by Jessie Cooke
Jamie flipped her body around so she was still sitting on him, but facing his feet. Then she lay forward, rubbing her breasts against his thighs and letting her pussy land right over his mouth. Coyote had never given a woman head, but he went with his gut instinct as soon as he got a whiff of her arousal. He let his tongue come out to taste her. It was like being a kid and getting your first taste of chocolate. He knew he’d never forget her, or how sweet she tasted, or how sexy she smelled. He wrapped his big arms around her waist and pulled her toward him so he could bury his face between her legs. He licked up and down and he let his tongue snake up inside of her. Meanwhile, she wrapped her lips around his cock again. Her hand was on the base of it, stroking as she sucked and licked. Coyote found her clit and began to flick it back and forth with his tongue. He realized that he didn’t have to know exactly what to do…her body, her reactions, the sounds that she was making…all of it egged him on when he was doing the right thing. She liked when he sucked on her clit. The harder he sucked the more excited she became. She pressed into him and rocked up and down and suddenly he felt her body tense…and she screamed. What she was doing felt amazing…but just the idea that he had made this incredibly sexy woman have an orgasm was what pushed him over the edge, and the second was better than the first. For the first time in his life he fell asleep with a smile on his lips and a woman in his arms, and he knew this was the world he wanted to live in.
Coyote woke up several hours later, just as the sun was going down outside. He was alone, but that cloud of euphoria still surrounded him. He took a shower and headed downstairs. When he hit the bottom step he saw Doc. He was standing in front of one of the pool tables…doing shots out of glasses that were tucked securely in between Jamie’s big, almost bare breasts. It was at that moment he realized this was Doc’s world and he was only being allowed to live in it.
5
2002, Central California
“Dad?” Coyote had been back in California for an entire day following Doc’s funeral, but he still hadn’t been able to shake the memories. There were just too many of them, both good and bad. Coyote and Doc had a twenty-seven-year love/hate relationship. It was the longest relationship that Coyote ever had…and the one that he learned the most from. It was going to be hard waking up every morning for the next twenty-seven years, knowing Doc Marshall no longer walked the earth.
“Hey,” he said, smiling up at his son. As soon as he heard the door to the office open, he’d stuck the flask full of whiskey into the top drawer of the desk in front of him. He was really glad he did when he saw that his visitor was Wolf. Coyote knew that he was an alcoholic. Hell, most people did. But he thought he did a good job of functioning, so fuck anyone who didn’t like it…except for Colleen, and his son. He did his best to…if not hide it altogether…at least minimize it in front of them. “When did you get back?”
Wolf had gone to the funeral, but he’d left right after and headed for Texas. Coyote had gotten a strange call a few days before and he wanted it checked out…but as much as he trusted the men in his club, there was no one on earth he trusted more than his son, so he’d sent Wolf to investigate the news. Even at only seventeen years old, the boy was more of a man than most men Coyote knew.
He had actually thought about mentioning the call to Dax but thought it might just be too much with what he was already going through. Not only had Dax lost his father, his idol…but his club had lost its leader. They had already been functioning without a VP for a few years. Doc refused to replace Hawk, which had most of the club pissed off at him. His reasoning was that once he found him, he wanted to formally strip him of his title. A lot of the guys wondered, however, if it was a control thing. Most of what Doc did was about control. Coyote was one of the few people who had seen a different, softer side of Doc Marshall, and that was the bond that kept them from outright hating each other over the years when shit went sideways. Dax was an SA, and young. But if it were up to Coyote, he’d be the next president. Doc was smart, almost a genius…but there was no “almost” about Dax.
“I rode in just about an hour ago,” Wolf said, pulling out a chair and sitting on it backwards. Wolf was tall and lanky, not compact the way Coyote always was. But Wolf hadn’t grown up working in the fields, and he hadn’t spent a solid three years working out every day and fighting every night. As he got older Coyote noticed that the boy was putting on more muscle. He wasn’t a small man by any means, and by the time he finished with puberty, his muscle mass might match all that hair he’d already inherited from his dad.
“So…we’ve got a couple of problems, or maybe Dax does, depending on how you decide to handle this,” Wolf said.
“A couple of them?”
“The kid…he has to be Doc Marshall’s son.”
“Has to be? That chick…she was a little unstable…” Coyote said.
“She took a handful of pills, bunch of different stuff, prescriptions for anxiety and depression and sleep. The poor kid found her, foaming at the mouth, I guess. Shit,” Wolf said, shaking his head. “The things people do to their kids. Anyways, I went to see the social worker who called you…”
“Did the social worker say why she called me? All her message said was that she was trying to get in touch with Doc. Why call here?”
“She said she called the clubhouse in Boston several times and they all gave her the runaround. My guess is that nobody wanted to tell her Doc was dead…the place was kind of chaotic for the past couple of weeks. Anyway, after getting shuffled around a few times she called a friend of hers out here in California. I guess this is where she is from originally, and turns out that she actually handled a CPS case involving one of our porn workers a few years back, so she knew the Skulls had a chapter out here. Her friend got your name and she ended up calling you…and here we are.”
“So, did you see the kid?”
Wolf sighed and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. He always did that when he was thinking about how to say something. Coyote liked that his son had a cooler head than him. He felt like someday Wolf was going to make a much better president than he ever thought about being. “Not in person. I saw a picture of him. Dad…you gotta see this kid. He’s got dark skin, black hair…dreadlocks, down to his waist…and the bluest fucking eyes you’ve ever seen.”
“Shit.”
Wolf nodded. “Not only that, but Trinity, the social worker…she knew to call Doc because the kid not only told her that Doc was his father, but she said he had a vest, a Southside Skulls kutte with Doc’s name on it.”
“He had it? Where’s it at?”
“I’m guessing he still has it. They put the kid in a foster home, Dad. He took off that same night. The social worker says they’re looking for him, but so far, no sign.”
“Shit. How old is he?”
“Ten, maybe eleven, she said.”
“Motherfucker.”
“You think Doc knew about him?”
Coyote thought back to that time. He was already in California, so he wasn’t around Doc a lot then…but that was almost exactly the same time that Dallas packed up, took Dax, and left. She moved on without Doc, and if you knew Dallas and how much she loved her man, you would know that it had to be something big that pushed her off that ranch. Something like knowing her old man got his lover pregnant. Shit. Shit. Shit. Instead of answering Wolf’s question he said:
“Did she leave a note or anything? A journal?”
“No,” Wolf said. “But the kid said that she’d been wailing around the house for two days before she finally offed herself. Social worker said the kid wasn’t so much upset about losing her as he was just upset in general that she wasn’t much of a mother. The kid told Trinity that all the mother ever talked about was “The blue-eyed devil.’”
“She found out that Doc was dead,” Coyote said, thinking out loud. “I saw it in the Fresno Bee out here the day after Dax called me. It’s feasible that it was in the papers in San Antonio too. Damn her! She killed herself be
cause Doc was dead, and left that boy to fend for himself. I hope she’s rotting in hell.” Coyote never knew Doc’s lover, Abril, and he knew it was unfair of him to hold Doc’s sins against her. But he loved Dallas and he hated what Doc’s liaisons with that woman did to her, so he had no love for Abril at all. Now that he knew what kind of mother she was, he had even less.
“Yeah, well…she’s probably on a throne next to Doc’s,” Wolf said. Coyote couldn’t argue that point. He loved his friend, but he sincerely doubted, if there were a heaven and hell, that Doc had gone upstairs. “What are you going to do?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. If Doc were here, I’d tell him and let him do whatever he wanted to do about it. But Dax inherited enough of Doc’s problems. If I tell him about this kid…he’ll take off to go looking for him and somebody else will end up with that Prez patch…”
“You really think they’re going to vote Dax in as Prez? He’s only like three or four years older than me.”
“Dax is smart, and mature. He knows more about that club and that ranch than anyone. I think they’d be stupid if they didn’t.”
“So, we just live with the knowledge that some poor kid is running around out there, with no family?”
Coyote opened the drawer and took out his flask. Wolf rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything while his father unscrewed the cap and took a long pull from it. He had spent the better part of his life holding onto Doc’s secrets. He didn’t want another one to add to that…especially this one. But he was finding out quickly that his loyalty didn’t die with Doc. What he felt like he owed him didn’t get put in the ground. If this got out, the men who were already up in arms over Doc’s not burning down buildings and looking for Hawk would find a way to use it against Dax. The Southside Skulls were in no position to handle the skeletons in Doc Marshall’s closet at the moment. Maybe by the time they find the kid…
“We keep it to ourselves for now,” Coyote told his son. “Keep in touch with the social worker and if they find the kid, we’ll go from there. You didn’t tell her about Dax, did you?”
“No,” Wolf said. “I actually told her that Doc didn’t have any family that I knew of. Those guys out there live off the grid. Finding Dax would be a matter of her walking onto that ranch and knocking on doors. Considering Dax’s door is two thousand miles from where she’s at, it’s doubtful. But Dad, we’re talking about a little boy here.”
“And like I told you,” Coyote said, “if and when they find him, we’ll go from there.” Wolf didn’t look like he agreed with him on this one, but he didn’t argue with his old man. He rarely did. Coyote didn’t know if it was purely out of respect, or if Wolf was just smart enough to bide his time and know that someday he’d be sitting on the other side of the desk and then he could do things the way he saw fit.
His son stood up and said, “I’m gonna go get some sleep if it’s okay. I rode hard coming back.”
“Sure, get as much rest as you need,” Coyote said. He felt guilty, but he wanted Wolf to go. He wanted to finish what was left in the flask.
“You okay, Dad?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” The truth was, he felt lost. He didn’t understand it. Doc had been three thousand miles away for the past eighteen years…but he just felt so fucking lost. “Go on, get some sleep.” Wolf nodded at him and Coyote watched him go, wondering if the boy’s opinion of his old man was any less after telling him they should keep the thing about the kid under wraps. It was the one thing he worried about where his son was concerned…his heart. Oftentimes, being the president of a motorcycle club required that you be able to put your conscience aside and do what you needed to do. You had to be as hard on the inside as you were on the out. Coyote picked up the flask and put it to his lips. As he drank it down, the irony of his worrying that his son’s heart was “too soft” was not lost on him. He knew the whiskey was his courage and his conscience ninety-nine percent of the time…so who the fuck was he to talk, really? He put down the empty flask and chuckled when the thought of being “soft” or “nice” caused the next memory from the past to assault him.
He was a day away from California after Doc banished him from the ranch, under the guise of sending him to scout out the possibility of beginning a new chapter. It was only two weeks after he’d driven Dallas to the hospital to give birth to Dax when he took off from Boston. He was on the I-40 about twenty-five miles from Santa Fe, the sun was going down, and he came upon a little car on the side of the road with steam pouring out from under the hood. He probably would have kept going if not for the woman standing out next to the car. She was pregnant…and she looked about to pop.
6
Santa Fe, 1982
“You need some help?”
The woman had shoulder-length, curly, white-blonde hair and dark brown eyes. She was tall and slender, everywhere except for right in the belly. Her stomach looked like a torpedo, jutting out from her sides and coming to almost a point in the front. She was wearing a long, shapeless plaid dress and flat ballet-type shoes. She put her hands on her hips and blew a piece of hair out of her eyes. “You know anything about cars?”
“A little. Looks hot.”
She rolled her eyes. “Just my luck, a mechanical genius.”
Coyote laughed. He’d been in a pissy mood all the way out from Boston and it felt good to smile. “I can take a look at it, in the morning.”
“In the morning?” she asked with a frown. “I can’t just leave it on the side of the highway all night. Besides, I still have about five hundred miles to go.”
“Five hundred miles? Where are you going?”
“To my mother’s house in Phoenix. It’s at least another seven hours from here. I don’t have…” Her dark eyes began to well with tears. Coyote cursed under his breath. He hated to see a woman cry. He never knew what the hell to do.
“Well, you’re not going to make it another five hundred miles in that car tonight. You’ll either have to have it towed to a shop or leave it here and let me take a look at it in the morning. I was planning on stopping for the night in Santa Fe. I can take you to a motel.”
Her eyes were as wide as saucers as she looked at the Harley. “Are you serious? I’m eight and a half months pregnant. I can’t get on that thing.” A tear rolled down her face and she said, “Besides, I just put all the money I had in the tank of this car twenty miles back. I don’t have money for a tow truck or a motel.” She reached up and wiped the tear away like she was angry with it and said, “You go on. I’ll let the car cool down and try and make it to Santa Fe. I can put some coolant or water in it…”
“Look…what’s your name?”
“Sarah.”
“Sarah, this car is not going to make it the twenty-five miles from here to Santa Fe, tonight. Trust me. You’ll burn up what’s left of that motor if you try. I’ll take you to town and I’ll pay for your motel room.”
She gave him a suspicious look and said, “Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m not going to leave a pregnant woman stranded on the side of I-40, twenty-five miles from town.”
She eyed the motorcycle again and said, “No. I can’t let you do all of that. Besides, I can’t ride that thing…”
“Sarah, my friend had a baby about two weeks ago. She rode on the back of her old man’s Harley until just a few weeks before she gave birth. I promise to drive safely, but you really need to let me take you into town. It’s not safe out here for a woman alone.”
“If I wasn’t pregnant, I could kick your ass. I was a US Marine. I flew a helicopter in Lebanon.”
“That’s awesome. But, as far as I can tell, you are pregnant. That means you can’t kick mine, or anyone else’s ass. So, what do you say? I’m tired. I’d like to get to town, get something to eat and a shower, and get some rest.” Coyote knew it had to be terrifying for a woman, especially one in her condition, to just climb on the back of his Harley and trust him to take her where he said he would.
“I’ll pay you bac
k,” she said.
“Sure, okay.” Coyote didn’t care about the money. He had more than he needed, more than he’d ever had in his life. He was so used to being poor, he didn’t even know how to spend it. He rarely spent money on anything other than essentials, alcohol, weed, and his bike. His Harley was an older one that Toolie fixed up for him. He’d put out a lot of money for a custom seat, chrome pipes, and having his gas tank painted. But that had still left him with more money than he’d be able to spend in a year, even on whiskey and weed, if he didn’t work another day.
“You’ll get me my own room? You’re not like…you know, a pervert with a pregnant woman fetish, are you?”
Coyote laughed. “No. No fetish, I promise. And yes, you can have your own room.”
“You think the car will be okay here? I don’t have insurance…”
“We’ll leave a note on the dash in case a cop stops or something and tell them we’re coming back in the morning, okay? Just lock it up and take what you absolutely need for tonight…there’s not much room to carry anything on the bike.” She nodded, judiciously, and then almost excruciatingly slowly, in Coyote’s exhausted opinion, she set about writing a note for the dash, and then digging through the suitcase she had in the trunk, until she found the clothes she was looking for. When she finally finished, she rolled her toothbrush and a few other things up in another dress similar to the one she was wearing and slammed the trunk closed.