Page 3 of My Protective Biker

Not smiling. Not giving anything away. Just watching with those pale gray-green eyes that seem to see more than I'm prepared to show.

"Thank you," Zoe says, breaking the moment. "Can I come by tomorrow to check on him?"

"Clinic opens at eight." I manage a smile that almost feels normal. "Come by whenever you want."

He's already moving toward the door. Zoe follows but pauses at the threshold to look back.

"I'm going to call him Hamlet," she says, like naming him will make him officially hers.

"He'll be here waiting," I tell her.

Then they're gone. The door closes. The bell chimes.

Through the front window I watch them cross the parking lot to a dark blue pickup that's seen better years.

He opens the passenger door for her, waits until she's settled, closes it with care. Walks around to the driver's side with an economy of movement that suggests he doesn't waste energy on anything unnecessary.

The engine turns over and they pull out onto the road, and I'm still standing here with my pulse beating too hard and my skin too warm and the ghost of callused fingers burning against mine.

I force myself to focus.

Finish treating Hamlet with methodical precision, setting the splint, giving him pain medication, transferring him to one of the overnight cages with water and a soft blanket.

Clean the exam room. Check on Mrs. Parrett's terrier recovering from dental surgery and the Morrison's beagle who's still offended about this morning's anal gland expression.

Process paperwork. Return phone calls. Check inventory.

The whole time I'm thinking about gray-green eyes and callused hands and the way he filled that doorway.

By the time I lock up at five, the late summer heat hits me like a wall. Cicadas scream from the trees and the air is thick enough that breathing feels like work.

I walk home the same three blocks I walk every evening, past houses with wide porches and overgrown gardens, and the entire walk I'm processing what just happened.

The way my body responded to a simple touch. The way I can still feel the warmth of his hand against mine.

This is not me. I don't do this.

I'm practical. I left Harrisburg eighteen months ago specifically to build a life that was calm and controlled and entirely my own.

I get home a little after five-fifteen and make dinner because the routine is familiar even when my appetite isn't. Chicken, vegetables, salad. I eat at my kitchen table with a book propped open, the same mystery novel I've been working through for weeks.

I read three pages and can't tell you what happened in any of them.

All I can think about is the way he looked at me. Assessing. Thorough. Like he was cataloguing everything he saw.

I try reading again after I clean up. Manage another chapter by forcing myself to focus on every word. It almost works.

By eight-thirty I give up and go to bed early, exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with the physical.

I lie there in the dark staring at the ceiling.

Think about callused fingers and the electric shock of contact. About gray-green eyes that saw too much. About a leather vest with patches I couldn't quite read and what Vigil MC means beyond motorcycle club, which implies complications I moved here to avoid.

Think about his daughter and the way he opened the truck door for her, twenty years of being that kind of father.

Think about the fact that I'm lying here obsessing over a man I met for ten minutes, whose last name I don't even know.

I roll onto my side, close my eyes, try to sleep.