Page 62 of Snow in Texas

Her fellow waitress rolled her eyes. “Daydreaming about your biker man again?”

“Oh, no…”

Chelsea hooked her arm through Jenny’s and turned her away from the register. “It’s okay, I’d daydream about him too,” she said, conspiratorially. She began to tow Jenny forward. “I haven’t seen him in a while, though. You guys have a fight or something?”

“Or something.” Wow, she’d really been out of it; she had no idea what was going on. “Where are we going?”

“On break. Crowd’s thinned out and Eric said he’d cover for us. Lemme grab my smokes first?”

“Yeah.”

The break room was a stuffy, windowless space with wooden cubbies for their things, and one square foot of counter space that served as a coffee bar. Jenny tried not to breathe too deeply as Chelsea went to her cubby and rooted through her purse. One of the cooks had smoked a joint in here, and the stink of it was overwhelming.

“That guy who replaced Dusty, I expect,” Chelsea said of the unasked identity of the smoker. “What’s his name? Lewis?”

“Lenny, I think.”

“Total dumbass. He’s kinda cute though.”

“Hmm,” Jenny murmured in patent disagreement.

“Not as cute as your guy, obviously. But I ain’t got anything like that waiting on me at home. So…oh, hey, can I borrow a tampon?”

Jenny pushed away from the doorjamb and headed for her cubby. “Sure. Regular or super?”

“Regular’s fine.”

The purse she’d carried today was her usual faded brown satchel, the leather soft as butter from years of carry. She unzipped it and dug into the interior pocket where she kept her essentials.

“You know what I’ve been thinking?” Chelsea asked behind her. “You know how they’ve got karaoke Tuesdays at the Armadillo, and you know how my mama’s always said I had a beautiful singing voice…”

Jenny’s hand closed around one of the plastic-wrapped cylinders and whatever Chelsea was saying turned into white noise. She had a full stock of tampons in her purse. When she should have already been needing them herself and burned half through them by now.

Her breath caught. “Oh, damn.”

~*~

Colin

Stripping junk cars for parts was decidedly less glamorous than interrogating witnesses…and less nauseating, too. Not to mention more productive.

They’d gotten nowhere hunting for Riley’s current whereabouts. Candy had been trying for two weeks now to pin him down, and so far, the bastard was untraceable.

Colin banged his knuckles against the hood of the Firebird he was pulling apart and cursed more violently than was necessary. He was so wired, it wasn’t going to take much to send him into a full-on detonation. He hadn’t felt this way since he’d headed for Knoxville with the bright idea of pounding the shit out of his un-poundable half-brother.

Sexual frustration wasn’t anything new, but this was on a whole different level. This wasn’t merely a dry spell; this was seeing, sensing, feeling his lover. In the clubhouse, in the room, in his memories. Knowing she was close enough to touch, and not being able to. Because she wanted some time and space. She needed to be alone, to gather her fragile nerves and decide if she could forgive him for reminding her of the abuses she’d suffered.

He knew he wasn’t capable of hurting her, not in the way she feared. But conveying that message to her? No easy task. Especially when he was just a dumbass, fuckaround loser who’d never had anything worth trying for in his life.

He heard someone approach and didn’t glance up right away. Whoever it was seemed in no hurry to greet him.

“What’s up?” Colin finally asked, and by that time he’d figured who it was. A glance confirmed that Jinx stood on the other side of the Firebird, digging dirt from under his nails with a toothpick.

The man had to use some kind of oil or something in his beard, the way it emitted a healthy sheen in the sunlight. He glanced up, briefly, giving Colin one of those assessing looks that could have meant a variety of things. “Got a call from Knoxville.”

His stomach tightened, an automatic reaction of dread and distaste. Knoxville meant Mercy…

“Ghost is asking for reinforcements up there, something special he wants to do on Halloween.”

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