Hearts Are Wild

by Synithia Williams

  She smiled, but it was guarded, because this whole exchange was unexpected. “Fine. I’ll call you Tag.”

  “Then you’re going to need my phone number.”

  A laugh broke free. “You know what I meant.”

  “I do.”

  “I really have to go.” She stood there in silence several seconds longer than she had to, looking him in the shiny green eyes, wishing beyond all common sense that she had a few hours to waste on him. It could be fun. Then again, it could be a nightmare—one that compromised her concentration and sent her season into a tailspin.

  She couldn’t afford that. It was football first.

  She had way too much to prove.

  Chapter Four

  Two days later, he sat in his office still bothered by the fact that M. J. had brushed him off, despite her very valid reason for doing so. She wanted to focus on football, not satisfy his curiosity about an attraction to a woman who was not at all his type. Tag couldn’t even believe he asked her for her number in the first place. That wasn’t his initial plan. He’d simply been waiting for Dave to finish meeting with the coach. Seeing M. J. was a bonus, and the minute he was in her presence, he knew he wanted to see her again.

  If the only way to make that happen was to go to another game, then so be it. Watching her was like being hypnotized. It wasn’t until halftime when she disappeared into the locker room that Tag even realized he’d been standing on the field for ninety minutes without a single uptick in his heart rate.

  M. J. Rooney was magical, and she was smart, too. Turning him down was the right thing to do. Asking her out had been completely uncharacteristic of him, and if she’d said yes, he might not have followed through. Attraction was a small part of the relationship equation. Clean edges, Tag reminded himself. He had all the messiness he could handle waiting in exam room C.

  He hit the heel of his palm against the center of his forehead and exhaled. Time to get a move on. He’d already procrastinated as long as he could, staring at his laptop and thinking about M. J.. At this point, Tag just needed to get Grey’s appointment over with, so life could get back to normal.

  When Tag finally made the death march down the carpeted hallway toward the exam, his physician’s assistant, Leanne, was waiting for him.

  “Ready, Doc?” she asked, all wide-eyed and enthusiastic. Why shouldn’t she be? She had no idea what she was walking into.

  Tag smiled, even though the expression was hollow, and he tried to take some solace in the fact that Leanne would be in the room. Some might construe it as cowardice, a buffer between Tag and the truth, but he preferred to look at it as keeping things professional.

  With a sharp inhale and a tilt of his head, Tag pushed into the room.

  He wasn’t sure what he expected. Although it’d been twenty-five years since he’d seen either Jordon or Grey in person, somehow he expected those younger versions to be waiting for him.

  They weren’t.

  He recognized the grown men, one sitting on the exam table, the other standing near the sink. He’d seen their pictures on television and online by accident or in moments of weakness, but there was an odd sense of disconnect that surrounded him right now, and it acted like a bubble of protection. They were just men, nothing more.

  “Good afternoon,” Tag managed, purposefully leaving off their names. That might pop the bubble.

  Jordon and Grey were equally hesitant to speak, nodding instead.

  “This is my PA, Leanne Jenkins. She’s been involved with my research since the start, so I thought it was prudent for her to be here.”

  Leanne, oblivious to the monumental moment unfolding before her, leaned forward for handshakes. She made small talk while Tag maneuvered past Jordon to the sink. As he washed his hands, he breathed deeper than he’d allowed himself since entering the room. So far so good. If the rest of the exam continued this way, Tag had nothing to fear.

  He faced Grey, but refused to make eye contact. “Let’s take a look at that hand.”

  Grey unwound the bandage, and the minute Tag saw the wound, his thoughts anchored on medicine. “Okay. First, I’m going to have to check and see how deep it is.”

  Leanne held out a steel tray, and Tag pinched a long-stem swab from the line-up of supplies. Gripping the swab end of the stick, he slid his other hand beneath Grey’s right arm.

  “It’s going to be a little uncomfortable, but I’ll be quick.” Normally, Tag would look at the patient to ascertain his or her mental state before he proceeded. The last thing he needed was to have the arm jerked away in panic. But at the precise moment his gaze began a slow crawl upward, Jordon placed a supportive hand on Grey’s shoulder.

  The show of solidarity crushed Tag—the odd man out. He’d always been. He spread the wound just a bit and stuck the stick end of the swab into it, measuring the depth.

  Other than a low growl, Grey tolerated the procedure well.

  “Not too deep. A couple millimeters,” Tag said, mostly for Leanne’s benefit.

  “Is that good?”

  Tag glanced at Jordon. “It is. That, coupled with the fact the edges look good and it’s not draining too much means infection isn’t likely and there’s an adequate blood supply. Those are all things I need to see in order to re-grow tissue. I do want to study the most recent lab work and cultures. You brought those, correct?”

  “It’s right here,” Leanne said, pulling a piece of paper from the chart and handing it to Tag.

  He took it on reflex. If he’d thought about it, he’d have asked her what the values were, because now he was faced with either struggling to interpret the document without his reading glasses, or sucking it up and pulling them out of his pocket like he would at any other time with any other patient.

  Just like that his so far so good became an oh, damn. Tag’s vision had been too big of an issue growing up for Jordon and Grey not to be reminded by the simple act of him sliding on his bifocals.

  Taking the paper and facing the counter, Tag waited until he had his back to them to reach into his pocket and slide on the glasses.

  “Are you blind?” His biological father’s words echoed in his head. “Can you not see that ball?”

  Tag’s chest squeezed, and he struggled to breathe through the pain while he tried to decipher the original doctor’s chicken scratch from Grey’s chart.

  “He’s not blind,” he heard a much younger version of Grey say. “It’s just fuzzy.”

  This time when Tag’s chest squeezed he raised a fist to press against his breastbone. There was no way he was going to be able to access this information in a timely manner with his head full of ghosts.

  Tag clawed at his face, removing the glasses, and then he faced Leanne. “You know what? I’m going to have to make a few phone calls before I can make a solid determination. It looks promising. It does.” He glanced at the men, but returned his focus to Leanne. “I’m going to head back to my office. Why don’t you re-dress the wound and tell them a little about the procedure we might use? And then . . . I’ll be in touch.”

  Even though Tag was walking down the hall, he breathed like he was sprinting.

  “Hey.”

  Jordon’s voice stopped Tag in his tracks, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn around.

  “I know this can’t be easy, Tag, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you, man.”

  The pain in Tag’s chest pushed into his throat, and his eyes burned with tears. Lame or not, he simply lifted a hand in a sort-of wave and called out a gravelly, “You bet,” before he continued his escape down the hall.

  For twenty-five years, Tag had imagined his biological family, living it up without him—the ball and chain around their baseball dreams. What would dear old dad think if he knew part of that dream now literally rested in the hands of his blind, little, sissy boy?

  The irony was paralyzing.

  Somehow Tag managed to pull himself together and look over Grey’s medical records. He had a coherent conversation with the d
octor who’d been in charge of Grey’s rehabilitation, too. Then, Tag stayed in his office much longer than he normally would have, hoping and praying Jordon and Grey were long gone, back to Pittsburgh. When he finally stuck his head outside his office, the cleaning crew was hard at work.

  “Late night, Doc. Glad to see you’re finally heading home.”

  Tag nodded, but the idea of driving home, where he would sit in an empty condo with nothing but thoughts about his day to hound him, wasn’t appealing. Under the pressure of normal work-related stress, he’d consider stopping off at his parents for a little detox and clarity—and a Goose and tonic with the man who’d introduced him to top-shelf liquor. But not tonight. They would know something was wrong, and this wasn’t something he wanted to share with them. He never wanted his parents to see him as anything other than their successful son.

  Tag wouldn’t go back to what he’d been.

  As he hit the on-ramp toward home, he contemplated stopping at the country club for a couple drinks, but he’d done that almost every night this week. Surely, someone was going to start worrying he had a drinking problem. He didn’t. He stared at the alcohol in the glass more than he drank it. Still, it couldn’t look good to the casual observer, especially those who knew him professionally.

  What he needed was neutral territory, someplace no one cared about him or his problems . . . someplace like Mama Mary’s. The place came to mind as he spied a highway sign announcing the community college turn-off two miles ahead. From what he’d heard, Mary’s was just off campus. The dive bar was nowhere near his usual scene. Heck, the neighborhood had been enough to keep him away even when his med-school friends wanted some of Mary’s almost-famous pulled pork.

  Maybe M. J. was working. The possibility was enough to get him to the parking lot. Now, if he could just find the nerve to get out of the car and go inside.

  • • •

  M. J. dropped a cherry into an old fashioned and set the cocktail in front of the guy at the back corner of the bar.

  “Much obliged,” he said, tipping a non-existent hat.

  She smiled as she gathered the dollar bills off the counter. The minute she faced the register, she stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. The quiet, Monday-night crowd wasn’t enough to offset the exhaustion from practice that afternoon.

  Mona passed the bar, empty tray in hand, on her way to the kitchen. “Can you pour me the biggest cup of coffee you can find?” M. J. dragged a few quarters up the curving plastic until they hit her palm.

  “Of course.”

  She was going to pay for the influx of caffeine into her normally pristine in-season bloodstream, but falling asleep, hugging the register wasn’t going to go over well with the boss, even if the boss was Tanya’s mom.

  Turning with the old guy’s change in hand, M. J. dropped the coins at her feet when she saw the face smiling back at her from the far end of the bar. Apparently she wasn’t going to need that coffee to liven up her evening after all.

  Dr. Howard appears again.

  She bent and retrieved the change, passing it off to its rightful owner with a “thank you” and a smile, and then she walked to the other end of the bar.

  “Surprised?” Tag asked.

  “And confused. You don’t seem like the kind of guy who frequents this neighborhood.” She slid a cocktail napkin in front of him.

  “Now what makes you say that?”

  She eyed him up a little too long, taking in his professional but chaotic appearance. That silky hair was begging for a comb . . . or fingers. Hers twitched like the traitors they were.

  “Do you see any other suits and ties around here?” she asked, stepping aside, giving him an unobstructed view of the dingy surroundings and the handful of down-on-their-luck patrons who were hanging around on a Monday evening.

  “Yeah, well, underneath this suit and tie, I’m just like them.” He sort of choked on a low chuckle. When he did, something darkened his eyes, and the wrinkles on his forehead deepened.

  “What’s your poison?” she asked, figuring this surprise visit was just as confusing to him. “I’m afraid our draft selection is a little lowbrow.”

  “Do you have Grey Goose?”

  She laughed. “We have vodka, and occasionally it’s a little gray, but I don’t think it has anything to do with geese.”

  “Okay, then I’ll take a gray vodka tonic without the goose, and a lime, please.”

  God, he was cute, out-of-place and bothered by something she couldn’t help but wonder about—something that brought him here. She didn’t know whether that should flatter or scare her.

  M. J.’s stomach gave a turn, and her head followed. She grabbed the edge of the counter to keep steady, but masked the motion with the reach of her other hand toward the vodka bottle. Why was she always so attracted to the lost cause?

  Busying herself with the drink, she tried not to think about Tag sitting at the end of the bar, clearly there to see her. But when she set the drink in front of him and watched him take a good long sip, she couldn’t contain her curiosity.

  “What brings you here?”

  He poked at the floating lime with the cocktail straw. “I’ve always heard bartenders are good listeners.”

  She’d heard that before, too, from any number of guys hitting on her, but coming from Tag in a quiet voice, it seemed like more of a plea than a line.

  Turning to the man at the other end of the bar, she called out a quick, “Are you good?” and when he nodded, settled her attention on Tag. “Bad day?”

  “The worst.” He tossed back the rest of the drink like it was water. “Refill?” He jiggled the ice in the empty glass.

  She took the tumbler and filled it again, all the while wondering what constituted “the worst” day for a doctor. Having a patient die was her best guess.

  Sliding the glass in front of him, she rested her elbows on the edge of the bar. “What happened?”

  “I can’t really say. HIPPA privacy laws and all that.”

  M. J. nodded. “Did somebody die? Can you tell me that much?”

  “Nobody died.”

  “That’s good.”

  “That is good.”

  She watched him drink, liking the way his shiny eyes rolled over her face as he did. Even downtrodden, he was sexy.

  He set the tumbler on the bar and rose up on his elbows, narrowing the space between them enough that she could smell the spice of his cologne and the liquor on his breath. She liked that, too. More than she should. He was clearly more complicated than what would be good for her—even if she weren’t in-season.

  “Do you have family?” he asked, stabbing the cocktail straw straight through the lime.

  “Of course, I do. I didn’t just hatch.”

  His brows lifted, but his gaze didn’t leave the glass. “Hatching would be nice.”

  Maybe professional woes didn’t bring him here, after all. “You don’t like your family?”

  “Depends on which one you’re talking about.”

  Shit. He was married. She never even thought to ask. She pushed off the bar and stepped back. “You don’t like your in-laws?”

  That got him to look at her, a gaze that started low on her chin and swept over her face until he was smiling, all crooked and cocky. “I don’t have in-laws. I’m not married. Do you really think I would’ve asked for your number if I was?”

  She shrugged. “Some guys would. Hell, I was propositioned right here by a guy whose wife was in the ladies room. In this line of work, I see it all.” She lifted his empty glass. “Would you like another?”

  His lips hitched, and his sparkling eyes stayed locked on hers. “I’d like a lot of things, but, yeah, we can start with that.”

  She swallowed a rush of attraction, snatched his glass, and moved toward the vodka, maintaining eye contact. This was one guy she shouldn’t turn her back on. He had a way of sneaking up on her and testing her usual resolve. Half-a-dozen, watered-down, vodka tonics later, M. J.’s shift w
as over, and Tag was still at the bar. Now what was she supposed to do? He’d had enough liquor to make her think he might not be in any shape to drive, and she couldn’t leave him here, which was clearly outside his comfort zone, to fend for himself, so she shrugged into her jean jacket, rounded the bar and stood at his side. “How ‘bout we take a walk?”

  A stroll around the block would buy her some time, and it might scare the liquor right out of him when they passed the three-hundred-pound former drug dealer who was now a bouncer at JR’s.

  “Are you asking me out, Miss Rooney?”

  “Out of this bar? Yes, I am. Somebody has to protect you.”

  Tag slipped off the stool and came to stand far too close to feel innocent. “You really are unorthodox, aren’t you?”

  Heat slithered along her spine and rooted between her legs. “Why, Dr. Howard, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  Which was problematic. A woman like M. J. could get addicted to compliments that celebrated her unconventional ways. And addictions were dangerous.

  She’d have to remember that, especially when he was smiling.

  Chapter Five

  Tag looked at the glossy black paint of his BMW 7 series, sparkling in the glow of security lights. Next to where he parked was what looked like an old, rusted newspaper box, sporting layers of graffiti. “Are you sure it’s safe to leave my car here?”

  M. J. was already walking away from the bar parking lot to the crumbling sidewalk. “You sound like my father.” By the huff in her voice it wasn’t a compliment. “You don’t get out of those golden-gated suburbs much, do you?”

  Tag jogged to catch up with her. A minute ago, he’d considered arguing the necessity of this mercy mission. Contrary to her belief, he didn’t need protection, and he wasn’t drunk—thanks to the watered-down vodka tonics she was pushing on him—but he wanted to be with her, so he’d play along. Maybe she was taking him back to her place. After the day he’d had, he wouldn’t argue with that.

  “You don’t even know where I live.” Still, Tag couldn’t help but wish this sidewalk was in his well-lit, chronically safe neighborhood. He glanced at the derelict surroundings and moved closer to her. She looked fierce, striding down the sidewalk in the moonlight—a veritable goddess—and he had the distinct impression nobody would mess with him when M. J. was around, which was just the sort of weak-ass thing his biological father would expect him to say.