Snow in Texas

Chapter Twenty: Colin. Jenny.

Twenty

Colin

Candy stood at the edge of the parking lot, smoking, his head tilted back, broad shoulders slumped. Colin recognized that posture well; he'd seen it in his old man often. The stance of a man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. And for a man, the world consisted of his family: the people he loved and could care for with his own two hands.

Colin drew up beside him and shoved his hands in his pockets. "She's scared," he said without preamble.

Candy blew a stream of smoke up into the evening sky. "Of course she is. That motherfucker wants to kill her."

"Yeah," Colin agreed. "And I'd like to think you have a plan to keep that from happening that's more effective than sitting on our asses, watching her work, and hoping nothing happens."

Candy's head tilted forward, and he gave Colin a sideways look. "Getting pushy, prospect."

"Getting worried about my girlfriend."

Candy took a long drag and exhaled through his nose. His gaze drew inward, eyes glazed against the last flare of sunlight along the horizon. "Riley put someone where she works. That changes things."

Colin nodded.

"That means I need to reevaluate everyone in her life."

Colin lifted his brows.

"Not you, idiot," he said without feeling. Then his eyes widened. "But you ain't the only newcomer we've got around here."

"Aw damn..."

Candy grinned. "Your brother knows how to scare the piss outta people. Does that run in the family?"

~*~

Jenny

Reason seventy-two she needed her own place: privacy. She'd toed off her boots and taken down her hair when she heard the hard rap at her bedroom door. It was Candy, doubtless, coming to pick up where he'd left off being anxious.

"Coming," she muttered, opening the door. "I'm..."

Colin stood in the hallway.

"You can't be back here," she blurted before she could catch herself.

"And yet I am." He flattened one of his sizable hands on the door and pushed it the rest of the way open, forcing her to step back. "Let me in."

She held up a flat hand of her own, an unmistakable stop sign. "No. Hold on. I mean, you can't be back here. This is family or invite only in the sanctuary."

He gave her an amused, patient smile, no sign of his temper from moments before. "Aren't you family?"

She rolled her eyes.

"So can't you invite me?"

"You really want Candy knowing we're back here together?"

He laughed. "Ooh, does that mean you'll let me do dirty stuff? I was just gonna talk."

She threw up her hands, tired and exasperated. "Whatever."

Colin stepped into her bedroom and shut the door behind him. The room shrank once he was fully inside it, by a considerable margin.

"Damn, you're big," she muttered, a little warm and flustered to see him dwarfing all her furniture.

He flashed her a smile that blazed a trail straight from her stomach to parts south of that. "All over."