A hard shiver stole through her, and she fought the urge to pull away.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, staring down at the damage he’d inflicted. “Jenny, I’m so sorry.” His dark eyes lifted, red-rimmed and full of helplessness and regret.
She had to dampen her lips before she could get them to work. “You know why I picked Fox?”
His brows knitted together.
“Because he’s not very big. I’m taller than he is.”
Hesitantly, he said, “You said you’d never slept with anyone you didn’t care about.”
“That’s true. I care about Fox as a friend. As a member of this club. He’s like a brother. And I knew, the night I was with him, that he was probably the least likely to put me in the hospital, if he got angry with me.”
He let go of her wrist and reached for her waist, tried to draw her toward him.
Her eyes filled with tears and she hated it. “I didn’t want to be with somebody as big as you,” she said, voice threatening to crack. “I knew you’d just beat me up–” She cut herself off before she started sobbing, ashamed to her core.
“Jenny.” Colin wrapped both arms around her and pulled her flush against his wet, slippery chest. She felt him kiss the top of her head.
She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek to his slick skin, felt the hard throb of his heartbeat. “I need some time away from you,” she whispered. “Please. Just let go of me.”
~*~
Colin
He ground out his smoke on the sole of his boot and lit another one. His stomach growled, but the idea of food made him sick.
Please. Just let go of me.
Two bikes turned in from the street and pulled up in front of him. Candy and Jinx.
“How’d it go?” Candy asked as he dismounted, and there was an edge to his voice that told Colin he already knew.
Colin shrugged. “Dusty wasn’t there, but his roommate said he’d seen Riley around talking to the guy. Safe to say the kid’s part of his crew.”
Candy nodded, gaze level and assessing. “You and Fox – how’d that go?”
“I threw him into a puddle of shit,” Colin said, honestly.
“Threw him?”
“Picked him up. Threw him.” He mimed the action. “He landed like this.” He mimed that too, and Jinx let out an amused snort.
Candy ducked his head, and looked like he hid a grin. “Take it you heard the history, then.”
“Yep.”
“How’s Jen?”
Please. Just let go of me.
Pain knifed through him, tugged hard at his ribcage. “She doesn’t want much to do with me right now.”
Candy thumped him on the shoulder as he passed. “She’ll come around. Probably.”
Twenty-Four
Jenny
“Riley, please…”
Jenny woke with a gasp, staggering out of a nightmare she’d had too often…but which never failed to put her in a cold sweat. She opened her eyes to her dark bedroom and fought to get her bearings, the ceiling spinning overhead.
It was just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, she told herself.
Slowly, her heart rate eased, and she was able to take a deep breath. Her eyes adjusted to the dark.
It was the wee hours, that period of night when the cool set in, and all but the most nefarious of creatures sought sleep. Speaking of nefarious…
Where was Colin, she wondered. In his dorm bed? At the Armadillo? With someone warm and willing in his lap.
She flexed her fingers and the bruise on her wrist grabbed just beneath the skin; she imagined she felt his grip, still, the warm solid pressure of his hand.
She shivered beneath the sheets, and tried to tell herself it was just the perspiration drying.
Time. Yeah, she needed some time. Away from Colin, alone with her thoughts.
Then again, she’d had seven years alone with her thoughts, and she wasn’t any smarter for it.
With a deep sigh, she flopped onto her back again and willed sleep to return.
It didn’t.
~*~
Two Weeks Later
The problem with sex, Jenny reflected one afternoon at work, is that it was just as addictive as alcohol. You could go without it for long periods, but suddenly, when you’d had it, and it was a prime vintage, and sent you flying, having it taken away made you almost feverish with want.
After two weeks, she was a little bit stir-crazy. She told herself it was just a physical restlessness. But really, it had a lot to do with those dark-eyed, wounded, kicked-puppy looks Colin sent her way when he thought no one was looking.
They’d run into each other in the hallway a few days before, and Jenny had glanced down at her toes and muttered, “Excuse me,” stricken with the sudden, overwhelming terror that she wasn’t going to be able to keep her distance much longer.
“I miss you,” he’d said, in that low, smoky, Cajun-accented voice that stirred heat in her belly.
She’d tilted forward, had caught herself just before she’d reached for him. Because she couldn’t do that. She felt awful for torturing Colin this way. But it wasn’t about Colin. It was about allowing herself over and over to be abused by men. And she couldn’t fall back into that trap.
At night, when she couldn’t sleep, a tiny voice in the back of her mind liked to remind her that he hadn’t meant to hurt her. He’d just been overcome with emotion.
Wasn’t that the case with every wife beater?
“Jen,” someone said, snapping her from her thoughts.
She jerked. “What? Oh. Chelsea. Hi.”
Her fellow waitress rolled her eyes. “Daydreaming about your biker man again?”
“Oh, no…”
Chelsea hooked her arm through Jenny’s and turned her away from the register. “It’s okay, I’d daydream about him too,” she said, conspiratorially. She began to tow Jenny forward. “I haven’t seen him in a while, though. You guys have a fight or something?”
“Or something.” Wow, she’d really been out of it; she had no idea what was going on. “Where are we going?”
“On break. Crowd’s thinned out and Eric said he’d cover for us. Lemme grab my smokes first?”
“Yeah.”
The break room was a stuffy, windowless space with wooden cubbies for their things, and one square foot of counter space that served as a coffee bar. Jenny tried not to breathe too deeply as Chelsea went to her cubby and rooted through her purse. One of the cooks had smoked a joint in here, and the stink of it was overwhelming.
“That guy who replaced Dusty, I expect,” Chelsea said of the unasked identity of the smoker. “What’s his name? Lewis?”
“Lenny, I think.”
“Total dumbass. He’s kinda cute though.”
“Hmm,” Jenny murmured in patent disagreement.
“Not as cute as your guy, obviously. But I ain’t got anything like that waiting on me at home. So…oh, hey, can I borrow a tampon?”
Jenny pushed away from the doorjamb and headed for her cubby. “Sure. Regular or super?”
“Regular’s fine.”
The purse she’d carried today was her usual faded brown satchel, the leather soft as butter from years of carry. She unzipped it and dug into the interior pocket where she kept her essentials.
“You know what I’ve been thinking?” Chelsea asked behind her. “You know how they’ve got karaoke Tuesdays at the Armadillo, and you know how my mama’s always said I had a beautiful singing voice…”
Jenny’s hand closed around one of the plastic-wrapped cylinders and whatever Chelsea was saying turned into white noise. She had a full stock of tampons in her purse. When she should have already been needing them herself and burned half through them by now.
Her breath caught. “Oh, damn.”
~*~
Colin
Stripping junk cars for parts was decidedly less glamorous than interrogating witnesses…and less nauseating, too. Not to mention more productive.
>
They’d gotten nowhere hunting for Riley’s current whereabouts. Candy had been trying for two weeks now to pin him down, and so far, the bastard was untraceable.
Colin banged his knuckles against the hood of the Firebird he was pulling apart and cursed more violently than was necessary. He was so wired, it wasn’t going to take much to send him into a full-on detonation. He hadn’t felt this way since he’d headed for Knoxville with the bright idea of pounding the shit out of his un-poundable half-brother.
Sexual frustration wasn’t anything new, but this was on a whole different level. This wasn’t merely a dry spell; this was seeing, sensing, feeling his lover. In the clubhouse, in the room, in his memories. Knowing she was close enough to touch, and not being able to. Because she wanted some time and space. She needed to be alone, to gather her fragile nerves and decide if she could forgive him for reminding her of the abuses she’d suffered.
He knew he wasn’t capable of hurting her, not in the way she feared. But conveying that message to her? No easy task. Especially when he was just a dumbass, fuckaround loser who’d never had anything worth trying for in his life.
He heard someone approach and didn’t glance up right away. Whoever it was seemed in no hurry to greet him.
“What’s up?” Colin finally asked, and by that time he’d figured who it was. A glance confirmed that Jinx stood on the other side of the Firebird, digging dirt from under his nails with a toothpick.
The man had to use some kind of oil or something in his beard, the way it emitted a healthy sheen in the sunlight. He glanced up, briefly, giving Colin one of those assessing looks that could have meant a variety of things. “Got a call from Knoxville.”
His stomach tightened, an automatic reaction of dread and distaste. Knoxville meant Mercy…
“Ghost is asking for reinforcements up there, something special he wants to do on Halloween.”
…It also meant the mother chapter of the US arm of the club.
“What’s going on?”
Jinx shook his head. “Don’t know. They’ll fill us in when we get there.”
A lump formed in his stomach. “We?”
~*~
“For how long?”
Candy shrugged. “Long as it takes, I guess.” He reached for the cigarette in the ashtray at his elbow. A deep notch marred his sunburned forehead, brows tucked together with obvious worry. He’d sounded calm enough, but he couldn’t control his face; it reflected the troubled state of his thoughts.
Colin glanced over at Jinx beside him, frowned, and pressed on anyway. They were in the chapel – the first time for him – and all the sacred room’s charms were lost on him, drowned out by the worry pounding through him. “We’re just gonna leave? In the middle of…” He gestured, not sure what the hell to call this manhunt they had underway for Riley.
Candy took a long drag, sighing on the exhale. “We’re nowhere with Riley. We’re not in the middle of anything.”
“I’m sorry.” Colin had been standing, and sat now, leaning toward his VP. “But that sounds like a buncha bullshit. The second we leave – and my guess is somehow Riley’ll get word that we’re gone – he’ll move on Jen. On whoever we leave behind. You know that if you’re not around, bad shit’s gonna happen. So don’t gimme that shit about not being anywhere.” Belatedly, he added, “Sir,” on the end.
Candyman smirked. “You suck as a prospect, you know that?”
Colin tilted his head in agreement.
“Shit. Alright,” Candy muttered. “Since you’re gonna be a shithead about it. I’m putting something together that’ll get Riley off our asses for a little while.”
A relief to hear…and an insult, too.
“When were you gonna tell me about it?” Colin asked.
“When it was relevant.”
He lifted his brows.
“I’m telling you now, ain’t I? Prospects don’t get to demand information.”
“I’m not a prospect right now; I’m a guy worried about his girl’s safety.”
Candy snorted. “Your girl? Did you get that worked out, then?”
Colin ground his teeth together.
“Take that as a no.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It always is.”
Colin sat back in his chair, deflating. “So what’s your plan with Riley?”
~*~
Jenny
“No,” she muttered. “No. It can’t be. I can’t be.”
But there on her bathroom counter, defying all logic – and her wishes – sat three early detection test sticks. All of them positive.
Jenny put her hands on her hips and stared at the offending items, shaking her head. “No. No, no, no, no.”
But the sticks mocked her: Oh, but you are. What are you gonna do now, genius?
Twenty-Five
Jenny
“You’re leaving?” She couldn’t have heard him right. There was no way Derek Snow would go flying off to Tennessee while the Riley brothers were still breathing down their necks.
But Candy nodded, settling into his favorite chair with a little wince that betrayed his age and the effect of the road on his body. “Yeah, we are. In a week or so; gonna be there in time for Halloween.”
Okay, don’t panic. Now was so not the time for that. She sat down across from him, gripped the arms of the chair, and tried to tell herself that her brother wasn’t an idiot. “Really? But Halloween’s my favorite holiday.”
He snorted. “Nice try.”
She sighed. “You must have a plan, then. Or else you hit your head. Or,” she continued, “you’ve decided I’m as annoying as hell and you want to get rid of me. One of the three.”
He grinned. “Right the first time.”
Jenny relaxed her grip on the chair. Her brother’s plans were rarely without their dangerous points and implausibility, but he always managed to execute them. She pulled her legs up beneath her in the seat and pushed her own news to the back of her mind. Fill me in, she said with a glance.
“Fox has been asking around for me,” Candy said, “and he found out our old friend Mickey’s still in business.”
Jenny nodded; she remembered him. Mickey had dealt all sorts of things, including prescription drugs, like the Viagra and Percocet he’d agreed to provide for Riley’s then-budding porn business. He was small-time, a middle man between the larger dealers and street customers. He’d been a favorite of Riley’s; Jenny recalled his greasy face, shining under the lamp above the clubhouse bar. Recalled the gleam of his yellow teeth as he leaned forward and assured the Lean Dogs’ VP that he knew a guy who knew a guy, who knew something.
“And apparently,” Candy went on, “ol’ Mickey’s still a voice in Riley’s ear.”
“He’s still dealing to him?”
“And providing him with good leads. In this case, he’s gonna feed him the lead that Fox planted.”
“Which is…?”
“That in three days, a major shipment of prescription pain meds is gonna be ripe for the stealing outside of Odessa. If I know Riley, he’ll take the bait.”
Jenny lifted her brows. “Odessa’s a long way south.”
“Yes it is.”
“And I’m guessing the cops down there already know about the deal.”
He grinned. “Yep.”
She chewed at her lip in thought. “Let’s say he and his crew get picked up. Won’t his brother get him out?”
“Drug charges while he’s on parole? Not unless he’s got more sway than I think. If nothing else, it’ll buy us a little time while we run to Knoxville and back.”
“What if it doesn’t pan out?”
He made an impatient sound. “Then I’ll think of something. I can’t tell Ghost I won’t come. He’s got major shit brewing up there.”
“I know, I know.” She showed him her palms, a display of not arguing. “You have to go, and if Riley’s out of the picture, we’ll be fine down here.”
And when she said “we,�
� did that include the child growing inside her?
~*~
Colin
Evenings were the worst, in his new state of self-imposed celibacy. When he let the day’s exhaustion swamp him, and he poured himself a drink behind the bar, that was when he wished Jenny would come to him, to ease the strain of living.
Tonight, there was a new complication: one of the club groupies watching him from across the room. He was on bartender duty tonight, and she was perched on the edge of the pool table where Jinx and Blue played, watching him with unnerving, catlike attention.
He looked away from her, not wanting to get caught in any kind of a stare that she might find encouraging.
Fox, fully recovered from his inelegant shit-bath, sat by himself in a recliner, playing with his phone while another groupie sat in his lap and played with his dark hair. She might as well have been furniture, for all the attention he paid her, and she seemed to take that as a special challenge, leaning forward to nip at his ear.
The twins were on a couch together, a brunette groupie in a minidress sitting between them, flirting with first one brother and then the other. Colin had a feeling he knew where that was heading.
Still more girls loitered around the pool table, sipping drinks Colin had fixed for them, cheering on Jinx and Blue, laughing at everything the men said.
Some nights it was a ghost town, but for whatever reason, the biker chicks had come out to play tonight. The common room was filled with a pleasant sort of hum, lots of low overlapping voices punctuated by laughter.
It made Colin’s skin itch, for reasons he didn’t want to dwell on. Because when he thought about leaving in a week’s time, and Jenny still mad at him –
“Hey,” a female voice said, right in front of him. It was a calculated sort of “hey,” a greeting that had been practiced and perfected in its smooth, sultry sound. Friendly enough, though.
Snow in Texas (Lean Dogs Legacy #1) Page 14
