He heard her swift breath. Felt her go rigid in his arms. Her eyes flew wide and she stared at him, expression blank with shock. Then the emotions started to bleed through, a deep blush in her cheeks. Surprise. Gladness. Intense pleasure.
“You said you loved me.”
“I did.”
“Do you need me to say it back?”
“I just need you to act like it, ‘cause I already know you do.”
She kissed him, and after two weeks of separation, it was all he could do not to throw her down and rip her clothes off. Straining with the effort, he sat still and let her play with his mouth, her tongue teasing along his lower lip.
She was a little breathless, eyes dilated in the dim light when she pulled back. “You didn’t mess around with any of the groupies the last two weeks, did you?”
“You didn’t take a trip down memory lane with Fox, did you?” he countered.
“Ass,” she accused, and kissed him again.
~*~
Jenny
Note to self: Expect the best sex of your life after a long run. Because after two weeks apart, Colin had been insatiable.
Or maybe that had something to do with the tension that had been living between them. Either way, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to walk tomorrow.
“Hey,” he said, stretching against her back, a heavy arm curling tight around her waist and drawing her into his chest. She felt his chin against her neck, his breath on her face. “You didn’t pass out yet, did you?”
“You can’t possibly go again,” she mumbled. “Not even you. Not even if you took something.”
His laugh tickled her skin, dark and heavy as smoke. “No. I have a serious question.”
“More serious than ‘was that good for you’? ‘Cause that’s all I’m capable of answering at the moment. And the answer is yes. Hell freaking yes.”
He chuckled and pressed a kiss to the soft underside of her jaw. “Good.” Then pulled back. “But not that. I was gonna ask…” Tension streaked through him, turning him into a six-foot-four piece of rebar behind her.
Jenny twisted her head, saw his lamp-gilded face tight with worry and wonder. “What?”
He wet his lips. “The baby. You’re having it, right? Or are you…” His brows knotted together, deeply troubled.
“Yes, sweetie.” She sighed, feeling content for the first time in weeks, and turned her head away. Allowed herself to melt down into the mattress and head for sleep. “You’re gonna be a daddy. Congrats to you.”
She didn’t stay awake long enough to hear his response.
Twenty-Seven
Colin
They agreed to keep the news to themselves for a while. The next day, Jenny went to the doctor and was informed, with a smile, that she was indeed pregnant, and everything seemed very normal and healthy so far. She walked into Colin’s arms that night, snuggled her face into his chest and sighed deeply. “Well,” she said. “It’s happening.”
Colin had thought accepting it as reality was the scariest part. But then he realized they were going to have to tell Candy.
And that was the scariest part.
“Question,” he said, when they were in bed. “After we tell your brother, am I going to be capable of having any more kids in the future?”
He’d expected Jenny to laugh. Instead, she said, “I dunno.”
Not reassuring.
Which was how Colin felt now as he walked up to the uncle-to-be in the common room the next morning – very not reassured.
Candy was having breakfast at the bar, a cup of coffee, morning cigarette, watching the local news on the TV mounted on the back wall.
“Haven’t seen you around much,” he said without glancing toward Colin. “Take it things are patched up with you and your boss lady.”
Since he couldn’t be seen anyway, Colin made a snarly face before he dropped onto the next stool. “Yeah.”
“Good. You need your head on straight. You and me’ve got errands to run later.”
Somehow, that didn’t sound fun at all.
~*~
Jenny
It was her day off, and normally she would have spent the day reading, writing in her journal, window shopping online for more boots she didn’t need and couldn’t afford. But today, she was restless.
She swore she felt the tiny life inside her already, a presence, this new weight in her womb, despite its lack of physical size. She closed her eyes, pressed her hand to her stomach, and imagined she could sense the blood and nutrients going to it, her baby. A moment in which life seemed impossible, fragile, and so very raw. There was a human growing in there, and that was too massive to comprehend all at once.
She sighed and reclined back against her headboard. She hadn’t made the bed yet, hadn’t dressed or put on her makeup. She kept thinking about Colin, the way he’d been last night.
She’d thrown herself wholeheartedly into the sex, to keep her spinning thoughts at bay. And then after, Colin had been the one to become contemplative, his hand settling on her stomach in a way that was a silent question.
Jenny had smiled and moved his palm lower. “You’re too high. It’s down here.”
“Yeah? What’s it look like?”
“Like nothing, yet.” She’d dampened her lips, hesitant to ask her next question. “Are you…are you excited about it?”
He’d exhaled through his nose and it had ruffled her hair. “I don’t really know what I am,” he said, honestly, quietly.
That was okay, because she didn’t know either.
Well, that wasn’t true. She was a little bit nervous. Okay, a lot bit nervous. She herself was no doubt going to be an emotional wreck of a mother. But what about Colin? Was she staring down the barrel of eventual abandonment? Or was he going to step up? Be a good dad…like his brother.
His brother.
If there was ever an authority on Lécuyer genetics, she lived in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Jenny had her cellphone in her hand and was dialing before she could debate the wisdom of this move.
Mercy’s wife picked up on the second ring. “Hi, Jenny.” There were background noises, voices, maybe the TV. Ava’s voice held a note of surprise; they didn’t talk all that often, and she had to be wondering what had spurred the contact.
Jenny winced with sudden guilt. “Is this a bad time?”
“Oh, no. It’s good to hear from you,” Ava assured, and then the noise receded. Sound of a door opening, then closing again. Then stillness. “We’re having a lazy day. Mercy’s currently trying to show Remy the best way to break someone’s neck, using a teddy bear to demonstrate. Lord, that man,” she said with a happy sigh. “So what’s up?”
Jenny sighed too, with less happiness behind it. “I wanted to get your opinion on something. And you aren’t gonna believe this, but…”
Ava stayed quiet as Jenny related the story: a brief summary of Colin’s arrival, their get together, and finally, the pregnancy news.
“So yeah,” Jenny finished, exhaling like she’d run a race. “That’s pretty much where we’re at.”
It was silent a beat. Ava said, “Right,” in a businesslike way. She was thinking; Jenny could envision her dark brows drawing together as she frowned. “Does anyone know?”
“No, and I’d like it to stay that way,” Jenny said in a rush. “Please, Ava, this is just between us for right now.”
“Of course.” She made a considering sound. Then chuckled. “Well at least you’re not seventeen.”
Jenny couldn’t return the laugh. “True.” She shivered as she remembered the Lean Dogs lore – the story of Ava, miscarrying all over the floor of an abandoned house, Mercy cradling her in his arms. Ava’s mother, Maggie, had told her the story once, her pretty face bone-white, pulse jumping visibly in her throat as she recalled the night her daughter was attacked by a classmate…and rescued by her much-older lover.
She regathered her thoughts. “I’m not afraid of telling anyone. Not like Colin is,” s
he said with a snort. “He wants to hold off telling Candy as long as possible, I’m sure.”
“I bet.”
“It’s just that…” Jenny’s logic abandoned her in one great rush, leaving her shaken and breathless. “I’m just anxious I guess. And how embarrassing is that at my age?”
A beat passed, Ava thinking again. “You know women with children.”
“I do.”
“But…you only know one who has kids with a Lécuyer. That’s why you called.”
Relief. “Yeah. That’s exactly why I called.”
“Well.” There was a rustling, Ava shifting positions. “They’re different, in a lot of ways. Colin’s charm is more for show, like he’s worked at it. But where he has a mean streak, Mercy has a homicidal one.”
“He’s not bloodthirsty,” Jenny agreed, meaning no insult to Mercy.
“No. Merc would tell you they’re polar opposites. But from what I can tell…that Lécuyer blood’s some strong stuff.”
“Tell me,” Jenny prompted, teeth catching at her lip in anticipation.
Ava was a writer, and it showed in the way she spoke now. “They’re both Southern down to their bones, and they genuinely like women. They aren’t intimidated by us; they can have real conversations with us. Colin’s got a bit of the playboy shtick…”
“Yeah,” Jenny agreed with a snort.
“…but under that’s a fairly thoughtful man. And I think maybe he tries to hide that, or is ashamed of it. I don’t know. But from everything I’ve heard, from knowing Mercy most of my life, I think Remy – their dad, and not my Remy – was the kind of man who did what he did, and loved who he loved, and didn’t much care what anyone else thought about him. Colin suffers from a little vanity, and that’s because Remy didn’t raise him. Then again, that whole secret-daddy thing may be more to blame.”
“Hmm.” Candy was haunted daily by the death of their father. But wasn’t it better to have known and been loved by the man, than to be like Colin, and have lived a lie? Jenny thought so. “He’s much more…attached, than I would have thought. I didn’t talk to him for two weeks and he actually moped.”
Ava laughed. But then grew more serious. “I can’t speak for Colin, but I know Merc needs to be married. Emotionally. It’s not just about the sex for him. We’re friends.” Her voice softened. “I know that sounds hokey and stupid, but it’s true. He likes for us to spend lots of time together, even if it’s just reading, or wrangling both boys through the aisles at the grocery store. He’s an incredibly involved husband…because his whole world was shattered before he came to Knoxville, and he holds onto the new one with both hands.”
“He’s a good dad,” Jenny told her. “But he wanted kids, didn’t he?”
“He did.” Voice careful, Ava said, “What’s Colin said so far? About the baby.”
Jenny shrugged though it couldn’t be seen. “Actually, I think he’s accepted it. He was shocked, obviously, and he freaked out at first, but then he just…I dunno. Maybe’s he faking.”
“No,” Ava said at once. “He’s as crappy a liar as Mercy, trust me. If he acts like he’s accepted it, then he has.”
“That’s something, at least.”
“Jen?”
“Uh-huh?”
“It’s going to be okay, you know.”
She released an uncertain laugh; just needed the tension-release of the effort. “You sound awfully sure about that.”
“I am. And I think you are too, you just aren’t used to feeling that way,” Ava said with a smile in her voice.
~*~
Ava
Promising to hold tight to the secret, wishing her long-distance friend the best of luck, Ava disconnected and sat on her bed a moment, staring at her phone in her hand. Her nails were unpolished, chipped and in need of filing. She was wearing a baggy old sweatshirt with the sleeves pulled up, and even though she’d done her hair that morning, Cal had tugged on it and it doubtless was a mess of snarls by now. She was cross-legged in the center of the king bed she shared with her husband, the rise and fall of his voice an indistinct murmuring down the hall, punctuated by Remy’s excited squeals.
Too late, she thought about what she should have told Jenny.
“Shit,” she muttered, and jumped to her feet, fetched her laptop off her dresser.
In flurry of tapping keys, she relayed the sort of story best committed to paper, rather than voiced aloud, and fired it off to Jenny as an email.
Satisfied, she slipped back down the hall to the living room.
Mercy lay on his back, hair a black silk fan around his head on the rug, Remy held up above him in both large, strong hands. Remy loved it, laughing in the high, breathless voice of a very young child who believes his daddy can make him fly.
Mercy’s head turned toward her as she entered. “What was that about?”
“Girl stuff,” she said mysteriously, resuming her spot in the chair beside Cal’s playpen.
“With Candyman’s sister?” He’d heard her answer the call. “That’s some long-distance girl stuff.”
“It is,” she agreed.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” he asked with a knowing grin.
She reached with one socked toe and ran it across a stray lock of his hair, watching it shimmer in the sunlight. “You’re a very smart man, did you know that?”
He laughed.
~*~
Jenny
She was climbing out of the shower when her phone pinged with an email alert. Bundled up in her robe, she sat down on the edge of the bed to read it.
It was from Ava.
Jen,
There was something I forgot to tell you. Something important that I wanted you to know, and that’s probably better read than listened to.
I’m sure you know about my foray into the real world, my time off at college. Up until that point, I’d never known what it was like not to love Felix. I guess I was – and am still – strange. Other girls my age were just starting to smell love on the air, and I’d been breathing it for so long already… I tried to tell myself, during that time, after he’d hurt me so badly, that I didn’t love him. And that I would be better off trying to anchor myself to something normal and acceptable.
I was wrong for so many reasons, obviously. But mostly I was wrong because I was afraid. I was trying to be normal because I was afraid that staying me was going to get me irrevocably hurt. Love wasn’t supposed to be so big and scary. It wasn’t supposed to break me in half.
Last night I was putting Cal to bed, and when I laid him on the pillow, his face turned toward the lamp, and for just one moment, with the light just perfect, I saw his adult face, his true features, still locked in his little round baby face. He was beautiful. This big robust, blonde version of Felix, with the absolute sweetest, softest brown eyes. It was just a second, one fast glimpse of the future. And I realized it was a glimpse that would never have come to me if I hadn’t given Mercy another chance. I almost let my life fizzle out, a slow boring death, because I was afraid.
I know you’re scared, and I know you have doubts. But there’s a little of the man I married in your man. Excavate it out of him. Give him a chance. Demand nothing less than his whole heart, and see if he won’t step up and surprise you.
I’m always here if you need someone to listen.
Ava
Jenny laid the phone aside, and wiped her eyes.
Twenty-Eight
Candy
When he first returned home to Amarillo from New York, when the world was upside down, he’d walked into the chapel and run straight into a framed photo of his father and Riley standing together, arms slung across each other’s shoulders, grinning into the glare of the sun. Candy had pulled the photo off the wall, taken it out back, and used it for target practice.
Jenny thought his crusade against Riley was about keeping her safe. And it was…mostly. But it was personal, too. His sister wanted blood for the abuses committed against her? She’d have to
get in line behind him.
“You’re in your head again, brother,” Jinx observed as he settled into his usual chair. The chapel, empty save for the two of them, echoed back the sound of Jinx’s lighter, the first inhalation of smoke.
Candy nodded, and his eyes lifted from the spreadsheet he’d been studying to take a trip around the room.
Everything about it was new. He hadn’t been able to stand the idea that any of Riley’s sloughed-off skin cells still dwelled in the table cracks of this most sacred of MC hallows. He’d taken the sledgehammer to the walls himself, ripped out the old paneling with a crow bar. Demo’d the tile underfoot, wheeling it out into the yard one wheelbarrow at a time. New sheetrock, new photos in new frames, new banners, new flags, new hardwood, new light fixtures, fresh coat of paint. He’d had professionals sand the table down and lacquer it with new varnish. The chair seats had been reupholstered. Nothing of Riley remained. Nothing physical, but the bastard was still alive and well in Jenny’s nightmares, and in Candy’s nagging conscience.
He glanced back down at the spreadsheet. “We’re not making enough money,” he admitted, feeling raw and tired. “Between replacing the water heaters last month, and making that loan to Tennessee…” He shook his head. “We need a windfall, and soon.”
He flipped the paper over, suddenly disgusted. “My sister has to work in that damn shithole restaurant. What the fuck? Why can’t I give her a job around here somewhere?” The sense of inadequacy swelled, threatened to crush him.
Snow in Texas (Lean Dogs Legacy #1) Page 16
