Tastes Like Candy (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 2) (36 page)

              She bristled, visibly, jaw clenching. But that emotion lingered in her eyes. Not her idea. No. “That was all me,” she spat.

              “Yeah, sure it was. Bet it made you feel all
empowered
, right?”

              “Listen,” she started.

              “No. You listen. If you’ve got any interest in taking a giant career leap, you listen good. I’ve got enough intel to arrest half the Chupacabras in Texas, and some in Mexico, I’m guessing.”

              Her brows jumped. “The Chupacabra cartel?”

              “The one and only. Just think about it – a feather in your cap, your name on all the arrest records, and you get to leapfrog over Riley. Just for kicks.”

              She wet her lips, nervous, but greedy now.

              “You know where I live,” he said, “think it over.”

              “Won’t the cartel know you sold them out?”

              He grinned. “You don’t know much about me, do you?”

Thirty-Four

Michelle

She found Jenny faster than expected, in the women’s room, dabbing the corners of her eyes with a paper towel, careful not to smudge her mascara. A very different kind of worry swept over Michelle; because it didn’t matter if the ATF, or a cartel, or British anarchists were after them – personal problems didn’t get put on hold.

              “What’s wrong?”

              “Nothing.” Jenny sniffed and tossed the towel into the bin. “Just…nothing. It’s fine.”

              These siblings, Michelle decided, were completely repressed, brother and sister alike. “I don’t believe you,” she said gently. “Too much stress tonight? Oh no, nobody set anything on fire in the kitchen, did they?” Come to think of it, she
could
smell smoke…

              “No, no, nothing’s wrong. Not with the place.” She waved both hands around her head, indicating the bar, the opening, the staff.

              Michelle nodded. “Where’s Colin, then?”

              Jenny’s look asked how she could possibly know.

              “I’ve never seen you cry before. I don’t think you’d start now over spilled beer.”

              Jenny sighed, shoulders slumping, like the slender straps of her black dress were too heavy to hold up any longer. “It’s the getting married thing again. He’s upset about it.”

              “He’s insisting?”

              “He wants to know why I won’t even discuss is.”

              Michelle recoiled mentally. She knew there had been a proposal, and that Jenny had refused. But she hadn’t known there hadn’t even been a discussion. Well, like brother like sister yet again, she guessed…bulldozing their way through life’s problems with alcohol and silence.

              She still shivered a little when she remembered Candy in his chair in the sanctuary, bottle in his hand, that evening he’d confronted her about leaving. The boiling venom in him; she shivered now, recalling.

              Then she said, “Come on. I know where we can go.”

              It was a testament to how upset Jenny was that she didn’t argue, merely nodded and followed. Michelle ducked into the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of wine, two glasses, and a corkscrew, and then led Jenny up onto the gallery and to a booth way back in a corner. It was a good vantage point, with a view of the main floor, the bar, and the front doors.

              “Almost like somebody planned it that way,” Jenny said, a knowing smile touching her mouth, some of her sadness slipping.

              The wine came open with a soft pop and Michelle poured generous glasses. “Hmm. Looks that way.”

              Jenny took a sip that was more of a gulp when Michelle slid her glass over, and then grimaced. “I don’t really know what’s wrong with me,” she admitted.

              “You’re a Snow?”

              “Ha. Yeah. There’s
that
.” She glanced down at the pool tables below them and frowned. “I just…I’ve become this cold person. This person who tells the
father of my child
no when he gets down on one knee. How did that happen?” Her eyes came to Michelle, looking for some insight.

              Michelle’s mouth went dry, suddenly, and she sipped her wine. “I’m not sure I’ve got the answer to that.”

              “It’s supposed to be easier than this.” Jenny grew frustrated. “I love him, and he loves me, and it’s happily ever after, isn’t it?” Her laugh edged toward nervous, hysterical.

              “There’s no such thing as happily ever after,” Michelle said, firmly. “My father adored my mother, and she was killed by an eighteen-year-old junkie who robbed the office where she worked. Love doesn’t make things easier or happier. In my experience, it only complicates them.”

              Jenny took a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Her gaze turned inward. “But…we’re nothing if we have no one to love.”

              “True.”

              She smiled, faintly. “You know that old saying? The one about how you can’t expect anyone else to love you if you don’t love yourself?”

              “Total shit,” Michelle proclaimed.

              Jenny laughed. “Yeah, I think so too. Who in the hell would ever love herself?”

              Michelle leaned forward and clinked her glass against Jenny’s. “Honestly, I have no idea.”

              They settled, drank.

              Then Jenny said, “What will you tell Candy when he asks you?”

              Startled, Michelle searched the other woman’s face, finding a calm curiosity. “He isn’t…”

              “He is,” Jenny said, and the transformation was incredible, from shaking, nervous lover to the wise queen of this club chapter. A mantle she’d donned with ease and elegance. “You’re it for him. You have to know that by now, Michelle. He’s never loved anyone like this.”

              A hand ghosted to her sternum, pressing there, like she could contain the sudden flutter of her heart.

              “Scary, isn’t it?” Jenny asked.

              “No. Heavy.”

~*~

They were working on their third glass, and talking about the meeting they wanted to have with the waitresses (who’d done an amazing job tonight) after closing, when a wraith slid into their booth.

              Michelle recognized the feel, the shape, the smell of him before she could get nervous about it, and turned to see Fox reaching for their wine bottle and taking a long swig straight from its mouth.

              “Excuse you,” she said, knocking her shoulder into his. “Maybe we didn’t want to swap spit with you.”

              He kept drinking, glugging down an obscene amount before he set it down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Shut up. You love me.”

              “Yes, but that doesn’t mean we like you,” Michelle said.

              Jenny snorted.

              “What’s going on?” Michelle asked him.

              He gave her a sidelong glance, smirking. “Last I checked, you needed three things to be a member of this club, and you don’t have any of them.”

              “Oh yeah? And what are they?”

              He listed them off on his fingers. “Cock. Balls. Patches.”

              “Pig.”

              “Factually correct, though.”

              “Ugh,” Michelle said. “You could just say, ‘Thank you for helping our plan along, Chelle. That was really sweet of you.’”

              He pretended to consider. “Nah.”

              “How angry is Candy?”

              “Angry enough to spank you.” He waggled his eyebrows.

              “You are the most disgusting uncle ever.”

              “Really? Have you seen Miles’s neck tattoo?”

              She shoved his shoulder with both hands. “Go. We’re having a girls’ moment.”

              “Hate to interrupt those.” He got to his feet, then gave her a serious look. “Really, though. I’m leaving. Which means you’ve got to behave.”

              “You did
not
just say that.”

              “Hm.” He leaned in, hand braced on the table, and kissed the top of her head. Whispered, “I’d let you work for me any day, just so the record’s straight.”

              She felt warm all over. “Where’s Candy?”

              “Coming to find you, I’m sure.” He gave her a wink and was gone.

~*~

At four in the morning, she flopped down onto the bed in Candy’s room and declared the night a success in her mind.

              He stood above her, unbuttoning his shirt. “Happy?”

              “Aren’t you?” she returned. “That was a roaring success.”

              He sat down and the mattress bucked under her. “It kinda was, wasn’t it?”

              “Candy, we had a packed house,” she said, propping up on an elbow, unable to contain her grin. “When was the last time Odell’s pulled that kind of business?”

              “Twenty years ago. And it isn’t Odell’s, is it?”

              “Nope.” Her grin widened, made her face hurt. “It’s TLC now, baby.”

              His smile wasn’t as wide as it should have been as he reached to unlace his boots. “Yeah.”

              “You like the new name alright?”

              He nodded. “It’s fine.”

              Uh oh. “’Fine’ isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement.” She worked her way closer, still up on her elbow, head resting in her hand. Close enough to trace her socked toes down the ridge of his spine as he bent forward to tug his boots off.

              The long muscles in his back flexed in reaction, and her palms tingled with the memory of those movements, feeling him stretch and strain as his hips thrust.

              Warmth bloomed deep in the pit of her stomach, a sudden sharp tug of want.

              “Candy.” She sat up and put her hand on his shoulder, felt him go perfectly still beneath her touch, braced forward with his elbows on his thighs, his chin in his hands. “What’s the matter, love?”

              He breathed a sound that might have been a laugh. “Do you know you could have gotten shot tonight?”

              Inwardly, she groaned. But she said, quietly, “Back to this again?” and massaged at the hard knot beneath his shoulder blade with her thumb.

              “Yes, again,” he said, and his voice wasn’t angry so much as hollow and pained. “Turns out I’m not some kinda modern man or something. This is never going to sit well with me. I’m never not going to worry about you.” He pulled his hands away from his face and rubbed them together as if he was cold; they were shaking, she saw, little tremors in his fingers.

              Michelle kept kneading at the knot in his back and rested her cheek against the point of his shoulder. He felt warm, and smelled like the night beyond their curtained window. “I’m sorry.”

              “When I send one of my guys to do something, you know what I think? I think ‘oh good, he’s got it covered.’ Or ‘that was helpful.’ Something. Whatever. But when it’s you?” He took a ragged breath. “All I can think about is how small you are, and how easy it would be for someone to snap your neck, and how jumpy an agent might get in a den full of bikers, and fire off a shot without thinking.”

              He turned his head toward her, so she could see the long shadows his lashes cast across his cheek. “I’m not saying you aren’t smart, or quick, or able to take care of yourself. I’m not saying you aren’t one terrifying little…demon cat.”

              She smiled. “Demon cat?”

              “Kitten.” He mimed claws with one hand and she laughed quietly against his sleeve. “A demon kitten.”

              “Hmm.”

              “But I’m sorry, baby doll. I’m not okay with Secret Agent Chelle. I’m never going to be. I’ll always be a nervous wreck about it, and I’ll always be panicking that you’re seconds away from death every time you go out to do something like that.”

              It was no different than anything he’d said before. But for some reason, maybe the wine earlier, or the successful opening, or the simple magic of his warm body against hers, the words hit her differently. In a way that didn’t make her tense and angry and stubborn. She thought about what Jenny had told her – about the fact that she was “it” for Candy.

              “It” was big. “It” wasn’t to be taken lightly.

              A new awareness dawned, one that froze the breath in her lungs and pricked tears in her eyes. “Do you…” She had to clear her throat. “Do you know my dad has never said anything like that to me?”

              He stiffened, neck twisting so he could meet her gaze. It was an awkward angle, for both of them, but it pressed their faces close together, overlapping. She loved the sudden, unexpected intimacy of it. “He hasn’t?” He sounded appalled.

              “No. He…oh, God. I have daddy issues, don’t I?”

              “If that’s true, what kind of creepy issues do I have?”

              She glanced away from him, fingers of her right hand plucking at his shirt unconsciously. “This is terrible,” she whispered. “Because mostly, I’ve always been glad that Dad values me, and doesn’t treat me like I’m useless or silly. But…” She bit at her lip, the tears stinging her eyes now. “But I’m realizing, lately, that there’s this part of me that loves that you get so worried. I tried to tell myself it was because you have archaic sensibilities…” Oh shit, she was really going to cry. “But you don’t, do you?”

              “No, sweetheart.” His voice was gentle. “I really don’t.”

              Had it ever been about the work? she wondered. Or had it only ever been a desire to please?

              It probably wasn’t true, and it didn’t make all that much sense, but she couldn’t shake the knowledge that no matter how much her family loved her…Candy loved her just a little more. And she’d tried to discount it, and pretend he was a pig, and that he was immature and possessive. That it was about something cheap. About control. About any number of stupid things that didn’t matter because they weren’t the truth at all.