He’d had worse hits, been in rougher shape before. The cataclysmic damage of this hit wasn’t even his own, but Michelle’s. The Scotch wasn’t for his head or the bullet wound, he realized, but for the relentless anxiety inside him. Michelle had been hurt. What if she’d been hurt worse? What if she had been…what if they had…what if Jinx hadn’t shown up…
He closed his eyes and breathed shallowly through his nose. But the nightmare vision was inside his head, not in front of his eyes, and he couldn’t shut it out. He kept imaging Michelle slumped lifeless in the sand, a little broken doll, hair like corn silk across the hard-packed earth, sightless blue eyes staring up into the killing brightness of the sun.
She’d almost been raped, almost died, just because she’d been with him.
He opened his eyes. His phone was still in his hand, and he lit up the screen with a flick of his thumb. Opened his contacts list and scrolled until he found Phillip Calloway’s number. Dialed.
He got voicemail. “Phil, it’s Candy Snow. Gimme a call back when you get this. There’s something we need to talk about.”
Twenty-One
Michelle
Typing one-handed, and with her weak hand at that, was one of the most frustrating experiences to date. And she was living with Candyman, so that was saying something.
With clumsy mouse moves, she pulled up the Odell’s file and scrolled through the new numbers. There were notes out to the side, demo lists and the beginnings of improvements.
It might as well have been written in Mandarin.
Michelle rubbed at her eyes, pinched at the bridge of her nose, smiled a little when she recalled her father doing the same thing as he stared at his own computer.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you smile in days,” Jenny said from the doorway, and Michelle dropped her hand.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” She came and took the chair across from Michelle, baby-free for once.
“You’re not at work?”
“I had the early shift, remember? I just got back.”
“Oh. Right. I lost track of time, I guess.”
Jenny, in her embroidered work shirt, and doubtless some fabulous pair of cowboy boots, the heels of which Michelle had heard clipping across the floorboards, shot her a sympathetic look and propped her chin on her fist. “You’re working on the Odell’s stuff?”
She nodded.
“Um, why?”
Michelle blinked. “Because it needs doing.”
Jenny smiled, patiently. “Yeah, but you’ve got one arm in a sling and you’ve been sleeping, what, two hours a night? Worrying about my brother?”
Michelle sighed. Not-so-patiently. “I’ve lost time, during all this.” She gestured to her bum arm. “The building needs to be renovated, and the longer it takes, the more expensive it will be.”
“And you’re going to make that your personal problem?”
Michelle leaned back in her chair. “What are you trying to say?”
“That you’ve been through hell. And you ought to take a breather.”
“I don’t take breathers.”
Looking amused now, Jenny said, “Not ever?”
“I…” She sounded like a robot, and she knew it. She let out a deep breath. “That’s usually Raven’s job – my aunt Raven – dragging me away from whatever wall I’m throwing myself against, making me get manicures.” She held up her unpolished, short nails to demonstrate the lack of nail salons in her life. “Taking me to lunch. Shopping. Lying on her bed and flipping through fashion magazines which I care nothing about.” She smiled a little, saddened by the memories, by the quick rush of warmth they brought her.
Then she shook herself. “I don’t like to sit around and stew in my own stress. So I work. Sling or no sling.”
“What are you stressed about right now?”
“The cartel wanting to kill us. Odell’s costing too much.”
“Candy?” Jenny suggested.
“Yes. Him, too.”
“He’s never been a very good patient.”
“Men never are.”
“He’s much better as a nurse.”
She could almost imagine that.
“It’s bothering him too,” Jenny said. “What happened to you. It’s driving him nuts.”
The warmth again, like that that had accompanied thoughts of Raven. Only closer, hotter, happier. In a way. “It’s just my hand,” she said, because she’d never done well with flattery of any sort.
“But a hand he cares about a whole helluva lot.”
She couldn’t look at Jenny, not just now. Now when she was thinking about Candy caring about her a helluva lot, and about his stitches coming loose, blood running down his chest.
She blinked hard and didn’t respond.
~*~
Candy
His phone rang before he got back inside the clubhouse, and his immediate reaction was a terrible clenching in his gut. Nervous as a schoolboy, asking permission to take someone’s daughter to the prom. Hi, Mr. Calloway, just wanted to let you know I’ve been slipping it to your daughter on the regular, and she loves it.
He checked his phone, and, yes, this was Phillip.
He braced a hand against the side of Jenny’s Jeep, took a deep breath, and put every ounce of Texas bravado he could muster into his voice. “Phil. Hey, man. Thanks for getting back to me.”
Phillip said, “I won’t lie, your voicemail made me nervous, son.”
Son. Shit. That wasn’t what Phil would have said if he knew...
“Everything alright over there?”
“Everything’s fine,” Candy rushed to say. Oops. “Well, actually…” He made a face into the Jeep’s window. “Things are okay. Everyone’s fine now. But we had an incident a couple days back.”
“What sort of incident?”
In his calmest, most soothing tones, Candy explained the incident with the cartel. Nothing but the facts.
“I feel awful about it,” he said, after relaying the state of Michelle’s hand. “And trust me, I cross my heart, hope to die, swear to God, nothing like that’s ever gonna happen again. I’ve got these guys in the crosshairs. I’m taking them out. But I wanted you to hear about Chelle from me, to assure you, personally, that she’s okay, before you heard it through the grapevine.”
A beat passed. Then: “I appreciate that.”
“I can go get her and put her on the phone if you want. I’m sure you want to hear it straight from her.”
“In a minute.” Phillip’s voice turned dark, professional. “What I’m wondering is this: Why was she on the back of your bike?”
“Uh…” This was the part he’d been dreading.
“Jesus,” Phillip swore. “‘Uh…’ isn’t the sort of thing a father wants to hear.”
Candy took a deep breath, and shut his eyes. “That’s the other reason I called. I wanted to tell you, sir” – oh God, this was so embarrassing – “that Michelle was with me because she’s with me a lot lately. We’re…we’re sort of…”
“Fucking?”
“No. Don’t say it like that,” Candy said before he could help himself.
“Then how should I say it?” Eerie calm. The calm that came before hurricanes.
Shit. He needed to be careful. “Fu…that word makes it sound disrespectful. And it isn’t like that. Not at all.”
“So you’re respectfully shagging my daughter.”
Oh, what the hell. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. With her complete and total consent. Enthusiasm, even.” What the hell was he saying?? “Look, I know she’s young, but she’s an adult, and she’s scary-serious about what she believes, and what she wants. I’m not some creepy old bastard preying on the poor unsuspecting kid, I can promise you that.” He took a breath. “And not to overstep, but, yeah, you wanted her to go off and be a civilian. She didn’t like that idea, and I can’t say I do either.”
It was quiet a long beat. Candy assumed a call was being made to Fox right now and at any moment, the man woul
d walk out of the clubhouse and shoot him in the head.
Finally, Phillip said, “Well, I can’t say I approve.”
The words hit Candy in the gut, like a fist up under his ribs. He leaned more heavily against the Jeep.
“Then again, I’m not sure who I would approve of. Some civilian? One of my guys over here? Probably nobody. She’s my little girl. My only girl.”
“Yeah.”
“But she’s a grown woman now, even if I can’t bear it. And she’s always known her own mind. She’s not the sort of girl you worry about getting caught up in anything she doesn’t understand. She understands everything.”
“Yeah, she does.”
“And I know you’re an honorable man.”
A massive compliment.
“I appreciate that you’re telling me yourself.”
“It was the right thing to do.”
“Hmm.” Phillip’s voice became sad. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”
Candy…didn’t respond.
“You wouldn’t have made this call if you didn’t,” Phillip said. “No one admits to fucking; they admit to love.”
“I…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Because she won’t stay. I could send her all the way to Australia, and the girl would want to come home to London. I’m afraid she’ll hurt you in the end, old boy, even if she doesn’t want to.”
The ache came back, worse than before. “Yeah?”
“Just do me a favor, and please try to keep her there until we’ve got things safe back home.”
“Yeah…yeah, I’ll do that.”
~*~
Michelle
At some point, after Jenny left, she gave up on getting anything done. She sat like a lump in the chair and stared at the computer screen out of principle. She would at least pretend to work, she insisted. Maybe inspiration would strike at any moment.
Instead, Candy struck, appearing in the doorway, good shoulder propped against it. He looked terrible.
“You look terrible,” she told him.
He came to slump in the chair Jenny had used before. “So do you, buttercup. Wanna compare bruises?” He gestured to his face, the awful discoloration all up and down the right side of it.
“No.” She glanced back at the computer.
“What could you possibly be doing?” he asked.
“Working.”
“Unacceptable.”
She sighed. “That’s what your sister said. More tactfully, of course.”
His brows jumped. Or, one of them did. That shiner was an awful green and yellow mess, and the brow above it still wasn’t functioning properly. “She’s got more tact than me.”
“She does.”
He studied her a long spell, until her skin started to prickle in helpless reaction.
“What?”
“Come take a nap with me.”
“I don’t take naps.”
“Me neither. So you see my dilemma.”
“I’m not shagging someone who just got out of hospital.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes as well as he could. “God, you’re no fun at all.”
She laughed. “And you’re reckless and childish.”
“Good match, huh?”
There was something off with him. She’d detected it the moment he came into the room, but she’d wanted to attribute it to his injuries.
That wasn’t the case, though. There was something shifting behind his eyes. Trouble, manifesting in little physical ways.
“Candy, what’s wrong?” she asked.
He smiled, and shook his head, and the trouble lingered. “Nothing, sweetheart. Not a thing.”
Twenty-Two
Albie
The gritty slide of the sandpaper was soothing as ocean waves. Down the length of the chair leg, and then back up. Firm strokes. Pauses. Examining the texture of the wood, searching for that magic smoothness.
“How do you do this every day?” Tommy asked, shattering the quiet.
Keeping his frown mostly to himself, Albie set down the sandpaper and stepped back, closing one eye and tilting his head to better examine the chair. “It’s relaxing. Helps my blood pressure.”
“You don’t have blood pressure,” Tommy said with a snort. “You’re a robot.”
“A robot who saves your skin on the regular.” He waved with his hand. “Get out of my light, I need to see this.”
With his usual dramatic production, Tommy huffed over to the chair’s finished mate and plopped down into it. The new leather squeaked under his ass and Albie bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from reprimanding him. It was a brand new, ass-print-free chair. You didn’t just abuse a piece of furniture like that. But Tommy was his little brother, and he’d almost died, and he was nervous as a cat tonight, so Albie didn’t say anything.
“You talked to your sis…niece?” he asked instead, that old “sister” trying to slip its way into the mix.
“Once.” Tommy stared at the toes of his boots. “A while back. Phil thinks she’ll know I’m here if I talk too much. She’ll know I never went away.” He lifted a miserable look that tweaked at all of Albie’s big brother soft spots.
Albie picked up the sandpaper again. “That’s ‘cause Phil’s afraid she’ll be on the first flight back.”
The paper chafed the wood, the sound becoming softer as the surface smoothed.
“Would she?”
“You know she would.”
Tommy sighed. “But…”
“Come on. She loves you. If she thought you were back here at home, she wouldn’t spend another second in Texas.”
“Even though she’s with Candyman now?” Tommy asked, nose wrinkling in distaste, eyes flashing an even darker concern.
Albie tried not to let his reaction show. Phillip had called to check in on the night’s plan about an hour ago, and had relayed the charming news that Candyman Snow was “respectfully” shagging Michelle. His initial response had been one of intense anger, which he’d vented by turning chair legs. Now he was on to the reluctant facing of facts part of the process. They’d driven her to this, he kept thinking, and it was a kick in the gut. They’d sent her away, and she was homesick, lonely, worried for Tommy, and bereft of her family. It was only human, reaching out for a little physical connection and comfort. Candy was big, and blonde, and charming, and handsome, if Albie was being objective – it wasn’t the craziest thing he’d heard, Michelle taking up with him.
But he didn’t have to like it. He was her uncle, after all.
“Well?” Tommy prompted.
“I’m not seeing it with my own eyes, am I?” he said. “So I’ve got no idea what she really thinks about the man. Phil said they’re together. That’s all I’ve got to go on.”
“That was a shit answer.”
“It’s the only answer I’ve got. What about you? Do you see her settling down in Texas? Long term? Someone’s old lady?”
Tommy frowned and kicked the heels of his boots together. Once, twice, three times. “Not really. I know she gets sad – I think she wants someone, you know? But I can’t imagine her just…staying there.”
“It would certainly be a big change,” Albie agreed. Deep down, he agreed even more; he couldn’t see his niece cashing it all in here to live in the Texas desert with a man old enough to be her father. But he wouldn’t voice that. He wasn’t in the business of swaying people’s opinions.
Not in that way, anyhow.
“Okay.” Satisfied, he righted the chair and stowed the sandpaper in its proper drawer.
“Finally,” Tommy muttered, getting to his feet.
He called it the vault, the basement weapons cache. He’d spent months insulating the walls, laying proper flooring, making sure it was sound, and scent, and damp-proof, building his own gun racks and soft-closing drawers of ammunition. Velvet-lined cases for the knives, the knuckle dusters, the rifle scopes. Everything labeled, categorized, stowed wi
th precision. He had military-grade food rations down there, bottled water, granola bars, first aid equipment. It was just as much a bunker as it was a gun safe, tricked out with a computer where he could watch the security feeds from the cameras upstairs.
He was immeasurably proud of it.
He pulled up the door and the hinges floated without a sound. Down the staircase, into the delicious scents of gun oil and polished wood.
Tommy whistled, a quick show of his continued appreciation.
“You haven’t been down here in a while.”
“No. I always forget how lovely it is. Hello, gorgeous,” he said to the M4 rifle to his left, passing a forefinger down the stock.
“Don’t make passes at ladies you can’t dance with,” Albie teased him, straight-faced, going to the worktable in the center of the small room.
“Oh, I can dance, mate.”
“Yeah?” But Albie was distracted, as he opened drawers and laid their supplies for the night out on the table.
“Better dancer than you.”
“Don’t discount the advantages of age.”
Tommy chuckled.
Albie laid out two Colt 1911 handguns, silencers, and magazines for them both. Two sets of brass knuckles – actual brass, always polished. Short knives – pig-stickers. Medium knives. His machete, in its scabbard. Two little Glocks. Magazines.
He turned around to pull an AK from the rack behind him. When he laid it on the table, he glanced up and caught his brother’s now-pallid complexion, the sheen of fright in his eyes.
He was remembering the street, the smoke, the knife sliding between his ribs.
“You don’t have to come with me,” Albie said, quietly.
Tommy shook his head. “Boss’s orders.”
“Yeah, well, the boss isn’t the one doing raids with us, is he? So he doesn’t have to know if you come along or not.
Tommy swallowed, throat working. “I’m not a coward.”
“Didn’t say you were. But you’re traumatized.”
“There’s a difference?”
“A big one.”
He took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. “No, I’m coming.”
Tastes Like Candy (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 2) Page 22