Houston Callaghan: The Devil's Bastards MC

by Kendra Plunkett-Witt

  “My strongest personality traits.”

  We walked around the bunk house and headed for the driveway. Houston stepped towards his bike and had half mounted it when I cleared my throat.

  “We are taking the truck.” I said, Houston shot me a confused look like the idea was preposterous. “Supplies are not going to fit in your saddlebags.”

  Houston left his bike and headed for the driver’s door of my Dodge. I sighed and gave him my keys. It was my truck, not to mention he didn’t know where we were going, but it wasn’t worth the fight with his chauvinistic ass.

  “Thought maybe you just didn’t want to ride with me.”

  “I’m not scared, if that’s what you were thinking,” I said, climbing into the passenger side.

  “Have you ever even been on a motorcycle?”

  I opted out of answering him. No sense him goading me until I got on the back of his. I had never been on a motorcycle before. Hell, I had never even ridden that dirt bike that was in the shed. The last time I was on two wheels I was eleven and it was my bicycle.

  I wasn’t scared … the opportunity had just never presented itself and I didn’t know how I felt about the prospect of climbing on his bike. I was positive that Houston was an excellent rider but being on the back of his bike would mean I had to wrap my arms around him and press the front of my body into his back.

  The thought gave me an unwelcome hot flash.

  ***

  We rode in near silence as we headed into town. It wasn’t a long drive, twenty minutes and some change. I gave directions as needed and fiddled with the radio as a distraction.

  I grabbed a cart when they walked into Wal-Mart and it only earned me a glare from Houston. So, I relented that too. Seriously, this man and wheels.

  I told him not worry about things like extra wash cloths and towels, that I would have them brought out as Grandma had put only a handful in the bunkhouse the day before. As I talked, I could tell the thought of towels and toiletries hadn’t even crossed his mind. I rolled my eyes.

  I wasn’t exactly a dater. For most of high school, and what would have been most of my college years as well, I had dated Andrew. But he moved to Dallas nearly two years ago. The more I thought about it, and I thought about it a lot since Houston arrived, Andrew hadn’t prepared me for what men were like. He hadn’t lived on his own until he left, and he seemed to always be adjusted to me. We thought the same way, liked the same things, we never fought, never disagreed on anything.

  Until he moved anyhow. That had been a shocker. The move and the part where Andrew had assumed I would just go with him, our first and only disagreement proving just how little we we’re ever really in sync.

  We walked around Wal-Mart, he oblivious and I very aware of the stares we were getting. We looked like a fairly-odd couple. I was more than a foot shorter than him and we looked worlds apart. Houston with a full sleeve tattoo on his left arm and a partly started one on his right whereas I sported virgin skin.

  While our attire of jeans and t-shirt and boots matched mostly, his cut separated us by a few different worlds. I saw several people whom I knew in passing, as was typically for small town living and Wal-Mart. People who would normally say hello and make small chit-chat. But not today. Today, the males glared, and the females suddenly looked suddenly parched as they laid eyes on Houston.

  But Houston hadn’t noticed a one of them. Instead, he followed me through the grocery side of the store while I asked questions on what the men who was coming in, liked to eat. He shrugged. Then I asked what he liked to eat. He shrugged again.

  Mister non-committal left me throwing random items in the cart. Grams and Mom had been used to cooking for the bunkhouse until a few years ago. Grams had already made a low comment that she would start preparing at least one meal a day for the “regulators” as I referred to them, while they were here.

  Personally, I knew Grams liked cooking for the masses and it made me feel better knowing that they were partially at least, welcomed at Homeland. I grabbed pizzas, snacks, soda and water bottles along with easily microwavable meals. Houston grabbed a few cases of beer but bypassed the hard liquor.

  “They are working,” he said with a shrug. I kept a bottle of whiskey in my closet, mainly so I didn’t have to share it, I didn’t give a shit what they drank, just as long as they could ride and shoot straight.

  When we checked out I pulled out my debit card and Houston shoved it in my bra. The annoyance overrode the feeling of Houston’s closeness. The debit card in my boobs had nothing remotely sexual about it, he was just being a stubborn ass.

  We hadn’t talked about the payment arrangement, and I had asked. I needed to know what I was getting into when I made a deal with the Devil.

  Finally, escaping Wal-Mart we headed back to the parking lot with our groceries, shampoos, toilet paper and toothpaste. As we finished unloaded the cart, I heard a sound that I, and the rest of the locals had become all too familiar with. Fighting.

  “What the hell is going on over there?” Houston asked.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Oh, but I do.”

  “Town has had a few drug problems lately.”

  “Define few,” Houston growled. Geeze okay, he didn’t like drugs apparently. Not that I did, but I wasn’t sure where Houston was on the morality scale.

  “Crank. Been coming in the last few months.”

  “Who’s running it?”

  “Rumor has it some guy named Calverts, cops can’t seem to pin anything to him. He’s got a crew they call themselves the Vipers.”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “You know him?” I shouldn’t be surprised. Houston seemed to know everyone who ran in the wrong circles. That concerned me. About him. About my idiot brother.

  “I know of the Vipers. They are to the Duro Ocho’s what the Hellions are to the Bastards.”

  “And I guess you don’t like the Duro Ocho’s?”

  “Look, you heard the line from your brother about how we are just a group of motorcycle enthusiast?”

  “Yes, and I have known since day one that, that’s a bunch of crap.”

  “So, I can tell you that mutual respect lies between my patch and the Duro Ocho’s but that’s about it. They aren’t as big or as powerful as we are. For the last three decades the Bastards have been the kings, but we don’t play in manufacturing or dealing. We demand our crew, for the most part, be relatively clean and sober. A jittery junky isn’t very helpful with business. The last year or the Bastards have been scaling back. Leaning towards the weekend warrior brigade. Too much pain and suffering, wasn’t worth the long haul.

  “When my brother Austin was fresh out of his prospect cut with the Bastards he was twenty-one and I was just out of high school, the president of the Houston, Texas chapter approached us at a bike show. Asked to consider leaving our family patch and join up with the Ocho’s. Being from a Mexican mother and the legacy Wes Callaghan had across the South West before he was forty, they thought we could have some pull amongst the clubs and gangs by name alone.

  “The asshole was recruiting high school kids, Bastards never even let anyone under twenty prospect, besides the children of the founding members. Anyway, he was building an army for his drug business. Offered us a cut of the pie. He’d make us rich in dealing. We told him to go to hell and tore the shit out of his crew. Ever since then Austin, while we had him, made it a point to keep his boot on the Ocho’s balls.”

  “I guess you keep the tradition alive?” I asked. The sound of a kid, no more than fourteen, begging in broken English as fists connected with flesh, broke our conversation up.

  Houston muttered a curse and stormed across the dark parking lot. I looked between my truck and the direction of the confrontation before following Houston, not that I would be much help, but I wasn’t missing this.

  Houston gave no warning. He grabbed one of the two guys wearing black hoodies with Viper logo’s spray painted like tags on the back. He s
ent him flying and landing hard on his back atop the pavement.

  The second tried to think fast and went for a knife he carried, Houston blocked it easily, twisting the Vipers wrist until he dropped it and then landing a kick to the back of his legs so that he fell on his knees.

  Houston turned to the scared kid, likely an immigrant, probably illegally and most certainly being blackmailed into pushing, Houston barked an order in Spanish and the boy turned and ran off into the dark.

  The Viper on the ground ran away when the kid did and in the opposite direction. Houston didn’t seem to mind. He was here to make a message and that was it. He slammed the Viper he had left into the dark SUV they had, had the kid backed up to.

  “Send a message to Calverts. Tell him if he’s still pushing Duro Ocho crank in Laredo at the end of the week, that hell will rain down on him.”

  “Vipers and the Duro Ocho’s aren’t scared of anyone,” the Viper, who was younger than I was by a couple years and dumber than dumb, reared back and spat in Houston’s face, Houston reciprocated by slamming him face first into the car. The alarm wailed but Houston didn’t change pace or direction of the conversation.

  “You must be new to the club then. Duro Ocho’s and Vipers exist solely on the blessing of the Devil’s Bastards. Read the patch boy. I’m President of the Nomads. So, go to your Viper Pres. Go to your Duro Ocho’s Pres, tell them that Houston Callaghan has ordered you out of Laredo. Laredo is Bastard Territory and it belongs to me.”

  Houston dropped the Viper who scurried off, face gushing blood, and turned back to me. “Let’s go.”

  I didn’t say a word when we got into the truck, I just handed Houston a napkin from the glove compartment, he wiped the Vipers saliva from his face. Houston was calm. He hadn’t lost his cool with them, just put up the front that was required. It was as impressive tonight as it had been with Dart at the bar.

  “Say it,” Houston said as we got about half way back to Homeland.

  “Say what?”

  “Whatever it is you want to say. You’re chewing on your lower lip. You have something you want to say, so just do it.”

  “I was just wondering, you have the power to shut anyone down like that? Anywhere?”

  “No. Not anyone. Not anywhere. Most crews, patches and MCs I have some power over. Not the mobs, cartels, Triad. I don’t have control over them. There is enough Bastards and Hellions throughout the country and the southern states, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas mainly, that I have some weight. But it’s Texas where I am most powerful.

  “I couldn’t shut down Duro Ocho’s whole operation with a threat. War isn’t worth it. Kill one drug dealer and forty more come to their funeral. But I can claim Laredo as my territory. Duro Ocho has a big enough spread that losing a little bit won’t ruffle their feathers too much. They will respect my stake for a while at least. For today and the near future that boy and his family are safe from the Vipers and the Duro Ocho’s.”

  “You were so calm though. You didn’t blink, you didn’t lose control. Not at all. Not today, not at The Dead End Saloon either.”

  “Tonight, wasn’t personal. I try very hard not to lose control. People get hurt and hurt bad when control is lost. Back in Amarillo though, it was close. I didn’t much care for how Dart was treating you.”

  “Because I was Tate’s sister?”

  “I didn’t know you were Tate’s sister… I just knew you were something,” Houston’s hard voice seemed to lose a notch or two of edge and I didn’t know what to say or what to make of the response, so I left it at that.

  Chapter Eight

  Houston

  Duro Ocho’s and Vipers annoy me and seeing little kids pushed into peddling drugs aggravates me. But tonight, seeing what I had, it set me off albeit a little unexpectedly. Which was weird, in my line of living, it is something I saw far too often.

  I don’t know why I flipped out, suppose it was just because Amelia was with me. Suddenly, I wanted her to see the power that I held. That I could really handle myself. And most importantly, because despite the strength I saw in her, and I saw a lot, I knew she hadn’t been exposed to this dark underbelly of the world and I wanted her to hold on to that innocence for as long as humanly possible.

  And I had told her the truth about Dart. I had almost lost control because of how the scum had treated her. I didn’t lie to Amelia, I hadn’t lied to Amelia about anything. At this point I didn’t think it was possible, and I am an excellent liar.

  I half expected her to be afraid of me. Hell, I half wanted her to be. There are women who are attracted to violence and the kind of men that violence follows. I didn’t want Amelia to be that kind of woman.

  Yet Amelia was neither cold towards me or overly excited about what had happened in the parking lot. Instead, she remained quiet, as if lost in thought. She stared out the window as I drove, retracing our route back to Homeland. An itch came over me, the need to touch her. Before I realized what I was doing, my hand was halfway across the seat that separated us.

  Damn, I wanted her. There was no denying that, my head knew it as well as my dick. I had wanted her since the moment I laid eyes on her. The way she looked at my half naked body back at the bunkhouse tonight let me know she was attracted to me too. The chemistry was real on both ends, and if she were anyone else, I would have slid my hand up her thigh as I drove. Giving her an alluring and unmistaken invitation that I would make sure she wouldn’t decline.

  But it was Amelia, and I was more or less working for her, not that it ever mattered to me before. When I reached for her, it wasn’t her thigh that I gripped tight for a moment, but her hand. I stopped just short of holding it, just giving her a small, reassuring squeeze. When she turned to look at me, she rewarded me with a soft smile, and I released her and put both hands back to the safety of the steering wheel.

  ***

  Tommy and Josẽ rode into the ranch yard just after midnight. Amelia had wanted to stay down and wait for them, but I told her it would be best if I talked to them first. No need for her to stay awake, she would see them in the morning.

  I had been catnapping on the back patio when the sound of bikes jolted me fully awake. I stretched, shaking the sleep and stiffness from the patio chair from my body and went to greet the boys.

  Tommy had been a Bastard for fifteen years. Patched in Arizona to a chapter outside of Phoenix he had only stayed there a short while before getting tied up with a woman in Amarillo. He went nomad and when she left him, he never returned to his home chapter. Tommy was the original owner of Tommy’s Dead End Saloon, and it acted as a welcome hangout for Nomads in northern Texas.

  Josẽ had been a Hellion for as long as I could remember. He was older than me and younger than Tommy. I placed him somewhere around thirty-six. When the nomad President, myself and Scottie before me, needed back-up and there wasn’t enough Bastards in the area, Josẽ was on our call list.

  Nomad patch didn’t work things the way regular charters did. It was meant for those who wanted to live outside the restrictions of a chapter but keep their patch. Nomads were typically one of three things: drifters, stable lived men with families who couldn’t turn in their patch and retires who wanted to ride, like Alec, until their bodies forced them off their bikes.

  “I can’t believe we’re on a ranch,” Tommy muttered as he slung his saddle bags into a bunk.

  “Concept is still the same as anything else. Protection services. Rustlers have this place bleeding money and they need it stopped. We’re good at things like that,” I said, crossing my arms. Tommy was good, but he was cranky and moody.

  “I am not getting on a horse nor will my bike make it out on the range,” Josẽ added sternly.

  “The ranch has a UTV and has commandeered another. We can use one of them for patrols. The Jones’ are bringing in a trailer. Have a couple of those new racing UTVs aboard that will have to make do while we are here.”

  Sticky and Speedy Jones were brothers, Speedy was another of my nomad pat
ch and Sticky spent half his life doing time for grand theft auto. He wasn’t as big into the biker life as Speedy and he was okay at what we needed him to do as long as someone kept a close eye on him.

  Josẽ headed inside the bunkhouse with his bags leaving Tommy and myself on the back porch when we noticed the soft sounds of someone making their way through the dark. Tommy pulled his gun as the shadow figure approached from the way of the big house and I motioned for him to put it the fuck away.

  “Houston?” Amelia’s soft voice come through the dark as her figure appeared on the edge of the light. “I heard the bikes pull in, I just wanted to make sure everyone got settled in for the night. That no one need anything.”

  Amelia was barefoot, her long hair flowing free, her body clad in on a soft, cream colored night gown with thin straps that fell over her form and stopped just short of her knees. The girl didn’t have a fucking clue what she was doing, she caused me to jump in my jeans with just a glance at her.

  “Well hello there, Sweetie, I’m Tommy,” the idiot next to me started. Tommy was her parents age. I shot him a death glare and half leapt from the small porch, placing myself next to Amelia.

  “We’re okay. Let me walk you back to the house, it’s late,” I whispered to her softly, placing my hand on her elbow to help guide her back to her house.

  “It’s my ranch,” she hissed at me in a low voice as we stepped back into the shadows.

  “I know it is. But I told you to stay inside tonight. I needed to talk to them and instead you show up down there in this. Do you know how dangerous that is?” We had crossed the ranch yard now and were quickly approaching the back-porch door.

  “How dangerous what is?”

  “This nightgown,” I dared to glance back over at her, from where we were only the pale moonlight reflected from her clothing. Damn her, she wasn’t even wearing a bra. “It’s distracting Amelia. Don’t you know that? They are my men and I don’t like the way it made them look at you.”

  “It’s just a cotton night gown Houston!”