Tastes Like Candy (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 2) (27 page)

              She hoped their enemies were just as unsuspecting.

~*~

Raven

This was bullshit. As her now-American niece would probably say, this was total and complete bull-fucking-shit.

              But Raven hiked her Coach purse up on her shoulder and said, “Let’s go.”

              To which Cassandra said, “Um, aren’t we already here?”

              “Don’t be a wise-ass,” Raven said, and pushed into the door of Maude’s Antiques.

              Her half-brother was behind the counter, surrounded by the furniture he’d built and loved, head lifting from the ledger he was thumbing through. He did a double-take. “Raven. Cass.”

              “That’s us,” Raven said.

              “Hiya, Albie,” Cassandra said.

              “Hey, kid.” His gaze came to Raven, shrewd as ever. “What brings you two out here?”

              She shrugged and lifted a hand. Carefree. “Oh, you know.”

              “No,” he deadpanned. “I don’t know.”

              “Oh, Albie, you’re humorless.”

              “What are you making?” Cassandra asked, as rehearsed, pushing up to the desk.

              “A sofa…” Albie said, uncertain, showing her his sketch.

              “Ooh, I love it,” Cassandra said.

              It was too much flattery. Albie glanced at Raven, features compressed, not buying it for a minute.

              What a pain in the ass he was.

              “Albie,” Raven said, breezily, beginning a slow wander around the shop. “Have you heard from Tommy lately?” She whipped around just in time to see him stiffen.

              “No.”

             
Liar
, she thought, and kept moving.

              “Shame. Michelle was hoping I could have you pass a message along to him.”

              “Yeah?” His jaw clenched, and he spoke through his teeth, eying her over Cassandra’s dark head. “And what’s that?”

              “Oh, nothing. Something private, between siblings.”

              “They’re not siblings,” he returned. “Not like you and me.”

              “No, better than you and me,” she agreed.

He swore.

              “What was that?”

              “He said, ‘fuck me,’” Cassandra supplied.

              Raven grinned. “Of course. Tell me what I want to know, Albert.”

              “Ha. No.”

              “You’re an ass.”

              “And you’re a princess.”

              “She wants to come home, you know,” Raven said, growing serious. “She thinks you’re all lying to her.”

              “I thought you’d convinced her to leave this club shit alone.”

              “I tried. But she’s Phil’s daughter, after all.”

Twenty-Five

Raven

“Albert Cross, unhand me.”

              “You think I’m falling for that one again?”

              “Oh, I only scratched you a little.”

              “I looked like I got in a fight with a Siberian tiger.”

              “You’re so dramatic.”

              “Says the goddamn
model
.”

              “Cassandra,” Raven said, turning a pleading look to her little sister as they were marched down the block to Baskerville Hall. “A little help?”

              Cassandra – a tiny ball of dark-haired, punk rock sunshine with an arm loaded with bracelets and a heavy fringe hanging over her eyes – huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Right. This is payback for you embarrassing me last week. Strong-arm her good, Albie.”

              “Traitor,” Raven hissed.

              “My pleasure,” Albie said through his teeth, because she was taller than him, and being a serious pain about the whole process.

              “You’ll pay for this, Albie,” Raven promised. “You won’t know where, and you won’t know when, but I can promise you it will be embarrassing, and you will
fear my wrath
afterward.”

              “I always fear your wrath,” he said, and pulled open the door to the pub. “In you go.”

              He let go of her once they were inside, and she tugged the halves of her burgundy suede jacket together, brushing at the woodchips, or dust, or whatever he might have left on her sleeve. “Brute,” she accused under her breath.

              He gave her a mock-bow and an elaborate wave of his arm, inviting her to precede him. “M’lady.”

              “My arse.” She kicked him in the shin as she passed him.

              “I love it when you fight,” Cassandra said, falling in behind Raven. “It’s better than anything on the telly.”

              “This isn’t a fight,” Raven said. “No one’s bleeding. Are they?”

              Baskerville Hall wasn’t at all her sort of place, but she could admit that it had a certain Conan Doyle-ish charm about it, with its dark, cramped corners, its padded leather, its English bones and blood.

              Three Dogs were at the bar, and all turned to look at the commotion. All of their eyes jogged up and down her, from the toes of her pumps to the top of her carefully straightened hair.

              “Wolf-whistle me and die,” she said, and they all whipped back around.

              “You have such a gentle way with men,” Albie said behind her.

              “Keep it up and see just how gentle.”

              “Not that stupid, love.”

              The second floor of Baskerville Hall was even more junkie detective-conducive: the faded silk wallpaper and heavy wainscoting. The floorboards creaked beneath their feet and the runner gave off an ancient, dusty smell.

              Phillip was – where else? – behind his desk, the sun pouring in through the flanking windows in a way that obscured his face. By design, Raven knew. Anyone walking into his office would get an eyeful of the building across the way, the light, and not be able to get a read on the man at the desk.

              Lucky for her, she was no stranger, and didn’t really care what was brewing in the bastard’s pale eyes.

              “Phil,” she greeted, crisply, head lifted, shoulders thrown back. She hadn’t come here willingly, but she’d learned a long time ago the merits of entering a room as if she owned it. “Blowing up the city today?”

              She got close enough to see his smirk. “Afternoon, little sister. And no, no plans for explosions today. To what do I owe the exquisite pleasure of your presence?”

              “Mine too,” Cassandra chimed in.

              “Hiya, Cass.”

              “Raven’s not a very good spy,” Cassandra said, still being a traitor, “at least not one that Albie can’t spot.”

              “You’re trying to get in my good graces, aren’t you?” Albie asked, voice colored with amusement.

              She made a considering face, one that had worked a time or two on Raven, if she was honest. “Well…”

              “Okay, enough,” Raven said. “Albert, would you like to explain to our brother why you
wrestled
me down here?”

              He stepped up beside her and spared her a withering look. His temper was reined in by legendary control, but she knew she pushed at those boundaries on occasion.

              “These two came in to ask about Tommy,” Albie said.

              “Technically, that was just Raven,” Cassandra said.

              “We’re having a conversation later,” Raven promised her.

              “I think,” Albie said, talking over them, “that the women in our family are wily as foxes.”

              Raven met Phillip’s gaze, hating how placid he was. “Tommy never left London, did he?”

              “No.”

              “And you won’t tell Michelle.”

              “No.”

              “While I fault her judgment, he is, for some reason, her favorite person in the world. She deserves to know.”

              “No. She deserves not to be knifed to death in the street running ops for me.”

              Raven leaned forward and slapped a hand down on the edge of the desk, wanting an outlet for the anger cycling through her veins. Sometimes she really fucking hated her family. “You were the one who put her in the street in the first place!”

              “You think I don’t know that?” he shot back. “Why the hell do you think I sent her halfway around the world?”

              “I don’t know. So a Mexican cartel can stand on her hand?”

              “I had no idea–”

              “No, you didn’t. And that’s the whole goddamn problem,” she snapped. “None of you” – she gestured to include Albie, this damn pub, this damn outlaw way of life – “ever have any idea what you’re doing. You say you want her safe, and you send her to another fucking chapter? And now she’s caught up in their problems?
Honestly
, Phillip, what in the hell are you thinking? I
hate
this club. I fucking hate it!”

              “I want her away from it just as much as you,” he said, voice growing spooky in its composure, that steel-edged whisper that meant so many terrible things.

              “Except I was trying to help her see that there was more to life than motorbikes and pubs,” Raven said, sighing. God, this was exhausting. “You can’t force any of us stubborn fools into doing something. We have to see it for ourselves. Your way was never going to work. Lying to her. Insulting her like that. Now she’s run off and become Mrs. Candyman and who bloody knows if any of us will ever see her again.”

              “Raven–”

              “You lied to her,” she repeated. “We may all be the children of a good for nothing manwhore, but damn it, we’re family, and she’s your own bloody daughter. And you lied to her. I won’t forgive you for that.”

              And as she registered the hot burn of tears at the backs of her eyes, Raven spun and marched from the room, calling, “Cassandra!” over her shoulder, without looking back.

              She realized she was shaking too badly to go out into the public world, so when she reached the ground floor, she slid into a quiet booth and pressed her hands over her eyes, willing the tears to recede, trying to catch her breath. Her chest heaved like a bellows, with such fervor it made her head spin.

              Cassandra might have been sixteen, but she knew when it was time to act like an adult. “Do you want some water?” she asked, quietly.

              “Wine,” Raven said. “Riesling, please.”

              “I’ll be right back.” She slipped up to the bar, where the prospect bartender would think nothing of handing a glass of wine across to Phillip Calloway’s littlest sister.

              Albie slid in across from her without making a sound. She felt his breathing, though, and gapped her fingers to find his face across from hers, all its familiar lines and angles set in a sympathetic expression.

              “You don’t hate the club,” he said, voice gentle.

              “I do.” A half-hearted insistence.

              “For what it’s worth, I don’t like lying to Chelle. In fact, I hate it.”

              “So why do it?”

              “She isn’t my daughter. And I’m not the president.”

              “Stupid excuses.”

              A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. Tommy and Miles might have been the most objectively pretty of her brothers, but Raven had always thought Albie’s rugged charm made him the most attractive. If sisters were allowed to think such things.

              “I’m worried about her,” she admitted.

              “I am too. I worry about all of us. How can I have kids of my own with this bunch to worry about?” His brows lifted for emphasis.

              Raven sagged and smiled, a little. “I wish I had a normal family.”

              “No you don’t.”

              No. Despite all of it, she really didn’t.

Twenty-Six

Michelle

She was ready for the mobile to ring. Raven had texted her earlier:
Be ready for call. One a.m. your time
. And so she’d had an extra cup of coffee before bed, and at ten ‘til one slipped silently from bed, out of the sanctuary, and down the hall to the common room in her bare feet, cool floorboards under her toes making her shiver.

              She reflected that she knew the clubhouse so well by now – almost as well as she knew Baskerville Hall – and hadn’t needed a single light. By feel, like a cat with twitching whiskers, she found a stool and climbed atop it, a wraith in the darkness.

              That’s what she’d always been, wasn’t it? A ghost, thin and vaporous at the edges of this MC life, a nonessential element in it all. Echo of a legacy, but not a real one.

              The phone vibrated in her hand and she passed her thumb across the screen, pressed it to her ear. “Tom.” Not a question. She knew Raven wouldn’t have gotten her hopes up for nothing.

              He took a breath, a shaky one, and even that was an identity marker. “Yeah, it’s me.”

              She took a shaky breath of her own, emotion crashing over her. It was easier, in a way, not talking with him, because then the ache of a lost sibling didn’t hurt so acutely.

              “How’s the hand?” he asked.

              She wiggled the fingers inside the brace, though she couldn’t see them. “Better. It doesn’t hurt anymore. Only itches in this bloody thing I have to wear.”

              “I’m sorry.” Deep regret. Sadness. Sympathetic pain, telegraphing through the satellite connection. “Shit, I’m so sorry.”

              She forced an unsteady smile, just in the hope it would bleed into her voice. “Not your fault.”

              “You shouldn’t be over there.”

              “Not like I had a choice.”

              Tommy exhaled. He’d been drinking, she thought. Liquoring himself up for this conversation. “I never left London.”

              “I didn’t figure.”

              “Da…
Phil
,” he stressed. For a while there, when they were kids, he’d called Phillip “Dad.” “Phil was afraid you’d come home, and…” Another sigh. “Maybe you should come home. If shit’s sideways there.”

              “I want to come home,” she admitted, and it was true. She did. But why did it pain her to say so? What was this sharp stab of…of…grief in her chest?

              “What about Candyman? You won’t stay there for him?”

              “I…he hasn’t said he wants me to.”

              “He wants you to.”

              “You don’t even know him.”

              “Trust me.”

              “I…” She didn’t know. She had no idea about anything. “What about Dad? Which is more dangerous? A cartel? Or anarchist assholes?”

              “Fuck your dad,” he suggested. “Just do what you want. Have you ever done that? Ever? In your whole life, Chelle?”

              Yes, she thought. Yes, she had. That first night she let Candy kiss her. That had been exactly what she’d wanted in that moment.

              “Maybe,” she said, quietly, mostly to herself.

              “What’s going on with the cartel?” he asked.

              “I don’t know. They think the boys sold them out to the feds. Something. They want blood, though.” She took a deep breath. “What about that crew you’re dealing with?”

              “They’re onto us. We’ve got security watches doubled. We’re on our toes. And the good news is – ha – they can’t lay off their agenda long enough to really hit us back.”

              “Fucked at both ends,” she muttered.

              “Looks like it.”

              The lights came on.

              Just the ones beneath the bar, a faint gold shimmer, but in contrast to the dark, it was like the sun coming up.

              “Shit,” Michelle gasped.

              Candy stood by the switch, hand still on it, his blue stare the darkest and sternest she’d ever seen it. He’d never looked at her like this before, and it sent a hard chill rippling down her back.

              “What’s wrong?” Tommy asked. He sounded ready to jump through the phone and hit somebody.

              “Nothing,” she said, distracted now. This wasn’t good. Whatever was going through Candy’s head, it wasn’t sunshine and butterflies, and she needed to get her uncle off the phone before the aforementioned “shit” hit the fan.

              “Tell him you’ll call him back,” Candy said, voice even, steady. His eyes awful.

              She shuddered again. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you back a little later.”

              “No. Fuck that. What’s going on? You sound…scared,” he said, like he couldn’t believe it.

              “I’m fine. Honestly.” She disconnected the call, a hard knot forming in her stomach. “What?” she asked Candy. “I’m not allowed to talk to my own family? You have no right to dictate that.” It was all bravado on her part, and she suspected he knew it.

              “I’d ask who that was,” he said, “but I don’t think you’d sneak out of bed for just anybody. So I’m guessing it was Tommy.”

              An absurd idea bloomed to life in the back of her mind, and suddenly she realized that the space between them wasn’t cold and empty, but juiced up like a downed electrical wire, hot enough to singe her skin if she reached through it.

              He was furious with her.

              Worse than that.

              And she knew, with a little gulp, it had been building for a while, in the weeks since he was shot. She had been withdrawing from him, millimeters at a time, and he’d been noticing. And it was infuriating to him.

              “He’s my uncle, Candy. Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

              “What? No.” He scowled at her. “Don’t paint me like some kinda sick creep.” He snorted. “Even if I do fuck a little baby thing on the regular now. You talk to your ‘uncle’ about that?”

              “Derek. What in the hell are you talking about?” He was scaring her a little, if she was honest.

              “You’re trying to go back to London.” Not a question.

              So she didn’t give him an answer.

              “What about my bar, huh? What about being my accountant? Huh?” he repeated. The unasked part was:
What about me? What about being my girl?

              At least, she thought she could read that in his eyes. But maybe it was just hatred.

              “I don’t know,” she said to her mobile.

              “You can’t go back,” he snarled. “Phillip sent you here, remember?”

              “I’m not a piece of luggage,” she snapped, lifting her gaze to his again. “I’m not a
possession
to be shipped back and forth between people. I can go wherever I bloody well like.” She was breathing hard, and forced a calmness through her lungs, catching her tongue between her teeth before she could say anything else.

              And yet: “I’m not your property,” she whispered.

              “No,” he said, flatly, coldly. “I guess not.”

              The lights went out and she heard his bare feet padding back down the hallway.

              She spent the rest of the night on one of the sofas.

~*~

It started out like a regular day. A regular Texas day, anyhow. But by the end of it, when the lights finally went out and the darkness closed over her, she knew that the course of her life had fundamentally changed.

              It went like this:

              She dragged herself off the sofa before first light, leather seat clinging to her sweaty cheek, peeling away with a sensation that made her groan. She tiptoed back to the sanctuary, checked that Candy was still asleep – he was, his breathing regular, the rattle of the gunshot finally gone – and showered in a rush. Dabbed on hasty makeup, tied her hair in a damp knot, and dressed. Her doctor’s appointment was at noon, and she wanted to check in at the bar first: the electrician was coming to give the wiring tweaks at nine.

              She caught Jenny on her way out to work. “Can I catch a ride with you?”

              Jenny’s fair brows crimped together in confusion. “Sure…but Candy…”

              “He’s in the shower,” Michelle said in a rush. “I want to go on ahead.”

              “Okay.”

              “I’m sorry,” Michelle said once they were on the road. “You’ll have to take me all the way into town and double back. I didn’t think…”

              “It’s fine,” Jenny said. She checked the rearview mirror where Colin’s headlamp kept pace behind them, security and escort. “But how will you get from Odell’s to the hospital?” It sounded like a question that was digging for deeper answers.

              “I’ll give Fox a ring and make him take me.”

              “Right. Right…” She tapped her red fingernails on the wheel. “Michelle, what’s going on? Did you guys have a fight?”

              “Something like that.”

              “You wanna talk about it? I mean, I know he’s my brother, so I have the potential to be biased. But I know what a damn piece of work he is. So. We can talk.”

              “Thanks.”

              “Is this a British thing? Or a don’t-want-to-talk-about-it-thing?”

              “Both, probably.”

              Jenny exhaled. “Lord.”

~*~

“How does it feel?” the doctor asked, taking her hand between thumb and forefinger, pinching the delicate bones at the back of it.

              She grimaced, but it was only a twinge, and not the hot daggers of pain she’d experienced before. “It’s…okay.”

              Her hand was pale and wrinkled strangely, mangled by the brace, a little clammy and disgusting. “It looks like hell,” she admitted, and the doctor gave her a warm smile.

              “That’ll go away quick. Just get out in the sun a little. If you can stand the sun,” he amended. “Is it a big shock, all this Texas sky, after the UK?”

              He was being friendly, but she didn’t really want to talk about home, or herself, or anything.

              She shrugged. “It was at first. But it’s feeling more normal now.” She wiggled her fingers experimentally. “It would feel even more normal if I had full use of my hand.” She gave him a hopeful half-smile.

              He nodded. “You will. Take it easy for a little while, do your exercises, and you’ll be good as new.”

              Well, she thought, that was something, at least.

~*~

Fox waited for her in the parking lot, blowing clouds of smoke up into the relentless sunshine, brows knitted into a squint above the lenses of his sunglasses. “Took you long enough,” he said as she approached.

              “As if you had anything better to do,” she quipped, taking the helmet he offered her.

              “I was cleaning my guns.”

              “And that takes all day?”

              “You haven’t seen my collection, obviously.”

              “I’ve seen Albie’s, and no way is yours more impressive than that.”

              He finally relented and grinned. “Albie’s no competition to me, love.”

              “Oh no?” She swung onto the bitch seat behind him, feet finding the pegs with the same mindless grace you’d use to shut a door, latch a seatbelt.

              “Decidedly not.” He flicked his still-smoking cigarette to the pavement and started the Harley.

              It felt wonderful to link her hands in front of his stomach – just her hands! No brace, no scratchy Velcro, no straps catching at his cut. She knotted her fingers together, feeling only the slightest twinge of discomfort, and hooked her chin on his shoulder, enjoying the slap of wind against her face.

              She didn’t remember that she’d skipped breakfast until Fox turned into the parking lot of a divey-looking barbecue restaurant, then her stomach rumbled and the heady smell of smoked meat hit her tongue hard. She was starving.

              At a patio table with a red-checkered plastic cloth, Fox reached into the basket of complimentary fried pickles and said, “So what’s all this about?”

              “You aren’t actually going to eat those, are you?” she asked, revolted by the idea.

              He popped one of the battered pickle discs into his mouth and spoke around it. “Dodging. I like it. You get that from me.”

              “Dodging what?”

              “You tell me.”

              As he munched pickles – God, disgusting – she averted her gaze, searching for the inspiration for a convincing lie. The restaurant was all decked out in singed wood detailing and corrugated steel. The patio where they sat was narrow, right on the street, filled with picnic tables sprouting umbrellas from their centers. Napkins and cloths flapped in the afternoon breeze. The sun was too bright to look at, glinting on the iron handrail, the tinted windows of the building. The steady whoosh of passing cars and the sporadic patter of surrounding conversation left her grateful for the warmth of the weather, the relative peace of being in public. She was even grateful for her uncle’s company.