Swinging my leg over the bike, I cursed all over again when I realized that I hadn’t even taken the time to go get my damn helmet—something I never forgot, either.
Being a doctor was sometimes more of a curse than a boon.
I knew all the bad things that could happen.
I’d seen the heads split like melons when they’d come into my ER. I’d pronounced seven people dead in my career due to motorcycle accidents, and I still remembered each and every single one of them.
Then again, I remembered all of the people that died on my table.
Though, the most prominent death on my conscience wasn’t from a motorcycle wreck but was the reason that I’d left the world of delivering babies.
I was so lost in thought standing next to my bike that I didn’t realize I wasn’t alone out there until a foot scraped, kicking the rock underneath his feet.
I snapped my head up to see a man all but leaning around the corner of the building, and somehow knew that the reason he was hiding was due to Crockett being outside.
I just knew it.
Walking up to his side without making a sound, I stopped, cleared my throat, and then said, “Can I help you?”
He screeched.
Like a girl.
I hadn’t even touched him. But the way he whirled around and clutched at his arm, as if I’d physically punched him in it, then fell over and started to roll around on the ground, one would’ve thought I actually had.
That was when Crockett’s face popped up from behind the massive dumpster she had behind her place.
Her eyes were wide, and her gaze was bouncing between me standing there and the man on the ground.
She tossed her trash into the bin and then started my way, her eyes staying more on me than on the man on the ground.
And I had a feeling that it was due to my state of dress.
I was never this informal when I left the house. And if there was anything that the last six months had taught me when it came to being a part of the Souls Chapel Revenants MC, it was the need to be prepared. The need to fight was always there waiting in the background, and you couldn’t fuckin’ do that in flip-flops.
That I knew for certain from when I was sixteen and learning that I was a testosterone-driven punk kid who liked fighting a whole hell of a lot more than he should.
“Umm.” She looked at me, then back down at the man who was now… crying.
Yep, he was motherfuckin’ crying.
What the absolute hell?
“I didn’t touch him,” I felt it prudent to point out.
She blinked. “No?”
I shook my head. “I came up behind him and asked what he was doing poking his head around the corner. He was the one that did whatever he did, then fell onto the ground. You know him?”
She pursed her lips, her face contorting into one of disgust.
“Neighbor,” she admitted. “He lives two houses down from me. Really quiet.”
“Really soft.” I nodded.
That’s when I took in her attire.
“Everything okay?”
She was dressed… cutely.
But not in her normal attire of jeans and a t-shirt.
Today she was in much the same that I was in, only she was looking a whole lot more haggard.
“It’s been a… day,” she admitted.
I frowned, not liking that look in her eyes.
“What kind of day are we talking?” I found myself asking.
“The kind of day where I shut the shop down because my little sister came in and threw a wall-eyed fit, trashed my store, and then left.” She shook her head.
I frowned. “You have a little sister?”
She gestured for me to follow her.
“Come on,” she said. “The front door is closed because I locked everything up. Are you here to eat? I can make you lunch, but not a burger. I was having grilled cheese.”
Grilled cheese sounded fantastic.
Honestly, there wasn’t much that I wasn’t willing to eat.
“I’m down,” I said as I stepped over the still crying man.
CHAPTER 3
I don’t really have any talents. But I can tell which of my neighbor’s dogs are barking based solely on the pitch of their bark. So I have that going for me.
-Crockett to Zach
CROCKETT
“You’ve found a stray,” Murphy said, glancing up as Zach and I came back into the utterly destroyed room.
Zach came to a stop behind me and took in the destruction.
“Umm,” he said, hesitating in the doorway of the break room and the main room. “You said ‘threw a fit.’ You didn’t say ‘deconstructed your store.’”
I looked around at what whirlwind Rocky had done to my store and winced.
“Rockett is an asshole.”
Zach’s eyes pinched together. “What?”
“Rockett is an asshole,” Murphy repeated.
“Rockett?” He paused. “Do you mean Crockett?”
That’s when Murphy’s eyes started sparkling. “Nope, definitely meant Rockett.”
“What?” Zach looked so cute confused.
As well as hot.
Did I mention how hot the man was?
Because holy fucking shit, was he hot.
I’d never, not ever, seen him in this particular state.
I’d seen him in jeans, t-shirts, and cuts for the last six months.
But I’d never seen him so… unkempt. Comfortable.
Even when he’d first come into our store in his prison uniform, and changed into sweatpants and a sweatshirt, he’d never looked so… loose.
Today, he was in gray sweatpants, a black wife-beater tank top that left very little to the imagination, and flip-flops.
He also had gotten a haircut recently.
Something he did religiously every three weeks.
Short dark black hair covered the top of his head and the sides were shaved up to about midway up his skull.
His beard was thick, dark, and perfectly-trimmed.
But then you got to his clavicle, where the chest hair that I rarely got to see peeked out from underneath the thin fabric of his tank top.
I was absolutely dying to see what it looked like on his bare chest.
I bet it was to die for.
I bet his boobs were bigger than mine, based on appearance alone.
Sadly, I had what my little sister called ‘mosquito bites.’
That was the one thing that I’d gotten from my mother—her body type. Curvy body but small boobs.
The rest had come from my father.
The brown hair and the weird blue eyes. Yep, all him.
Which sucked because he really didn’t like being associated with me three-quarters of the time.
It always cracked me up when someone asked if I was Murphy Archer, II’s daughter.
Like I said, it was the eyes.
There weren’t many in the area that had them.
“When my asshole son remarried, he was ‘fixed,’” Murphy started. “Melody Archer wanted a baby, though, and she got one. My son got himself a vasectomy reversal, had a baby, and then they named her Rockett.”
Zach’s eyes widened. “You’re shitting me.”
“Not shitting you at all,” Murphy drawled. “That was what got Crockett kicked out of the house. When they brought Rockett home and introduced her, Crockett finally learned what kind of douchebag her stepmother was, and what kind of a spineless wimp her father was. She threw a wall-eyed fit of her own—the Archer family is really good at throwing those, FYI—and they kicked her out the very next second. Danny was already out of the house at the time going to school at a community college. But they paid for an apartment for him. When he found out, he called her to have her live with him, but then the asshole parentals said that if any of the siblings helped her, then they were going to cut them off. Which meant I stepped in to help. I bought her that house next door to them. Best fuckin’ thing I ever
did.”
Zach’s eyes came to me, and he shook his head. “Your parents sound like douchebags.”
“My mom wasn’t,” I admitted. “She was really sweet. When she died of ovarian cancer while my parents were going through their divorce, I had no idea how awful my dad was. Then he didn’t show up to her funeral and made me walk to it. Murphy was in jail at the time, so I couldn’t get him to take me. Danny, Nora, and I all walked. It was… yeah. Let’s just say that my dad’s been proving that he’s an all-out asshole for a really long time.”
Why was I giving him my life story?
I mean, he wasn’t walking away, and he was engaging in the conversation. But who wanted to hear about how awful someone’s parents were?
Which then embarrassed me to no end.
And when I get embarrassed, I close up.
Tightly.
Which was why, in the next second, I all but stopped talking and left Murphy and Zach to fend for themselves while I got the grill fired up and made everyone a couple of grilled cheese and turkey sandwiches.
Only after I was done, and everyone had their food, did I walk into the break room and find the ice cold Dr. Pepper that I saved only for emergencies.
Sure, I had some in the coolers in the main store, but this one was special.
This one was the one that I gave up six years ago when, after losing my Olympic dreams, I’d gone on a bender that included unhealthy eating, gaining a ton of weight, and ultimately eating myself to death.
Now, six years later, I was way better than I was at that point in my life.
I was once again at a healthy weight, but I was still struggling with my healthy mind.
My dad and stepmom just had a way of poisoning my every day.
And the anger shouldn’t hit me as hard as it did all those months ago when I’d officially ‘given up’ on my father.
But it did.
It still hurt.
Which fucking sucked.
I had my hand around the drink, was just about to twist the top off, when I heard my grandfather’s words pierce my fog of indignation.
Today, when Rockett had come over, she’d been pissed that I’d refused to take her to the mall—as if I had a choice on leaving my business or not.
When I’d told her no, she’d gotten pissed and had all but knocked a display of chips over in her anger.
When I’d called her a selfish brat, she’d gotten even more pissed and thrown more stuff.
It was only after I’d threatened to call the cops on her that she’d left with a promise ‘to tell Dad how much of a bitch I was.’
Well, what the fuck ever.
I didn’t care anymore.
I could continue to be that bitch to him.
I mean, he’d called me one all my life. I might as well live up to the expectations, right?
“She’s the nicest, most giving kid you’ll ever meet,” Murphy said, talking about me. “She’s out of hamburger patties because she didn’t get the chance to run by the store after that asshole’s tantrum. So she went home and got her Thanksgiving turkey and carved it all up. That’s what we’ll have tomorrow since it’s Saturday and our normal supplier isn’t open tomorrow.”
I rolled my eyes.
It wasn’t like my Thanksgiving turkey would even do anything.
I mean, my sister, Nora, spent the holidays with her husband’s family. Danny would have a new wife and their family to spend theirs with. Murphy went to the Waffle Corner to spend his Thanksgiving with his veteran friends.
What exactly would I do?
Nada.
“Doesn’t look much like a kid.” Zach’s words came quiet, but I still heard them.
I sighed and put the Dr. Pepper back.
I wouldn’t need it today after all. Especially when Zach spoke like that.
Sadly, when I came out, Zach was gone.
But I did have a twenty-dollar bill on my counter for the food I’d made him.
I also had half my store cleaned up, the broken display shelf taken to the dumpster that I would’ve never been able to get on my own, and a handwritten note.
One from Zach that said, ‘Thanks for lunch. Had a bad day myself.’
CHAPTER 4
Me: Little Caesars is hot and ready.
Danny: is it good?
Me: It’s hot and ready.
-Text exchange between Danny and Crockett
CROCKETT
“I’m telling you,” I said for the fourth time. “She’s going to do something. Seriously, she can’t help it.”
“It’s my wedding, Crockett,” my brother, Danny, said. “She won’t do anything.”
“Listen, Dan the Man,” I said as severely as I could. “She’s going to do something.”
“Then make it so she can’t,” Six suggested. Why Six was at my brother’s house, in the middle of the day, when I hadn’t brought her, was beyond me. But that was my best friend for you.
“By doing what?” I asked. “Putting a muzzle on her?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “If that’s what it takes.”
I rolled my eyes.
“What you need is a badass man. You know she’s scared of really badass looking men,” Belinda, my soon to be sister-in-law, said. “You know any of those?”
One immediately came to mind. One that was, by far, the most badass and scariest man I’d ever met.
One that only spared me a glance and that was it, every single time he came into my store, since blurting out my full life story.
Which was a lot since he lived close. He bought his ‘essentials’ there once a week—milk, eggs, cheese, lunch meat and bread—and then came by randomly as well to get himself coffee, drinks, or a snack.
Every other week he treated himself to a burger and fries.
And every other week I began counting down to the second when I could see him longer for a few minutes at a time, until the next time that he came for a burger.
“I know someone,” Six offered.
I looked at my friend.
“I am not, under any circumstances, allowing Bruno to take me as his date,” I said. “Do you know how painful that would be?”
And it wouldn’t be painful because I had any feelings for Bruno whatsoever.
It would be painful because Bruno and I did not get along.
A long time ago, Bruno had been Six’s best friend.
A long time ago, Bruno had dropped Six like a hot potato because of something her dad had instructed him to do.
A long time ago, my friend had suffered a blow that she’d barely come out of.
When I’d met her years later, she’d been a shell of the person that she was now.
She’d been given up on by everyone.
Everyone except for me and her best friend, Wyett.
“You know, you never used to be like this when I first met you.” Six rolled her eyes. “So freakin’ stubborn.”
“She also had to rely on our father to pay for her shit,” Danny said. “She had to remain nice and cordial or she didn’t get money for tampons since he said, and I quote, that those weren’t a necessity.”
Like I had any choice at freakin’ all that I had a period or not.
“Your father is a douche canoe,” Six said. “And he didn’t send her any money at all. Did you know that in the final year of school, Crockett had to buy all of her clothes at a second-hand shop and Goodwill? Because your daddy dearest, who always gave y’all everything, wasn’t willing to give her anything?”
Danny’s eyes came to me.
I winced.
I shouldn’t have told Six that.
A couple of weeks ago, when the Rockett incident had happened, I’d told her all about my dad over one drunken night.
And then, from there on, I found myself with the ultimate protector in a way only Six could manage.
“I don’t think that Melody will do anything,” Belinda finally said. “But, Crockett, if you wouldn’t mind, I would absolutely love it if you
could kind of play ref for me. Just… watch her. Make sure that she doesn’t accidentally knock over our cake.”
That was a very real possibility.
At my graduation from college, Melody had done exactly that.
I’d watched as my cake had fallen to the floor in a messy pile.
It’d been… something.
Something that was just a disappointment, like every other disappointment that came at the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Murphy Archer, II.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to,” I said honestly.
I wasn’t going to be in the wedding party.
Danny only had two groomsmen, and Belinda had two maids of honor that were sharing the duty.
That meant that I wasn’t needed.
Which wasn’t a big deal.
I kind of liked the idea of not having to get super dolled up.
Being able to wear what I wanted, without wasting the money on a bridesmaid dress, felt great.
That, and I wasn’t too sure that Belinda liked me that much as of yet.
She tolerated me, sure, but she wasn’t super friendly with me either.
Not that I blamed her.
I mean, I knew her just as well as I knew any person I would’ve met off the streets four months ago.
When Danny and I hung out, which wasn’t often due to his work as the vice principal of the local elementary school, Belinda didn’t usually join us.
One reason was because she was always working. She was a doctor that specialized in helping women with infertility. Secondly, because I think she liked to give Danny time to spend with me alone.
At least, that was what I hoped was going on.
Today had honestly been a surprise for me.
They’d called me over on my only day off—Sunday—to try cakes from another of her bakery finalists.
They couldn’t choose.
And, since Six had heard through the grapevine that it was happening, she’d come, too. Just because she wanted cake.
She’d come, which had blown me away.
Which led to right then, discussing what was one of my biggest fears—how my stepmother would act.
Because she was for sure not a fuckin’ nice person.
She was the devil.
“Okay, so what do you think of the chocolate?” Belinda asked, indicating the cake that she was thinking about for the groom’s cake.
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