman looked relieved.

“That would be great. I came with Madison, but, I, uh, guess she isn’t up yet. I have to get to work.”

“No problem,” Detroit said as I turned to pour some coffee into a to-go cup for her, adding some cream and sugar because who didn’t like coffee with something a little extra in it after a night of drinking, and held it out to her.

“Probably gonna need this,” I said as she reached for it.

“Thank you. This was… a lot different than I expected.”

The town had a little bit of a boom, population-wise. A lot of new women around who hadn’t visited the club before.

This woman worked as a nurse at the prison. Which I knew because when Saint reached for something and his shirt lifted up, she’d squealed and declared that she’d been the one to treat the wound that caused the scar on his back.

“Come back anytime. We’re always up for fun,” I said, toasting her with my coffee cup.

With that, they headed out in Detroit’s family car but it wasn’t long before I heard a rumble moving up toward the clubhouse.

Slash, as expected.

I was pretty sure I was the only one who remembered he wanted to talk to us in the morning about a job. But I didn’t mind being the messenger.

The president walked in, glancing at the purses and shoes lined up by the door, around the room, then at me. “Cleaned up the evidence, huh?” he asked, shooting me a smirk.

“Just don’t look in the freezer.”

“Panties?”

“Bras.”

He nodded, too experienced a leader to be fazed by any kind of absurdity. The club had a collection of abandoned bras and fishbowls of condoms.

“Everyone still out cold?”

“They were up late.”

“Not you?”

To that, I exhaled hard. “Think I’m getting old, man.”

“Yeah, join the club,” he agreed. “I got some shit to do with Nyx today. So I’m gonna let you tell the others about the job.”

“Sounds good.”

“It’s a bit of a haul for this one. Over in Fontana. There’s a club that reached out to place an order.”

“Club? Another MC?”

“Yeah. Fontana is rife with them. Part of the reason we’re out here in the middle of nowhere.

We don’t need that headache. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do business with them.

This is the order form,” he said, passing a slip of paper with the shorthand we had for different weapons.

“Load up Raff’s car. Tomorrow at ten is the drop. You can’t bring Saint, though.”

“What about Syn?” I asked.

“If Saint doesn’t throw a fit about it, sure. Otherwise, maybe tap someone else. I definitely want three of you there.”

“We’re not meeting at the club, are we?”

“Fuck no. Neutral location.”

“Okay. Got it.”

“Good. Got any questions, you know where to find me. Was that Detroit I saw leaving here?”

“Yeah. Kids are sick so he’s cooking for us instead.”

“Starting to regret agreeing to go out with my crew today.”

“Eh, he’ll be cooking for church in a few days too.”

“True,” Slash agreed. “I want an update as soon as you finish the drop.”

“Will do. And if Raff and Syn want to head into L.A. for the night?”

“Fine by me if you don’t do anything stupid.”

“Slash, man, this is Raff and Syn we’re talking about here,” I said with a laugh.

“Fair. I’ll settle for not arrested.”

“Think we can manage that,” I agreed.

“Alright. I’m out. Hey, babe,” he said as he passed another girl stumbling into the common area.

She jerked back, likely taken by surprise by the scars on the man’s face. That was where he got his name, after all.

“I, uh, hi,” she called after him when the immediate guilt for her response kicked in.

“Bra is in the freezer, shoes and purses by the door,” I said to her when Slash left. “Coffee is fresh. And if you’re Madison, your friend caught a ride to town to get ready for work.”

“That’s… way too many words this early,” she said, eyes small thanks to the booze and the light streaming in from the windows.

“Coffee then,” I said.

“Sweet,” she agreed, melting onto one of the island stools.

“Ibuprofen?” I asked, grabbing the bottle out of the cabinet.

“You keep it in the kitchen?” she asked, holding a hand out.

“Hangovers are a pretty common thing around here.”

She shook two into her hand and left the bottle on the counter.

“I don’t remember you,” she told me as I passed her the coffee.

“Colter.”

“Colter… Colter… oh, the gift basket guy.”

I guess if you were going to have a reputation, that wasn’t a bad one to have. Especially when it came to women.

“That’s me.”

“I used that pillow spray last night,” she told me.

The pillow spray I’d bought Raff when he showed up after a few weeks on the road with a nasty head cold in the fall. It was supposed to help clear his sinuses.

“I didn’t have my allergy meds on me. It helped.”

“Glad to hear it. Is that… a chicken?” she asked when one of the hens started singing her egg song out in the backyard.

“Yep.”

“Bikers… who have chickens…”

“We contain multitudes,” I told her.

“Oof. That’s a big word for this small hour,” she grumbled into her coffee.

“Hey, anyone up to go to the diner, I’m—oh, hey, pretty lady,” Raff said as he came into the kitchen, shirtless, hair bed-messy.

“Diner sounds good,” the woman said, leaning in slightly when Raff planted a quick kiss on her temple.

“You game?” he asked.

“Sure,” I agreed. “But we gotta talk,” I said, holding the piece of paper from Slash between my two fingers.

“You wanna go borrow something to wear out of the upstairs hall closet?” he asked the girl, who made a mumbling sound, but took her coffee and walked off. “Job?” he asked when she was gone.

“Drop. Tomorrow night. Near L.A.”

“You and me?”

“Slash wants a third. But it can’t be Saint.”

“If it can’t be Saint, then it can’t be Syn, either.”

“Your brother?” I asked.

“It’ll be like old times.”

Except, of course, it would be nothing like old times.

And we wouldn’t be hanging out in Los Angeles after either.

Instead, we’d be dragging our bloodied bodies back into Shady Valley…