Tastes Like Candy (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 2) (5 page)

              Of course, thinking that was a jinx.

              As the flash of blue lights in the mirrors proved.

              “Ah, shit,” he muttered, craning his neck to glimpse the cruiser behind them. “What the hell? We got a taillight out or something?”

              “Nah, I checked ‘em earlier this week,” Jinx said as he let off the gas and eased onto the shoulder.

              “It wasn’t anything I did,” Pup said. “I swear.”

              “I know that, dumbass.” Candy elbowed him.

              The officer who approached was Martin Jaffrey, and Candy breathed an inward sigh of relief to see the man’s familiar dark face. “Officer,” he greeted loudly, leaning around Pup.

              Jaffrey nodded in acknowledgement.

              “How’ve we violated the law on this beautiful afternoon, Marty?”

              Jinx snorted.

              Pup tried to disappear back into the seat.

              Jaffrey gave them a cautionary look. “Nothing.
Yet
.”

              “Point taken.”

              “But I saw you at that last light and thought I’d give you a heads up,” Jaffrey said, sighing as his professional façade dropped away. “The feds are in town.”

              He’d been waiting on this day to come, and still, it turned his stomach. “Feds? As in plural?”

              “Yeah. Headed up by your boy Riley.”

              “Fuck,” all three bikers breathed as a unit.

~*~

Michelle

She watched the storm come on through the windshield. Just before they hit Amarillo, gray clouds tumbled in from the west and began to jumble up, one on top of the next, a boiling, restless mass that darkened to black as they approached it. She saw the lightning dart in white tongues, first within the cloud mass, then down to the ground, vivid streaks in the gloom.

              They hit the rain wall and it rolled up the truck, enfolding them.

              Walsh hit the wipers and the headlights in two quick moves, and it was dark as night, the road totally waterlogged in a matter of minutes.

              “Jesus,” Michelle said, sitting upright and squinting to see. “This is why you wanted to bring the pickup, then.” She’d asked, back in Tennessee, why they weren’t taking his bike.

              “No sense riding through one of these storms if you don’t have to.” He had to shout to be heard over the pounding on the roof.

              The tires made an awful sucking sound when he finally turned off the road and into what had once been a hard-packed dirt driveway. It was washed out, now, and the going was slow and uneven, before they finally pulled up in front of a shapeless building that was nothing more than a sequence of glowing windows in the dark of the storm.

              Walsh shut off the engine and turned to her. “You want to wait until it slacks off?”

              In answer, she grabbed her rucksack up from the floorboards, popped the door, and leapt out.

              Mud splattered everywhere when she landed, and the rain hit her like it had been poured out of a bucket. Okay, stupid decision. But it was too late, so she dashed for the narrow porch and dove beneath its cover.

              Walsh joined her a beat later, equally soaked, but undoubtedly pulling it off better than her. He mopped water off his forehead with his sleeve and gave her a look. “Was that fun?”

              She bit back a quick grin. “Not especially.”

              “Alright then.” He ushered her forward, leaned around her to turn the knob, and let them into the Texas clubhouse.

              Her first impression was that it was nicer than she’d anticipated. Her second was that this was definitely the Lone Star state. Polished floorboards, cowhide rugs, steer heads mounted on the walls, wrought iron and leather accents everywhere.

              Most important, it was warm, well-lit, homey, and smelled of food. Her stomach growled, reminding her that her last meal had been a package of Hostess cupcakes from a gas station a hundred miles back. She took a deep breath and let it out on a long sigh. Here she was. Now what?

              Walsh took her bag and slung it over his shoulder. “Come on, love.”

              The common room was dotted with couches and tables, tellies murmuring on the walls. Two men with identical faces sat in front of one, and paid them no notice as they entered.

              A bearded, gray-headed old timer in a blue bandana heaved himself up from a table and headed their way.

              “Look who it is.” He had a smoke-ravaged voice, and a kind smile. “Walsh, how you been, brother? I heard your old lady’s expecting.”

              “Yeah, she is. Hey, Blue.” Walsh stopped to shake the man’s hand. “This’ll be my niece, then. Michelle.”

              Both of Blue’s large, gnarled hands cupped around the one she offered him, and he smiled into her face. “Hiya, doll. How’s Tommy doing?”

              The sound of his name brought a physical ache to her chest. She gulped down a deep breath, tried to smile, and said, “He’s much better. Dad’s got him all hidden away somewhere, recovering.”

              Blue’s expression told her he knew she was trying to be brave, but that he could see through it. “That’s good.” He patted her hand.

              “Oh, you’re here,” a woman’s voice said. And then: “Jen, they’re here!”

              Michelle turned to find a motherly woman with graying dark hair. And behind her, coming out of the back hallway, Jenny Snow.

              She’d never met Jenny in person, had only ever seen pictures and talked to her on the phone a few times, but she felt an instinctual tug of kinship. There weren’t that many club daughters – the ones who’d embraced the life, had been helpmates to fathers, brothers, uncles, and eventually their husbands. They owed it to one another to stick together; theirs was a unique experience, the life of MC royalty.

              Jenny looked like a cowgirl pinup who’d just stepped out of a poster, in her red boots, frayed cutoffs, and clinging sweater. The outfit wasn’t for effect, and she wore it in an easy way that far outshone any groupie’s leather and fishnets getup. Her hair shimmered gold beneath the lights, and her face was sympathetic as she approached.

              “Oh Lord, y’all got caught in the storm.”

              “I’ll grab towels,” the older woman said, and hurried off.

              Michelle didn’t expect Candyman’s sister to offer her a hug, but that’s just what happened. “Hey, Michelle. How are you, hon?”

              “Not so good,” she admitted, and it felt wonderful to speak the truth.

              “I bet not. Well, let’s get you warm and dry, and we can go from there.”

~*~

Candy

They waited out the storm behind the clubhouse in the salvage yard, waiting until the rain had stopped and the dirt lot was a steaming vat of dirt soup before taking the truck down off the flatbed. And, of course, a second storm blew up in the middle of the process, and the three of them were soaked to the bone by the time they slogged their way to the clubhouse.

              “You’re tracking mud all over my clean floors!” Darla exclaimed as they dropped their boots by the door.

              Normally, he would have draped an arm across her shoulders and promised to make it up to her with flowers – the woman was wild about unscented, overpriced greenhouse roses – but Candy wasn’t in the mood for it this evening.

              “Have one of the prospects mop it up,” he said as he passed through the common room.

              “We don’t have any prospects. You patched both of them.”

              “Then have your lazy-ass brother do it,” he called over his shoulder, voice tight with impatience.

              She said something else, but he didn’t hear it, heading down the hall without a glance for any of his brothers. He wasn’t feeling all that fraternal at the moment.

              He heard his father’s voice in the back of his head, an echo from the grave.
“You have to lean on your brothers. Share with them. Let them help to carry your worries.”

             
Yeah, and look where that got you, Dad. Dead as a motherfucker.

              His father had been all about share-and-share-alike. But Candy couldn’t adopt that approach, not after what had happened with Riley carving this club to pieces. So Riley’s brother was in town, the feds ready to do battle? He had to have a think on that alone, first, before he talked it over with his brothers. He always wanted seventy-five percent of a plan put together before he asked for outside input.

              If that made him an autocrat, so be it.

              He found the sanctuary blessedly empty for a change. Now that Colin, Jenny, and the baby all shared the suite with him, it was starting to be crowded, and he rarely had the space to himself. But for the moment, it was peaceful.

              He stripped off his wet shirt, jeans, and socks in front of the washing machine and chucked them into the hamper. In his boxers, he went to his bedroom…

              And found a woman sitting on his bed.

~*~

Michelle

You’ll want some privacy
, Jenny had said.
Just use my brother’s bathroom
, she’d said.
He won’t be back for a while and he’s a neat freak
.

              Well, neat freak, yes, because she’d never seen a man’s bathroom so spotless. All of his shaving and hair products had been stowed in the cabinets, the white countertop clean and sparkling. She’d found plush sand-colored towels on the rack and a rather luxurious moisturizing body bar in the soap dish.

              The hot water had gone a long way toward soothing her travel-weary muscles and working some of the lumps from her throat. Clean and flushed, she’d taken her rucksack into the adjoining bedroom and worked her comb through the long, wet snarls of her hair, surveying the space.

              It was a small room, with a single bed and a dresser across from it, a black-framed mirror mounted above. Framed photos decorated one wall, the polished handlebars of a Harley another. Louvered closet doors, a scarred hope chest, and a coat rack in one corner. It smelled faintly of cologne, shaving soap, and cigar smoke.

              So this was the infamous Candyman’s lair. For some reason, she’d expected discarded bras and panties, mountains of dirty clothes, clutter, empty bottles, condoms laying out in the open.

              Men with reputations like his always seemed to take maximum advantage of their infamy; endless parades of loose females, substance abuse problems, entitlement attitudes. But this room, with its blue and sand-striped quilts, and its dust-free nightstand, could have belonged to a schoolboy whose mother still kept house for him.

              It was endearing, if she was honest. She smiled to herself, glad to have something to think about besides her situation.

              And then the door opened.

              And then she realized she was wearing nothing but a loosely knotted towel.

              And then she realized that the man in the threshold wore nothing but his red and black plaid boxers…and that he was dripping wet…and that he was stunning.

              It was Derek Snow alright. The years between the last time she’d seen him and now had filled him out, added layers to his musculature, hardened his face, and weathered it, a typical biker mosaic of lines and sunburn.

              But she’d been eight the last time. And now she was twenty-six, and very single.

              And holy God, he was a blonde brick wall of a man.

              A fistful of her wet hair in one hand, comb in the other, she was struck dumb a moment,  eyes skipping down his shining, wet physique, noting the breadth of shoulder, narrowness of hip, the sheer size of his feet, for some reason.

              The absurdity of the situation hit them both at once.

              “Oh God,” she said, forcing her eyes away.

              “Shit!” He stepped back and slammed the door, effectively separating them.

              Michelle took a deep breath…and laughed quietly. Her heart was thundering and her face was on fire. “Hello,” she muttered, “I’m your new accountant. Fancy meeting you here.”

Four

Jenny

“Jennifer!”

              Jenny bit her lip and tried not to laugh. “Wait for it,” she told Colin, who was sprawled across her too-small bed, a sleeping Jack resting on his flat stomach.

              He grinned, and the blended sweetness and naughtiness of the expression made her want to stretch out on the bed beside him. Not that Jack would have slept through anything like that. Oh Lord…babies. She adored her child. More than life itself. But sometimes Colin sent her the sorts of looks that got her hot and bothered when they were unable to do anything about the sudden flare of sexual tension.

              “Jennifer!” Candy repeated, hollering, and she heard him stomping through the suite a handful of seconds before her door was flung open.

              She turned to face her brother, and this time, no amount of lip-biting could hold her laughter at bay. He stood in the threshold in nothing but his boxers, hair plastered to his head, wet and angry as a doused cat.

              “Get caught in the storm?” she asked, innocently.

              He aimed a finger at her, and she choked on a giggle. “Why the fuck is there some teenager in my room?”

              Colin laughed and Jenny turned around, swatted his knee, and then faced her brother with a shaky semblance of aplomb.

              “I don’t know any teenagers,” she said with dignity. “I told Michelle to use your bathroom instead of the communal dude bathroom. And she’s twenty-six, I’ll have you know.”

              He was too overcome with…something…to be his usual collected, cocky self. “That’s my bathroom.”

              “I know that.”

              “My personal bathroom.”

              “Uh-huh.”

              “Why didn’t you tell her to use yours?”

              “I had to give Jack a bath.”

              He started to retort, realized that she had a damn good excuse on her hands, and scowled instead. “She’s in my room,” he said through his teeth.

              “So I heard.”

              “Get her out.”

              “It’s your room, and your clubhouse. You get her out,” Jenny suggested, and silently prayed he wouldn’t take her up on it. Mostly, she just wanted to watch him squirm some more; it was such a rare occurrence.

              It was hilarious to watch him regain his composure, but regain it he did, hands pressed together in a meditative pose, breathing deeply. “Fine,” he said at last, and the word promised all sorts of future payback.

              Then he squared up his shoulders, lifted his head, and walked away with as much dignity as a mostly-naked man could possess.

              When he was gone, Colin sat up, careful to keep the baby against his chest. “Jen. You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

              Jenny shrugged. “Turnabout’s fair play. If he can play matchmaker, then so can I.”

~*~

Candy

After he’d come home from New York, after he’d cleaned out and restocked the club, and construction on the sanctuary was finally finished, he’d realized how desperately he’d needed this added-on space in his clubhouse. The raucous party crowd scene of the common room had no longer appealed to him, and he’d quickly come to love his narrow bed, his tidy room with its own private bathroom.

              One evening, about six months after the sanctuary’s completion, he walked into his room to find a groupie waiting on his bed. Naked, her clothes in a heap on the floor, fake breasts thrusting toward him as she got up on her knees and beckoned him with a crooked finger. He’d been shocked to realize he didn’t care about her tits, or her bellybutton ring, or the complicated dye job on her hair extensions. He’d been furious. He took her by the arm and dragged her back to the common room; she’d protested loudly, stumbling and staggering the entire way. The crowd around the bar had fallen silent, open-mouthed with shock.

              He’d addressed the rest of the groupies: “The next time I find one of you bitches back in my part of the house, you’re hitchhiking back into town naked. Understand?”

              It hadn’t happened again. At least, not until tonight.

              All he’d seen at first was damp hair and bare shoulders and legs, little feminine feet on the rug. The old fury had come rushing back in the span of a heartbeat. Who would
dare
to come into his space? But in the next moment, her head lifted, and he saw her eyes. Those very familiar blue eyes that he’d grown used to seeing on Fox. She wasn’t the little waist-high girl he’d seen in London, but she was Michelle, no doubt.

              Cue the backpedaling.

              Well, at least he hadn’t caught her by the hair and dragged her halfway down the hall before he realized who she was.

              He tried to drum up a proper apology – though she had been in his room – on the way back across the living area, but found his bedroom empty. Her bag, her comb, the towel – and her naked body inside it – had vanished.

~*~

Michelle

She woke the next morning to the sound of sparrows chirping outside the window and the smell of bacon frying. She wished, for a moment, that she wasn’t aware of her new surroundings, that she could have a few minutes to think this was her London flat, that the sparrows were on the sill, and that the bacon she smelled was cooking in her own kitchen, Raven and Cassandra having invited themselves over for breakfast.

              But no, she was in Texas, and she’d slept terribly.

              The dorm was clean, and the sheets and blanket crisp and new, but it was still a dorm, and the mattress sagged. She’d been keen to each new sound of the house around her: murmur of strange voices, unfamiliar whirs from the air conditioning, soft pops of the building settling.

              Every time she closed her eyes, Candyman filled her mind. Not any of the beloved family she’d left behind and who she missed so dearly. But freaking Candyman. She’d settled into bed the night before, wondering where Tommy was, if he had kept from popping his stitches, if he was safe…and from out of nowhere her brain was plastered with an image of Derek Snow dripping all over the floor, in nothing but those stupid red and black boxers. She shoved him away, roughly. But he kept coming back, just as she started to fall asleep; she would jerk awake and start the process all over again.

              “You are not attracted to him,” she said to the ceiling, now. But of course that wasn’t true. A young man, Tommy had suggested. Yeah, no. Young had never been what stirred her.

              For the first time in a long time, her thoughts flitted to the first man she’d ever tasted. Paul Avery. A childhood friend of Albie’s, tall, with black hair and the palest blue eyes she’d ever seen. His club brothers called him Loon, and she’d always guessed it was because no task was too crazy or too risky for him. A specialist, like Albie, a composed, serious sort of man with a beautiful smile when he chose to show it.

              She’d lost her virginity to him when she was sixteen, in the back of the furniture shop, the smell of leather in her nose, the hard press of his thumbs against the insides of her thighs as he spread them. He was sweet with her – he always had been – even though it became a feverish, needy sort of affair on both their parts, the kind too intense to keep hidden in rare stolen moments.

              When she was eighteen, he told her it had to end. He respected Albie and Phillip too much. He traced her mouth with his thumb, kissed her, and whispered that she’d be alright, that he was the one who’d be heartsick about it forever after.

              He’d been in prison the past five years, for theft, a club job gone bad.

              It had been at least a year since she’d consciously thought of him. She’d finally managed to convince herself it had never been love between them. Now, remembrance brought only a dull sort of sadness…and a hungry ache in the pit of her stomach.

              What a sick girl she was, she decided, that she couldn’t just pine for silly boys her own age like everyone else. No, she had to be so
serious
about everything.

              Disgusted with herself, she threw back the covers and got out of bed.

              In the communal bathroom – after making sure it was empty – she brushed her teeth, gave herself a quick makeup treatment, brushed out her hair, and dressed. Thus improved, she tracked down the bacon smell.

              In the kitchen, the woman from last night, Darla, worked the range with lightning precision, turning bacon, hash, and stirring something in a huge stainless pot. She looked the picture of a mother, with her pinned-back hair springing loose in little curls around her face, in an apron with deep pockets and gravy stains.

              “Good morning,” she greeted, sparing Michelle a fast smile. “Breakfast’ll be ready any minute. Did you get any sleep? The mattress do okay for you? I hope none of the boys bothered you.”

              “Uh…it’s fine. All of it. All fine.”

              “Good. Go sit and I’ll have the food right out.”

              “I can help,” Michelle offered.

              “Oh no, not on your first day. Go on. You need a full stomach if you’ve got to tackle that office in there.”

              That didn’t sound promising. “Okay.” With nothing else to do, feeling supremely like a useless outsider, she went into the common room to find the Texas Dogs spread out at various tables, awaiting breakfast.

              Walsh and Fox sat side-by-side at the bar, light and dark bookends, and she joined them, sliding onto the stool next to her Uncle Charlie.

              “Hello, pet.” He patted the top of her head.

              “It still says ‘England’ on your bottom rocker,” she observed.

              “I’m still English. Technically.”

              Walsh rolled his eyes and Michelle grinned, glad for the chance to do so. “You don’t want to be officially Texan?”

              “I don’t want to be officially anything.”

              She laughed; her first laugh since the knife slipped between Tommy’s ribs. Bless Fox.

              “Here, sweetheart,” Darla announced, arriving and thumping down a plate in front of Michelle. A
full
plate.

              “None for me?” Fox asked.

              “Next trip. Ladies first.”

              “I can’t possibly eat all of this,” Michelle said.

              “Try,” Darla instructed, gave her a maternal smile, and whisked back to the kitchen.

~*~

Walsh left just after breakfast. Michelle walked out to the truck with him, a lump forming in her throat. “Have a safe trip back. And send my love to Emmie.”

              He nodded, eyes traveling over her. His gaze serious, but affectionate, he said, “You’ll get on fine here, Chelle.”

              “Was there ever any doubt?” she tried to joke, but it fell horribly flat.

              He pulled her into a tight, comforting hug. “Your dad’s terribly proud of you, you know.”

              She closed her eyes against the threat of tears. “How do you always know just what to say?”

~*~

Candy

“I called and talked to Jaffrey this morning,” he announced at church. It was ten after ten, and he’d held off calling the meeting as long as he could. He was itchy with nerves at this point. “He’s been past the conference room the feds are using, looked in the door. And guess whose mug shots are wall-papering the place.”

              His brothers, lining both sides of the long table, executed variations of an “oh shit” face.

              “Am I up there?” Colin wanted to know.

              “You ever have your picture taken? Ever?”             

              He frowned. “Hotwired a car once. When I was twenty.”

              “Then yeah, you’re up there. These are the feds; they have deep resources.”

              Jinx said, “Riley’s gonna be serious this time around. Which means he’s gonna be smart about it. He’s getting all his shit together before he moves on us.”

              “If they press charges, they want them to stick,” Candy agreed.

              “It’ll be about the guns,” Fox said.

              “Yeah. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

              They would have to fine-tooth comb every inch of the operation, check for holes, plug them up, and possibly move inventory.

              Shit.

              Marching orders given, he dismissed church, and left the chapel, heading for his office. He found it occupied.