She blushed—an actual blush with flushed cheeks and innocent eyes—and it was beautiful. But then her face fell as if she caught herself, her eyes spewed fire, and she lifted her hand.
The slap was in slow motion, but I couldn’t get away from it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. My skin stung after her hand made contact with my cheek, but her face was what got me.
Such anger. Such heat. Fuck. Me.
“Get him out of here,” she said in a louder voice, and I realized she wasn’t talking to me anymore. A nurse had appeared, and the curtain was wider open now. “Call security.”
As if they’d already been on standby—maybe the receptionist had summoned them—they appeared. Two men dressed in beige collared shirts and black ties looked at me as if I was the scum of the earth. Whatever. I wasn’t here for a fight. I’d gotten closer to her and that was all I’d wanted.
One took me by the arm, and I went willingly. I wasn’t going to fight it.
I turned and looked over my shoulder. She stood there with her feet planted wide, arms folded over her chest, and she glared at me. I painted a mental picture of her.
“Thanks again!” I shouted.
The security guards were flanking me, as if they expected me to bolt. One yanked me by the arm to keep me moving.
“I need to fill out paperwork for my brother,” I said when we passed the reception desk. They eyed each other—a silent conversation—and the one who held onto me nodded. They stood on either side of me while I filled in Taylor’s details on the clipboard. When it was done, I was hustled out the door like a criminal. When I got outside, I shrugged it off. It wasn’t the first time I was treated as if I wasn’t good enough to be somewhere.
My emotions soared. Taylor was on his deathbed, and I had just gotten kicked out of the hospital, but I couldn’t get that woman off my mind. Those eyes... I hadn’t gotten her name. I would have to look into that. I straddled my bike, shifting to make space for my body and its urges, and smiled.
I pulled out my phone and pressed speed dial number three. I’d programmed it years ago. Maybe it was time to remove Ruby off speed dial—then again, we spoke so often it wasn’t like it meant anything more than what it was.
“I didn’t get him. I had an emergency with Taylor at the hospital,” I said the moment Ruby answered.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s fine.” I wasn’t going to tell her more than that. We’d been close once, but she lost all privileges to my personal life when she’d cranked her bitch dial up to full.
“You know, you used to call me at this time of night just to say hello.”
“That was when we were still dating. I don’t owe you that now.” I sounded like a dick. Ruby took it in stride. She was used to me by now. And maybe it was more her speed, anyway. She could turn ugly on me, too, if she wanted to. She’d done it enough times for me to know.
I could see her rolling her eyes. I’d seen it so many times it was second nature for me to cringe and assume that I was doing something wrong.
“God, you can be such a jerk.”
“Which is why we’re not together anymore, sweetheart. This arrangement works. No reason to mess with it.”
She sighed and hung up the phone. I brought the phone down and looked at the screen until the backlight switched off. Ruby and I had dated for almost three years before we’d broken up a year ago. We’d started a bounty hunting business together that did well enough for us to not want to tear that apart along with our relationship.
Being in a business partnership with her worked out so much better than being in a relationship with her.
Did I still love her? A part of me probably always would. I still saw her almost every day, we talked, and I hadn’t lost her completely. But being with Ruby was more complicated than anything else in my life, and for a drug-smuggling, bounty-hunting biker…that was saying something.
I was planning on stopping at Ruby’s tonight after my run. The other upside of us still working together and having a forced friendship as a result was that it meant that I could stop there for sex when I needed it. That was one thing that had always worked well between us. She was good enough in bed to satisfy me for a while, and she didn’t act as if it meant something. Because really, it didn’t.
The phone rang, and I answered it.
“I forgot to tell you…I’m doing a morgue run tonight,” she said. “I’ll only be home at dawn.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I didn’t want to keep you waiting.”
It didn’t take me long to decide. I flashed on the doctor’s face. I shook my head even though she couldn’t see it. “I’m not going to come around tonight.” Or in the morning, as the case was.
“Why not?”
“I have other things to do.”
There was a beat of silence. “Are you seeing someone else?”
I thought about the hot doctor. God, if I could say that I was doing that… yes please. But that wasn’t happening, and I didn’t have any other girls lined up. At least not permanent ones. Ruby and I didn’t have an exclusive arrangement. I could sleep with someone else if I wanted to, as could she. The fact that she didn’t wasn’t my problem, and whether I did or not had nothing to do with her.
“That’s not your business,” I said and hung up. Smooth. That was the best way to deal with annoying exes after all.
CHAPTER THREE Emily
The rest of the night was hell. It was as if it was trying to make up for the break I’d had earlier. There were so many emergencies coming in that I didn’t have time to catch my breath. A woman with a stab wound who nearly didn’t make it, a teenager way under the legal drinking age who had alcohol poisoning, accompanied by the police officer who had busted him. I’d had to get him on a drip for his liver, and that was only the beginning of his problems.
By the time there was a break again, it was four in the morning and I’d been on my feet for eighteen hours. My brain felt like a sponge and a dull headache thumped between my temples. My feet hurt in the soft sneakers I wore, and my back hurt.
I was used to being on my feet a lot, but the stress had taken its toll on me.
I was done with my shift, but I wanted to check in on the drug overdose patient before I left. I wanted to be sure he really was all right. He’d been moved to open the bed. I found his room and opened the door.
He was awake. He turned his head toward the door when I stepped into the room and squinted as if he couldn’t see me properly.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. The tube had been removed, and he was breathing on his own. His neck was stitched and covered up with a bandage that looked uncomfortable. I picked up the chart and looked it over. Taylor Roosa, it said.
He swallowed before answered, and it looked like it hurt.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Better than dead.”
“It was close, too,” I said.
“Thank you.”
I nodded. “You’re welcome. I don’t know what the results are on your blood work, but do you want to tell me what you took?” I was curious. I’d never seen someone react this badly. It had to be crystal meth at least.
“I didn’t take anything,” he said. “I don’t do drugs.”
It would have been nice to be able to believe that. So many of them denied it.
“You were really close to death, Taylor,” I said.
“I know. I wouldn’t do this to myself. Someone else did it to me.”
I nodded and changed the topic. “We’re going to keep you for a night or two, just to make sure you’re stable. I see your brother filled in your insurance details. We’ll deal with them directly to handle payment.”
Taylor dropped his head back against the pillow as if it was hard work keeping his head up.
“What did he say? My brother?”
I thought about the muscled, tattooed man who looked at me as if I was a piece of ass and felt a strange mix of anger and arousal.
“He was just concerned
. I’m sure he’ll be in tomorrow to check on you. It seems like you guys are close.”
Taylor just nodded and closed his eyes. He was going to fade soon. The sedatives were still in his system, and he needed the sleep to recover whatever damage had been done by the drugs. There was a lot to fix in that body, especially if he used regularly.
“I’ll check on you tomorrow night, but since you’re out of the ER they’ll assign another doctor to you.”
He must have been asleep already because he didn’t respond. I put the chart back and left the room quietly.
Before going to my locker in the women’s dressing room, I found Gomez. She was unpacking penicillin into a cabinet, and she looked as exhausted as I felt.
“You should get home,” I said to her. The Mexican woman looked up at me with tired eyes. She had dark circles under them, and I suspected I looked the same. “It’s been a long night.”
“I clock off at six,” she said. “Two more hours won’t kill me, and I feel better when I know that those hours didn’t kill anyone else, either.”
I nodded. I understood. If I could choose, I would stay at the hospital all the time. There was always another life to save, more bruises, more blood to mop up.
“Has that toxicity report for Roosa come in?” I asked.
Taylor Roosa. I knew the surname of the brother now, too. It was a suave surname for a guy who looked like he ran a joint on the ugly side of town.
Gomez shook her head.
“Not until later.”
I nodded and slung my bag over my shoulder.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night.” I walked toward the door but stopped before leaving. “Don’t burn yourself out. You’re no good to them when you can’t think on your feet.”
She nodded. I was being hypocritical; I knew that. If anyone pushed herself to the limit, it was I. But Gomez was a good nurse and a lot of lives had been saved because of having her on my team.
I left the building through the doors that exited at the back of the hospital and ran around to the parking lot where the staff all had reserved bays. I fiddled in my bag for my keys. I was so tired. My eyes felt gritty, and my headache was picking up in intensity. I should have taken something for that from the pharmacy before I left.
I’d kept walking while digging in my bag, and when I looked up Mr. Leather sat almost directly in front of me on a monster of a bike. It was pathetic and there was no reason for it, but the shock, the fear of seeing him, travelled through my body, nevertheless. It took my mind a moment to catch up and register there was no danger.
I noticed a moment later that he had two bouquets of flowers lying side by side next to the bike. They looked like the kind they sold at the hospital gift shop.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Waiting for you.”
“It’s four in the morning,” I pointed out. I was sure I didn’t have to go into the amount of reasons this was creepy.
He didn’t answer me. He just kept on looking at me with those eyes. They were so blue it was unnerving. I hadn’t noticed his brother’s eye color. Maybe they were blue, too, but not as noticeable. Then again, he had been on his deathbed. I wasn’t going to notice someone’s eyes if it was about saving their life.
“I see you visited the hospital gift shop,” I said, looking at the flowers on the ground when he didn’t say anything.
“It was the only place where I could get flowers that was open this time of night,” he said. He had a point, but flowers? Wasn’t it a bit much?
“Two bouquets?”
He bent over and picked them up. They were almost identical. The biggest difference was the paper wrapped around the stems.
“I didn’t know what you liked.”
“They’re the same.”
He frowned and looked at them with such a comical expression I had to chuckle. He looked up at me, and a sheepish expression crossed his face for a moment.
“I didn’t know.”
Of course, he didn’t. He was as male as they got, bursting with testosterone and arrogance. I doubted flowers were a strong point. The fact that he got them at all was impressive. He held them out and looked at me expectantly. I looked around, feeling silly, and then took them both. What was I going to do, say no to one? To both?
“I wanted to thank you,” he said. He pointed at the flowers. “For my brother.”
“You already did that,” I said and remembered the kiss on the cheek. I could still feel his lips on my skin now that I thought about. Since the moment he’d left the emergency room, I had been so busy I hadn’t had time to think about it all again.
“I wanted to do it properly,” he said. “And I wanted to ask you out to dinner.”
He was smooth. He didn’t look nervous or shy at all. He knew who he was, and he knew what I saw when I looked at him. His confidence was damn attractive, too. But going out with him? He looked at me as if he wanted to take me right there. I was willing to bet that he could imagine me with my clothes off and be relatively accurate. The way that he looked at me proved it.
I was annoyed with it. My mind was what had gotten me through life for so long. You couldn’t be a doctor if you were below average, after all. My body hadn’t mattered so much in the medical world.
It mattered now.
The thing that got me was the fact that besides being annoyed, I was also turned on by the way he looked at me. I had the oddest sensation that I wanted to lose control with him and let him take me any way he wanted.
I pushed the thought away the moment it came to my mind. He was a stranger, a dangerous one at that, and I wasn’t about to get down and dirty with someone I didn’t know. I never thought like this around men.
“Come on,” he said. “I just want to see you again.”
“You’re seeing me now,” I said and dropped my arm so the flowers hung at my side. The comment had been meant as a slap in the face, but instead of getting the picture, he smiled. My sarcasm was something he liked. And judging by the way his pupils dilated and he shifted on his bike like something was going on in his pants, it was turning him on.
Of course. Why would being weak and helpless be attractive to him? Trust him to get turned on by strength. I felt myself blushing again and—like before—he smiled. Damn him for noticing even in the dim light cast by the streetlamps. I shook my head as if hair was in my face, even though it was tied back.
The fact that my body was responding to him, even though my mind disagreed, was unnerving, but I was redeemed by the fact that I was sure I had him at least half figured out.
“I’m sorry,” I said politely. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m going to have to decline.”
He sighed and nodded without saying anything else. I had half expected an argument about it. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy that just gave in, but a part of me was relieved. I didn’t have in the energy to fight about my right to have a say over my own body.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered, but it came out more as a question. He smiled, and his eyes were the color of evening sky. It’d been a while since someone had looked at me like that. Men in my circle tended to fall in love with minds, but you couldn’t get raunchy with a mind. Not in a way that mattered, at least. This man looked at me as if my body was everything.
I shook off the thought. I shouldn’t be thinking like this. I needed to focus. I had a job that I needed to stay on top of, goals that I needed to reach. I couldn’t be distracted by a tatted biker, who looked at me as if I was sex on a stick.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card.
“If you ever need to reach me, you know where to find me. In case something happens to Taylor. Or, you know, you need someone to thank you again. I really am grateful for what you did for him.”
The speech was so sincere I reached out and took the business card, tucking it into the breast pocket of my white coat.
“I’ll do that,” I said, telling myself I
didn’t mean it and failing to believe it. He swung his leg over so that he was straddling his bike and turned the ignition. The bike roared to life, and he turned the throttle twice, revving before he spun away in a spray of gravel.
Show off.
When he was gone I lifted the flowers and looked at them. Two identical bouquets, but I had to admit they were beautiful. I pushed my nose into the flowers and breathed in before turning and walking toward my car.
DADDY AT THE ALTAR Page 52