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“Don’t lose your shit just yet,” Fox grunted as we entered the room. He rounded his desk and sat while I stood in front of it, arms crossed and feet braced wide.
“You tell him, yet?” Whiskey asked as he strolled in after us.
Fox shook his head, then looked at me again. “One of the employees—Ned, according to his coveralls—was unusually quiet. Doing his best to be invisible, then slipped out the back. Racer said he was pretty sure the guy was on something, so while Hawk talked to the manager, Racer caught up to Ned as he was getting on his bike. Asshole was about to ride while he was high as a fucking kite. For that alone, I had him brought back here to get his ass kicked. Racer knocked him out while they waited for Stone to show up with a van.”
A knock on the door caught our attention, and since it was open, Racer ambled inside. “You tell him?”
Fox rolled his eyes. “Ned woke up on the way here and started crying like a little bitch.”
“Didn't make much sense,” Racer interjected. “Too fucking high. But he mumbled something about his dealer and the car being in an accident.”
My brow rose. “You think he’s the customer Elise saw?”
Racer shrugged. “Could be. Or it could be a coincidence. Either way, the asshole deserves a beating. That or the withdrawal should get us our answers.”
I frowned, again wondering if I should call out to work.
“Go,” Mav urged, clearly guessing where my thoughts had been headed. “Ned won’t be any good to us until he's sober. Even longer if we have to wait for withdrawal to kick in for him to talk. Being at the hospital will take your mind off shit. And stop you from driving away your woman by hovering.”
Scowling, I growled, “I don’t hover.”
“Bullshit,” Racer snorted, and I tossed him a glare. He put his hands up in a surrender pose but shook his head. “That’s what Prez and Mav say, but you’ve seen what happened ever since they knocked up their women.”
I couldn’t argue with that, and I had to admit that I probably wouldn’t be any better when Elise was pregnant.
Annoyed that everyone had more logic for me going to work than I had for staying home, I dropped my arms and grunted, “Call me if he’s ready before my shift is over. Or you find out anything else. Or Elise needs me. Or—”
“Go!” all three men shouted.
I stomped out of the office and returned to my woman in the lounge. After giving her a very thorough kiss, I told her to be good, gave her a pat on the ass, and left for work.
Old Bridge was a decentlysized town, but it was surrounded by a bunch of smaller ones that didn’t have their own hospital, so we serviced a larger area. Which meant the ER was often busy because people in small towns did stupid shit and there was still plenty of crime. Which was why my day went from treating the burned hand of a kid who blew mishandled a bottle rocket, to performing surgery on an idiot who crashed their car into a train during a drag race, to a grandmother who thought she was having a heart attack that was actually a bad case of gas, to a teenager with a broken nose because he tried to go to second base with his girlfriend. The last emergency of the day was to deliver a healthy baby girl who didn’t want to wait for her momma to be taken to the maternity ward.
I was good at compartmentalizing and used to connecting with my patients while remaining rational and emotionally unattached. But there were always days when my armor was a little weak, and the heavy shit that I dealt with weighed me down. Then some days ended like this, with the smiles of two new parents as they thanked me while holding their pink bundle in their arms.
As I walked away, I wondered if our babies would take after me or Elise…fuck, I hoped they took after her. Then again—I glanced back at the new family and grimaced—if we had daughters who looked like Elise…I’d have to buy a bigger gun collection. And figure out how chastity belts worked. Or build them a fucking tower and lock them away because they would not be allowed to date until I was dead.
With my shift finally over, I hurried to change out of my scrubs and into my street clothes. Despite receiving updates all day, I was anxious to check on my girl. When I arrived at the compound, I parked in the small lot out back between the kitchen and my clinic.
Dinner had been over for a couple of hours, so the room was mostly deserted, except for Maverick and Whiskey who were sitting at one of the tables talking and drinking beers.
“Yo,” Mav greeted me when he saw me walk in.
I lifted my chin but kept walking past them, intent on finding Elise and bringing her back to the kitchen to sit with me while I had something to eat.
“She’s at the clinic,” Whiskey called out, halting me in my tracks.
“The clinic?” I asked, confused.
He shrugged. “Said she had some work to do.”
I mentally sighed, knowing she was out there filing and shit because she couldn’t just accept that I would take care of her and she didn’t need a job.
Wait…she was at the clinic. It was almost nine at night. Dark. I glared at my brothers. “You let her go there alone?” I nearly shouted as I quickly moved toward the back door again.
“Of course not,” Maverick growled, making my pulse and footsteps slow. “Hawk is with her.”
“Hawk? Shit,” I croaked as I broke into a run. He was a smooth motherfucker with a pretty boy face who had women constantly chasing him. Not that any of them were able to catch him. Hawk had been engaged to the love of his life a few years back until she called it off a few weeks before the wedding. He hadn’t been on a single date since…he had trust issues, obviously, but I was pretty sure he didn’t want to admit that he still wasn’t over her.
