“Hello?” I sighed.
“I will give you a million, bajillion dollars to come in tonight,” my boss, Mell, pleaded.
I looked at my watch. “I haven’t eaten dinner yet.”
And it was nearly time to go in.
“Eat it, then come,” she urged. “I’m short-staffed. There’s nobody able to come in. We had two more call in with the flu.”
Fuuuuuck.
“Today was my only day off,” I whined.
“Pleasseeeeee,” she begged.
I sighed and looked at my watch again. “But I was going to watch Netflix and chill.”
“You can have tomorrow off instead,” she pleaded. “And Saturday. I have the as-needed chick coming in, but she’s off on vacation. She said she could be back in tomorrow night.”
I thunked my head down on my upraised knees. “But Netflix! And chill!”
Mell started to laugh. “You do know the meaning of Netflix and chill, correct?” she teased. “And last I heard, you only had a gay man living with you.”
I sighed.
“Hey,” I said stiffly. “Dre may be gay, but he’s not immune to my charms.”
She started to snicker. “The day that man turns away from his man will be the day that this world ends, honey. And…I bought you a present. It starts with a ‘bag of’ and ends with ‘M&M’s.’”
I snickered. “I’ll see you in a few minutes, Mell. Just…swear to God, you better be aware of the shit that’s about to be thrown down tonight. It’s a full freakin’ moon.”
She sighed. “Oh, I know. Why do you think I had to call you?”
With that, she hung up, and I groaned and dropped my head back to the chair behind me.
“You have to go in?” my mother asked quietly.
I grumbled something unladylike under my breath and raised my head.
My breath hitched in my throat when I got my first good look at the man now looking at me like he had a new, exciting shininess to me.
“What?” I asked curiously.
“Dre’s gay?”
I frowned. “Yeah…is that a problem? Are you homophobic or something?”
He shook his head. “No…but I thought y’all were married.”
I burst out laughing. “Dre and me? Married?”
I laughed my ass all the way to the car.
Chapter 7
Some of y’all have never turned Lynyrd Skynyrd up when he told you to…and it really shows.
-Harleigh’s random thoughts
Harleigh
The turning point in our love-hate relationship came the night that I went to work, and he saved me from being murdered.
Which, I suppose, would do it for normal women, too.
The day started out like any other.
Honestly, I’d been in the middle of my shift. The morning had gone about as planned, other than being a little short-staffed and having to run from floor to floor on my own.
I’d just arrived on the ground floor—the floor that the ER was on—and had stepped inside and was talking to a nurse about what was needed for two patients when it happened.
“Wow, looks like you got a busy day ahead of you,” I said softly.
“We got a girl over there that shot a man in a motorcycle club. And the man she shot all the way at the opposite side of the room, but still in the same room. I can feel the murderous glares from the motorcycle club being beamed down the hallway at her. And she’s just sitting there smiling.” The nurse rolled her eyes and led me first to a room. “This is the one that needs to go first. He’s got a compound fracture poking out of the skin.”
I went in and assessed the patient with a glance, nodded my head, and said, “One of you are going to have to help me push him.”
The nurse nodded. “Come with me. I’ll go see if one of the orderlies can take them with you.”
“I imagine that I’ll need one for that one, too.” I gestured toward the next room. “Can I keep him for about an hour?”
The nurse laughed. “No. But if you call us, I can send the next patient up with you.”
I sighed. “We’re so short-staffed it’s not even funny.”
The nurse agreed right along with me. “We had two nurses call in sick due to the flu, one for ‘flu-like’ symptoms that were coming on, and two technicians. Needless to say, I’m wiped.”
I imagined. “That’s what took our staff out, too.”
She just shook her head and stopped at the nurses’ station.
I did as well but looked down at the chart that was in my hand. Something on the patient’s paperwork caught me off guard, and I began backing up, thinking I might need to double check that before I went.
With my back turned toward the main part of the room, I was keeping an eye on my chart and not where I was going. My back hit something solid, and I turned to apologize almost immediately.
“I’m sorry, sir!” I paused when I saw the man continue walking as if I hadn’t just hit him with everything I had.
Sure, it’d been unintentional, and my bulk was that of a prepubescent boy, but I’d done it.
Then I saw where he was going and hurried to catch up to him.
“You can’t go in there. She’s in police custody…”
Slap.
I hit the floor and began to roll.
There was no other way to stop it.
My face had exploded in pain, and all because the man that I’d been trying to stop had backhanded me. He’d backhanded me.
I was busy saying ‘what the fuck’ in my head for what felt like an eon.
It was only as I was scrambling to move backward that I finally realized that one hit might not have been enough, when I heard a deafening crack.
My eyes peeled open just in time to see Slate’s massive bulk standing over the man that had fallen to the floor. Fallen to the floor with one punch from his fisted hand.
Then the almost comical show of the man popping back up began to happen.
He’d get up, run at Slate with murder in his eyes, and Slate would slam him back down.
Over and over again, this happened.
I managed to stand up at some point. I wasn’t sure how or why, but I found myself with my back against the nurses’ station.
I’d just thought about moving to the other side of the nurses’ station when the man that Slate had been playing as a fool paused, pulled a gun out, and aimed it directly at me.
I did as any daughter of Max Tremaine would do in that second.
I dove for cover and made sure that my ass wasn’t exposed.
I would’ve accomplished it, too, had the man that had a gun aimed at my head not kicked a cart full of medical supplies at me, knocking me off my trajectory, and practically throwing me against Slate’s legs.
“Drop it!” an angry voice boomed.
I looked up to see a cop with a gun aimed at the gunman.
The gunman’s eyes went electric as he practically vibrated with rage. His eyes on the cop and no longer me.
I took my chance because I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Slate would protect me with his life if it came down to it.
And I didn’t want it to come down to it.
Not at all.
Once I was securely behind the cart, I poked my head out around the side and watched.
“No.” The gunman shook his head, fingers tightening on the butt of the gun. “I will not.”
“You’ve already committed a felony for assaulting a healthcare worker,” the cop gestured with his chin to me, or where I would have been had I still been in my earlier spot. Slate, however, was guarding the goddamn cart with his body now, making my heart feel funny. He had an IV stand in his hands, and he was holding it as if he would swing it at anything that ever aimed to cause me harm. “And resisting arrest as well as whatever else we can pin on you. Don’t make this worse than it has to be.”
The man swung his gun in a different direction. This time at the psych patient who was no longer smiling, b
ut still looked way too serene to be in a gunman’s crosshairs.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” he hissed at her. “That you should’ve stayed home and left well enough alone.”
“She’s alive,” the woman said in a near monotone voice, no inflection whatsoever. “And she has Linnie.”
The gunman scoffed. “Who fucking cares? What is your obsession? If you’d just left well enough alone, I wouldn’t be here on Dad’s request.”
“Then maybe you should stop being Dad’s little bitch,” Monotone Girl suggested.
The gunman burst out laughing but stopped just as quickly when he saw a security guard creeping up behind him and swung the gun around. “No.”
The security guard got the message and backed up without a word.
My eyes went back to the gunman.
“And.” The man swung his gun back, aimed once again at Monotone Girl. The woman didn’t look scared at all. How did you not get scared when there was a gun aimed at you? “I’m not Dad’s little bitch, you are, which is why I’m fucking here instead of doing other important shit like…” He trailed off.
“Put the gun down,” the cop ordered.
“Can’t,” the gunman said. “I’m under strict orders to bring her home or…”
“Or what?” Monotone Girl laughed, this time with a little bit of her crazy leaking out in the manic state of her eyes. “Come on, tell us. Or what?”
The man looked at her sadly. “I’m tired of handling you anyway, Tara. You’re exhausting.”
“I’m exhausting,” she agreed. “But I’m Daddy’s baby. I’m Daddy’s one and only girl. I’m Daddy’s ticket.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “But honestly, so is Theo. If you’re not here, then it all goes to Theo.”
The woman went absolutely…wild.
There were literally no other words for what happened next.
“Don’t say that!” she screeched.
The bed tipped over. The officer that’d seemingly come out of nowhere tried to catch it, but instead of holding it steady, they both went down.
Which was how both the officer and the woman ended up getting shot.
The gunman shot two off before anybody could react.
The officer took one to the foot, and the woman took one to the head.
Then, as if in slow motion, Slate moved.
Before anyone could get a shot off, the gunman was down, with hundreds of pounds of muscle and bone hitting him so hard that I could swear I heard things crack.
My last stray thought before everything was quiet was that ‘I hope I don’t have to do an X-ray on him.’
***
Turns out there was a lot of paperwork to do when someone was shot right in front of you…who knew?
My eyes kept trailing over to the man at my side—the man that hadn’t left my side since it’d all happened. Well, mostly. He’d left it to tackle the shooter.
He’d also left it to give his statement to a couple of detectives, though saying that, they hadn’t really gotten that much out of him seeing as there’d been three sworn in officers in the same room as us all when it’d all gone down.
Wade, a man that was in the same MC as Slate and worked for Bear Bottom Police Department, was a nice man and very attractive. He was tall, built a lot like my father was with the muscular arms and chest, but he looked stocky as well.
Then there was Zee, another cop that was also in the Bear Bottom Guardians MC, though he worked for the county and not the city’s police department.
Then there was the other officer, the one chatting up a nurse at the nurses’ station when I’d come on the floor. The one that had been shot and would likely lose his job for the shittastic performance at protecting his now very dead charge.
The woman who’d been shot in the head was dead. D. E. A. D.
Very dead.
Though they’d tried to do CPR on her, there was no saving her from that. There was just too much blood outside her body and not inside.
Though, from what I’d heard the men muttering, the woman was a real piece of work.
I’d only heard bits and pieces, and I knew that I was going to beg my dad for more information later, but from what little I had heard she hadn’t really deserved to be saved.
Which kind of shit me to say, but it was what it was.
“Is this all I have to do?” I asked no one in particular as I finished writing my statement out. “Sign and give it back? Because dear God, I’m ready to get the hell home.”
My father had already come and gone.
After checking to make sure that I was all right, taking one look at my face and seeing the damage from the backhand, he’d left.
I was fairly sure he was going to visit the man that had done the hitting, but at that point in time, I was just way too tired to give a shit.
Speaking of, my brother had been with him, and he hadn’t so much as said a single word to me before he’d turned around and left as well.
Though that had been hours ago now, and I still hadn’t seen them.
Which kind of sucked seeing as my brother was home for like a half a day and then he was leaving again.
“Just sign it and give it to one of those detectives,” Slate, who was sitting beside me, rumbled.
I looked up to find the detectives that had questioned us and found them standing over by the still rather large congealed pool of blood that was on the floor where Slate had tackled the gunman—Andy.
Andy’s head had hit the floor so hard that it’d split open like an egg.
And funny enough, I was the one to X-ray him.
“Cool,” I muttered, standing up.
“You have a Post-It note stuck to your ass,” he said as I stretched.
I reached back and patted my butt, not finding anything.
“Where?” I asked as I tried to turn and find it, but my body was stiff, not only from it being a long day at work but from being slapped across the face so hard that my neck had received whiplash.
“There,” he pointed to it.
I still couldn’t see it.
“Just get it off,” I ordered.
He reached forward reverently, plucked the sticky note off my ass, then placed it back onto the counter that I had been sitting on. He’d been leaning on it, which explained why he didn’t have any notes on his ass.
Not that I could see his ass in this current position.
Though, I had seen quite a bit of it today from where I’d been allowed to admire it for hours.
“Did it at least say something good?” I asked curiously.
His lips twitched as he turned to read what the note said. “No.”
I squinted at him. “What did it say?”
“No rectal temp required,” he said without cracking even an iota of a smile.
“You’re shitting me.” I moved closer. “It doesn’t really say that.”
He pulled off the Post-It, turned it around, and showed it to me.
“Oh, God.” I snickered. “That would’ve been bad.”
His lips twitched. “Yeah, it would have. You’re welcome.”
I patted him on the hand, then turned to take my paper to the detective.
“I haven’t turned an essay in since I was in college,” I told them. “And even then, it was written on the computer. This form of essay I haven’t done since high school. Ninth grade literature, to be exact. My hand hurts.”
The detective in charge took it. “Thank you.”
I grinned at him. “Can I go?”
The grin was totally false but smiling never hurt anyone.
And it wouldn’t hurt me.
“Yep,” he said. “Do the cops that first questioned you have your number?”
I nodded. “That, and it’s on that paper there. It asks for a number, as well as my driver’s license number. I didn’t put my social security number because I didn’t see a reason for you to have that.”
The one that was closest to me nodded, but I could tell
he would’ve said something more had I not felt a rather large, dark presence creep up to my back.
“Here’s mine.” Slate’s dark voice shivered down my spine. “We’re heading out.”
“Thanks, Slate,” the detective said.
“I’d say anytime but…” Slate left that hanging.
After offering each his hand, Slate caught me by the elbow as he said, “Your dad called and asked me to bring you to a restaurant right around the corner. Mexican. Apparently, my whole club is there, too. Which means I’ll be forced to stay, too.”
I looked up at him but didn’t try to pull away from his touch.
“You don’t like your club?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’m more of a solitary person. When I told them I’d help them while I was in prison, I had no idea that strings were involved. I just wanted to find something to do to relieve me of the daily boredom. It’s rather monotonous in there.”
I could imagine.
The idea of not having anything to do all day every day sounded like it would really suck.
I was addicted to Netflix. Even more so, I loved eating food.
Which was why I said, “Don’t worry. I’ll sit next to you and chat your ear off. That way my family will think I’m fine, and nobody will bother you too much from both sides. Just one.”
Something crossed in Slate’s eyes, but it was gone so fast that I almost imagined that I’d even seen it to begin with.
“That sounds like I might actually owe you one once this night is through,” he muttered.
I looked at my watch.
“Actually,” I said as I looked at my watch. “It’s only two in the afternoon. Or almost two. It’s really closer to one forty-five, but I’m saying two. We won’t spend more than an hour or two there, anyway. I’m freakin’ tired. I need a nap.”
“Thought you wanted to spend some time with your brother?” he asked. “You’re only going to stay an hour?”
I thought about that for a long moment, then cursed. “Shit, you’re right.”
If I didn’t spend time with him now, I wouldn’t get time with him later.
Maybe not for another couple of months at least.
“You make sense,” I admitted. “Fuckkk, I’m tired.”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
F-Bomb (The Bear Bottom Guardians MC Book 9) Page 8
