RIDE (A Stone Kings Motorcycle Club Romance) (2 page)

T
he only thing
more awkward than having a disastrous first date, is having a disastrous first date with someone you have to see at work the next day.

And the day after that. And the day after that.

I knew I should never have let Vanessa talk me into accepting a date with Dr. Kevin Larkin. He was hot, yes. He had the perfectly sculpted body of a male model, and just-messy-enough dirty-blond hair that could make a woman want to run her fingers through it. He was also, as my best friend and colleague Vanessa so bluntly put it, “making serious coin.” If the fact that he was an emergency room doc wasn’t clue enough that his salary was well into the six figures, the late-model Jaguar he drove would tell you all you needed to know. And, as Vanessa had also been so helpful at to point out, “he’s been following you around like he’s a starving man and you’re a piece of meat.”

What more could a girl ask for, right?

Dr. Larkin had asked me out four times in the last two months, and every time, I had found an excuse to refuse. And every time Vanessa found out I’d refused again, she went ballistic.

“Eva, are you freaking crazy?” she would say. “He is hot! He is rich! He is into you! Good God, girlfriend, what more do you want?”

I sighed. “I’m just not comfortable dating someone I work with, Van.” Or dating at all, actually. I hadn’t been on an actual date, with an actual man, since my marriage had ended three years ago. The closest I’d come were late night encounters with Frank, my vibrator. And I was pretty sure that didn’t count.

“Well, you won’t be
working
with him anymore when you
marry
him and become a wealthy doctor’s wife who spends her time doing volunteer work and hobnobbing with other wealthy doctors’ wives.” She cocked a brow at me.

“Ugh. That actually sounds awful.” I loved my job as a physical therapist at St. Luke’s Hospital. I couldn’t imagine giving it up, even if I could afford not to work. “You are not selling this very well.”

“Well, okay, then,” she shrugged. “So, you’ll still work. Give back to the community, and all that. How about you can set up your own clinic somewhere with all that cash? You gotta think of the big picture.”

I laughed. “If and when I get my own clinic, it will be with my own money. I’m not interested in having a sugar daddy.”

“It’s not a sugar daddy if you’re married, girl. Or if he’s as hot as Kevin Larkin is.”

I tried as hard as I could to get Vanessa to drop the subject, but my best friend was nothing short of relentless when she had a goal in mind. Eventually, she wore me down. The fifth time Dr. Kevin Larkin asked me out, I said yes, mostly to get her off my back.

That date had been three days ago.

It had not gone well.

Actually, for a lot of women, it might have been a dream date. But I guess I’m not a lot of women. Dr. Larkin — Kevin — had picked me up in the infamous Jaguar, and taken me, predictably, to the most expensive and most exclusive restaurant in town.

I had to admit, he looked absolutely gorgeous. Emergency room docs generally spend most of their time in the same scrubs or white coat, so I didn’t often see him in much else. For the date, he was wearing a clearly expensive charcoal suit that fit him perfectly, and a crisp light gray shirt that matched the color of his eyes. I caught other women glancing toward us as we walked into the restaurant, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t me they were looking at. Even the hostess who sat us seemed flustered, and she was bound to see tons of rich, good-looking guys every day.

The hostess sat us at one of the nicest tables in the restaurant. “First off, champagne,” Kevin announced. “This is a special occasion.” He locked eyes with me, raising one brow seductively. Without looking at the menu, he nodded at the hostess. “A bottle of the Veuve Clicquot. Unless you have the Dom Perignon? Last time I was here, you were out,” he said with a slight frown.

The hostess looked chastised. “Oh, no!” she said quickly. “We definitely have the Dom. I’m so sorry you were inconvenienced last time.”

He flashed her a dazzling smile. “Oh, that’s excellent. The Dom, then,” he said with a wink.

The hostess flushed with pleasure. “Right away, sir.” She hurried away, and he watched her go, clearly assessing her figure from behind.

Kevin made a big show of knowing the menu. “Their beef carpaccio is absolutely out of this world,” he said smoothly. “Do you like carpaccio?”

I felt a little like this was some sort of test. “I’ve never had it,” I admitted. I knew what it was, though: raw beef. Cut in thin slices, and drizzled with olive oil, and some other stuff.

“Well, it’s a bit sophisticated for the normal palate,” he replied. “But when done right, with the highest quality beef, it truly melts in your mouth. Would you like to try it?”

I shrugged. “Sure.” Hell, I’d try anything once. And I liked sushi. That was raw, too, right? So maybe I’d like this.

A waiter appeared and brought our champagne. “To us,” Kevin said, raising his glass.

I resisted the urge to tell him that technically, there was no “us,” and simply touched my flute to his. The champagne was absolutely delicious. I was no connoisseur, but wow, if I could afford this stuff, I would definitely keep a bottle on hand for special occasions.

When the waiter came back, Kevin proceeded to order for me. I was sure he thought it made him look masterful and in control. But mostly, it just pissed me off that he would presume to know what I wanted. When the food came, everything was excellent, and I was almost disappointed to like it so much. Even the carpaccio was good, once I got over the fact that I was basically just eating overpriced raw meat.

Kevin basically asked me no questions for the entire first hour of our date. He told me all about his family’s cottage on “the Cape,” how he was at the top of his class in med school, and how he was only working at St. Luke’s, which he called, “a podunk hospital in a podunk town” until he had enough of a reputation to apply to Mass General in Boston.

When he finally did get around to asking me anything about myself, things went south pretty quickly.

All because I said the “C” word.

Child
.

“You have a daughter?” he asked, his nose involuntarily wrinkling. “I see.”

“She’s five,” I told him. “Just getting ready to start kindergarten. Her name is Zoe.”

“Well,” he mused, looking down at his plate. “That certainly doesn’t mean we can’t still see one another casually. No strings attached, I mean.”

That was the end of the conversation about my daughter.

And pretty much the end of the date for me.

On the way home, he continued his monologue, and I got to find out all about his investment portfolio, how much his downtown condominium cost, and his upcoming trips to prestigious medical conferences. (“I’m going to Las Vegas next month. I’ll be staying at the Palazzo. You could spend your day luxuriating by the pool if you’d like to come with me. Oh, that’s right, you’d need a sitter. Well, think about it, anyway.”)

At the end of the date, he drove me home, and leaned in for a kiss when he stopped in front of my house. I was out of the car before he could manage it, and thankfully, he did not emerge to walk me up the sidewalk.

I had never been so happy to be home in my life. I paid the teenage neighbor girl who sometimes babysat for me, and watched out the window to make sure she’d gotten back across the street to her house. Then I turned off the porch light, took off my heels, and padded upstairs to Zoe’s room.

Tiptoeing in, I leaned over the bed and kissed her softly on the forehead. “Thank you for being an excellent creep repellant,” I whispered to her sleeping form.

I was never going on another date again, I told myself firmly as I tiptoed back out of the room and shut the door. At least, not until Zoe was grown up and out of the house. That gave me at least thirteen more years to avoid men completely. Hell, maybe by then I’d be almost to menopause and I wouldn’t even want a man anymore.

I just had to keep good old Frank in batteries until then.

U
nfortunately
, even though the play-by-play of my disastrous evening had managed to get Vanessa off my back, Dr. Kevin Larkin was less easily deterred than I had assumed. After the way he reacted to the fact that I had a child, I expected him to avoid me like the plague the next day. Instead, he came up behind me as I was talking to my colleague Sue about a patient evaluation, and whispered in my ear:

“Playing hard to get drives me wild, you naughty girl!”

“Whoa, what was that?” Sue’s eyes were wide as he sauntered away. “I didn’t know you and Dr. Sexy were an item.”

“We’re not,” I said firmly. “I don’t know
what
that was.”
Besides creepy
.

It became clear that Dr. Kevin Larkin and I had very different reactions to how our date had gone down. He seemed to think I was playing hard to get when I jumped out of the car before he managed to land a kiss. It was weird. I couldn’t figure out why he would want to pursue anything with someone who wasn’t falling at his feet, when I was sure he could have his pick of practically any woman out there.

Normally, as a physical therapist, I could have mostly avoided him, but in the past three days I had seen him on every shift I’d had, sometimes multiple times. He hadn’t asked me out again — yet — but it was becoming clear to me he was under the impression that he was making me crazy with anticipation. I dreaded the moment that he actually approach me for another date. I couldn’t imagine it was going to go well.

I thought the time had finally arrived three days later, when I was chatting with Vanessa over a cup of bad cafeteria coffee. We were standing by one of the nurses stations when suddenly, her eyes went wide at something happening just past my shoulder. She raised her eyebrows and gave me a warning look. I turned toward the sound of footsteps approaching us, to see Kevin with his white coat on over his scrubs. His expression was serious.

I sighed and squared my shoulders, mentally rehearsing the little speech I’d prepared to let him down gently. But instead of asking me out, his tone was strictly professional this time.

“Eva, I’d like you to come with me,” he said, completely ignoring Vanessa. “There’s a patient who’ll need to begin therapy to rehabilitate a femoral neuropathy. And I’m assigning him to you.”

“
F
emoral neuropathy
? What the hell does that mean?”

I’d been in this hospital for three days, and it was about two and a half days too goddamn long. I was ready to jump out of my skin. When the doc walked in a few minutes ago and started flapping his gums, I thought for sure he was just gonna look at my chart and tell me he was releasing me. I mean, shit, last time I got shot, I didn’t even need to be hospitalized. Patch took the bullet out at the clubhouse and I was good to go. I couldn’t figure out what the holdup was. I mean, sure, this time was a more serious wound. Apparently, I almost died. But aside from some numbness in my leg and foot, I felt basically fine.

I had been almost unconscious when Repo and Patch arrived at the motel. Patch took one look at me and said, “Oh, shit, this ain’t something I can sew up, Trig. We need to get you to a hospital.” They managed to get me to St. Luke’s — the next town over and fifteen miles away — in record time. Five and a half hours and forty-eight stitches later, here I was. Stuck in this hospital bed, hopped up on pain pills and itching to get the hell out of here. And now the doc comes in and says something about physical therapy? Fuck that shit.

My club president, Grey Stone, was sitting in the chair beside my hospital bed, his leather cut slung over the armrest. He had been filling me in on club business for the last couple of days since I’d been laid up. Mostly, he was telling me stories about how Frankenstein, one of our newer guys, had gotten so fucked up on whiskey the night before that he passed out on one of the couches by the pool tables. Cal had grabbed some makeup from one of the club whores and painted his face up real pretty, and Grey was showing me the evidence on his phone. I was laughing so hard I thought I’d rip my stitches open when the doctor came in to see me.

The doc, whose name was Larkin, was a young guy, maybe early thirties, and Jesus Christ, he was an arrogant son of a bitch. About half of the time he had spent talking to me the past three days was bragging about how lucky I was that he was the one to sew me up. To hear him tell it, he was the only one on staff with the skills to save my life. As he yammered on about it right now for the umpteenth time, I wondered vaguely if it had been worth it if it meant I had to listen to his bullshit.

“The numbness in your leg that you were complaining about yesterday is the result of nerve damage,” he was saying. “It’s not surprising, considering the severity and location of the wound. You’re very lucky that I was on staff to operate on you.” He smiled smugly. “The numbness would probably be even more pronounced if another, less skilled surgeon had treated you.”

“What does this guy want, a fuckin’ cookie?” Grey muttered under his breath. I snorted.

“The numbness, unfortunately, may not be temporary,” Larkin continued. “It’s possible it may be severe enough that you will never regain full mobility or strength in that leg.”

I had been listening with half an ear as he talked, just waiting for him to get to the part about me being released, but that stopped me. “Wait. What?” I barked. “Are you saying I might not be able to walk?”

“You’ll be able to walk, but possibly not without the aid of a cane,” he specified. “And you may not regain full mobility or flexibility of the muscles in that leg.”

“Hey, I’m gonna take off,” Grey murmured, getting up. “Let you guys continue this in private.” He looked at me. “Talk to you.”

I lifted my chin at him. ‘Thanks, brother.” This conversation was not going the way I’d expected. I appreciated not having an audience for it.

I waited until Grey was out the door, his boots echoing down the hallway. “That doesn’t make any damn sense,” I argued with the doc. “I’ve been shot before. Hell, I’ve been shot in the
leg
before. And I recovered, no problem.”

“Yes, I noticed a scar on your lower right calf,” he smirked. “Not much more than a flesh wound, that one. The difficulty here, Mr. Jackson, is the location so near the femoral nerve. As I said before, femoral neuropathy — nerve damage — is often a result of a gunshot wound of this type, provided the patient survives. Which is not always a given, but in your case, you were lucky I was on staff to save you.” He took a breath, his chest puffing out with pride, then continued.

“The femoral nerve is one of the largest nerves in your leg. It controls the muscles that help straighten your leg and move your hips. It’s also what provides feeling in the lower part of your leg. When it is damaged, it affects your ability to walk and may cause problems with sensation and movement in your leg and foot.”

He glanced down at the bed. “As you continue to recover, you may find that the numbness and tingling in your leg continue, and that you have difficulty extending your knee. You may also find that you have less than full mobility in your foot. When you stand, you may feel like your leg or knee is going to give out or buckle on you.”

Shit
. “Does that mean I might not be able to ride a bike?” I asked. A cold, thin finger of fear began to snake through me.

“I presume you mean a motorcycle, and not a bicycle,” he said mildly, glancing at my tattoos with an expression of vague contempt. Snooty little asshole. “In either case, that remains to be seen. Physical therapy can help. I’m going to assign you to someone here at the hospital. If you take the therapy seriously, it will improve your chances of being able to regain functionality to as close to one-hundred percent as possible.”

I didn’t say anything for a few seconds. The idea that I might not ever be able to ride again… it was almost impossible to imagine. If I couldn’t ride, I couldn’t be VP of the Stone Kings anymore. Hell, I’d barely be a functioning member of the club at all. Everything in my life would change, just like that. For a horrible moment, I almost wished that Repo and Patch hadn’t gotten to me in time.

Fuck
.

“This physical therapy,” I said slowly, trying to shake off the blackness that was threatening to take me over. “How long do I have to do that?”

“The course of therapy itself will likely run six to eight weeks,” he replied. “And you may need to continue to do exercises after that.” He grabbed my chart from the foot of the bed and glanced at it. “I’ll okay you for release this afternoon, but before I do I’m going to bring the therapist by to meet you, who is on staff today. Do you have someone you can call to pick you up?”

“Yeah,” I said gloomily. Cal was around here somewhere, probably harassing the nurses or fucking some candy striper in a supply closet. He showed up every day to hang out with me and give me the latest on the club, driving a cage just in case I got sprung.

“All right, then.” He looked briefly at his watch, which looked like it cost more than my mortgage payment. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with the PT, and then we’ll get you out of here.”

* * *

A
bout an hour later
, the doc came back in, followed by a young woman who was about as far away from my idea of a physical therapist as she could possibly have been. I figured I’d get some big, burly guy named Hans or something, who’d take pleasure watching me sweat and groan in pain. That I could take, no problem. That I was ready for.

What I wasn’t ready for was a petite blonde with the most fuckable mouth I had ever seen, and a pair of tits I ached to touch the second I laid eyes on them.

For a split-second, I didn’t recognize her. The woman standing in front of me with the self-assured, confident posture had shed all traces of the shy young girl I had once known. A girl who had no idea how beautiful she was, or how heads turned when she walked by.

I bent my non-injured knee upward, making a tent out of the sheet so my suddenly raging hard-on wouldn’t show.

“Mr. Jackson,” the doc said, “This is Ms. Van Buren. She’s the physical therapist I’m assigning to you.”

Instead of the scrubs that most of the doctors and nurses wore around here, she was wearing a low-cut long-sleeved shirt that was the same color as her flashing blue eyes, and a pair of black yoga pants that hugged her ass in all the right ways. My dick jumped again under the sheet, and I raised my knee a little higher, cursing the damn hospital gown I was wearing that did fuck-all to hide anything.

The woman was staring at me with a strange expression on her face. I wasn’t sure if she recognized me under this beard, but it was clear the wheels were turning in her mind.

“Ms. Van Buren,” Dr. Larkin said in a formal tone, “this is Caleb Jackson. Gunshot wound, femoral nerve damage. He’s experiencing typical numbness and is likely to have reduced mobility. I’d like you to plan a course of therapy for him designed for him to gain back maximum functionality.”

“Trig,” I said.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“I go by Trig.”

“Trig?” She wrinkled her nose. “What kind of a name is that?”

A spark of irritation shot through me. “It’s the name I go by. My road name.”

She gave me a strange, mocking half-smile and stuck out her hand. “Okay. Pleased to meet you, ’Trig.’ I’m Eva Van Buren.”

Her smirk told me everything I needed to know. She recognized me all right.

Well, this was sure as shit gonna be interesting.

Evangeline Van Buren.

Fuck me running.