Page 35 of Snow in Texas

“Colin.”

His eyes came to her face, automatically, as quick as his name left her lips.

“The club doesn’t take your identity. It’s just the prospecting year that feels like it. Once you patch, they’re gonna want you – the real you, and what you can bring to the table that’s special.”

“Special?” He snorted.

“Well,somethingabout you has to be special, doesn’t it?” she teased, grinning…and then gasping in mock fright as he snagged her wrist and pulled her down across him. She landed on his chest, her face above his.

His eyes looked very dark in the lamp, hard to read when his face was serious, as it was now. “Okay, so you know the tat story. What about that scar you’ve got? The one on your stomach?”

She tensed, and felt his arms go around her in immediate response. Did she tell him? Was it any worse than anything else she’d already revealed?

“C-section?” he guessed. “You don’t have a kid, do you?”

Well, the truth wasn’t as dire as his imagination, apparently.

Jenny shook her head and swore his arms relaxed a fraction. “No, no kids. Riley was very drunk one night. He didn’t want children, and he got the idea in his head that it might be…a good idea to…prevent me from being capable…”

“Jesus Christ.” Colin jackknifed up to a sitting position, clamping tight to her and taking her with him. Sitting in his lap, encircled by strong arms, she stared down into his face and saw the hot flashes of anger, fear, revulsion, sympathy. A whole kaleidoscope of emotion that brought the sting of tears to her eyes. “Did he…? And Candy let himlive? Jesus…”

“No, no, it’s fine.” She put her hands on his hard, smooth shoulders. “He didn’t get farther than cutting me. And not deep. Just a flesh wound.” She attempted a smile and knew it wobbled.

Anger tightened his jaw, brought out the tendons in his neck. He glanced away from her, nostrils flaring. So much like Candy, when he was trying to get his significant temper under control.

“Colin.”

“You probably shouldn’t have told me that.”

“Why not?” she asked, against her better judgement.

“’Cause now I’m gonna have to kill him.”

Sixteen

Colin

Whoever Jud Riley had been prior to taking a knife to Jenny’s stomach, whatever he’d been in his life prior to that, he now existed as one thing and one thing only in the world of Colin O’Donnell. The top of the hit list. Jenny’s ex was Mr. Gets To Die First in Colinland. And he didn’t evenhavea hit list. Not prior to this moment, anyway. He had one now, starting tonight – this morning, whatever time it was.

It was beyond unthinkable. Yes, Jenny was testy, sharp-tongued, and guarded. So were a lot of women. The smart ones, in any case. She was the sort of woman you had to work a little harder to get hold of. And she was clever, and devoted to her brother, and she didn’t give up all her secrets the second a man tossed a compliment her way. He got that; he appreciated it.

There were men who’d find fault with her, sure. But to do violence against her? To try and cut the womb out of her?

The last time he’d been this seething angry he’d been standing on his half-brother’s doorstep, listening to Ava Lécuyer give him the business about inviting himself into her house. He’d been choked with rage to learn the truth of Larry’s death, to know the man who’d given him a last name wasn’t even really his father.

He was that angry now. Maybe angrier. And Jenny seemed to sense it.

“Hey.” Her hands came up to frame his face and she urged his head front and center again, so they were eye-to-eye. Hers were blue and glittering in the lamplight, full of a new softness he hadn’t yet seen in her. “Riley? He’s not your problem, okay? He’s old news, and Candy’s got it covered. I don’t want you to worry about him. You just need to concentrate on prospecting, and–”

“No offense, sweetheart, but that’s a buncha bullshit and you know it.”

Her brows crimped together. “No, it’s really not.”

“Did you think you could tell me about him, about what he did to you, and I wouldn’t have a reaction to it?”

“Yeah. I did.”

“Well that’s…insulting.” Because it was. More so than he would have thought possible, in fact.

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