One Chance, Fancy

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  I slid off of his back and slowly backed away, as did the guard—who still had a hold of the doctor.

  The doctor, although surprised and a little bit hurt, didn’t look like she was going to pass out like I might have.

  She was used to it, though.

  She and I had a lot of time to talk over the long morning.

  Her name was Diane, and she was rather abrupt and unapproachable at first, but once you got past the prickly exterior, she was actually quite a lot of fun to talk to.

  And she’d told me all kinds of stories about working here, and how she loved it. How it was never predictable.

  I now believed her.

  The moment we were all backed away, Bayou removed his hand from the man’s jaw, and the inmate slumped to the floor, holding his face.

  Bayou stared down at him like he was an irritating bug.

  Today he was wearing black pants like the highway patrol wore with a gold stripe down the outside legs. He had on a black pair of biker boots—I liked to call them ass-kicking shoes—that looked like they were massive and could stomp a guy into the ground. His shirt was a darker shade of gray with gold buttons, and ‘WARDEN’ was embroidered on the front in gold block capital letters. The shirt was long-sleeved and covered Bayou’s arms all the way down to mid forearm where he’d rolled them up at some point during the day to just below his elbows.

  The collar was buttoned up all the way to his throat, and dear God. The man was wearing gold aviator sunglasses.

  It was almost as if he’d come straight from outside, or he’d been about to go outside.

  I wasn’t really sure.

  But whew, boy, did he look good in uniform.

  Not that the dress pants and nice button-down shirt hadn’t looked good on him yesterday, but today? Well, let’s just say it was good that I was getting off in an hour and could go to my place and take care of myself.

  Seriously, the man was delicious.

  I’d seen his guards walking around all day in much the same outfit, but Bayou in that uniform? Yeah, I was a goner.

  “I told you last time that you weren’t going to come into this infirmary and pull a stunt like you did before ever again, didn’t I?” Bayou looked down at the now weeping man.

  “Y-yes,” the man mumble-cried.

  I was fairly sure his jaw had to be causing him pain.

  I’d heard the crunch. Whether it was bone or cartilage, tendons or muscle, I didn’t know. But the man had something wrong with him.

  “Crockett, take him to the pit,” Bayou growled.

  Crockett, who I finally realized was the guard, did just that.

  “Uhh,” I hesitated. “Are we not going to treat him?”

  Are we not going to fix whatever you just broke? went unsaid.

  “It’ll heal,” Bayou replied unflinchingly.

  I bit my lip and tried not to laugh.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, walking over to where Diane was standing.

  She was holding her elbows close to herself but didn’t look too worse for the wear.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  Bayou’s attention turned to Diane, and his eyes softened.

  Diane was a pretty lady. She was in her mid to late thirties and was obviously attracted to Bayou based on the looks she sent his way.

  “Anything broken?” Bayou asked, eyes flicking to me and not to Diane.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “No,” Diane’s soft, melodic voice interrupted us. “I’m fine. I’m just scared.”

  Bayou didn’t try to comfort her. In fact, he didn’t even try to go near her. He kept his distance and was closer to my back than he was to Diane.

  “Good,” he paused. “What did I tell you about getting that close to their hands?”

  Diane sighed. “I have to get close to them to inspect injuries.”

  “Yes,” Bayou agreed. “But you wait until the guard attaches his hands and feet to the bed, then you do what you need to do. He could’ve hurt you very badly today.”

  Diane looked expectantly chagrined.

  “There are protocols in place that keep you safe,” Bayou continued to hammer his point home. “And you’re teaching your bad habits to the new girl. Trust me when I say that you need to remember the protocol, because if she gets hurt because of your indifference to the rules, I won’t be happy.”

  Bayou was staring down at Diane’s ducked head with distaste written all over his face.

  I sensed a story there, but I couldn’t very well ask them right in front of each other.

  Bayou’s eyes went to me once more, held my gaze for all of two seconds, and then dropped. He stared at my neck as he said, “Be careful.”

  I smiled, but he didn’t see it in his haste to leave.

  “Oh, hey!” I called out to Bayou as he turned to leave. “I left a pen in your office yesterday. Can I have it back? It’s one of my favorites.”

  Bayou gave me one thumb up without turning around.

  Then he was gone, and I was left with a very pissed off Diane.

  “He’s such a douchebag,” Diane grumbled. “God, I cannot believe that I ever had a crush on that man! I’d rather claw my eyes out than get anywhere near him at this point. Creepy motherfucker.”

  This morning I’d had to watch a two-hour long video about how to stay safe when working with inmates, and the first thing on the list was to never get too close to them without ensuring that the inmate was safely secured.

  Hell, I was fairly sure Diane watched it right next to me because there’d been nothing else to do, yet the moment that inmate had walked in with the guard, Diane had dashed toward him with glee.

  The inmate had seen his opportunity and taken it, seizing Diane and pulling her toward him in some vain attempt to get something only he knew he wanted.

  “I’m sorry,” I lied. “Are you really okay?”

  I didn’t like that she was talking badly about Bayou.

  I’d always been protective of the man. But this woman didn’t know Bayou at all…though, regrettably, I didn’t really know him all that well, either.

  “I’m fine,” Diane grumbled. “Just annoyed. Can you clean that up?”

  ‘That’ being the paperwork that’d been on the filing desk when the inmate had walked in. It’d been knocked down somewhere in the struggle and was now laying on the ground all over the room.

  I bent over and started picking up the papers, glancing at them quickly as I went.

  They were medication refills for inmates.

  “Do these need to be in any particular order?” I asked as Diane took a seat behind her desk.

  And why the hell were they sitting up here instead of being faxed? I assumed that was what was happening with them, anyway.

  “No,” she answered. “Just stack them nicely and put them back up on the filing cabinet. I have to fax them all in at the end of the day.”

  I did as asked and returned to my seat across the room.

  I could see the television better here anyway. I didn’t need a fancy desk or anything like she had.

  Unfortunately, the television in the corner was one of those old-timey, massive ones that was in the wooden box. The picture quality was terrible, and I wasn’t sure how the hell anyone ever managed to actually watch a program with it.

  Not to mention it had to weigh hundreds of pounds.

  “Why is the television in here so old?” I asked out of the blue. “Surely a new one would fit better on the wall and wouldn’t take up so much space.”

  “That one is there because if we had a newer, nicer one the inmates would just break it,” Diane answered, sounding bored. “That one they can kick and it can survive the attack.”

  That made a lot of sense.

  Unfortunately, the television quality still sucked.

  “God,” Diane whispered. “I’m going to be bruised everywhere.”

  I looked over at her as
she inspected her arms.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “You are.”

  Another few hours passed, and finally it was time to go home.

  We saw four more inmates, three of them with lacerations of some kind due to fights they’d had in the yard with other inmates. One of them was due to the fact that he’d shoved something up his ass a few days ago and had gotten it lost inside of him.

  That one we’d had to transfer to the hospital. There was only so much we could do at the prison infirmary, and we had to draw the line at exploratory surgery of the anus.

  Gathering my jacket and my phone, I headed out to the long maze of hallways, smiling at each guard I passed.

  It took me five minutes, three hallways, eight locked gates, and nine guards to get there.

  At some point I’d heard Bayou talking, and my heart rate had started to speed.

  It wasn’t until I realized he was following behind me, but at a much more sedate pace, that I realized I was starting to slow myself to allow him the possibility of catching up.

  But, when his voice started to fade despite my slowing down, I decided to stop being a loser and go to my car already.

  I smiled at the last guard I saw, though this one wasn’t actually working, but likely coming into work.

  “Hey, Rome!” I called out, waving crazily.

  Rome, a member of the Bear Bottom Guardians MC, looked up and grinned at me.

  “Hello, Fancy.”

  I blushed profusely. “Hey…where did you hear that?”

  “Bayou,” he said. “And don’t tell him I called you that.”

  I frowned. “What? Why?”

  Rome opened his mouth to reply when something caught his attention behind me.

  I sighed. “I better let you get to work. Have a good night.”

  Rome nodded once. “You, too.”

  I was halfway across the parking lot, at least eight car lengths from Rome when I heard it.

  “Hey,” Bayou called out to me. “Wait.”

  I looked up to see Bayou jogging toward me, a white bag in his hands.

  Frowning, I came to a stop next to my truck and waited expectantly.

  He gestured to me with a tilt of his head. “Sorry, I was trying to catch you before you left, but I was stopped by someone each time I tried to speed up.”

  I grinned and shrugged. “No biggie. What’s this?”

  He thrust the bag into my direction.

  “I couldn’t find your pen,” he answered.

  That was when I realized that his eyes were squarely on mine, and he was watching me with an intensity that would’ve been unsettling had it not been this particular man.

  I opened the bag and stared at the box of pens—my favorites—that were practically impossible to find.

  My eyes flicked up to his. “Wow…thank you.”

  “I couldn’t find your pen,” he repeated. “So I got you those, and then I decided that it was a good present for you to have on your first day, even though you can’t take them into the infirmary with you.”

  Before I could ask him how he knew what the pen looked like, I dismissed it. The man missed nothing.

  Absolutely nothing. There was a possibility that he knew exactly what I’d had with me that day, and what I’d been wearing, all the way to the color of my eyeshadow.

  “Do you want to go grab something to eat? Talk about my first day?” I asked hopefully.

  Bayou blinked, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.

  I felt my lips kick up at one corner as I waited for him to come to a decision.

  “I have to go back inside and get my shit,” he finally said. “I can meet you in about twenty minutes.”

  I smiled. “Deal. How about Fancy’s?”

  It seemed fitting…right?

  Chapter 4

  If you can’t handle me at my worst, you probably can’t handle me at my best. My best is just me with brushed hair and mascara.

  -Phoebe’s secret thoughts

  Phoebe

  We were both sitting in a diner—Fancy’s—waiting for the waitress to walk away after taking our drink order before we spoke.

  It took her a few long seconds before she could make her feet move, and that was all due to the man that was sitting across from me.

  He was easy on the eyes, and hard to look away from.

  Formidable and intimidating, he was a presence in a room that you couldn’t help being drawn to. Young or old, man or woman, everyone had a hard time keeping their eyes away.

  I swallowed hard and bit my lip as I waited for the girl to get with the program.

  Finally, she did, leaving Bayou and me alone.

  His eyes were scanning the menu in front of him while mine were studying him.

  “So, what was the deal with Diane?” I asked, unable to help myself. “She looked like she was pissed way the hell off when you left.”

  Bayou leaned back in his side of the booth and stretched his long legs out in front of him, which put them on either side of mine. I felt pinned in, and I liked it.

  “Diane is like rainwater,” he said. “You can’t control her at all. You can try to funnel her into a path that’ll be less destructive, but ultimately, she’s going to do what she wants and damned the consequences. If I had a choice, you would not be working with her. Though she’s quiet and seems innocent, she’s uncaring about those around her. She doesn’t give a shit that by doing what she did today, she put not just herself, but you and the guard in danger as well.”

  I frowned. “Then why is she still working there?”

  He shrugged. “Not many people want to work in prisons.”

  That was true. I’d heard that the nursing job I’d applied for had been open for over eight months. I would think it’d be even harder to find a doctor.

  “Oh,” I said. “Do you have the job posted?”

  He nodded once. “Diane switches out her shifts with two other doctors.”

  “Meaning there’s not always a doctor on shift?” I questioned.

  He shook his head. “No. Sometimes there’s a double nurse shift, and sometimes there’s a nurse and paramedic shift. Sometimes there’s just a nurse and a guard. It really depends on the time of day, though. When the inmates are supposed to be sleeping, that’s when we go down to the nurse only.”

  “Oh,” I paused. “That one actually sounds like fun. Working with Diane was stressful today. And she had all this work we could be doing, yet she saved it until I was about to leave. I could’ve easily helped her with it, but she wanted to do it on her own…I have a feeling it’d be more exciting and easier to deal with stuff when I’m on my own.”

  “That shift is the late one. Seven in the evening until three in the morning. You can try all the shifts before you decide which one suits you best.” He paused. “I usually leave Diane’s shift without a nurse because she’s so bossy and doesn’t like the help anyway.”

  That made sense.

  “What shift do you want me working next, and when?” I asked, realizing that I hadn’t found that part out before I’d left.

  The waitress came back with our drinks before he could reply.

  “Coke.” She placed Bayou’s down in front of him. “And Dr. Pepper.”

  I immediately tore into my straw, expertly peeling the wrapper away so that it’d fly off the end well and did what any normal Mackenzie would do. I shot the straw wrapper at Bayou.

  It hit him in the forehead, and he looked up at me with amusement written all over his face.

  “Really?” he questioned.

  I shrugged.

  “Can I get y’all anything to eat?” the waitress asked, her eyes staying focused on Bayou and not once turning to me.

  I should’ve been offended. I really should’ve.

  But I wasn’t.

  I couldn’t look away from the man myself.

  “Yes,” Bayou answered.

  We both
waited for him to order, but I realized rather quickly that he wasn’t going to order. He was waiting for her to be ready.

  That, and she’d asked him a question and he’d answered. Had she worded the question like ‘What can I get y’all to eat’ he would’ve answered with his entree choices.

  I felt my lips twitch. “I want the vaqueros tacos with a salad and brussels sprouts.”

  “There aren’t any brussels sprouts on the menu,” Bayou muttered.

  My brows rose.

  “Been here much?” I teased.

  He shook his head. “No. I just have a eidetic memory. I can tell you everything that’s on the menu now. Brussels sprouts weren’t one of those things.”

  I felt a grin tugging up the corner of my mouth.

  “Is there anything green on there, that’s also not high in carbs and or calories?” I asked.

  He answered instantly. “Green beans and asparagus—as long as you tell them to hold the bacon bits.”

  I turned to the waitress. “Can I have the asparagus, sans bacon bits?”

  She nodded once, writing furiously on her notepad without once making eye contact.

  “And you?” The waitress looked over at Bayou, definitely trying to make eye contact with him, but failing miserably when he wouldn’t look up.

  “And me what?” Bayou asked.

  “Can I get you anything?” she beamed.

  “Yes,” he answered again, just like last time.

  I barely kept the laughter contained in my chest. “What are you getting, Bayou?”

  “I want the chicken fried steak with a side salad, ranch, mashed potatoes, hold the gravy on both. I want that on the side,” he answered quickly.

  He winked at me, causing my heart to start rapidly beating in my chest.

  God. The man was lethal!

  “Excellent,” she said. “I’ll get that right out.”

  And by right out, she meant ‘right out.’ It was out in less than five minutes, and I was a hundred percent surprised because there were at least five other tables that had been there long before us, and had yet to get their meals.

  When she was placing the food down in front of us, I was watching Bayou. He grimaced and started to shake his head.

  The gravy that he’d requested be on the side was on his potatoes and leaking toward his chicken fried steak.