Tastes Like Candy (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 2) (23 page)

              “And third.” His chest tightened, deepening the ache in his gunshot wound. “They hurt her.”

              Ghost’s voice shifted. He sounded like an angry father in a whole different way. “What?”

              “One of the bastards stomped on her hand. Broke it in a half dozen places. She’s having to wear this awful brace thing…” He trailed off when he realized he was speaking through his teeth, molars about to crack from the strain. He forced himself to take a deep breath, but that didn’t help. “Look, you wanna deal with them, fine, whatever. But Jorge? His ass is mine. He is dead. His ticket’s already been punched. Him and whoever did the stomping.”

              A beat. Then: “I hear you.”

              “They hurt her, K.” The ache in his chest was terrible at this point, a throbbing outside of his heartbeat.

              “Yeah.” Ghost sighed again, but it was a softer sound, an accepting sort of sound, at least in Candy’s ears. “I take it there’s a property tattoo on the girl?”

              “Not yet.”

              “But working on it?”

              “Something like that.”

              “I trust you wouldn’t do anything like this just for fun.” A question without the punctuation, and a warning, also.

              “I don’t mind getting this shit from her old man, but I don’t have to listen to it from you.”

              “Fair enough. So what are you planning?”

              “Kill Ruiz. Get rid of Riley. Keep us safe. You know, the usual.”

              “Right. Let me know when there’s more to it than that.”

              “Yeah.”

              He stayed on the tailgate a long moment after he hung up, staring into the middle distance, enjoying the morning’s first warmth against his back. Slowly, the pain in his chest receded to a dull, blunt sort of burning, like indigestion. It was the worst pain, and yet it was separate from the damage to his face, from the GSW. The truth of his current state became clearer, like one of those picture puzzles that seemed like disjointed squiggles, until suddenly you focused on the right spot and the leaping dolphins became visible.

              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 would 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.”