Page 82 of Snow in Texas

“I could just tell.” His eyes dropped away from her. “You should try it.”

Had it been anyone else, Jenny would have threatened violence to keep him quiet about the matter. But she knew Talis wouldn’t share the news with anyone. And his halting, raw mention of his ex-girlfriend touched her.

“How’s Chloe?” she asked of his daughter, voice softening.

He nodded, eyes bright but guarded…and sad, oh so sad…as they lifted. “She’s good. She’s real smart. Doing good in school.”

“That’s good, Frank,” she said, daring to press a brief, comforting touch to his arm. “Do you get to see her often?”

He shrugged. “Some.”

Poor man.

Then he remembered why he’d been looking for her. “Gringo found something he wants you to look at.”

“Yeah? Okay, lead the way.”

Gringo was with his best friend Cowboy, the two of them standing at the edge of the property, against the ten-foot chain-link, razor wire-topped fence. Jenny suppressed a smile when she spotted them. They were currently arguing the merits of the ombré turquoise paint job on a bike Cowboy wanted to buy.

Friends since childhood, they were dark-headed, handsome bookends. Cowboy was Mexican, and had christened his best bro with his club name Gringo, commenting, “He was the stupidest white boy we ever saw in the neighborhood. And the bravest.” They’d prospected together, been given their patches together, and were rarely out of earshot of one another.

“What’s up, boys?” Jenny greeted as she and Talis joined them.

“Cigarettes,” Cowboy said, dark face troubled.

Gringo pointed to a small pile of butts that lay just on the other side of the fence. “I counted seven. Somebody stood there a while.”

Jenny crouched down to get a closer look, and a chill chased across her skin. The goosebumps were almost painful. She knew exactly what this meant, but she said, “Have you talked to everyone else? Was this Blue. Or Pup? Or…” She tipped her head back and saw three alarmed faces behind her. She sighed. “We need to check the camera footage.”

~*~

Colin

He’d been in Knoxville a month. A month of long-distance phone calls and sleepless nights tossing on a lumpy dorm mattress. He missed his girl. He wanted to feel her weight settle against his side when he closed his eyes at night; see the new subtle changes in her body as the baby took root and began to unfurl, real and baby-shaped in her belly. He needed to lay hands and eyes on her so he could convince himself that fatherhood wasn’t the scariest prospect in the entire world.

It was his last night in Tennessee, all the dramas turned down to simmer, the immediate dangers past. While Candy and Fox and Jinx enjoyed one last night with the groupies at the clubhouse, Colin had a dinner invitation. He knocked on the Lécuyers’ back door with a knot in his gut.

He heard the lock disengage and his brother opened the door with a baby in one arm.

It was the younger one, Cal. The blonde one. Colin had first spotted his hair a few weeks ago and thought Ava must have stepped out on her man. But Cal had Mercy’s eyes, no mistaking it, if a little wider and more innocent with babyhood.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Mercy greeted, waving him in. “Ava went nuts with the food.”

“I heard that,” Ava’s voice floated from beyond the mud room.

Mercy rolled his eyes with a grin, and whispered, “She’s turning into her mother. Only most times, I’m too afraid to tell her that.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Colin thought of Maggie Teague, hot and too young for her husband, something terrifying lurking beneath her Southern aplomb.

“Nope.”

He crossed the threshold and passed through a wall of warmth; the air of the house seemed to enfold him as Mercy closed and relocked the door. Warm and lively, bursting with cooking smells and the faint tang of leather, here where the coats were hung up. Little Cal stared at him, bold and guileless, the deep brown eyes very much like his own.

“Come on,” Mercy said, and clapped him on the shoulder with his free hand. “Let’s go get a beer.”

“Okay.”

The mud room led into the kitchen. Sizzling in a pan, fragrant curls of steam, golden light glowing through the window in the oven door.

---