At Last Read online

  A shiver runs the length of my spine just from thinking about thinking about him.

  “Mama!” Jade rushes to me, slamming her tiny body against my legs and wraps her arms tightly around my knees, which me being five foot nine and all legs, is where she reaches.

  Scary how the mind can wander so much that a person can lose consciousness to the world around them. I don’t remember driving here. I don’t remember getting out of the car. I don’t remember walking through the parking lot or inside the building. None of it.

  My girl and her preschool were my destination, but holy cow, I need to be more careful. And to stop lusting after someone I’d never stand a chance with. I’m no biker babe.

  Shaking my head, I chuckle at that thought. Me, as a biker babe? The idea is even too ludicrous for my imagination.

  Get your act together, girl.

  After disengaging Jade from my legs, I take her hand and we walk back to get her bag and sign her out.

  “Miss Jenny, I’m going to a sweepover at my fwiend Macy’s house. It’s her birfday.”

  “So you’ve said,” Miss Jenny answers, chipper as always.

  “I’m sure about a million times today.” I joke.

  Miss Jenny rolls her eyes but then shakes her head yes, laughing as she does.

  We gather Jade’s bag, lunch pail and jacket, sign her out and say goodnight to the staff. Then my little bundle of energy beats me to the car where I’ve unlocked the doors from my key fob.

  She’s already sitting in her car seat in the back, waiting for me to buckle her in, by the time I reach her.

  “I’m not ’posta eat dinner wiff you. Macy’s mom is makin’ us birfday burgurs before the cake.” My princess kicks her dangling legs excitedly.

  “Well then, let’s get home and get your bag together so you can have those birthday burgers. Okay?”

  We ended up packing half her room into her overnight bag, but she was so excited to be going to an actual sleepover, she didn’t want to forget anything.

  Now I’ve got sweat-drenched hands gripping the steering wheel tighter than the situation warrants. It’s just girls’ night in at the clubhouse. A chance for me to make some friends.

  After dropping off Jade, I swung back by my house to gussy myself up in that using makeup to make me look naturally flawless way. I don’t want any of those bikers to think I’m there for anything more than to hang with the girls. But I don’t want to look like Medusa either. It’s a fine line.

  Jesse is no longer on the gate when I pull up. Another prospect lets me through. I might not know all of them, but they all know me from my time taking care of Elise.

  I walk in wearing a white fitted babydoll Tee under my black lamb’s leather jacket, black skinny jeans and ballet flats. My hair is down, all the buoyant curls springing in a sort of tamed hysteria. They’ve never seen me with my hair down. I kind of feel like Sandy from the end of Grease. At the first double-take from the first biker, I pause long enough to look over my shoulder and coo, “Tell me about it, stud.” Then I keep walking as if I’d never stopped, to begin with.

  2.

  Duke

  Jesus Christ. When I got back from my ride, my club was overrun with pussy not available for fucking, and they’re still fuckin’ here.

  Boss’s old lady and her girls’ night in. All of ’em except for Trish, sucking back tequila like they just invented the recipe and are trying to get it right.

  ’Course, drunken pizza making was pretty entertaining. Rounds of mozzarella stuck to the ceiling until the prospects scrape it down.

  Sneak has his cell out snapping off pictures to send to Boss. The women have been dancing on the bar singing Taylor Swift songs for the last half-hour. Taylor Swift in my club.

  And shit, Dr. Brennen up there shaking her ass. That woman has moves. What I wouldn’t give to bury my dick deep inside that undoubtedly sweet pussy. Bet the carpet matches the drapes. She seems too good to wax. That’s fine. Shit’s better than fine. I prefer some stubble. Trimmed, but I like the scrape of course hair against my cheeks when I feast.

  Then there’s her fucking hair. Seeing all those curls cascading down her back. No bun. My fingers itch to run through those glossy, soft strands. No, dammit. I’m not even attracted to redheads. Give me a sexy burnished chestnut any day. Dawna had thick burnished chestnut hair, when she wasn’t on the chemo.

  I need to calm my dick down. I need to get laid. Vicky-Lee, my regular piece is great with her mouth, but I need something more than she gave me this morning. Besides, she ain’t here because I stupidly agreed to keep ’em out tonight. What the fuck was I thinking?

  Sneak uses his two fingers to whistle at his woman using Tommy Doyle’s wife as a pole for a pole dance, even though she ain’t drunk. Once Gun was conceived, Trish put Sneak on a mission to put a baby in her belly, too. So now she’s knocked up, just starting to show.

  When I turn away from the PG stripper show, the good doctor is down on her knees, writhing over the counter like she’s riding an imaginary dick.

  Then the strangest thing happens. Her phone rings, and right in the middle of a gyration, she answers it.

  “Hello?” She sounds off, concerned. Since it’s a one-sided conversation, I don’t know who’s talking to her or what they’ve said, but she shouts, “I’m coming. Oh god… I’m coming. Keep her head and neck immobilized.”

  The doctor pushes off the bar top and slips. She’d have face planted if I hadn’t caught her.

  “Get off me,” she says instead of thank you. “I’ve got to go.” And I notice her pulling keys from her pocket.

  Fuck that. She can barely walk, I ain’t letting her drive. “You ain’t driving.”

  “I have to go. I have to go now.” She wrenches from my arms. But I ain’t drunk and catch hold of her belt loop to stop her.

  Split second decision. “You need to go, I’ll take you,” I tell her. And I know the second the words leave my mouth shit’s about to get real between us. Because Dr. Brennan is the kind of woman you get real about, and you do it quick.

  Her eyes go wide and for a moment, I think she’s gonna fight me. But nah. She turns to me and I can see the fear and pain on her face. What the hell was that phone call about?

  “We have to go now,” she says, giving in. Though I have to keep my arm around her to keep her upright.

  Once we’re out the door, I steer her away from my bike toward my old pickup sitting outside my doublewide. She looks confused since clearly bikers ride bikes, but hops in without a word. God knows I’ve seen that kind of fear in a person’s eyes too many times to count, so before she even has the seatbelt clicked, I’ve already backed out of my spot and am headed for the gate.

  Thornbriar being so tiny, it takes us only six minutes to reach… well it’s a house in one of the nicer sections ’a town. The doctor jumps from my truck before I park and runs up to the door. There’s a woman waiting for her with the door open.

  The woman, not noticing me or not caring, starts to shut the door, but I wedge my hand between it and the frame before she could shut me out.

  “Ambulance is on the way,” the woman tells Dr. Brennen.

  “Thank you,” she answers, dropping down next to a little girl laying at the base of a set of carpeted stairs, running her hand over the child to check her out. The kid already has a neck brace on.

  “We used the brace from when Jack broke his collarbone and wasn’t supposed to move his neck.” The woman, whose home we’re in, says as she absently runs her hand up and down the back of a boy standing next to her. He must be Jack. “We were careful.”

  When the doctor nods, I assume the woman means getting the brace on.

  “Mama…” the little girl cries to the doctor.

  Mama? You gotta be kidding me.

  That’s the calm before the shitstorm. Not two seconds after, red flashers from the ambulance light up the nighttime sky, and paramedics flood in with a stretcher. They try to do their job while a still quasi-buzz
ed doctor barks orders. I’ve heard doctors don’t make good patients, so I can only assume how bad they can be when their kid is involved. Making it doubly bad when a buzzed doctor’s kid is involved.

  And I know they’ve reached their limit on patience with her when they don’t invite her to ride to the hospital along with ’em, stating not enough room in the back. She looks panicked.

  “Come on.” I grab her hand, and we move back out to my truck, following closely behind the ambulance.

  The shitstorm gets worse when they wheel the little girl into emergency. On duty doctors take custody of the child and start to assess. Then tell Dr. Brennen they’re taking her back for some scans.

  I thought parents were allowed back to those things with little kids, but they won’t allow Dr. Brennen back, and let me just say, that woman has a mean streak and a vocabulary to make the saltiest sailors blush.

  When the door swings shut behind the doctors and her little girl, that’s when I watch Dr. Brennen’s shoulders fall and she burst into tears. Shit, I hate when women cry. So I really hate seeing this woman cry.

  “Come on, now. None ’a that.” It’s the only way I know to console her. That, and wrapping my arms around her. And I’m not sure if she forgot who’s holding her, but once in my arms, she buries her face in my shirt, continuing to shed those tears. And fuck if she don’t wrap her arms around me, too. Holding me, letting me hold her.

  She’s tall for a woman, but I still stand a head and neck over her. Which puts the top of her head at the perfect height to drop comforting kisses on if I get bold enough. Her scent, she smells like vanilla. Like a bakery, and it drives me nuts. I have to fight to keep from getting hard, since this ain’t the place or time for it. Like ain’t it enough she’s a classy broad, class and those luscious curves in all the right places, but she has to smell like a fucking bakery? I’m a saint for corralling my dick the way I have.

  When her crying slows and she pushes back from my chest, I don’t let her go. Despite her initial protest, she stays in my arms for the entire twenty minutes it takes for the on-duty doctor to return with scan results. And I still don’t let her go then, twisting her around, but with my arm slung around her waist so we stay connected.

  “Sprained, not broken.” He assures her. “We’re moving her to a room now. Follow me.”

  Since it ain’t my place no matter how good she feels in my arms, I finally get my head outta my ass and loosen my hold so she can follow, only to have her grab a hold of my T-shirt to drag me along behind her. I’m shocked. But I guess even doctors need moral support sometimes.

  They’re fitting the kid with a neck and upper chest brace when we walk into the room. The girl is out, which no one seems worried about, so I assume it’s medically induced.

  “She needed sedation to be scanned. Just as a precaution to keep her immobile, but she’ll have to stay overnight for observation because of the concussion.”

  When the on-duty doc notices Brennen still crying he tries to comfort her, shifting the chart in his hands so he can rest one on her shoulder. “Come on, we got lucky,” he says. It’s probably an innocent gesture. Part ’a good bedside manner or some shit. Hell, she ain’t even mine, yet I don’t like this guy touching her because he’s more the type a class act like Dr. Brennan should be with. “You know as well as I do how much worse it could have been.”

  Then he pats the arm he had his hand resting on, and turns to walk out.

  I stay standing like an idiot because I ain’t sure what else to do here. Finally I decide to give the woman privacy and turn to give her just that when she stops me, this time, with her words. “You can call me Caitlin, you know.”

  “Pardon?” I ask, rubbing the back of my neck.

  “My name. You always call me Doc or Dr. Brennan. But you can call me by my first name, Caitlin.”

  “Okay, Caitlin. How you holding up?”

  “I know you don’t like me, so it was good of you to help the way you did. Thank you.”

  Well shit. She thinks I don’t like her.

  “You gonna be okay?” I point to the door so she knows my intention to leave. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to ask as she breaks out in a fresh round of tears. Looks like I ain’t leaving anytime soon.

  Instead, I pick up the hospital version of a club chair, this one a pastel pink vinyl, to move it closer to the bed. Then I sit and grab a still tearing Caitlin by the waist to pull her down onto my lap.

  “She’ll be fine,” she whispers, then hiccups. And I think she’s trying to convince herself more so than me.

  What am I doing? I ain’t had a woman on my lap who I wasn’t fucking or getting ready to fuck since Dawna left this world. But every breath she breathes against my neck, where she’s tucked her forehead, makes me forget a little more why I don’t do this shit. You fuck, you don’t get hurt. Period.

  Son of a bitch, if I don’t fall asleep in that chair with Dr.—er Caitlin—on my lap. We sleep the whole night. I know because when I wake up, the room is flooded with natural light, I got a kink in my neck and my dick is harder than granite because of her ass rubbing on it while she was passed out, but damn if she ain’t pretty when she wakes up. Fucking gorgeous. Pale, peaches and cream skin, only less peaches and a hell of a lot more cream to her complexion than even most redheads.

  She stretches and turns her head to look at my face, then startles as if she forgot whose lap she cuddled against last night. Fuck, I just used the word cuddled. This woman’s gonna fucking turn me into Boss if I ain’t careful. My VP is more whipped by his woman’s pussy than just about any brother I’ve met. Elise is sweet, smart and feisty when she needs to be, not to mention fucking hot. Still... I shake my head to erase the image of Boss’s old lady, because I got old lady material on my lap.

  The funny part, Caitlin don’t move. Her cheeks stained a gorgeous pink. She lowers her eyes and smiles coyly. “You stayed,” she says softly, almost surprised.

  “I could hardly leave with you sitting on my lap.” The morning makes my voice sound grittier than usual. Most women would flinch from the tone. Not Doc. No, not Caitlin.

  “Thank you.” Before I know what’s happening, her face descends and her plump, heart-shaped lips press a gentle kiss to the corner of mine.

  Her touch, her kiss should freak me the hell out. I ain’t kissed another woman since Dawna. I fuck, I eat my fill. What I don’t do, what I never fucking do, is kiss. It hurts too much when it ends. When you want more, but can’t have more. My skin starts to feel tight. Not because of the kiss, but because of how badly I want more.

  In a sudden bout of self-preservation, I grip her upper arms to push her off my lap. “Gotta piss,” I tell her.

  Caitlin continues to smile, though less coyly, more assessing, then presses a second kiss, this time squarely on my lips. It’s longer, though just as gentle. Then she stands. “You need a smoke, too. Although as a doctor, I should advise you to quit.”

  How the fuck does she get me?

  But as she stands from my lap, I know without a doubt that she does. She pats my chest, and turning her attention back to the little girl mumbles, “Outdoor smoker’s lounges… only in Kentucky.” Then she blows a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her eye out of her face.

  Cute. Sexy. Sweet. Smart. Caring. Dammit! What I need to do is walk away right now. Bypass the Kentucky smoker’s lounge outside and head for my truck. Head for the compound. There’s gotta be a piece still around this morning. Maybe a hot mama that’s down to fuck. What I don’t need is to stay anywhere near Dr. Brennan.

  I nod, then get the fuck out of there. Only I don’t make the break for the parking lot. I press the down button on the elevator that’ll take me to the smoker’s lounge. A courtyard out behind the hospital.

  There are two older guys, a chick, and a kid who doesn’t look older than sixteen already in the courtyard sucking down smoke when I enter. They all look beaten down, but the kid won’t look anywhere but his shoes. I watch him clos
ely. When he finishes his first smoke, he pulls a soft pack of Reds from his jeans’ pocket and tips the package for another but it’s empty. The kid growls loudly, crushing the pack in his hand and whipping it to the ground.

  When I catch his eyes, they’re glistening, and I get it. That’s real heartache right there. I’d recognize the signs anywhere. He’s about a second and a half away from losing it. So I do the only thing I can and reach inside the pocket of my cut to pull a hard pack of Reds. Without words, because with that level of pain, he don’t need some stranger’s words, I hand him off a couple of cigarettes, then light one of my own.

  Quietly, we all sit on benches or lean against the exterior brick wall while the courtyard fills with a gray haze around our heads. When I’m finished, I snuff out the nub against the ugly beige, plastic ashtray and toss it inside with the other butts, and turn to go back inside. Again, like a fool, I walk to the elevator and push the button for the fifth floor. The stainless steel doors slide open, and I climb aboard.

  Caitlin’s sitting on the side edge of the bed, running her knuckles down the side of the little girl’s cheek when I knock on the doorframe to announce my arrival. The girl is awake, though appears groggy. And for the first time, I’m able to get a good look at her. She’s the spitting image of her mother. Showing the kind ’a beauty I know when she’s older, poor Caitlin’s gonna have her work cut out for her keeping those horny boys at bay. The woman’s gonna need a man around to pick up the slack. Someone who can put the fear ’a God into any pubescent fucktard who thinks of putting his dick anywhere close to that little angel.

  Shit. I should leave. I’m the kind of man who can put the fear ’a God into a pubescent fucktard. The last thing I need is to be considering becoming that man. Get the fuck outta here, Duke. But I don’t take my own advice, no matter how good that advice is. And that’s because Caitlin smiles at me. Her bright eyes saying she’s glad I’ve come back. That twinge of glorious pain, the kind of pain a man usually wants to feel hits my heart. I recognize that kind of pain, too. Though I ain’t felt it since that first day on the beach with Dawna.