Twenty-Five
Jenny
“You’re leaving?” She couldn’t have heard him right. There was no way Derek Snow would go flying off to Tennessee while the Riley brothers were still breathing down their necks.
But Candy nodded, settling into his favorite chair with a little wince that betrayed his age and the effect of the road on his body. “Yeah, we are. In a week or so; gonna be there in time for Halloween.”
Okay, don’t panic. Now was so not the time for that. She sat down across from him, gripped the arms of the chair, and tried to tell herself that her brother wasn’t an idiot. “Really? But Halloween’s my favorite holiday.”
He snorted. “Nice try.”
She sighed. “You must have a plan, then. Or else you hit your head. Or,” she continued, “you’ve decided I’m as annoying as hell and you want to get rid of me. One of the three.”
He grinned. “Right the first time.”
Jenny relaxed her grip on the chair. Her brother’s plans were rarely without their dangerous points and implausibility, but he always managed to execute them. She pulled her legs up beneath her in the seat and pushed her own news to the back of her mind. Fill me in, she said with a glance.
“Fox has been asking around for me,” Candy said, “and he found out our old friend Mickey’s still in business.”
Jenny nodded; she remembered him. Mickey had dealt all sorts of things, including prescription drugs, like the Viagra and Percocet he’d agreed to provide for Riley’s then-budding porn business. He was small-time, a middle man between the larger dealers and street customers. He’d been a favorite of Riley’s; Jenny recalled his greasy face, shining under the lamp above the clubhouse bar. Recalled the gleam of his yellow teeth as he leaned forward and assured the Lean Dogs’ VP that he knew a guy who knew a guy, who knew something.
“And apparently,” Candy went on, “ol’ Mickey’s still a voice in Riley’s ear.”
“He’s still dealing to him?”
“And providing him with good leads. In this case, he’s gonna feed him the lead that Fox planted.”
“Which is…?”
“That in three days, a major shipment of prescription pain meds is gonna be ripe for the stealing outside of Odessa. If I know Riley, he’ll take the bait.”
Jenny lifted her brows. “Odessa’s a long way south.”
“Yes it is.”
“And I’m guessing the cops down there already know about the deal.”
He grinned. “Yep.”
She chewed at her lip in thought. “Let’s say he and his crew get picked up. Won’t his brother get him out?”
“Drug charges while he’s on parole? Not unless he’s got more sway than I think. If nothing else, it’ll buy us a little time while we run to Knoxville and back.”
“What if it doesn’t pan out?”
He made an impatient sound. “Then I’ll think of something. I can’t tell Ghost I won’t come. He’s got major shit brewing up there.”
“I know, I know.” She showed him her palms, a display of not arguing. “You have to go, and if Riley’s out of the picture, we’ll be fine down here.”
And when she said “we,” did that include the child growing inside her?
~*~
Colin
Evenings were the worst, in his new state of self-imposed celibacy. When he let the day’s exhaustion swamp him, and he poured himself a drink behind the bar, that was when he wished Jenny would come to him, to ease the strain of living.
Tonight, there was a new complication: one of the club groupies watching him from across the room. He was on bartender duty tonight, and she was perched on the edge of the pool table where Jinx and Blue played, watching him with unnerving, catlike attention.
He looked away from her, not wanting to get caught in any kind of a stare that she might find encouraging.
Fox, fully recovered from his inelegant shit-bath, sat by himself in a recliner, playing with his phone while another groupie sat in his lap and played with his dark hair. She might as well have been furniture, for all the attention he paid her, and she seemed to take that as a special challenge, leaning forward to nip at his ear.
The twins were on a couch together, a brunette groupie in a minidress sitting between them, flirting with first one brother and then the other. Colin had a feeling he knew where that was heading.
Still more girls loitered around the pool table, sipping drinks Colin had fixed for them, cheering on Jinx and Blue, laughing at everything the men said.
Some nights it was a ghost town, but for whatever reason, the biker chicks had come out to play tonight. The common room was filled with a pleasant sort of hum, lots of low overlapping voices punctuated by laughter.
It made Colin’s skin itch, for reasons he didn’t want to dwell on. Because when he thought about leaving in a week’s time, and Jenny still mad at him –
“Hey,” a female voice said, right in front of him. It was a calculated sort of “hey,” a greeting that had been practiced and perfected in its smooth, sultry sound. Friendly enough, though.
The groupie who’d been studying him had come to make her move. She’d taken a stool across from him, braced her elbows on the bar, using her arms to subtly plump her breasts together. She was pretty, he’d give her that. Blonde, curvy where it counted, makeup just shy of overdone. She wore denim cutoffs with cowboy boots – he’d seen them earlier – and a tank top that enhanced her two greatest assets.
She looked at him boldly, invitation plain in her dark eyes. “It must be boring,” she drawled, “having to stand back there while everybody else gets to cut loose.”
He shrugged and passed a rag across the bar, just to have something to do. “I’m a prospect. Comes with the territory.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It’s hard thinking of you as a prospect. In my head, all prospects look like little Pup.”
He snorted and wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I promise ya, sweetheart, everybody starts out a prospect. We look all kinds of ways.”
“But some ways are better than others,” she said with a laugh. “Where are you from? I like your accent.”
This sounded like chitchat, but he knew it wasn’t. This woman, whoever she was, had definite plans to get him naked in a dorm room. These groupies didn’t deal in what-ifs and maybes. They banged bikers, and they were good at getting what they wanted.
Used to, he would have been helping her efforts. Now he didn’t want to…but he didn’t really see how talking to her a little could hurt anything. It wasn’t like he had an old lady, after all.
“New Orleans,” he answered.
“Ooooh. I’ve always wanted to go there.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve seen it in pictures. It’s beautiful.”
He flicked a glance to her face and saw her dusky eyelids lower as she said the words, teeth grabbing at her lower lip. She knew exactly how sexy she was.
“It can be. Parts of it,” he agreed.
“What’s Mardi Gras like?”
He snorted. “Crazy. Lots of drinking. Lots of topless women.”
She giggled.
“Not that you’d know anything about that,” he teased.
“Oh, no, of course not.” Another giggle, and she squeezed her breasts together a little tighter.
Colin let himself look. It wasn’t hurting anything, glancing down her shirt and letting himself enjoy it. “I didn’t catch your name,” he said, on sudden impulse, his old ladykiller habits rearing up.
“Teagan.”
He nodded. “I’m Colin.”
She grinned. “I know.”
~*~
Jenny
Like she needed something else to worry about? Jenny left her brother to his Scotch and ball game and headed down the hall toward the common room, flip-flops slapping against the floorboards. She was tired; her walk always turned into a sleepy shuffle when she was worn out. The din of voices swelled as she reached the doorway, and the common room greeted her with a weeknight social spread of members, groupies, and murmuring TVs.
Usually she liked her quiet, but sometimes it was easier to fade into her own thoughts in the middle of a crowd. Without alcohol as an option – a hard shudder passed through her – she’d settle for a little mindless company, at least.
She got halfway to the bar, and froze.
Colin was bartending tonight. And he wasn’t alone. One of the groupies, the blonde who called herself “Teagan,” sat across from him, giving him a look down her cleavage, throat exposed as she tipped her head back and laughed too loud at whatever he’d said.
And Colin, the bastard, was grinning ear-to-ear, tan face darkened with a happy flush.
And why shouldn’t he be enjoying himself with one of the girls? It wasn’t like she’d paid him any attention the last two weeks.
Because she was having his baby, damn it! And because she loved the big jerk.
She had two choices, she realized. Walk up to him, or retreat. Except, the way her hands had balled into fists…there was no choice, was there?
She took a deep breath and walked up to the bar, climbed onto the stool beside “Teagan.”
Colin started. Hard. Like she was a ghost or something.
Teagan choked a little on her swallow of G&T but covered it well.
Colin, on the other hand, looked like he’d been hit in the face and was having trouble getting his vision back online.
“It’s a good thing you don’t work in a real bar,” Jenny deadpanned. “You’d freak all your customers out looking at them like that.”
“Uh…” She could see him scrambling, the mental gymnastics visible in his eyes. “You want something to drink?”
She started to say “red,” but that was no longer an option. “Just some water.” Her voice was tight, and she didn’t much care.
“Lemon?”
“Sure.”
The groupie watched them, lips parted, eyes bouncing madly back and forth between them as she tried to get a read on the situation. She had to know that Jenny and Colin were together – everyone knew. But she was wondering if that was still present tense.
Jenny didn’t hate or resent the club girls, didn’t hold herself superior. Look at what she had endured herself, at the hands of club members. But for some reason, right now, she hated the idea of the Lean Bitches. Men like Colin could get all the ass they wanted, whenever, wherever. Wasn’t it easy enough? Did they need groupies at their disposal too?
She turned to the other blonde, gave her a chilly smile, and said, “Go see if anybody needs a refill.”
Teagan’s eyes widened. “I wasn’t…” she started.
“Refills.”
“Right.” The girl slid off her stool and hurried away from the bar.
Colin huffed out an annoyed breath that sent angry chills crawling across her skin. “We were just talking. Is that what it takes to get you to look at me again? Get you jealous?” He snorted. “Bit of a hypocrite, aren’t you?”
She turned to him slowly, trying to gather her patience, wanting to look controlled and cool. “You got angry and put marks on me over something that happened six years ago. Meanwhile you’re trying to pick up a slut in my own house. Trust me, you don’t want to make that comparison.”
He frowned. “It’s a man’s world, the MC, right? I can fuck whoever I want to.”
The anger boiled up to something hotter, nastier in her belly, curled her lip off her teeth. “Her name’s not even Teagan. It’s Sally. She just thought the other sounded more exotic.”
He shrugged, his look challenging, glinting with a dangerous light. “So? You think I give a shit what her name is so long as she knows what to do with her mouth?”
She wanted to hit him, and because she’d never done such a thing, she gulped down a sudden surge of nausea, shocked at her depth of emotion.
It must have shown in her face, because Colin’s frown morphed into one of concern. “Jen–”
“I’m pregnant,” she blurted.