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Sheriff Wilkins said with a tight smile. “Your mama isn’t around to make me forget what a little bastard you are.”
    “She didn’t want you,” Connor told him quietly. “That’s what’s stuck in your craw. She never did, and we all knew it. ’Cause you weren’t man enough to take my daddy’s place.”
    Okay . John’s heart was pounding. This was turning very ugly, very fast.
    “I’m not your football coach anymore, boy,” Sheriff Wilkins said angrily. “I’m the law. I can get your sorry ass right back where it came from—behind bars.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’m watching you. You better not fuck up around here.” With that he turned and walked out of the store.
    Connor turned back to the paint display. His hands were unsteady as he picked up the same yellow card. “I like this butter yellow. You?”
    John glanced at the card. He hardly noticed the colors on it. “Yes.” He stepped right up next to Connor as if looking at the color. “We need to talk,” he said quietly.
    Connor nodded. “I figured we’d have to, sooner or later.” He sounded resigned. “You still want the paint?” He looked at John out of the corner of his eye.
    “Yes,” John said. He took Connor’s elbow and guided him to the counter, waving at the clerk to come over. “Then I’m going to buy you some new clothes, and then we’re going to talk.”
    “I don’t need new clothes.” John just looked at him, taking in his gray T-shirt and those damned jeans that he couldn’t stop picturing around Connor’s thighs. “Fine,” Connor ground out. “I get that you don’t want Wilkins to think you’re not paying me.”
    John shook his head. “It has nothing to do with Wilkins and everything to do with my sanity,” he told Connor right before the clerk walked up. “We’ll take two gallons of the butter yellow, please.”

Chapter Seven
     
    “Talk.”
    They barely made it through the front door before John slammed it behind Conn and gave the order. Conn remembered how hard it had been to learn to take orders. Then he’d gotten very good at it. He forced himself not to flinch. “What do you want to know?”
    “First I want to know what you were in prison for.” John sighed, and Conn looked over his shoulder at him. John stood there, one hand on his hip and the other buried in his hair. He had dark hair—that’s why Conn could see the gray. And it was too long. The cut had been good once. Now it was starting to curl, just thick enough for John to get a good handful. Conn focused on that hand. “I should have asked before. But I’ve never been very smart about those things.”
    “Short on common sense? I never would have guessed that about you.”
    “You couldn’t tell when I didn’t ask the pertinent questions?” John asked wryly. “Then you’re short a couple of dollars too.” His hand fell to his side, and Conn inexplicably missed it caught in John’s dark hair. “Come on. I need a drink.”
    “So do I.” Conn hadn’t wanted a drink this bad in almost two years. He’d been addicted to drugs, to drink, whatever could made him not feel anything. But the funny thing was, once he stopped, it wasn’t that hard to leave the drugs and alcohol behind. There were lots of other ways to keep the feelings away. Or so he thought until he got back to Mercury. This old town made him feel too much. And now John was the one pulling the emotions up.
    “Well, you don’t get one. I did at least catch the part about rehab when you were talking to Evan at the shelter.”
    Conn grinned sarcastically. “You do all right in the sense department, I think.” He followed John into the kitchen and caught the cold can of Coke John tossed him from across the room. “Thanks.” He popped the top and took a swig. Sugar and caffeine had a little hit of their own, didn’t they? And Coke would clean him out, burn the past out of him like rust off an old battery.
    “I’m growing old waiting over here.” John pulled out