Breathe (Colorado Mountain 4)

Coal “Wood” Blackwood owned a share of the family run garage in town. They specialized in Harleys. His father started it, built it up and now anyone that lived in a two hundred and fifty mile radius who had the funds to get their bike worked on at their garage brought it to Pop and Wood’s. Wood’s father, Pop, was a devoted Harley man who saddled Wood with a biker’s son biker name that surprisingly Wood, considering he was also a biker, refused to answer to and everyone called him Wood unless they wanted his fist in their groin. Rumor had it he’d spent his teenage years and early twenties spreading this message wide and now no one called him anything else. Not even “Mr. Blackwood”.

Chace parked, walked up the steps and down Tate’s deck to the door while taking in the conifers all around dusted with snow.

Tate was a mountain man to Chace’s plains man. Tate got his quiet and peace from being surrounded by nothing but trees.

Even before the shit that went down with him, Chace liked the openness of the plains, the vistas panoramic, the opportunities to make a surprise approach nonexistent.

Tate liked seclusion. You had to know where you were going to find Tate’s house. If you happened on it by accident or design, he had the firepower and willingness to use it in order to encourage you to explain why you’d wandered his way and get you to move on if he didn’t like your answers.

Chace hit the door and opened it without a knock because he saw the men sitting around the dining room table just inside. The owner of the Cherokee was who Chace expected, Holden Maxwell. Not a local, he owned a construction company in Gnaw Bone. However, he was a friend of Ty’s and his wife was an attorney. She was the attorney who acted as Ty’s attorney so he, like everyone, was not unaware of what had gone down. Although not intimately involved, he still had ties.

“Beer?” Tate asked as Chace closed the door.

“Yep,” Chace answered

Greetings were exchanged by chin, eyes or words as Chace took his seat at the table and Tate put a beer in front of him.

As Tate reseated himself, Chace asked, “The women?”

His eyes went to Ty who answered.

“Lexie and me moved into a huge-ass house last week. Furniture we got filled about a sixteenth of it. We also got a f**kload of money in the bank, courtesy of the State of California. This means Lexie, Laurie and Maggie are shoppin’ for furniture. It also means, by tonight, I’ll have to hire an architect to add onto my already huge-ass house because we’ll have more furniture than we can fit in the f**kin’ place.”

Chace felt his mouth twitch. Lexie definitely liked to shop, this was well-known. But what was funny was the fact that Ty was bitching when he didn’t give one shit Lexie was out dropping a load of cash. First, they had it. Second, he’d lasso the moon if it made his wife happy.

Chace muttered, “Right,” and took a sip of beer. Then his eyes went around the table and he started, “Got shit to do and got shit news. Wanna brief you, get the shit part done and then get on with the shit I gotta do.”

More chin lifts, Chace took another sip of beer and sat back in his chair before he went on.

“Got a visit from one of my father’s men. Man’s name is Clinton Bonar. You may know him,” Chace stated, his eyes not missing Tate’s flashing with recognition. “You might not. My advice, you get the chance, don’t. He introduces himself, walk away then five seconds later, call me. He’s an ass**le and of all the varieties of ass**le there are, he’s at the top of the scale of the worst there could be. Unfortunately, the last time I saw him, he was an ass**le with a message.”

Chace took another sip of beer and continued, sharing what Bonar shared and as he did the alert but relaxed vibe in the room lost the relaxed part. This came especially from Ty when Chace mentioned his father’s tapes.

So when Chace finished, he did it eyes on Ty and he did it quietly.

“I do not give a f**k you have them. I also don’t give a f**k what you do with them. What I ask is that if you intend to use them, you give me a head’s up so I can do what I can to soften the blow for my mother. Me requesting you being here was not me doin’ what Bonar wanted. I do not intend to be the errand boy for those ass**les. I’m outta that shit. No more. I’m just sayin’ this so all of you can keep your eyes and ears open, be aware, be cautious and report to me or Frank anything that concerns you. Frank and the Cap know all of this. Whatever happens, we agree, we deal with it openly, within protocol, as a matter of police business. Maybe they’ll see the wisdom of backing off and dealing with Newcomb quietly. Maybe a storm is brewing. We just need to be vigilant.”

“Not gonna use those tapes,” Ty declared when Chace stopped talking.

“Like I said, don’t care what you do with them,” Chace replied.

“Not gonna use ‘em, don’t even f**kin’ want ‘em. Got a kid comin’, don’t need shit like that in my house. I’ll collect ‘em, give ‘em to you. That way, at least you’re clear with your Dad and they think of doin’ somethin’ stupid, Lexie and I are outside their warpath,” Ty returned.

“You do not need to buckle to these men,” Chace told him quietly and Ty leaned across the table toward him.

“I’m not bucklin’ to those motherfuckers.” His deep voice rumbled firmly. “I do not want that shit in my house. I have no use for it. I got a wife who don’t need any more bullshit and handin’ over some sick-ass sex tapes is a small price to pay for keepin’ her clear of that shit. I have no intention of f**kin’ with your mother’s head. We both been forced down a murky road together, you and me, and as we moved down that road, we didn’t know we had company. When shit got extreme, you had my back. You also had my wife’s. So I’m also doin’ this for you. What I’m not doin’ it for is those motherfuckers. But they can think I am. I don’t give a f**k. They don’t factor in my life and once those tapes are out of it, the last nuance of them is too.”

Chace saw his point, seeing as it was hard to miss, and nodded.

“Am I the only one here that thinks that maybe a full frontal assault to teach a lesson that the town’s not gonna be f**ked with anymore is the way to go?” Deke asked and this was not a surprise. Deke behaved himself in Bubba’s because if he didn’t, he’d get an ass full of buckshot from Krystal’s shotgun. But Carnal to Sturgis was paved with bars that saw Deke’s blood or, more often, blood he caused to flow hit the pavement in parking lots. He was not a man to sit on his hands or back down from a fight.