Snow in Texas (Lean Dogs Legacy #1) (14 page)

             
Stop
, Colin willed him.

              Candy said, voice low but carrying, “Stop crying. Get your shit together a second. Hush. Listen. Do you know Judson Riley?”

              Colin understood the method. Disarmed, panicked, emotional, Pup couldn’t hide a knee-jerk reaction to hearing Riley’s name. So Colin took it as genuine when the boy didn’t react with any surprise. He shook his head.

              “No. No. I don’t know him. Please…”

              “Nick,” Candy said. “Do you work for the Riley brothers?”

              Pup’s eyes opened, swimming with tears, his face screwed up with fear and pain. “Who?”

              Candy leaned in closer.

              Pup screamed, the sound strangled, incoherent.

              And Candy stepped back, threw the knife down into the dirt and stalked to the truck.

              Pup gasped and sagged against his bonds, crying quietly with his head bent down.

              Jinx and Talis joined Candy at the truck, and they talked quietly, too low for Colin to hear.

              Fuck. Colin scrubbed his hands down his face, exhaling loudly through his gapped fingers. He was exhausted, suddenly. He wanted a drink. A soft bed – one softer than his dorm mattress. And he wanted Jenny. Her arms around him, her feminine curves pressed against his own hard body, the whisper of her breath in his ear.

             
I love you
, he imagined, in her throaty voice. Where had that come from? He didn’t know. The only woman who’d ever claimed to love him was his mother. His lying, cheating, weak-willed mother.

              He suddenly, desperately wanted Jenny to love him. Even if it wasn’t fair, even if she couldn’t possibly. He wanted to be loved. Didn’t everyone? Acceptance and fraternity only went so far. He wanted someone to love him, for him, specifically. Not the Lean Dog, not the soldier, but Colin O’Donnell.

              Jenny was right. He was a sap.

              He was staring at Candy in a detached, unfocused sort of way, until Candy glanced up and headed toward him. He stood his ground, because retreat wasn’t an option. But he curled his hands into fists, prepared for the worst.

              Candy’s face was all in shadow as he drew up in front of him. His voice was emotionless as he said, “Did you learn anything just now, prospect?”

              Yeah. He’d learned his VP would go to great lengths to frighten and intimidate. But he said, “Yes, sir.”

              Candy’s teeth were a flash of white in the dark as he grinned. “Yeah? You ain’t seen shit yet.”

~*~

He didn’t wait around to drink and socialize when they got back to the clubhouse. He slipped down the back hall, paused, and then entered the sanctuary. It was dark and smelled faintly of something baked. Potatoes maybe. He couldn’t tell.

              He didn’t knock when he reached Jenny’s door, but let himself in, pushed the door shut, leaned back against it.

              She was sitting up in bed, back against her headboard, knees drawn up. She’d dressed: yoga pants and a sweatshirt. She was writing in her little journal, low sounds of music coming out of hidden speakers.

              She glanced up and didn’t seem surprised by his entrance. “Hi.”

              He was breathing hard, as if he’d been running. “Hey.”

              She frowned and set the journal aside, sitting up straight. “What’s wrong?”

              He wet his lips. “Do you…Do you care about me?”

Twenty-Two

Jenny

“Do I care about you?” she echoed, caught off guard. She closed her journal and set it on the nightstand. “Where’d that come from?”

              Colin was in a state of agitation she hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t worked up, per se, but his dark eyes were too big, glinting in a strange way. He seemed detached, somehow. Stuck in his head.

              “Do you?” he pressed.

              Jenny frowned. She had a feeling this was Candy’s fault. So many things were. “Do you want an honest answer? Or a flattering one?”

              He made a face like he was insulted. But then anxiety tweaked his handsome features. “Honest.”

              “You sure?”

              “Just tell me.”

              She sighed. “Colin, I don’t sleep with men I don’t care about. Does that answer your question?”

              He didn’t answer, instead came to sit on the foot of her bed, feet braced apart, brow furrowed.

              “Okay. You’re starting to freak me out. What’s wrong?”

              He massaged the knuckles of one hand with the fingers of the other. Clean knuckles; he hadn’t been fighting. Large, knobby. Capable of devastation, if he chose to use them that way. He gathered his thoughts for a moment and said, “I think I’m afraid of your brother.”

              She hadn’t been expecting
that
. She snorted. “Look, I know he gives you shit, but he really doesn’t care about my sex life.”

              “That’s not what I meant.”

              “Okay.” Jenny waited.

              After a moment, he said, “He made a man wet himself tonight,” voice thick with disgust…and with doubt. “I didn’t realize it at first, but then I smelled it.”

              This was going to take a while. Jenny shifted so she was sitting beside Colin, cross-legged on the mattress, studying the side of his face. “Well.” How to keep this from being insulting. Hmm. “He does run an outlaw biker club, babe. He does some scary stuff. Kinda comes with the territory.” Not to mention it was expected of him.

              Colin shook his head. “No, I mean…” He sighed. “I made this kid piss himself once. A long time ago,” he added quickly, darting her a glance. “I was in middle school and I was…well, anyway, I was a shithead. But that’s all I was.” He turned his head, so he could see her face. “I was a shithead, and thought it’d be fun to scare this kid. And I did. And I laughed.” Shame marred his expression, a deep sadness.

              Then he seemed to snap out of it. “But I knew what I was doing. And all I was doing was messing around. I didn’t want to hurt the guy. I wasn’t going to.”

              Ah. It was becoming clear.

              “It’s one thing to pretend you’re gonna hurt someone,” he said. “It’s a whole other to
know
you’re going to, if it comes to that.”

              Jenny stared at him.

              “Candy went out tonight ready to kill a man if he didn’t get the answers he wanted. And yeah, there’s a guy or two I’d like to put a bullet through. But just a scrawny kid…”

              “You guys interrogated Pup,” she guessed, and he didn’t have a good enough poker face to keep from confirming it with a look. “Was it bad?”

              “You know I can’t tell you anything about it.”

              She smiled. He was starting to have more club-like responses to things. Which was good…except they needed refining. “Yeah, you can,” she said. “Do you think the guys follow that no-talking rule to the letter?”

              He stared at her, asking silently.

              “Well, they don’t.” She nudged him with her elbow. “Pup wet his pants. Okay. Embarrassing. But not lethal. Did it get worse than that?”

              Colin glanced away with a disbelieving sound. “No.” A grudging admission.

              A deep groove marred the side of his face, an unhappy bracket of stress curving around his downturned lips. Jenny felt a sudden impulse to touch it, and didn’t fight it, reached to trace the line with her fingertip. He jerked as if startled, and his eyes slid toward her, but he didn’t pull back. If anything, he seemed to lean into the pressure of her hand.

              She grinned. She’d once watched a documentary about the North American mountain lion. Animals who resisted only managed to drag the big cat’s claws deeper into their skin. But the smart prey animals leaned into the pressure, and could sometimes find an escape route, once the claws released.

              “What?”

              “Nothing. Just thinking about mountain lions.”

              “Come again?”

              Jenny curled her hand around the back of his neck. The skin was warm, smooth, his throat a strong column of muscle against her thumb. “You’re right,” she said, resting her chin against his shoulder. “There
is
a difference between trying to scare someone for fun, and scaring him for real. Just like there’s a difference between hunting and poaching.”

              His brows lifted, a cautious gleam stealing into his eyes.

              “Your dad hunted gators. For fun?”

              “It was his living.”

              “Right. But there were people who poached gators for the thrill of it, weren’t there? Who wanted a trophy? Who were just being…”

              He drew upright, suddenly, sitting stiff and straight on the edge of the mattress, so her hand slid down his back. “What are you saying?”

              “I’m saying…” She kept her voice even, gentle, “that in Candy’s world, violence done in the name of protecting the family or the club is honorable. And violence done for fun is what’s cruel.”

              “Candy’s world.” His expression darkened, black brows tucking low. “Your world, you mean.”

              “My world,” she confirmed.

              “So the way you see it,
I’m
the asshole.”

              “I didn’t say that.”

              “But that’s what you think.”

              Jenny took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think the world’s a helluva lot softer than it used to be a long time ago. And I think your average person off the street sees the club as something awful…when it’s really just something basic and masculine we lost along the way.”

              He stared at her.

              “Doing cruel things out of loyalty and love isn’t half as cruel as doing them just because,” Jenny said, the words clashing with her soft tone. “But that’s just what I think. You’re entitled to your own opinion.”

              More staring.

              A lot of staring.

              Angry-faced, brain-cramped, adorable staring.

              “Colin.”

              He linked his hands together in his lap and stared at them.

              Jenny bit her lip and tried not to smile. “I didn’t hurt your feelings, did I?”

              “
No
.”

              “I’m sorry.”

              “What for? For thinking I’m an asshole? Or for suggesting I’m not masculine?”

              “I didn’t do either of those things.”

              “Might as well have.”

              She stifled a laugh and schooled her composure. “Colin, look at me.”

              He did so, but with obvious reluctance.

              “Everybody feels like you do right now during their prospect year. It’s normal. Maybe not fun, no. But normal. I wasn’t trying to suggest anything about you because there’s nothing to suggest. To be honest, I’d worry about you if you weren’t asking these kinds of questions.”
And having an identity crisis
, she added in her head. “The guys who think it’s fun are either wacko, or not seeing the bigger picture.”

              He studied her a moment, eyes somber, but one corner of his mouth flicked upward in an uncertain smile. “Wacko?”

              “
Wacko
. It’s a good thing you hated what happened tonight. I can promise you that Candy hated it too.”

              He snorted, unconvinced.

              “My brother might be a monster,” she said, “but he’s the right kind of monster. I’m grateful for that.”

             
Your brother is too
, she thought. The question remained:
what kind of monster are you?

Twenty-Three

Colin

“He quit?”

              The kitchen manager was a sun-damaged, sour-faced woman with wisps of greasy dark hair coming loose of the net she wore on her head. One eye on the cooks ladling up pinto beans, one eye on Colin, she took her cigarette between gloved fingers and exhaled with a grunt of distaste. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

              Charming lady.

              “Did he quit that day?” Colin pressed, undeterred.

              “Which day?”

              “The day that fucking creep tried to haul Jen off for questioning.”

              The manager’s brows jumped up beneath her hair net as she took another drag. “You’ve got a foul mouth, boy.”

              “Sorry.”

              “Didn’t say it was a bad thing.”

              Okay….
eeeewwww
.

              He cleared his throat and leaned away from her a fraction. “Look, I just need to know where I can find him. Do you have an address?”

              She tapped ash off the end of her cig down onto the kitchen floor, making him regret all the meals he’d eaten here. Her gaze flicked to the Prospect patch sewn to the front of his cut. “You Lean Dogs,” she said, lip curling. “Y’all think you’re the damn cops or something.”

              “Um, I’m pretty sure none of us think that.”

              She made a disagreeing sound. “What do you even want with Dusty? What’d he ever do to any of you?”

              Colin sighed. “Can you tell me where he lives, or not?”

              She shrugged. “I can tell you.” Her eyes narrowed, and her gaze became calculating. “But you’ll need to do something for me.”

              Aw shit. “What?”

              “Lift your shirt up.”

              “
What
?”

              Fifteen uncomfortable seconds later, he stepped back into the dining area of the restaurant, shuddering, Dusty’s address saved in his phone.

              Jenny was at the register, enjoying a brief lull in customers, and turned to him as he approached. “Get what you need?”

              “At a cost.”

              “Cost?”

              “Your manager…” He fought not to shiver again, revulsion crawling across his skin. “She wanted to touch my stomach.”

              Jenny stared at him. Blinked. And burst out laughing, grabbing at her own stomach as she doubled over.

              “Glad
you
think it’s funny. Meanwhile I’ve been traumatized.”

              “Ha!” She tossed her head back, blonde hair shimmering. “Seriously?” she asked as she tried to catch her breath. “Touch your stomach?”

              “And she kinda…” He grimaced and gestured toward the violated area. “
Rubbed
me a little.”

              That sparked a fresh outburst from Jenny.

              Colin folded his arms and glowered at her. But his girl ignored him, taking long moments to work past her laughter and draw in a deep breath.

              “You didn’t like it, did you? Secretly? A little?” she asked.

              “Bite me, Snow.”

              “No, I think Rosemary wants to do that.”

              “Can we please stop talking about it?”

              Jenny dabbed at her eyes and composed herself, finally. “Yeah. Sure.” She cleared her throat. “So you got an address.”

              “Yeah.” He shook off the remnants of disgust and frowned as reality set in again. “Candy wants me to go with Fox.”

              “Ah. Well, you’ll be in good hands, then.”             

              “Yeah, but will you?” He shot a glance across the restaurant to where Talis sat devouring a plate of chicken with mechanical proficiency. For some reason, it was always spooky to watch the guy eat. Like seeing something inanimate come to life.

              Jenny’s hand stroked down his arm, her touch eliciting pleasant goosebumps across his skin. “It’ll be fine.”

              He gave her a disbelieving look.

              “You doubt Talis? Come on. You have to admit that he even gives you the creeps. He’s good at his job.”

              Colin frowned. “Yeah, but that’s the thing. To him, it’s a job.”

              Surprise flared in her eyes. A slow smile curved her mouth. “Well aren’t you sweet.”

              Shit. “Yeah. Real sweet.” He dropped a fast kiss on her lips and headed for the door. “Tell him I’ll beat his ass if he falls asleep on the clock.”

              She snorted. “You have a good day, too, dear.”

~*~

Jenny

“Do you care about me?”

              Jenny couldn’t stop replaying the words in her head. Over and over. It had been a few days since he’d asked the question, but it hadn’t dulled in her mind, still felt like a loaded gun resting inside her somewhere.

             
“Do you care about me?”

              She’d answered him truthfully, because she’d never slept with any man she hadn’t cared about. It was just that she hadn’t put two-and-two-together until she’d said it. She did care for Colin; she just hadn’t been willing to say it in such simple terms.

              It terrified her, if she was honest.

              Once upon a time, she’d been a blushing bride with silly dreams of a three-bedroom house, two blonde kids, and a Golden retriever. At some point between the first and second slap Riley cracked across her cheek, the night the illusion crumbled, she’d realized those were dreams for ordinary women. Women who hadn’t aligned themselves with outlaws. In the following years, the dreams had gone from tarnished, to nonexistent…and eventually to nightmares to be feared.

              She didn’t trust her own heart. So finding out that Colin had carved himself a sizable place in it? Spooky stuff.

              She cupped tepid water from the bathroom tap in her hands and brought it to her face, suddenly feeling flushed. In the flaked mirror, her reflection stared back, a little pale and drawn, crows’ feet and laugh lines noticeable under the fluorescent lights.

              Had her white knight finally come? When she was jaded and almost forty? When it was too late to revive all her old hopes?

              No, she reasoned. Probably not.

              A Cajun beefcake was probably nothing more than a diversion.

              Even if she was half-in love with the man.

~*~

Colin

“ ‘Charlie,’ I tell myself sometimes. ‘You’ve got to move up in the world, mate.’ And then I see someplace like this,” Fox remarked as they climbed off their bikes.

              “Hmm,” Colin said. “Kinda puts shit in perspective,” he agreed.

             
Shit
being an operative word in this instance. The gravel driveway they’d turned down had finally given way to mud, and they’d been forced to leave the bikes.

              “It hasn’t rained in days,” Colin said. “What the hell’s with this?”

              Fox smirked, the expression just a flicker of movement in his otherwise impassive face. “Take a whiff.”

              Colin did, and almost gagged.

              “Smell that? They’ve got a busted septic line somewhere, and it’s bubbling up through the ground. That’s not regular mud, yeah?”

              “Aw, damn…” Colin muttered. “I ain’t walking through that.”

              The house lay a few hundred yards up the drive, a ramshackle hellhole with a partially collapsed roof and a porch overflowing with cardboard boxes of junk and most likely an upholstered piece of furniture or two.

              “’Spect we’ll have to,” Fox said, but dug a smoke out of his jeans pocket, surveying the way ahead without hurry.

              Colin took the chance to check his phone. No calls or texts. His belly flexed with quiet anxiety. Really, it was a good thing Jenny was leaving him alone. It meant she probably wasn’t being hauled out to a cop car.

              Or maybe she was, and that was why she couldn’t reach out to him.

              Maybe –

              “Christ, you’re terrible,” Fox said beside him, voice flat. “Are you really that lovesick?”

              “No.” He shoved his phone away and shot the man a hard look.

              A look Fox ignored. “Does it run in the family? Getting attached like that.”

              Yet another reference to Mercy. When would people quit dragging his brother into every damn conversation?

              Fox took a thoughtful drag on his cig and glanced away. “God love Jen. Wonderful girl. But you know she isn’t the settling down type, yeah? She’s not looking to be anyone else’s old lady.”

              Anger spiked in his chest, a hot burst that traveled up his throat and tightened his jaw. “How would you know?”

              Fox shrugged. “She’s lonely, is all. Every once in a while, she gets lonely enough to climb into someone’s bed. But she never stays there long.”

              It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Colin, the way it became suddenly hard to breathe, the way his hands curled into fists, the way his vision seemed to narrow and darken around the edges, until all he saw was the laid-back Englishman beside him. He couldn’t explain the way his voice sounded choked when he said, “And I guess you’d know that from experience?”

              Another shrug. Totally casual. “We shagged a few times. While back. Reckon she needed to let off some steam.” He turned toward Colin…and for the first time since their meeting, Colin saw something like apprehension flash in his blue eyes. “Hey, wait, I didn’t mean–”

~*~

Jenny

Darla had been busy baking. Three plates of a variety of cookies and a bunt cake sat on the bar when Jenny walked into the clubhouse after work. The scents of sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and orange zest blended in a thick, sweet cloud that she passed through on her way to the kitchen. She propped a shoulder in the doorjamb and surveyed the carnage: bowls stacked in the sink, dusting of flour and powdered sugar on the countertops, dribbled clumps of dough, empty bags of chocolate chips sticking out of the trash can.

              “Stress-baking?” Jenny guessed with a smile.

              Darla dashed at her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a smudge of flour behind. Her black apron was coated in the stuff, and her hair was pale with it. “Nothing to be stressed about,” she said with a tired huff. “Just realized all the eggs were on the verge of going bad.”

              “Gotcha.” Jenny made a mental note not to eat any of the cookies. “Are you–”

              The front door of the clubhouse flew open with a crash, and she jumped.

              Darla exclaimed in alarm.

              It took Jenny a second to rectify the truly murderous, towering man walking toward her with the goofus she’d learned Colin to be.

              “Hey,” she said carefully, stepping toward him. “What are you–”

              “Come with me.” His hand darted out and latched onto her wrist, his grip crushing, and he tugged her off balance and dragged her after him as he charged down the hall toward the sanctuary.

              “Hey!” she protested. But there was no pulling away from him. She stumbled to keep up with his long strides, anger kindling. “What the hell are you doing? Let go of me. Why do you smell like shit?”

              And he did. He reeked.

              “I stepped in some,” he muttered, yanking her along.

              Jenny tried to plant her feet and her boot heels skidded on the hardwood. She’d known he was strong, but this was ridiculous! “Ah!” she yelped, stumbling and landing against his back. “Colin!” she demanded. “Colin whatever-your-middle-name-is Lécuyer, stop
right now
!”

              That got his attention. He halted just outside the sanctuary door and shot a glare over his shoulder at her. “What did you just call me?”

              “I…” She realized, belatedly, that she’d used Mercy’s last name. Shit. But she wasn’t in the mood to be gentle with his feelings, after he’d just manhandled her. “That’s your real name,” she snapped. “Not that you’d admit it. Now let go of me, you asshole!”

              He didn’t. Instead, he dragged her into the sanctuary and slammed the door. Only then did he release her.

              And then she realized how badly it had frightened her, being dragged like that. The shakes hit her all at once, full-body and debilitating. Her teeth chattered and her skin prickled. She hugged herself to stop the onslaught, but it was no use.