“You shouldn’t feel bad for me,” she said, leaning back against the headrest. “I’m the one who dragged you away from your pregnant wife and your bloody gorgeous horse farm.” She smiled a little wistfully, remembering it.
Walsh and his wife, Emmie, had picked her up at the airport in Alcoa, twelve miles south of Knoxville, and that was when, embarrassingly, it had all hit her. She’d said her goodbyes to Albie, to her aunts, to her father, and, heartbreakingly, to Tommy, and she hadn’t let slip the tight rein on her emotions. But when she set foot in Tennessee, and saw her stalwart, spiky-haired uncle waiting for her, the loss of her former life had crashed over her like a wave. She’d been sobbing by the time she reached him, and he’d hugged her tight, murmuring endearments against her hair.
His wife, Emmie, was tiny, blonde, and cute, and tactful, too. She’d produced a travel pack of tissues, a Coke, and a chocolate bar. “I thought you might need these,” she’d said with an understanding look, and Michelle had hugged her, too, on impulse.
The farm was beautiful. Far grander and more expensively embellished than she’d dreamed. She’d slept in a guest room the size of her flat back home. She’d wandered down to the barn in the fading light and watched Emmie teach a riding lesson. She was just barely pregnant, and not showing, but had leaned out of the arena once to puke bile onto the grass.
“Gotta love morning sickness,” she’d said, gargled with water, and gone back to her lesson.
Michelle had been effectively impressed.
She was likewise impressed with her loner uncle having settled so deeply, roots dug down into the soil of a place, with an old lady, a real house, and a child on the way. So she felt guilty, yes, for pulling him away from all of that for her own personal reasons.
“Em and that farm don’t need me around all the time,” he said with a snort. “I’m just there for when she gets lonesome.”
“Quite the romantic, aren’t you?”
“Oh, definitely.”
Michelle rolled her head, so she could see the landscape again. Melancholy touched her again, a fisting in her stomach that made her feel hollow.
As if he could sense the disquiet in her, Walsh said, “Fox is here, you know. You like him, don’t you?”
She smiled, faintly, and her ghostly reflection in the window smiled back. “He’s not Tommy. Or even Albie. Or even you.”
“No,” he agreed.
“But he’s blood. And that’s something.”
~*~
Candy
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone out in one of the flatbeds. He’d been holed up in his office for months, trying to sort the financial situation. This was a much-needed respite, he decided, as wind funneled in through the open windows and battered his hair flat to his head.
He rode shotgun, Jinx driving, Pup’s scrawny self between them, a wrecked truck up on the lift.
If Skynyrd would come on the radio, it would be the perfect afternoon.
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 her
e,” 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.
Tastes Like Candy (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 2) Page 4
