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"I'm sorry I, uh, touched you there."
The doctor's voice pulled me from my musings, causing me to turn my head to look at him in the dim light of the vehicle. "What?" My thoughts were so jumbled at the moment I had a hard time figuring out what he was talking about. He glanced over with a sheepish look on his handsome face.
"I didn't mean to grab your ass. I was trying to help you in and didn't know where else to touch you that wouldn't hurt with the position you were in."
My face heated at the sudden memory. Maybe if I hadn't acted like a frightened virgin, Bones wouldn't have shoved him out of the way. But then again, I couldn't feel sorry for the gentle way he'd held me as he helped me calm down. "It's okay. Really. Don't worry about it."
There was silence for a minute as we drove down the darkened streets as we left town behind. The silence was broken again a moment later by his deep baritone. "He's actually a really good guy under all that darkness he carries around."
I didn't have to wonder, that time, what, or who, he was talking about. When I stayed silent, he continued.
"He's had a rough life. I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but I think there are some things you should probably know when you deal with him."
I interrupted with a question that had been bothering me since the motel room. "What's your name?"
He chuckled, glancing over at me again before turning back to the road. The motorcycle was long gone, with no traces of the lights in the dark. "Everyone just calls me Doc. It's been my name so long that it became permanent."
I just nodded. "Are you in the Devil's Nightmares, too?"
"Ehh, no. I am what you would consider an ally, I suppose. Instead of joining, I stayed on track with my work. My residency kept me too busy to prospect. Now, I just stay available to the club when they need me."
"And Bones is okay with that? He trusts you?" I had to question. It seemed they would have a hard time trusting an outsider around their club. I had already felt that during my time as a waitress. The other girls who had been around longer and who were considered club girls got more attention and often took off with one of the patched members of the club. I'd also heard of club parties. Ones that were private and weren't held in a public setting like the bar. I had never been invited to one of those, whether to waitress for them or to party. Not that I actually wanted to. But curiosity was a dangerous thing.
"As much as any brother could, I suppose."
I swiveled my head to stare at his profile. "Do you mean club brother?"
"Nah, Red. I mean blood brother. Or half-blood anyway." He shrugged, but I could see his white teeth in the dash lights as he grinned. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about, actually."
He had my full attention. If I could turn sideways in my seat and rest my back against the door to really take in the story, I totally would. Instead, I had to keep my head turned so I wouldn't miss a thing. "Like what?" I may have sounded overly eager, but I didn't care as long as my curiosity about Bones was fed.
He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat as he thought about where to start. Or maybe whether he should start at all. If he changed his mind about spilling the story about Bones' past, I might scream.
"So, as I said, we are half brothers. My dad had an affair with his mom. Kind of." He side-eyed me, judging my reaction to his next words. "His mom was the town whore. From what I've heard, she was beautiful, a real knockout. And she used it to her advantage. She was paid well for her services."
"What happened to her?"
His tone turned solemn. "When Bones was twelve, she was killed in a fit of jealousy. She was with a guy, doing her thing, and one that had become obsessed with her shot the guy and then strangled her with his bare hands."
"That's awful," I breathed out. My heart ached for a young Bones. He was at such an impressionable age. I could understand why he was so quiet and angry all the time.
"It gets worse," Doc warned. "Bones walked in on them just after."
"Oh no!" I gasped in shock.
"It was our dad." The words were like a bomb in the vehicle. I could do nothing but gape in horror. "When he realized what had happened, Bones grabbed a knife from the kitchen block and slit our dad's throat."
I tried to swallow back my tears, but some fell anyway. "You don't hate him for that?"
"How could I? My dad was a piece of shit that ruined more lives than you could imagine. He'd cheated on my mom for years until he broke her spirit. He wouldn't let her leave, so she left the only way she knew how."
He didn't have to spell it out for me; I could figure it out. How horrible for both boys.
"So, when he called me to tell me what he'd done, I left work and headed straight to the trailer where he and his mom lived. Together, we cleaned up the mess and got rid of the body. When the police came around asking questions about his disappearance, I told them that he had probably run off after he killed the other two." He shrugged as if it were nothing, and my heart continued to break for the guys.
"After that day, Bones changed. I took him in as his guardian, but I was gone a lot. Being a young doctor takes up a lot of time. He was always a quiet guy, but he became filled with rage. He got into trouble, doing stupid shit. It wasn't until he'd made one of the guys in the MC furious for vandalizing his bike that things got better."
"What? That doesn't make sense!"
