Snow in Texas (Lean Dogs Legacy #1)

Lauren Gilley

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Names and characters are the property of the author and may not be duplicated.

SNOW IN TEXAS

ISBN -13:
978-1523666980

Copyright © 2016 by Lauren Gilley

Cover photograph Copyright © 2016 by Lauren Gilley

HP Press®
Atlanta, GA

All rights reserved.

Welcome to the world of the Lean Dogs Motorcycle Club, a multi-national outlaw organization with chapters in North America and Europe. A world of unapologetic, loyal men, and the women tough enough to love them. A family that lives and dies by its own rules.

The adventure begins with the
Dartmoor Series
:

Fearless
Price of Angels

Half My Blood

The Skeleton King

Secondhand Smoke

Loveryboy
(coming soon)

And now takes us to the Texas and London chapters, with the
Lean Dogs Legacy Series:

Snow In Texas

Tastes Like Candy
(coming soon)

Ready to ride?

Snow In Texas

One

Amarillo, Texas

Colin

His father told him once, when he was a boy, that it was a man’s responsibility to find his place in the world. A man needed a port of call, a livelihood, and some hard-won pride to hand down to his sons.

              But the man who’d told him this had never really been his father, had he? His real father had lived a few miles down the bayou, raising the only son he cared to claim, while Larry O’Donnell woke every morning to a lie, one he threw himself into cheerfully.

              The dumb bastard.

              Colin didn’t want to think of either father – true or fake – but Remy Lécuyer made himself known in the back of his mind, same as Larry. The old friends, both buried in New Orleans soil, stood at the edge of his consciousness, watching him, breath held against what they wanted to say, wondering what he would do.

              Well, first things first, he needed to take a piss. He’d sort the rest out later.

              The bike he’d been attempting to rebuild in NOLA hadn’t been fit for travel, or salvage, so he’d left it behind, cramming his meager belongings in well-worn leather duffels and buying himself a one-way Greyhound ticket. The bus had jarred and jostled him the whole way, and finally dumped him here, at the edge of a long pale dirt driveway, the house at the end just visible in the fading light. It was long and low – did bikers not believe in second stories? – and the same color as the desert soil around it. His new home. The Texas clubhouse of the Lean Dogs Motorcycle Club.

              It was a long walk for a full bladder, and there was no one around, so he dumped his bags and decided to take care of business right there, out in the open. As he did so, he drew in a deep breath of the evening air, felt the breeze tug at his hair, and took stock of his surroundings.

              His wanderings had taken him far from home, but he’d never been to the Texas panhandle. It was nothing like the South he knew, that was cluttered with green forests and humid air. This was dry, cool and windswept, the vegetation scrubby, the soil loose and sliding away as he watched. Not a Southern place, a Texan one, and he had no idea what to make of that.

              Finished, he zipped up and collected his bags. A strange weight settled across his shoulders, one that surprised him. He’d been to countless cities and had the scars and wild memories as souvenirs. But he’d never stood at the threshold of a new adventure and suffered heart palpitations, not like now. “If you can survive in Amarillo with those boys, then you belong in this club,” Bob Boudreaux had told him before he’d been given his transfer papers. The NOLA president had laughed darkly. “That Candy, he knows how to make real men out of boys like you.”

              Boys. Like he was fifteen or something.

              Feeling heavy in the legs and uncertain, Colin began the long trek to the clubhouse.

              Night had closed over the landscape by the time he pushed through the rusty chain link gate. A massive razor wire fence surrounded the property, but the gate up at the street had been rolled back, the way unbarred. This one was paltry by comparison, and squealed when he swung it back. It led into a scrubby dirt yard littered with cigarette butts and crushed beer cans. The house itself was boarded with vertical wood siding, its small windows covered from the inside with waxy curtains that glowed gold with the light behind them. Flowerpots flanked the door, filled with nothing but dirt, studded with more cig butts.

              All of it was mildly repulsive, nothing like the tidy, homey exteriors of the New Orleans and Knoxville houses.

              Colin debated knocking, and tested the knob instead, let himself in.

              The contrast with the exterior was immediate and startling. He stepped into an entryway flanked by half-walls studded with pegs that held jackets, hats, helmets and a few rain ponchos. The walls were paneled in a new, clean pale wood, and the first things that hit him were the welcoming scents of hops, good food, and Lysol.

              Stepping out of the entryway, he found a large common room decorated with leather, rough-cut wood, iron, and cow hide, all of it tasteful and classy, like a high dollar Texas hotel rather than a honky tonk. Two longhorn heads were mounted above the bar, which was heaped with bottles and dripping with glasses. The floor shone from a fresh waxing and there were no signs of clutter or mess save a glass ashtray here and there on the heavy plank tables. Brown saddle leather sofas were tucked beneath the windows, and four wall-mounted flat screen TVs played four different football games.

              Two men who could only be identical twins sat at a table with longnecks, watching Oklahoma play Tennessee. A third man sat at the bar and turned, taking note of Colin’s appearance with a slight nod. His eyes were large and an eerie shade of blue, starkly visible across the distance. Familiar eyes; he’d seen them somewhere else. His bottom rocker read
England
.  

              The twins seemed absorbed, so Colin headed toward the Englishman, hoping for the best, braced for the worst. Story of his life.

              He dropped his bags when he reached the stool and stuck out one giant hand. “Hey. I’m Colin. Bob sent me up from NOLA.”

              There was a beat, a moment of appraisal in which those blue eyes tracked down and then back up him, flat, cool, and giving nothing away. Then the guy accepted his shake, firm grip despite the height disparity between them. “Fox,” he said, nationality confirmed by his accent. “You’re Mercy’s brother.” Not a question.

              “Half-brother,” Colin said firmly.

              Fox tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Lots of us have half-brothers, I ‘spect. You met mine, I’m sure. Walsh.”

             
That’s
where the eyes came from. This brother had dark hair instead of Walsh’s blonde, and the faces weren’t quite the same – the noses, the angles of their jaws. But the eyes were a dead giveaway. And they shared that spooky calm that belonged on a much larger, more physically imposing man.

              “Ah. Yeah, I did. You guys aren’t in the same chapter.”

              One brow lifted. “Neither are you and your brother.”

              “Fair enough.”

              Fox slid off his stool and picked up his drink – something amber in a low tumbler. “You’ll be wanting to walk to Candy, then.”

              “Um…yeah.”

              “Follow me.”

Two

Colin

All clubhouses must be the same in some respects, Colin figured. They passed a kitchen where a dark-haired woman was chopping something at a cutting board, and he glimpsed a hallway flanked with shut doors – the dorms, most like.

              The hall they passed through eventually dead-ended at a door, and Fox rapped on it. “Candy,” he called through. “Your new prospect’s here.”

              “’Kay,” someone called back from the other side, and the door opened a moment later.

              By this point in his prospecting process, Colin had heard
a lot
about the infamous Candyman, so his expectations were all over the place.

The man that filled the jambs was tall – Colin realized they were on eye level, and his own six-foot-four height wasn’t common. Broad shoulders, a narrow waist, a distinct air of fitness and coiled energy, but a face full of lines. A handsome man, he would grant him that, but a slightly weathered one, with a head full of blonde spikes and a smile that seemed to come easy.

“Well damn.” His voice was one-hundred-percent unfiltered Texas. “Look at ya. You
are
Swamp Thing’s brother, I’ll give you that.” He folded his arms and braced one big shoulder against the doorframe. “What should we call you?” He cut a fast look at Fox. “Swamp Rat?”

Colin gave him his meanest smile. “Half-brother, actually.”

Candyman laughed, and even that was a Texan sound, if such a thing was possible. “A man could do a lot worse than be half-something to Felix Lécuyer.” He still grinned, but the expression didn’t touch his eyes; those were a flat, hard blue now. “Welp.” He gave Colin the same appraisal Fox had. “Bob says you need toughening up.”

“Bob says a lotta things.”

“True. Bob’s a talker. We all are – we’re Southern.” This was said with a meaningful eyebrow lift.
You’re Southern, too
it reminded.
Now act like it
.

Candy clapped his hands together and stepped fully through the door, pulling it shut behind him. “Okay. You met everybody?”

“I met Fox.”

Candy threw an arm around the smaller man’s shoulders and earned…zero reaction. Not that Colin had expected to see one in Kingston Walsh’s brother. That family didn’t do reactions, apparently.

“Charlie Fox is the most dangerous man you’re ever gonna meet,” Candy proclaimed happily, gave the guy a squeeze and let go. He charged back down the hall, calling, “Let’s go, prospect,” over his shoulder.

Belatedly, Colin realized that was him, and hurried to follow. Fox gave him a look that suggested he wasn’t making a good impression, and he ignored it.

Candy leaned into the dorm hall as they passed and beat on the first door with one large fist. “Gringo, get out here, jackass, the new prospect’s here,” he called, and kept moving.

In the common room, the twins on the couch snapped to attention, sitting stiffly upright as Candy entered. Others had joined them: a grizzled old biker with a blue bandana and full gray beard. An iron-haired, stone-faced guy with huge biceps and a
Sgt. at Arms
patch sewn to the front of his cut. Colin also spotted a scrawny, pimple-faced kid wearing a prospect cut – disappointment and embarrassment warred for supremacy in his gut to realize he was of the same social standing within the club as poor Pimple Face.

More members filtered in at the edges of the room, from doors Colin hadn’t seen before, their distinct faces getting lost in his sudden anxiety. It was so strange for him; he had always been the first with a smartass comment, the one with the grin for the girls and the insult for the guys. Everything felt off-center here, and he didn’t think it was because his ears still needed to pop post-bus-ride.

Candy moved to stand beside him and clapped a hand onto his shoulder that was more threatening than friendly. “Boys.” He had a voice made for a theater, loud and clear and warm around the edges with Texas charm. “I want y’all to say hello to our new prospect. This is Colin O’Donnell, and he’s Mercy’s brother.”

Fast murmurs of surprise and curiosity, a shuffling of feet.

“Bob sent him up from N’awlins,” he continued, “and we’re gonna all chip in and show him the ropes around here, right?”

A chorus of “right” backed him up.

Candy’s hand tightened – Colin felt pinned in place, a sensation he wasn’t used to feeling, thanks to his size – and he used his other hand to point out each member in turn.

“Catcher and Cletus,” he said of the twins. The old man was Blue – fitting, given his bandana color of choice. The sergeant with the dead eyes was Talis. The prospect was Pup. Jinx had a thick blonde beard, funky shaved hairdo, and more tats than Colin could count. Then there was Rio, Gringo, Cowboy and Duke.

“And you met Fox. He’s just visiting,” Candy finished, with a nod toward Walsh’s half-brother that was almost respectful.

Fox nodded back and drained his drink in one swallow.

Colin greeted them all with a duck of his head, then glanced over at Candy, at the VP patch stitched to his black leather cut. “Where’s the prez?”

The room grew quiet. A shadow passed across Candy’s face. “You’ll meet Crockett in time. When it’s right.”

Okay, everything about that struck Colin as wrong. But he couldn’t argue, could he?

“Where’s your cut, prospect?” Candy asked.

“In my bag.”

“Put it on.” Not up for discussion.

“I didn’t wanna wear it on the bus,” Colin explained as he dropped his duffel and dug the required garment from its depths. “Didn’t know how the locals felt about you guys.”

A raspy chuckle echoed from across the room: Blue. “Son, they love us ‘round here.”

The cut was doubled up and had worked itself down to the bottom of the bag, full of creases. Shit. These boys wouldn’t like that, would think he was being disrespectful. He stood and shook it out, slid his arms through it. Bob had been the one to present it to him, blank save a prospect patch at the chest, and a bottom rocker bearing the same word. Cuts were sacred in the MC, even before they were festooned with patches.

Colin straightened the leather over his chest and glanced at his new VP.

Candy gave him a level look. “You’ll get to work tomorrow. And that cut? I don’t wanna see you without it again.”

Here it went.

“Yes, sir.”