No one really noticed as the young woman climbed down off the bus that had brought her down from Indian Hills and finally set foot in the small town of Charming, California. This arrival had been nine years in the making; she had been hopping from club to club, charter to charter, each move bringing her closer to her final destination.
The bus stop was located by the local town diner, and peering in, she noticed a small group of men in kuttes seated around one of the booths in the corner. Needing the intel that probably only they could provide, she took a deep steadying breath and pushed open the door.
The faint tinkling of the bell hanging above the door jamb heralded her entrance, though few people moved to appraise the newcomer. A smiling waitress bustled over, grabbed a menu and came to halt in front of her.
"Table or booth?" she asked.
Caoimhe sighed with vague relief, the comments of her lone presence having been avoided for the first time in the whole trip down. It had been many years since she had travelled alone, but had decided to make the last leg of her journey on her own, feeling that arriving amongst a hoard of seasoned bikers could well attract attention that she was prepared to handle.
"Booth by the window, please," she said, her soft voice contrasting considerably with her hardened exterior. Many eyes were immediately drawn to the unsightly scars that ran the width of both her cheeks, forming a constant joker grin, upon introduction, and she had learned to dress to match the assumptions that people drew from the remnants of violence that lay for the world to see. She was clad in well worn faded black jeans that bore rips across the knees, a loose fitted cropped tank top with tassels that hung down across the bare stretch of midriff that the top left uncovered and a back that lay open showing off her flawlessly pale skin; on her feet were high-heeled biker boots, complete with buckles. Her large shoulder bag was made of a soft black leather, and bore enough silver studs to appear menacing. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a messy up-do, and aviators balanced on her nose, hiding dark hazel eyes that were framed by bold winged liquid eyeliner along her upper lash line, and shadowed by expressively arched eyebrows that matched her near-black hair.
The woman nodded, seemingly unaffected by the girl that stood in front of her. "Is the one over there okay, hon?" she asked, pointing towards the one behind the group of bikers.
"That's perfect," Caoimhe said with a small smile.
She was led over and settled with the menu and the promise of a large mug of strong black coffee. Keeping an ear out for the conversation of the men in near proximity to her, she pushed her aviators back onto the top of her head and scanned the list of food items and decided on scrambled eggs and bacon on toasted sourdough with aioli, and a side of avocado and grilled tomato. It had been a while since she had had a substantial meal, travelling long distance by coach not necessarily agreeing with her stomach.
The waitress returned with a steaming mug of rich black coffee, and proceeded to take Coaimhe's order. Having done so, she left with a cheerful "I'll have that right out, hon" and Caoimhe picked up the oversized mug in both hands and began to sip away at the dark liquid.
The club members behind her were participating in a gleeful debate on the skills of the new arrived crow-eaters. Caoimhe couldn't help but smirk a little at the name the girls had earned for themselves, surely 'sweetbutts' - as used by many of the clubs further north - was a little less derogatory in nature, though, she supposed, if that was your chosen station in life, it mattered little what the men you served referred to you as.
"That blonde, the one with those massive tits?" one was saying. The others all grunted in acknowledgement. "Whoa. She has got a mouth on her, let me tell you."
"Aye," a Scottish voice piped up. "She looked like she might." Caoimhe inhaled suddenly, choking on the coffee that she had not yet had time to swallow, unfortunately drawing the attention of the men sat behind her.
One patted her back a little as she turned round to apologise. He was younger than the rest, sporting darker skin - most likely Hispanic, she thought - and a mohawk cropped close to his head.
"You alright there, doll?" A man with crazy wild grey hair and a beard that completely took over the lower portion of his face and lay against his black silken shirt and leather kutte. He was sat across the table facing towards her, with a seemingly slightly younger man with piercing blue eyes and a mop of crazy dark hair to his left. Directly in front of him was the man who had pounded her back as she choked, next to him was a man who had yet to turn around.
He had almost shoulder length dark hair that was streaked with grey, slicked back against his neck. As he turned, Caoimhe's gaze was drawn immediately to the scars that were raggedly drawn across his cheeks. A smile began to spread across her lips as she put the pieces of the puzzle together.
"Jesus," the man muttered as he took her in, his eyes too resting on the scars that echoed his own. He noticed immediately that she was almost the spitting image of his mother - god rest her soul - and those scars were too familiar to be truly coincidental… If he hadn't been brought the news that his daughter had been killed so many years ago, he might have thought…
"Hey, Da." Caoimhe said, a smile fully formed on her face, highlighting her scars. Her eyes gently swam with tears of joy, having finally found the man that she had spent the past nine years working to meet.
"Caoimhe?" Chibs could barely force the words around the lump in his throat. Confusion swarmed through his mind. "I don't understand…"
"It's a really long story," she choked out, tears finally forcing their way out down her cheeks.
Chibs jumped to his feet and spun around the barrier between the two booths, gathering his estranged daughter in his arms and gripping her close to him tightly. "Holy mother of Christ, lass." Unchecked, tears spilled down his own cheeks.
His three brothers were sat in stunned silence, watching the interaction between the two people in front of them. Finally one of them cleared their throat, drawing the reunited father and daughter apart.
"Does anyone want to introduce us?"
Chibs cleared his throat hastily, wiping the rogue tears from his cheeks. "Sorry brothers. This is.. Uh, this is Caoimhe. One of my daughters." He couldn't peel his gaze away from his daughter's face, afraid that if he so much as blinked, she would disappear from in front of his eyes. "Caoimhe, these guys are Bobby, Tiggy and Juice. They're in the same MC as I am."
Caoimhe laughed, "I was raised around MC's, Da. I know what the term 'brother' means."
Bobby raised his eyebrows, out of the three sat in the booth, he had known Chibs the longest and if he remembered correctly… "Wait a second, Chibby. Caoimhe? Didn't you say that she had been killed, say, ten years or so ago?"
Chibs' eyebrows twitched, "I did." Turning back to his daughter, he wrapped an arm around her neck. "You got a lot of explaining to do, lassie."
He pulled her with him into the booth with the other three, seating her next to Juice and grabbing a chair from a neighbouring table. The four men then proceeded to stare at her expectantly.
Caoimhe turned to her father, "It's not really something I want to discuss in public." When the other three moved to protest, she held up her hand. "I get that it could be classed as club business. You guys don't know me from Eve, I get that. But right now, I want to eat. I'll come back with you after and explain of that's what you want, Da. But I haven't had proper food since about three days ago. That's all that's on my mind right now."
Chibs grunted his assent, and leaned back in his seat, still unable to look away. "Jesus Christ, lass. You look…" He shook his head. "I just… I can't believe you're alive."
Caoimhe laughed, "I'm looking pretty good for a dead chick, hey? Yeah, I've heard that." She shook her head, the laughter leaving her eyes as suddenly as it had arrived. "But, uh, I almost wasn't. Alive, I mean." She shrugged a little. "Long time ago."
In a sudden bustle, the waitress returned with Caoimhe's food. "Making some friends, hon?" she said, flashing a smile at the men surrounding her youngest patron.
"Something like that," Chibs said, moving to the side to make room for the plate to be set on the table. "Thank you," he said, taking the check.
"Da," Caoimhe said, fork already in hand. "I can pay."
Chibs pointed a semi-playful finger at her, "You can eat. I think I've waited long enough to buy my daughter breakfast."
She ran a hand nervously over her hair, smoothing it, as she watched her father pull out a series of bills from his wallet and place them on the small tray that the check had been presented on. Noticing this, Chibs pushed her plate closer to her and reached over to the neighbouring booth to grab her coffee mug off the table and placed it in front of her. "Eat."
She nodded and began assembling the food on her plate. Spreading the avocado over the toast, she looked up to find - yet again - that the men were watching her carefully. "You guys can carry on with whatever you were talking about. I can block my ears when it gets R rated if you like."
She watched in amusement as all four suddenly became vaguely embarrassed. Juice's ears went red, and he dropped his gaze to his lap where he was nervously playing with the hem of his t-shirt. Bobby had whipped his glasses uncomfortably from his face and had proceeded to scrub the lenses clean with the tail of his shirt; Tig simply sat there with a vaguely nervous looking grin directed at Chibs, who had finally torn his gaze away from his daughter's face and was engrossed in stacking the coins that lay on top of the bills he had previously lain out.
Suppressing a grin, Caoimhe went back to prepping her food, spreading aioli over the avocado and layering bacon and egg liberally over that. As she dug into the food, the four men began to attempt to fill the now awkward silence.
"So, we'll need to call church for this afternoon," Bobby said, placing his glasses back on to his nose. "If it's alright with you, brother, I think we'd all like to hear the story behind your daughter's appearance."
"Aye, it's fine with me, lads. I get the feeling you won't want to repeat it." The last directed at Caoimhe, who blushed a little, having been caught with her mouth full, and shook her head fervently. She had spent the past nine years dodging as many questions about her past as humanly possible, aware that her lack of sharing ability had cost her in terms of trust - and therefore travelling opportunities. But she had finally made it to Charming, the place where she knew she would be as safe as she possibly could be, and she felt that if anyone deserved to hear the truth of what was going on back in Ireland, it was her Da and whoever else he wanted to know.
Swallowing hard and hastily, she muttered "It's not really something I like to relive."
Chibs and Bobby both nodded in understanding, the latter pushing Tig out of the booth so that he could exit. "I'll go and give Clay a call; see what I can arrange."
Tig followed him out towards the bays where their bikes were parked to assist in rounding up their fellow club members, but Juice remained behind.
The three sat in silence whilst Caoimhe cleared her plate, and once this was done and she had picked up her coffee mug, Caoimhe attempted to kickstart a conversation.
"So," she said, turning to Juice. "You seem to be a bit younger than the others. You been in the club long?"
Juice chuckled a little as Chibs rolled his eyes, "A bit younger? I'm gonna take offence at that," he said, dodging a ball of paper aimed at his head courtesy of his older brother. "Uh, not long. A year, maybe a little longer?" He looked down at the mug in front of him, trailing a finger around the rim. "I moved down from Queens, New York, just after graduation, took a moment to find my feet here and then began prospecting. A year and a half later, I finally got patched in."
"You raised in an MC?" she asked.
Juice shook his head. "No."
"How come the draw to the club?"
"My uncle ran a garage close to where I grew up, so I spent a lot of time watching him fix cars and shit up. Guess I always took an interest in the bikes."
"That's cool." Caoimhe said, raising her mug to her lips and taking a large sip.
Before Juice to reciprocate with any questions, Bobby came bursting back into the diner.
"Clay's calling for church in twenty. Guess the new arrival caught his attention."
Chibs nodded and motioned for his two younger companions to finish up with their drinks. This they did, and both slid out of the booth, brushing briefly against each other as they straightened. Chibs noticed a faint blush cross his daughter's cheeks, and watched as Juice hastily lowered his gaze to a patch of floor just in front of his booted feet. He would have to keep an eye on that.
Caoimhe noticed her father's watchful gaze and threw a softly innocent smile his way, watching as his eyebrows contracted slightly before he nodded and, placing a hand in the small of her back, led her out towards the bikes.
Unbeknownst to Caoimhe, Chibs shot a warning look at Juice over her head, and the younger man's face flushed a slightly darker red than it already was. Chibs had just had his daughter returned to him and he would be damned if he let anyone steal her away any time soon.
Coming to a halt by the four bikes, Chibs glanced at the seating on all of them, realising with a slight sickness in the base of his stomach, that Juice's was the only one with the capacity to carry a passenger safely - he refused to think of his daughter 'riding bitch'. He grunted slightly, noticing that Juice was also aware of this fact.
"I can take her, man." Juice said, a little nervous tremor developing in this voice - Chibs was not entirely sure of the cause of this, but he hoped for the boy's sake that it was fear of himself and not the thought of having Caoimhe pressed against him. "She'll be safe, I promise." Juice added, noticing his older brother's hesitation.
Chibs nodded sharply, pressing a hand to the small of his daughter's back, kissing the top of her head. "We'll see you at the clubhouse, lass."
Caoimhe smiled gently, nodding a little. "Sure, Da. See you there."
Chibs jumped onto his bike and, along with his other two brothers, kicked up the kick-stand and roared off down Main Street, leaving bewildered tourists staring after the three speeding figures as they climbed back on board the bus to continue down to the coast.
Juice hesitated for a moment, watching as Caoimhe's eyes followed her father until he disappeared around a corner. She then looked towards him and gave him a sweet soft smile.
"So…" she said.
Juice laughed, "Yeah. I guess it would be good to maybe know each other a little better… It's kind of an intimate situation to be in."
A shy rush of colour swept across her cheeks, disappearing as quickly as it had arrived. She thrust a hand out in front of her. "I'm Caoimhe. But a lot of the bikers I met could only handle "Kay"."
Juice grinned widely, "What about your friends?"
She seemed taken a little aback by the question. Lowering her eyes to the ground and scuffing the toe of her boot against the curb, she murmured, "It's been a while since I had one of those." Looking back up at him she continued, "So I guess it's whatever you think you can handle."
There was a slight challenge glinting in the corner of her eye, and Juice had never been one to pass a challenge up.
"Caoimhe means 'beautiful', right?" A slight smirk lifted the corner of his lip.
Her hand flew up to trace the scars that ran across her cheeks, shock prevalent in her eyes. "Yeah," she all but whispered.
He shrugged, his smile reaching his eyes and lighting up his whole face, "I guess I can handle that."
A short sharp burst of shocked laughter erupted from her chest, "Yeah, okay."
He laughed a little at her sudden stumbling shyness, and motioning towards his bike, said "I think we'd probably better get going. I don't really want your dad to have my ass."
She laughed a little, "Yeah, me either." Her cheekiness was finally back on form, and she threw a wink towards him as he handed her his helmet. When she began to protest, he tucked it under his arm and reached up to loosen her bun himself, catching her sunglasses as they slipped.
Once her hair was flowing freely down her shoulders, he took a moment to marvel in its silky softness as he swept it to the side and threw it into a loose braid. Shrugging off her questioning look, he muttered, "What? I'm not allowed to know how to braid hair?"
She shook her head a little, completely bewildered. "No… I mean, yes! What I mean…" She took a breath, "You're pretty forward. You know that, right?"
He simply smirked as he handed her aviators back, and moved to place the helmet on top of her head. "I've been told once or twice." He clipped the fastening closed and moved away to swing himself on to his bike, pausing a moment for her to follow his lead.
She did so after a second's hesitation, looping her bag over her head to hang across her body and pushing it back so that it rested behind her on the seat.
"I haven't ridden bitch on a bike for a while," she warned him as she wrapped her arms loosely around his waist.
"What's a while?" he asked.
She shrugged a little, thinking back. "Five years, I think."
He laughed softly, "Hold on tight, beautiful." And with that he revved up the engine and roared off down the road, drowning out any protest that she had in response to his compliment.
They roared to a stop in the lot of Teller-Morrow Automotive and Caoimhe took a moment to take in her new surroundings. Nerves were beginning to boil up in the bottom of her stomach now that she was firmly on the club's territory. Her fate depended on whether they believed her story, and though the three members that she had met had seemed overly welcoming, she had heard from other clubs and charters that the SAMCRO President, Clay Morrow, was a unreasonable force to be reckoned with.
Juice walked the bike back into a gap in the line up along a set of railings that ran across the lot, and once the bike was at a stand still, he motioned for Caoimhe to climb off. He followed shortly after, having kicked down his kickstand.
There was a group of reasonably formidable looking men gathered around the entrance of the clubhouse, and when Caoimhe took a quick glance over her shoulder before moving off towards them, she noticed an middle-aged woman of obviously high stature glaring at her from the open doorway of an office off to the side of the garage. Moving her gaze hastily on, the mechanics stood around the massive open front of the garage caught her attention. They were all poised as though ready for trouble, one even resting his hand on the remote to close the grills, that hung from the ceiling on a thick cord.
Shaking her head slightly, she looked forwards again, realising that her father had stepped out of the ranks and was stood with his hand outstretched to her.
"Come on, lass. We haven't got all day." The comment was softened somewhat with a gentle smile that didn't completely reach his eyes. It seemed as though the small timeframe of separation had allowed the cogs of doubt to begin whirring in his mind.
With Chibs' hand in the small of her back and Juice walking a few steps in front of her, clearing the way, she was led in through the main room of the clubhouse, barely taking notice of the stocked bar or scantily dressed women who seemed to be hanging around, and towards a set of large oak wooden doors. Tig was positioned to the side of these, holding out an empty wooden box.
Caoimhe's eyebrows knitted together slightly as she watched Juice reach into his pocket and deposit his cell phone into the box presented.
Reaching into the bag that hung by her side, she went to pull out her cell phone, but the men around her jumped to attention. In a matter of a split second, she had ten or more handguns pointed directly at her.
Hastily she put her hands up, either side of her head, her phone clutched in one. "Woah. I just assumed the box meant my phone too, sorry."
Flicking a glance towards her father, she watched as he relaxed and closed his eyes for a split second. Fear had washed over his features, but there was no way for her to know what exactly had caused that. Was it maybe simply fear of danger for the club? Or was he maybe worried that someone might have to fire their weapon? More importantly, was he afraid that it would end up having to be him? She knew how some of the motorcycle clubs dealt with such delicate situations: choosing to keep it in the family.
Clay chuckled from behind the barrier of men who had jumped in front of him. "It does, sweetheart. But I'm gonna have to insist that your bag stays out with it."
Caoimhe let out a breath that she had not been aware she was withholding as the guns around her were lowered and replaced back into their concealed holsters - or the backs of waistbands in many cases. Juice flipped her a small smile as he opened the doors in front of them.
Caoimhe placed her bag down behind Tig to the side of the doors, and crouched down to draw out a manila folder. Turning, she addressed Clay. "Can I bring this in?" she said, holding up the folder. At his questioning look, she hastily continued. "It's just a little paper proof to back up what I'm about to tell you. I knew that it would be more than just my Da that I'd have to convince."
In all honesty, it had actually been the Intelligence Officer residing with the Nomads in Indian Hills. Rane Quinn had set the two of them up in the back office of his bar and allowed them access to a computer and printer, in order to piece together the proof of her past.
Clay nodded. "Smart move, little girl."
She smiled through the niggling irritation at the condescending tone in the older man's voice. He moved through the crowd of people, past her and in through the doors. Chibs caught her around the waist again, leading her into Chapel and towards his designated seat at the table. He sat in the chair positioned there and motioned for her to stand behind him as all of the other men sat down.
Tig entered last, closed the doors firmly behind himself and moved to sit on Chibs' left hand side, directly on the right hand side of Clay, who was seated at the top of the table. As he sat down, he whipped out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to both Clay and Chibs, both of whom were currently lighting up their own. Before he took one himself, he offered the packet to Caoimhe, who glanced quickly towards the back of her father's head before smiling at Tig and taking one. She leant over Chibs' shoulder to grab his lighter from the tabletop, and the majority of the table attempted to cover a laugh when he threw her a heartily disapproving look.
"You're too young for shit like that, lass," he muttered.
She let out a short laugh. "You tell that to Uncle Seamus. He was offering them to me before I was ten."
Chibs grunted a little, rolling his eyes and turning to face the table again. "Yeah, well. He shoulda known better."
Caoimhe shrugged gently as she happily drew in a drag from the cigarette in her fingers, allowing the nicotine to spread a sense of calm through her body.
Clay cleared his throat, demanding the attention of all of those in the room. "Now I know that we have business to discuss as always, but as you will all be able to tell, there is something a little more pressing that needs our attention first. If that's alright with all of you, I'm gonna leave it to her to explain." He waited to hear the mumbled affirmatives from his men before motioning towards Caoimhe. "Why don't you start at the beginning, sweetheart."