Tastes Like Candy (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 2) (38 page)

              Michelle laced her fingers through Candy’s when they were on the plane, and squeezed his hand tight.

              He squeezed back.

              He had the window seat, and she turned her head to look at him, saw his glorious golden profile limned in pale winter light. “I love you so much,” she said, on impulse.

              “I know you do, baby doll. Which is why you gotta translate all the stupid shit y’all say across the pond.”

              She laughed, and the plane taxied toward the runway.

              They were off.

Thirty-Six

Candy

He expected to find a Lean Dog waiting for them when they landed at Heathrow. Instead, they found Raven Blake.

              Michelle’s aunt wore black leggings, black high-heeled boots, a shapeless black sweater and a burgundy wool coat, and still managed to be glamorous in an obvious way. Maybe it was the whole model thing, or the runway training, but he thought it was probably just
her
– this aura of a woman who didn’t give a single damn what anyone else thought.

              Candy knew when Michelle spotted her because she squeezed his hand a little tighter.

              Fox said, “Seriously?”

              “Nice to see you too, Charlie.” Raven pushed her sunglasses up onto her forehead and her eyes were even bluer in person. “The gang’s all here, I see,” she said, fathomless gaze tracking across her assorted half-brothers. And then it lighted on Michelle.

              She opened her arms and Candy felt Michelle’s fingers slide free of his. “Hello, love.”

              Michelle dove into the offered hug and they both clung tight. Candy had a view of Raven’s face where it was resting over Michelle’s shoulder, and he saw emotion ripple across her features, a quick cycle of gladness and regret. She didn’t want Michelle in London, but was so glad to see her here, where she belonged.

              Candy, though, couldn’t say that he felt any regret. He didn’t regret Michelle loving him, or agreeing to stay in Texas. He didn’t for a second regret keeping her for himself.

              But, in this moment, he regretted, just a little, the look on Raven’s face. A look he thought was echoed on his Chelle’s face. He didn’t want her to miss her family in a painful way.

              The hug ended and the girls pulled apart, dark and light heads bent together as Raven whispered something that made Michelle laugh.

              Then Candy found himself on the receiving end of Raven’s small, mysterious smile. “And this,” she said, stepping toward him, “will be the Candyman.”

              “Miss Blake,” he greeted, and offered his hand.

              She took it, her grip a quick, firm press of manicured fingers. “And he has manners.” Her smile widened. “Do you hear that?” she asked her brothers. “Manners. Something the lot of you are sorely lacking.”

              Then she gave Candy a wink. “I’ve got heaps of questions for you later.”

              Oh shit, he thought, stomach tightening. It didn’t matter that he was a grown man – this was his first ever grown-up romantic relationship, and he dreaded the inquisition from any member of his girl’s family. Raven, of course, looked delighted to step in and play mommy.

              “Sure,” he said.

              “Not that I’m not happy to see you, sis,” Walsh said, stepping in to hug his sister, “but I was expecting one of the boys.”

              She hugged him back and sighed. “All the ‘boys’ are up to their eyebrows in panic about whatever terrible thing you’ve got planned. I offered to come. And since I’ve got the Rover.” She shrugged. “I’ll take you to the Hall.”

              “That’s real sweet,” Tommy told her, stepping in for his own hug.

              “Uh-huh. You just remember that the next time I need a favor.”

              “Of course,” Miles said.

              Fox stood with his hands in his pockets, bag slung over his shoulder, looking supremely bored with the proceedings. Raven folded her arms and squared off from him, and she, Candy decided with a grin, was the sibling who could take him on, toe-to-toe.

              “Charles,” she said, crisply, “where is my hug?”

              “Left it in America.”

              She reached forward and tweaked the tip of his nose. “Asshole.” Then she leaned in and kissed his cheek, which finally got him to put an arm around her and give her a squeeze.

              “We should get moving,” Walsh said, eyeing the escalators.

              “All work and no play,” Raven admonished, but she found Michelle and linked their arms. “Come along, then.” And she and Michelle led the way.

              Candy ended up beside Fox. “So, let’s just say I felt like it…can I do that to your nose?”

              “If you want my favorite knife through your hand, sure, go for it.”

              In the parking lot, Raven led them to a hulking black Land Rover Defender. Roof rack, winch, the works.

              Candy whistled. “Didn’t take you for a safari girl, Raven.”

              She shrugged and hit the remote; the doors unlocked with a thump. “Just an international woman of mystery, I suppose.”

              “Or just rich as fuck,” Miles offered.

              “That too. Pile in or I’m leaving you here.”

~*~

The thing he’d always liked most about London was its steadiness. American cities were changeable as the weather: whole blocks growing or shrinking, earthmovers altering their footprints and skylines almost daily. He still remembered coming home from New York, the way the sight of Amarillo, after seven years, had tugged at his gut in an unpleasant way. A place was never the same as you’d left it. It continued to live on without you.

              But London was an Old World city, its history layered into the cobbles. Into the dark patina of stains on brick and stone walls. Small things changed, everyday sorts of things. But London was London was London, forever, and the certainty of that was grounding, soothed his flight-rattled nerves.

              Through the windshield (windscreen, Raven had said), tattered clouds scudded across a sky the color of old acid wash jeans. The sky was different here: close, but pale, clammy in his mind’s eye. He didn’t know how much of that was fact or prejudice. The sidewalks were dry, crisp wind barreling down them, pedestrians bundled into thick coats and scarves. The cityscape, all grays and browns, and hints of steel, crowded in close on either side of the Rover.

              For all its steadiness, no part of it spoke of home to him. But this was Michelle’s home, wasn’t it? He’d grown so used to seeing her in his dusty, blue-bowl-sky stretch of Texas that he’d been unable to imagine her anywhere else.

              Now, though, as he studied her profile, framed in the Rover’s window, he saw the way the rain-worn bricks and stones of this city complemented her porcelain complexion, the way it turned her hair to spun gold.

              As if she sensed him watching, she turned and caught his gaze, offered him a smile. “Okay?”

              “Yeah. I’m okay.”

              Behind the wheel, Raven glanced over at Walsh, where he rode shotgun beside her. “You miss it?” she asked, voice teasing.

              “Yeah. Nothing like smog and the smell of piss in the alley when you get up every morning.” He shrugged. “Nah. Farm trumps city every day of the week.”

              “You’re so precious,” Raven said. “You little blondie with your little blonde wife, and blonde babies, and your ponies. I love it.”

              Candy snorted.

              “We don’t know if the baby’s blonde yet,” Walsh said, mock serious.

              “I refuse to think of an alternative.”

              “What he doesn’t know,” Fox said, where he was wedged in at Candy’s left. “Is that it’s gonna be dark-headed, ‘cause it’s actually mine.”

              Walsh waited three whole seconds before he turned around, half-climbed over the seat, and tried to punch his brother in the face.

              Fox burst into cackling laughter and Raven nearly ran off the road as she fought to get her giggling under control.

~*~

Baskerville Hall looked as Victorian and foreboding as Candy remembered. It was a dour brick façade; some of the streaky soot stains bleeding from the second story windows had probably been there since the Industrial Revolution.

              Down the stairs, though, through the heavy wooden door, the inside of the pub was warm, glowing, hoppy, and delightfully London, all dark woods and leathers and scuffed floors.

              The guy behind the bar wore a cut, and he looked up when he heard them come in, wide smile splitting his face. “Ho ho!” he called, clapping his hands together, startling the half-asleep drunk on the stool in front of him. “Look who it is! Family reunion, is it?”

              “Something like that,” Walsh said. “How’ve you been, Callie?”

              The drunk shifted around to look at them. Candy figured they must seem like zombies, exhausted from the flight, dark circles smudged beneath their eyes.

              “Callahan, where’s–” Raven started, and Albie appeared from the stairway alcove off to their left.

              He looked the same as the last time Candy saw him, which was almost twenty years ago. He greeted his brothers, hugged his niece, and then came to shake Candy’s hand. That was when Candy saw the deep lines around his mouth. The creases at the corners of his eyes. It was a hard life, in Texas, in London, wherever.

              “Derek,” Albie greeted, his grip firm, his eyes serious as he tipped his head back and managed to look like the taller man, though he was a good head shorter than Candy. “Good to see you again.”

              “Ah, don’t flatter me like that,” Candy teased, and Albie squeezed his hand once, a warning, and let go.

              “We should go up and see Phil. He’s been waiting.”

              Right. Straight to business. Candy sighed and wished like hell for a beer, a chair that wasn’t locked into the floor of a plane going through turbulence, and as much greasy pub food as he could eat. But he nodded and said, “Lead the way.”

              Michelle made a move toward the stairs, and Albie stayed her with a hand. “Wait down here with Raven, yeah, love?” he asked, quietly, his voice so much softer than when he’d been giving Candy the eye.

              Michelle drew herself up a little taller, and her gaze flicked over to Candy.

              He shrugged. He wanted her to have a pint with Raven and plan a shopping trip. But he was trying not to be
that
guy – the one who insisted his little woman be just that.

              Michelle looked back at her uncle and the moment spun out, tense and brittle at the edges. But finally she said, “Yeah,” and turned away from them.

              Candy slipped a hand down the back of her head, smoothing her hair as he passed.

~*~

He always thought of his London trip – way back when – as a smudge of memory, blurry and half-formed. Almost like something he’d heard secondhand. When Michelle reminded him that she’d been out back that night, for the bare knuckle boxing, he’d recalled her in an instant, a bright golden speck that came into focus suddenly, painfully. And now, as Albie led them all up the groaning old staircase to the working heart of the club, that smudge began to tighten a little more.

              It was the smell of the place: old carpet, furniture polish, dust, and gun oil. The floorboards cracked and popped and felt about to buckle beneath his boots. He remembered now the tarnished sconces set in the wallpaper, the long runner that went down the hall, the decorative rosettes in the corners of the doorjambs. An old, storied place; he half-expected to turn his head and catch a ghost passing through the wall.

              Phillip’s office was surprisingly large, and appeared to have been a parlor at some point in the past, the far wall dominated by a fireplace with a grandiose mantle, the windows tall and narrow, fringed with ridiculous floor-length drapes.

              Phillip stood when they entered the room, and Candy recognized all too well the way he pushed up from the desk, the way his knees argued against straightening, the flat look that crossed his face as he worked to control a wince.

              Then the man grinned. “King.”

              The brothers hugged, slapping each other’s backs, hands clapping loudly against the leather of their cuts. Then it was Fox. Then Tommy and Miles were welcomed back with forehead kisses they struggled away from, grinning.

              When Phillip stepped toward him, Candy told his stomach not to tighten. He wasn’t ashamed, wasn’t worried – they’d talked already, for God’s sakes – but he trembled a little on the inside anyway.

              The handshake was warm, dry, calloused on both sides. “It’s been a long time,” Phillip said, gaze indecipherable. “Good to see you again, kid.”

              Someone – Fox probably – snorted.

              “I have to pretend anyway, right?” Phillip asked, grinning.

~*~

Callahan – Callie from downstairs – brought them up a tray of overflowing pints and meat pies. Candy was too hungry to remark that it looked like an oversized Hot Pocket, and then decided that was a bad comparison when he bit into it and found it hot, flaky, savory and delicious. (He would later learn that night that not all English cooking was that good, but props to Callie for the moment.)