Page 76 of Snow in Texas

“Shit,” Candy muttered. “What the hell?” But his attention, Colin noticed as he straightened, was fixed on the man standing in front of him. Men, actually. Three of them. Riley’s friends they’d met here before. The one asshole was still wearing his CAT trucker cap.

Automatically, Colin’s gaze shot to the guy who’d harassed him before, the one who’d pressed into his personal space. The man gave him a dark, contemptuous look that Colin was happy to return.

“Cooper,” Candy said, and Colin recalled that was CAT’s name. “Trolling for the next ex-Mrs. Coop?”

The man’s face contorted with anger. An automatic, childish reaction. “Yeah,” he shot back. “Heard your sister was looking for somebody new to call ‘daddy.’”

The jab hit Colin’s brain like a sledgehammer, smashing at logic, composure, restraint. Just one line, and his vision misted over with red. Too quickly he imagined his girl, pinned down on her back, this jackass with his stupid hat poised above her. It was a mental image that took his breath…and replaced it with undiluted fury.

That’s what love was, he supposed. The absence of all thought. The total, devastating provocation of even benign threats.

Candy turned toward him slowly, face placid. “I’m sorry, prospect. I didn’t intend for us to get arrested tonight. But I think you’ll understand why I gotta beat the shit outta this guy.”

“Yeah. I want in on it.”

“Sure.” Then Candy turned back, deliberately, as if in slow motion.

Cooper was expecting the strike, and he probably thought he was ready for it.

He wasn’t.

Colin wasn’t even ready to witness it.

He’d never seen anyone throw a punch like that in his life. Candy was a big, strong man, but the force of the hit defied all physical probabilities. One second Cooper was preparing to duck, the next he was laid out like a fence board on the floor, twitching like he’d been electrocuted.

For a second, his friends could do nothing but stare at him, eyes white-rimmed with shock.

“Do you know why they call me Candyman?” Candy asked them, shouting to be heard above the music, voice strange.

Cooper groaned and rolled over onto his stomach. He spit blood…and three teeth, gleaming white against the dark floor.

Candy laughed. “’Cause I’ll take every tooth outta your goddamn head.”

“Holy shit,” Colin breathed.

“Who’s next?”

The two idiots blinked at them a moment. Then one lunged forward – the one Colin wanted a piece of.

He caught him around the waist and used his own considerable size and forward motion to knock the man back. Behind him, he heard Candy laugh again.

The crazy, terrifying monster.

~*~

Jenny

She heard and recognized Colin’s footfalls out in the hall before he opened her bedroom door without preamble and let himself in.

“Oh my God!” She tossed her book onto the quilt and scrambled to her feet. “What happened to your face?”

He attempted to smile, but it opened the split in his lip and blood dribbled down his chin. He winced instead. “It ran into somebody’s fist. And then the side of a table. And the floor.”

“Baby,” she murmured, rising up on her toes and hovering her fingertips over the darkening bruise on his cheek. “What were you…” A thought struck, and she sucked in a breath. “You didn’t–”

“No,” he said, anticipating her question. “Candy and I ran into some of his friends at the bar. They started it.”

She frowned at him. “So glad you could finish it with your face.”

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