Salem Charm: Book 3 of Colson Brothers Series (4 page)

“I don’t care. Whatever you think of me doesn’t mean shit. When this is over you can go back to your big southern mansion, and your fancy high heels. I’ll go back to my club and pick up another job. I’m sure we’ll both be very happy to be done with each other.”

“I’m sure you’re right Mr. Colson.” I agreed hoping to put an end to this before it becomes more bickering.

We walked in silence for a while before he pointed to a large recreational vehicle coming towards us. “That’s Daisy. I should warn you, Turner is a huge asshole. He doesn’t speak to anyone except me via hand signals. Just stay out of his way, and whatever you do, do not pick a fight with him like you do me. He’ll toss us both out of a moving vehicle if he sees fit.”

“Sounds scary.”

“Very. Turner and I do some jobs together now and again. His toys are very helpful, and he’s armed to the gills. Like I said, hang back, and keep that sassy little mouth of yours shut.”

“Sassy?”

He stopped walking as the RV pulled over to the side of the narrow dirt road and turned to look at me. Cool blue eyes locked onto mine. “This is dangerous territory
for all of us. I need you do exactly what I tell you, got it?”

“Geeze, calm down.”

“I asked you a question.” He pushed.

“Yes, I get it.” Now he’s riling me up again. I need to breathe and try to calm down before I say something rude.

“Good.” He let go and stood upright to greet the giant man with long blonde hair who stepped down from the RV. They shook hands and did that man-hug thing guys do. “Hey Bro. Good to see you.”

The large man nodded and reached around behind him.

A nice looking woman in horrible clothing came around and held her hand out to Lou. “Hi, I’m Georgia.”

Lou shook her hand, “Lou, but you knew that from the texts.” He motioned to me, “This is my charge, Barbie.”

I held my hand out to meet hers, “Barbara, please. Nice to meet you Georgia.”

“You too. I’m so glad to have another woman to talk to! Come inside. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

“Both, yes. Thank you Georgia.” I followed her inside making sure to give Lou a nice long dirty look along the way. Why couldn’t he be this nice?

The RV is huge, and gorgeous. Various beige fabrics and matching leather. Everything smells new. I sat at the table and scooted toward the window so I wasn’t in the way.

Georgia sat across from me with wine and a plate of cheese, fruit, and crackers. She started opening the wine as the guys entered through the same door we’d come through. I caught Turner giving Georgia an awfully dirty look, not much different from the one I’d given Lou.

She stuck her tongue out at him and said, “Forget it Turner. I haven’t spoken to another woman in weeks. I’m talking to this one.”

I heard him growl low in his throat so I looked at her, “Is he mad?”

She shrugged, “He’s always mad, just ignore him. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good man, just not housebroken, and very rude. Like I said, ignore him.”

“I shall do just that. Have you been together long?”

“A few weeks. He kind of kidnapped me, but then I fell in love with him, so here we are.” She shrugged.

“Kidnapped you??” I was shocked.

“Sort of. I had just lost a case because a client lied to me. I was humiliated in court, and decided to go get drunk with some old friends. Old friends I owed a debt to. Turner decided to collect on his own debt with Slider, the guy I owed the debt to. He took me as payment for said debt. Since I owed Slider basically my life, I couldn’t say much when he approved the deal.”

“What debt could you possibly owe to someone that would warrant you being kidnapped??”

“To make a long story short he saved my life. The real problem is that it cost a dear friend of his his life in the end. A life for a life if you will. I’m not sure what the debt was that Slider owed Turner. I’ve been afraid to ask.”

“That sounds horrible! Who is this Slider?”

“He’s the President of the club. The motorcycle club known as Exiles. The main chapter is in Arizona, but there are a ton of chapters that reside under the Exiles umbrella.”

“I’m so confused.” I sipped the wine. It’s good.

She laughed. “Let me try that again. A chapter is a group of like-minded bikers. They go on runs, charity events, all kinds of things. If an outside chapter wants they can apply to be part of the club. The club is Exiles, but each chapter has it’s own name.” She got up and held a large black leather jacket up to show me.

She pointed to the patch in the center. “Turner is Exiles, but he’s Nomad, which means he doesn’t hang out at one particular chapter. If you belong to a chapter your city or state goes down here, and the name of your chapter up here.”

She turned the jacket to show me the side, “If Turner was part of a chapter instead of being Nomad the name of that club would go here, and the chapter name here.” She pointed back to the ‘Exiles’ patch on the top of the back. “Since Turner is part of the club, and has a pretty high ranking status with his brother being the club president, he wears Exiles like they are his chapter. In a way they are, but he’s never there, so he’s considered Nomad.” She pointed to the word written, or I should say sewn, into the bottom under the intimidating logo.

“Oh. Okay.” I think I’m starting to understand.

“It’s different for different clubs. Some clubs want their name on every jacket where our chapter names are now. Those are the clubs that practice patch-overs. Slider changed things up years ago so the chapters could retain their original names. He said something about wanting to preserve the heritage of the chapters. I guess he’s into history.” She shrugged.

“So… Exiles is the main chapter, and the club name?”

“Yes.”

“And there are chapters all over that belong to his club?”

“Yes.”

“What is the point of all this?”

“It’s a brotherhood, a family. They take care of each other, trust each other. Slider has certain rules he enforces to keep the club as respectable as possible. We have our bad apples just like everyone else, but they deal with it in-house. If a chapter breaks too many rules, they get punished and eventually booted out of the club if Slider sees fit.”

“How long has this club been around?”

“I think Slider’s father, Bull, started it in California in around 1940, but I’m not sure. When Slider took over years ago he moved it to Apache Junction. He likes the mountains in Arizona better I guess. That’s what his wife, Salina, says anyway.”

“Is Lou a member?”

She leaned over, “Hey Lou?”

“Yes ma’am?”

“Are you nomad?”

“No, I’m out of Washington, just outside Seattle, the Newcastle chapter. General’s Tribe.”

She looked back to me, “There’s a main chapter for each state, and a bunch of city chapters under that.” She leaned over to ask Lou. “Is General’s Tribe the Washington hub?”

His voice came from behind me, “Nah, just a small chapter in the suburbs. Mostly weekend warriors and charity runs for kids.”

“Thank you Lou. Turner, stop glaring at me before I kick you.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes before looking back to me. “Anyway, being part of the main chapter for a state is kind of a big deal for the guys. The smaller chapters, like Lou’s, are more my style. The one we’re going to, the main one for the entire club, is pretty big. When they have rallies they have to rent entire fields.”

“Wow. That’s quite a big deal.”

“Yes, it is. My family has always run tight with the chapter, so a lot of my friends hang out there. Now for the complicated part.” She sipped her wine giving me a second to catch up.

“Slider is the oldest of twelve blood brothers. There are untold half brothers. Lou is a half brother, and Turner is a full blood brother to Slider. Their father was intent on having many, many sons. Anyway, all the guys refer to each other as ‘brothers’, so it can be a little confusing.”

“I’m glad you said something, I might have started to think they were all related.” I laughed at my ignorance.

“They might as well be, but you can tell the Colson brothers from the rest pretty easily. They’re all big as houses.”

“Turner is the biggest man I’ve ever seen. When he stepped inside the room suddenly became very small.” I cringed a little.

She laughed as she complained “Yeah, try sleeping with him.”

I blushed and looked away to sip my wine.

“What do you do Barbara?” She thankfully changed the subject.

“I work for my father, sort of. He travels all over making business deals I know very little about. Since finishing college I’ve been back at the plantation keeping the books. It was something to do while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. It’s all rather boring to be honest, but it’s nice to be home for a change. Or was.” I looked down at my glass.

“You’ll get back soon. This rig is like a tank, we should be pretty safe in the meantime.” She sounded so sure I believed her. She’s much nicer company than Lou with his piercing blue eyes and drastic moods swings.

“It looks like any other fancy RV.”

“I think she’s mostly bullet proof, and there’s a main computer that talks, so if you hear her don’t freak out.”

“Oh wow, it’s amazing what they can do with technology these days.” I looked around still not seeing anything out of ordinary.

“Yes it is. I think Turner’s brother Joe worked with him to design and build her. It takes a little getting used to, but she’s pretty cool.”

“Does this Joe like to dress his girlfriend like hobos too?” I laughed lifting the hem of my shirt a little.

She laughed with me, “Oh my God! I know right! I can’t wait to go shopping. Turner didn’t exactly give me a chance to pack, so I’ve resorted to wearing his clothes, or mine between washings. Trust me, the first chance I get, I’m going to Dillards.”

“I’ll be right there with you.” I promised.

“It’s a date!”

Lou’s voice came from behind us, “Will you two stop talking about us like we’re not here?”

“No.” I decided. “Talking about someone behind their back is rude.” I schooled him.

Georgia smiled really big and got up. “Come on, we’ll go in the back and watch a movie.” She picked up a throw pillow and threw it at Turner so it bounced off his shoulder. Turner picked it up and chucked it back at her.

She caught it and set it aside. “One of these days I’m going to kiss that dirty look of his face.”

“Why does he look at you so mean?” I asked as we sat on the bed.

“He’s a very private person. Me talking to you like this is killing him. I think it’s funny as hell after what he’s put me through lately.”

“Put you through?”

She rolled her eyes and looked at me, “Turner has a warped sense of humor. He took me camping for a while at first. We were roughing it like nobody’s business. We had quite a few ugly arguments, then out of the blue he decides to show me his fancy mansion buried deeper in the mountains. I wanted to shoot him.” She started sifting through a library of DVD’s on a shelf.

“By the way, we have guns stashed all over, so if you flip a pillow over, like that one behind you, and there’s a handgun, don’t be surprised.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Do you shoot?”

“I do. You?”

“I’m an excellent shot. I have seventeen marksmanship medals and for the last few years I’ve been teaching courses in gun safety at the college.” I boasted like a fool. Thankfully she looked past my egotistical slip.

“Oh cool!!” We talked more than not through the movie. It was nice to take my mind off things for a while.

Later that evening, when we finally stopped for the night, Lou insisted on irritating me in every way possible. Georgia saw that he was egging me on just to get a rise out of me, and therefore found us amusing. Turner however, did not find us the least bit amusing. He glared at Lou more than once. I tried my best to ignore Lou, but he’s fixated on my being a delicate southern belle who couldn’t find her way out of a wet paper bag.

Later, after Turner took Georgia to the back room for what I’m assuming is a rant of silence about his current situation, I caught on to what Lou was doing to the living space for our bedding.
“I am
not
sleeping in the same bed with you again tonight!” I almost yelled again. This man is dancing on my last nerve.

“Yes, you are. We can’t block the aisle.” He fluffed a pillow and patted it. “Come on Barbie, I won’t bite.”

“I’ll sleep in the chair.”

“No, you’re going to sleep right here, where I can keep an eye on you. I don’t trust you not to get up and go for walk in the middle of the night. Or something stupid like that.” He pointed to the bed. “Come on beautiful. I’m tired, you’re tired, and tomorrow is only going to be another long day.”

“No. I refuse to sleep with you. And if it’s another long day, it’s because you have chosen to irritate me at every turn.” I crossed my arms in defiance.

The door opened from behind me and before I could react Turner grabbed me around the waist and thrust me onto the mattress. Lou quickly blocked my escape. “Thanks bro.”

The door was closed immediately behind Turner as he went right back to the bedroom. That man is scary.

I looked at Lou, “You are the most insufferable, pain in my a… arse.” I gave up and laid down with my back to him.

He pulled a blanket over me and got elbowed when he put his arm around me next. “Oof. Nice hit Barbie.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Barbie Barbie Barbie.” He sang in my ear.

I swatted him away like a fly. “Stop that.”

He’s shaking as he laughs behind me. “Goodnight kitten.”

“What did you call me?”

“Kitten. You have cute little claws for such a fluffy little southern lady.”

I laughed, “I am not fluffy!”

“Oh yes you are, fluffy and soft. Your skin is like white rose pedals, and you have the best curves.”

“Don’t talk about my curves. I’ve had a weight problem my entire life. I hate my curves.”

“Oh no honey, you have great curves.” He put his hand on my hip. “Men like curves, gives them a place to put their hands.”