Page 19 of Property of Doc

“Okay, honey. I’ll get started cleaning his road rash,” I reply. I can tell he wants to protest but I continue. “It’s the least I can do considering his bike is probably a mangled mess, and he put his own life on the line for mine.”

“Fine, do what you’ve gotta do, sweetheart.” He disconnects, leaving me with Mongrel, who doesn’t always talk all that much, but from what I’ve seen, he’s serious about becoming a brother. He goes out of his way to take care of things before he’s even asked, plus what he did for me today cements him in my heart as a brother, regardless of how the vote pans out.

By the time Doc makes it back to the clubhouse, I have all of the road rash thoroughly cleaned out and have started an IV with a bag of fluids hanging. I feel pretty confident that Doc will probably put him on a bag of broad-spectrum antibiotics to ward against infection.

I watch him wash his hands, hiding his grin as he sees I have Mongrel sitting on the exam table with his shirt and prospect cut off. His jeans are scuffed, but apparently, according to him, Rio found a brand of denim that is pretty durable, as they didn’t tear at all. Doc slides on a pair of gloves and I watch as he carefully checks each area.

“You did well, Gretchen,” he finally says as he adds a bag of antibiotics and gets it running into the existing IV.

“I should, I had a great teacher,” I sass as he moves toward me.

Once he’s closer, he gently tugs me into his arms and leans in to kiss me. I can feel his heart thudding in his chest as he hugs me.“I love you and I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my entire life,” he whispers.

“I love you too, and that makes two of us,” I reply. “If not for Mongrel’s quick thinking, I don’t want to think about how today could’ve turned out.”

He turns to Mongrel and says, “It’ll be about an hour before the bag empties, but after that, I’ll cover the IV so you can shower.”

“Appreciate that, because that ditch was rather disgusting,” Mongrel replies. “Did… have they gotten back yet?”

Doc shakes his head and Iknowhe’s about to spout something about it being club business. With Mongrel being just a prospect and me being a female, it’s unlikely either of us will know the end results.

But he surprises me when he says, “Normally, I wouldn’t be able to tell either of you a damn thing. However, this situation involves both of you so I will say that the two men we’ve been looking for are on their way back and we’ll be dealing with them accordingly. Mongrel, I suspect Rio will let you get your hits in as well.”

“Good. Those fuckers deserve whatever’s coming to them,” Mongrel growls.

Shaking my head, I look up at Doc and say, “I need to go grab a shower. Those damn stress sweats still take me out all the time.”

“Go shower, baby. I’ll be up as soon as possible.”

“No, you’ve got club stuff to deal with. When I’m done, I’ll come back downstairs and hang out in the common room if that’s okay.”

“That’s perfectly fine, sweetheart.”

He kisses me again and I turn to Mongrel and say, “Thank you again for what you did today, Mongrel.”

“No thanks needed. My job is to protect y’all.”

“Well, you did your job today,” I reply before I head up to our room in order to wash off the past hour or so.

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

Doc

Physically seeing my woman has helped my racing heart, but not by much. Hearing her terror on the phone, knowing the man who was sent to watch over her was possibly hurt, maybe even dead, and neither me nor my brothers were close enough to prevent what was happening is something I never want to experience again. Granted, in this life, it’s always a possibility, but the majority of our businesses are legit, and the not-so-legal things we do usually involves transports for our brothers from other chapters. Oh, and the money laundering, of course.

I turn to Mongrel and say, “You’ll have my vote when the time comes. What you did today is beyond anything any of us would’ve expected or anticipated from a prospect, especially after you were run off the road.”

He shrugs then winces, letting me know that I need to give him something for the pain. While Gretchen has the ability to do what she did for him before I arrived, she can’t administer pain medication that doesn’t come from over the counter without adoctor’s written orders. Since I wasn’t there yet, and hadn’t done my own assessment, he had to wait. Except for using a topical to clean his wounds, the prospect raw dogged it and looking closer, I can see he was putting on a fucking great act for my woman.

“Thought I was a goner at first,” he admits, “then, when I was able to somewhat control my fall, I knew I needed to try and get to her if at all possible.”

I walk over to the locked cabinet and pull out a vial of medication and draw up a dose before turning to him. “Gonna give you something for pain, Mongrel.”

“It’s not that bad,” he protests.

Except… his knuckles are white as they grip the side of the hospital bed he’s sitting on, and he’s pale as fuck. While I don’t know his heritage, I know he’s a blend but honestly, it doesn’t matter if he’s purple with yellow spots. As far as I’m concerned, he’s proved his worth to me with what he did today.