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Defiance rises swiftly, stirring in my soul like a battle cry. She's just a baby, an innocent little girl who just lost her mom and her dad—even if he doesn't deserve to be mourned. God or fate or the universe has taken enough from her. The world doesn't get to take more from her. It doesn't get to take her. I won't allow it.
She's mine to watch over now. And I'm not going to lie her die.
I'll save her, Siobhan, I vow silently, tears slipping unchecked down my cheeks.I promise you; I'll find a way to save your baby girl.
Chapter One
Tate
OneWeekLater
"You're calling early," I say, hitting the button on my navigation menu to answer Jason "Cash" Montoya's call. It's not even six-thirty yet. At this hour, he's usually still wrapped up in his girl, Hadley, unaware the rest of the world exists. Since he fell in love and got married, he tends to stay that way. He's head over heels for his pregnant wife.
I give him grief about it at every available opportunity, but the truth is…part of me envies the hell out of him. Waking up alone is getting old. But I've been married to my job for so long I haven't ever put much time or attention into looking for a woman to share my life with. I keep putting it off, figuring I'll get to it one day. Exceptone daynever seems to come.
The simple fact is, there isn't anyone in Silver Spoon Falls who interests me enough to want to change my life. If she's in Houston, I haven't run into her there either. So I keep my life the way it is, unwilling to change it just because everyone gives me shit about being single at my age. I spend most of my time dealing with overwrought parents and critically ill children. What free time I have is spent with my MC brothers, dealing with our pain in the ass prospect, or catching up on sleep. I don't have time to dive into dating…especially with someone I don't see myself settling down with.
When I meet the one for me, I'll know it. Until then, I'm perfectly content single. My dad, world-renowned photographer Sage Grimes, was older than I am now when he met my mom at a photoshoot in New York. He knew right away that she was the one. I grew up watching them fall in love time and time again. My dad kissing on her all the time drove me nuts as a kid. Now that I'm older, I appreciate it a helluva lot more. They're blissfully in love and don't care who knows it.
I figure if I can't have the kind of love they have, I don't want it at all.
After all, settling isn't what I do. Neither are half-measures.
There's a reason I'm one of the best pediatric heart surgeons in the country at thirty-six years old. I go after what I want, and I don't stop until it's mine. Cash would call me a stubborn pain in the ass. I prefer driven, motivated. I may have grown up with a silver spoon in my mouth, but my parents' money didn't get me where I am today. Did it help? Of course. I know I had opportunities and privilege a lot of others didn't. But I put myself through medical school. I built my practice from the ground up. I didn't accept my dad's money when he offered, or anyone else's. I wanted to make a name for myself on my own, just like my dad did.
I'm stubborn like that.
"I'd rather be in bed," Cash mutters, "but I've got shit to do today."
I smirk at his surly tone, not surprised he's pissed about it. He owns an investment firm. He's also the President of the Silver Spoon MC, our MC. Between running his company, running the MC, handling our pain in the ass Prospect, and worrying about his pregnant wife, he has more than his fair share to keep him busy these days. Hadley was in an accident a few weeks ago that really shook him up.
"Me too," I say, rolling to a stop at the light on Broadway. "My schedule is packed with patients."
"You're back at work?"
"I've been back," I snort. "Taking care of shit while you were busy taking care of Hadley was overtime."
"I'm not paying you. Consider it payback for you giving us the plague," Cash bitches.
"It was a virus." And it was almost three months ago.
"That you whined about more than anyone."
"Whatever," I mutter, though he's not entirely wrong. Doctors make terrible patients. It's a statistical fact. We're good at healing other people, not at being sick ourselves. But I'm not admitting that to my best friend. He gives me enough grief as it is. "Did you just call to give me more shit?"
"No. I called to tell you that we're giving Rulie and Gloria a bonus."
"We?" My brows rise. Rulie Davis, Cash's PA, is our MC's equivalent of a graybeard. His old lady, Gloria, keeps the clubhouse in order for us. They're family to everyone in the MC, but I get the distinct impression that thisweCash speaks of doesn't include the rest of our brothers.
"We," Cash confirms. "As in me and you, motherfucker. I paid for their vacation. You can help pay for the bonus."
"Fuck, fine," I bitch, though I'm not even mad about it. Rulie and Gloria have been managing both of our lives for long enough…ours and everyone else's in the MC. If anyone deserves a bonus after putting up with our shit for this long, they do. Especially after that damn virus went through the club. Men make terrible patients. It's precisely why I work with kids.
"That was suspiciously easy," Cash remarks as if he expected me to put up a fight.
"They deserve a bonus," I say, letting off the brake when the light turns green. I roll through the intersection and then take the next left, headed toward my office next to the hospital downtown. This early, I'm the only one on the road. "Especially since they have to watch your big ass trying to feel Hadley up every five minutes whenever she's at the clubhouse."
"Man, fuck you," he says, laughing. "You're just jealous the only thing warming your bed is that goddamn ego of yours."
