It’d suck.
Everybody would look at me, judge me, find me lacking.
But I would not hide.
I didn’t hide.
At least, I thought I didn’t hide.
“Let’s get all this shit moved to your place,” Gabe said. “I have to meet Ember for dinner later, and she might very well cut off my balls if I don’t get there on time.”
I did laugh at that.
I’d met Ember and liked her.
“Can’t have that,” I said as I picked up my first box. “Can’t have that.”
***
I stared at the box of shoes that I hadn’t unpacked.
Why had I not unpacked them?
Because none of them, not one, fit me.
They were all at least one to two sizes too small.
They were elevens.
And, according to the measuring tape, and an online Google search, I would be in a thirteen and a half.
None of my shoes fit.
None of them.
My shirts fit. My pants fit. My underwear fit.
My shoes didn’t fit.
Why didn’t my shoes fit?
Chapter 1
Age has its advantages. Too bad I can’t remember what they are.
-T-shirt
Malachi
Present day- August
My first time to see her, she was at the police department that I worked at filing a police report.
At first, I hadn’t realized she was there.
“So, how did you like your first shift?” Lock Downy, my partner and trainer for the day, asked.
I thought about that for a long moment, then shrugged.
“It was okay, I guess,” I admitted, pulling the bike to a stop in its assigned spot.
Lock pulled his up next to mine, then shut it off, leaving me to follow suit.
“It gets better,” he assured me. “I promise. Not all days are like today.”
Meaning not all days had accident after accident to work.
I was no newbie to death.
I wasn’t sure how I knew that but seeing that dead girl today during the first accident we’d worked hadn’t affected me. Not nearly how it should have had I not experienced death before.
“I hope so,” I admitted, bringing my hands up to remove the helmet from my head.
It ached.
Badly.
I wasn’t used to having something on my head for as long as I’d had today and pairing that with the still painful scarring that hurt when something touched it—it was downright awful.
Lock kept talking, but something caught my eye in the shadows of the parking lot.
A woman.
She moved like a dancer across the cracked and uneven parking lot of the police station.
Lock and I got off the motorcycles, and I automatically moved so that my body was in the shadows so that if anybody looked at me, they’d see my silhouette and not my scars.
A habit that I’d started after getting out of the hospital.
Once I’d realized that people stared, and didn’t care if they were caught staring, I tried to minimize my exposure. As well as hide in plain sight.
The woman stepped up onto the curb and continued to move to the front doors.
I studied her.
She was tall and lithe. Not my height—six foot three—tall, but definitely on the taller side for a woman.
At least five foot seven or eight, if I had to guess.
I took in her attire.
She was wearing hospital scrubs. Hideous green ones that did nothing to hide her figure. Even in the unshapely scrub top and scrub pants, I could still see an amazing ass, generous breasts, and round hips.
Her hair, though, was what had my attention.
It wasn’t a color I’d ever seen before, and something about it struck me as odd.
As if the color wasn’t right.
Memories never flashed at me, because according to my doctor, they weren’t there any longer. But, a sense of knowing told me that the woman’s hair was wrong.
It was a black so deep that it looked so dark that it almost glowed in the quickly-darkening setting sun. She had it up in a high ponytail, and the long, straightened length hung midway down her back.
If it was down, it’d hang well past her ass.
Lock forgotten beside me, I moved into the building behind her instead of using the staff entrance on the side of the station.
At some point, Lock must’ve left because I no longer saw him.
My eyes were all for the woman that had stopped at the front desk and started talking.
“Hi, my name is Francesca Solomon,” she said to the woman who was manning the desk. “I’m supposed to be meeting a Detective Yao.”
The woman held up her finger then picked up the phone, speaking into it in a slow, dramatic drawl.
“He’ll be right… oh, there he is,” she said, pointing.
I allowed my eyes to flick to the man that’d just opened the door that led to the bullpen, and he smiled.
“Come in.” He gestured to the woman.
I allowed the door to close on the two before heading in myself.
When I arrived in the bullpen, it was to find Detective Yao standing next to the coffee—or what they passed off as coffee—asking her if she’d like some.
“Would you care for some coffee?” Yao asked her.
No. She didn’t like coffee.
“No, thank you.” She smiled. “I don’t like coffee.”
How did I know that?
“Understandable,” he said. “At least when it comes to this particular type of coffee.”
I watched her from the shadows.
I couldn’t help myself.
“Francesca…” Yao began.
“Frankie.” She smiled. “You can call me Frankie.”
Francesca Solomon.
Why did that name sound so familiar?
Then it hit me.
Something Gabe had said a few days ago.
Frankie was my best friend’s fiancée.
Though, I guessed with him on the verge of being declared dead thanks in part to me being found with no other survivors, that didn’t make her a fiancée of anybody any longer.
“All right, Frankie,” Yao said. “Do you want to go ahead and tell me what happened today?”
Frankie blew out a disgusted breath, then scrunched her face up into the cutest of expressions before starting her story.
“So it all started with a staff member’s brother coming into the hospital today,” she began, her face turning sad. “Well, I’ve just started into my second year of residency at Kilgore Memorial.” She added in that tidbit. “So I’m still looked upon like a peon.”
Yao smiled. “Go on.”
“Anyway, I usually assist and do what almost-a-nurse does. My attending, Dr. Cromwell, had his brother come in.” Yao nodded at her to keep going. “Of course, Dr. Cromwell gets him straight back. Cromwell, seeing me, orders me to come help. Until his brother whispers something into Cromwell’s ear telling him what’s wrong.”
Yao leaned a hip against his desk while Frankie started to pace.
“Anyway, Cromwell asks me to leave. So I do. Go back to my other patients. I’m working on one in particular, which is right next to the same room that is next to Cromwell and his brother.” She pauses. “Long story short, I’m in there with this patient when I hear Cromwell’s brother, who I don’t have a name on, say that he was shot by someone. And per hospital regulations, all shootings, no matter who does it and how they got it, has to be reported to the police.” She winced. “And, during which, a hospital goes into lockdown. No patients in or out.”
Yao’s eyes were now clearly focused on Frankie, worried now.
“I couldn’t tell my supervisor, because that’s Cromwell,” she continued. “I couldn’t tell the ER supervisor because she’s Cromwell’s wife.” She stared at Y
ao intently. “I didn’t know who to tell. And by the time I realized I needed to say something, Cromwell’s brother is gone. And I thought, ‘okay. I won’t say anything.’ But then another shooting victim came in today an hour later, and Cromwell loses his shit. Everything goes into lockdown. The ER is in it for four hours. Police were called, as you know since you were there on the scene.”
I’d heard about the hospital lockdown.
I’d actually been at the scene of the shooting handling traffic control with Lock.
“Okay,” Yao said. “Anything else?”
Frankie shook her head.
“I really, really don’t want to lose my job,” she said. “I’m in my second year of residency. I can’t get into trouble for this. Cromwell’s a dick, and he’s pretty freakin’ big in the medical community. He owns two of the freestanding emergency rooms in town, and he’s head of the school board. Plus, I’ve already had a few problems with him this year, and I can’t add this to it.” She looked imploringly at Yao. “And this is the only hospital within two hundred miles that does this. I can’t leave… I just can’t.”
I felt like there was something more to this story than what she was saying, some big reason that she couldn’t leave, but before I could listen in on more of their conversation, my name was called.
Frankie’s head jerked up in surprise, her eyes searching the room.
“Yo, Malachi!”
It was only after Frankie’s head snapped up and turned in my direction that I realized that Malachi was supposed to be me.
Turning, I found Captain Morgan standing there, staring at me with an odd expression on his face.
“You okay?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Malachi is something that doesn’t catch my attention anymore,” I said. “It doesn’t seem like my name.”
Captain Morgan’s eyes went intense.
“I see,” he said. “How was your first day?”
I told him about the day, admitted that although there were things that I didn’t particularly like about the job, I hadn’t hated it either.
Which caused him to laugh.
“I like that you’re not shy in telling me your true feelings,” he admitted. “Anyway, I just wanted to check in before I left for the day… have a good one, okay? I’ll see you this weekend.”
Just as quickly as he’d arrived, he left.
Leaving me standing there watching his large, retreating form as he moved away.
I heard the hesitant steps in my direction and knew that my location was no longer secret.
I wasn’t surprised to turn and see her standing there.
“Malachi,” Frankie whispered.
My eyes flicked up to meet hers, and I inadvertently stepped out of the shadows.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Look at you.”
I felt something pinch in my stomach.
Stepping back into the shadows, I said, “How are you?”
Her face went completely blank.
“I’m okay,” she admitted.
She’d lied.
She wasn’t okay.
She didn’t sound okay.
She didn’t look okay.
She didn’t even look like there was a possibility of her ever being okay.
“Okay,” I said.
What could I say to that?
I didn’t have a reason to be so protective of her. According to Gabe and Ember, I was nothing more than a friend of the family.
A friend of Frankie’s.
Actually, not even that.
I’d been a friend of Luca’s. And Frankie had belonged to Luca, and not me.
Had I always been drawn to Frankie?
Because, if I had, I’d been a shitty friend.
“Malachi…”
I winced.
I hated that name.
Especially when it came from her lips.
“What?” she asked, concerned. “Are you hurting?”
I was always hurting.
But I didn’t want her to know that.
Instead, I chose to tell her the more truthful of the hurts, just to get her attention off the pain I was constantly in.
“I don’t like being called Malachi,” I found myself telling my best friend’s woman.
Frankie looked over at me, her face a mask of pain that she didn’t manage to hide in time, and stared.
“You don’t like to be called Malachi?” She sounded confused.
Cute and sweet.
I wanted to pull her into my arms.
But, of course, I didn’t.
Because that would be wrong.
Right?
She was my best friend’s woman.
My best friend’s fiancée.
My best friend, who was no longer here.
I didn’t remember much of my time in captivity.
In fact, I barely remembered anything other than the smell—and even then it was only when a certain smell hit—a rotting animal that’d been run over on the side of the road.
“No, not really,” I admitted. “Malachi just seems… wrong.”
She looked like she understood.
“You really don’t remember anything?” she asked, looking sick to her stomach.
I wanted to wipe that look from existence.
Seeing her in pain was really doing something funky to my heart.
“No,” I croaked, absently reaching up to touch my face. The ridges of the scars seemed to help focus me. “Not a single thing.”
She looked like she deflated, as if some hope she’d been secretly holding onto had faded.
“What do you want to be called then?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
And I didn’t.
“Your middle name?” she suggested. “Does that sound better?”
I thought about that.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Being called Gabriel will be weird.”
She flinched.
Frankie didn’t contradict that statement because she knew I was right.
Gabriel was Luca’s name.
I’d never gone by Gabriel, at least not according to all the people that knew me.
I was either Malachi or Stokes.
My full name, Malachi Gabriel Stokes, didn’t seem right to me.
Then again, nothing really did these days.
“How about Riel?” she asked, pronouncing ‘ree-ell’ slowly. “Not Malachi. Not fully Gabriel.”
I found that I liked that one, especially since she’d been the one to call me it.
“I… that’ll work.” I shifted and felt pain ripple up my side.
She took in my expression, then let her face drift down to my left side.
“Did you just get off shift?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Did you enjoy it?” she wondered.
I shrugged. “It’s a job.”
Her mouth twitched.
“I asked Luca once what he wanted to do after he got out of the Navy,” she whispered. “And he told me that when he got out, he’d probably work with his dad. When I suggested being a police officer, he told me that it sounded boring.”
I found myself smiling.
“That’s funny,” I admitted. “And the job isn’t boring per se. More too structured, if that makes any sense. But, riding around on a motorcycle all day is kind of fun. I wished that I didn’t have to be wearing the uniform I’m wearing, though.”
She started to laugh softly.
Still, despite the laugh, she had a whole lot of pain behind those eyes.
Pain that was tearing her apart from the inside out.
“Frankie?” Yao said, interrupting us.
I wanted to punch him in the face when I lost her eyes.
“Yes?” Frankie turned, her smile fading.
Hell, any and all life that had been put back into her had faded.
I fucking hate
d it.
“I’m going to investigate the incident,” he said, his eyes flicking up to me and then widening. “You new?”
I nodded once. “Yes, sir. Just started today.”
Yao took in my scars, didn’t make like he wasn’t.
I kind of liked that he owned it.
Most people would steal surreptitious glances at them every once in a while. Try to act like they weren’t staring.
Not Yao.
“Good to know,” he said. “Like it?”
I shrugged. “It was okay.”
Yao’s lips twitched. “First days usually are. If you’ll excuse me…”
I nodded once. “Nice to see you, Frankie.”
Frankie’s eyes went warm. “It was nice to see you, too.”
Then I had no other choice but to walk away.
But why the fuck did it feel like I was having my heart pulled out of my chest when I did?
Chapter 2
Back the fuck up, sprinkle tits. Today is not the day.
-Coffee Cup
Frankie
The next day as I got ready for work, I had the phone to my ear, and I was waiting for my father to pick up.
He did on the third ring.
Well, at least I thought it was him.
It wasn’t.
It was his wife, Cora.
Cora, who was also my missing fiancé’s sister.
“Hey, Frankie,” Cora said, sounding tired. “What’s going on? Are you okay? You don’t usually call this early.”
I smiled at her concern.
“I’m calling because I thought I’d tell Dad so he could tell you that I saw Malachi yesterday,” I said softly.
Cora hissed in a breath.
“I heard he was back.”
Cora hadn’t known Malachi as well as I had, but she had met him a few times here and there.
But she knew, from both Luca and me, what he meant to her brother.
Luca had become fast friends with Malachi in bootcamp.
From there, they’d gone into BUD/S training together, and further moved into the same space.
They’d gotten along famously, and before long, you couldn’t think about one man without also thinking about the other.
Which was why it’d gutted me seeing him yesterday.
Because for Malachi to be here, that meant that Luca was gone.
Because Malachi wouldn’t have left Luca behind. Not unless he was well and truly gone.
I hadn’t gotten the specifics of the rescue.
If You Say So (KPD Motorcycle Patrol Book 6) Page 2
