Big White Lie (Storm's Soldiers MC) (2 page)

“This was a really relaxing lunch,” he said. “I knew I could be myself around you. I hope you felt the same way.”

I wiped the corners of my mouth clear, forcing a smile and choosing my words.

“It was definitely nice talking,” I said, carefully building my own compliment sandwich. “But it just seems clear we’re too different to work together as more than friends. I’m happy to stay how we are.”

“I disagree. Wherever our lives started, we’re in the same place now.”

“We’re in the same hospital maybe. But you’re a doctor, and I’m a nurse. We’re not exactly on the same path.”

“Some nurses would be quite happy with that arrangement in a relationship.”

“I’ve just never been one of them.”

His smile only dimmed. “Think on it a while. I have a feeling you’ll change your mind.”

I won’t, you pansy.
The words floated on my lips, but I had the sense to keep them in. Apparently this thing was not meant to die a quick death.

“Anyway,” he said. “Shall we head back?”

“Sure.” We were just a busy crosswalk away from the hospital entrance.

I opened my purse, but Lem waved his credit card and the waitress rushed over and scooped it.

“Hey,” I yelled, but she was already lost in the burble of other tables. “Lem!”

“Oops.” He chuckled, as if he were being unbelievably charming and not getting on my last nerve.

“I’ll pay you back after I stop at the ATM,” I said, watching him sign the bill.

He chucked the receipt into the trash as we strolled onto the sidewalk.

“That’s not necessary. Just consider my proposition.”

“What proposition?” I asked.

“To allow me to take you out again.”

“I already said no, Lem.”

“Just consider it.”

Yeah, this lunch really hadn’t accomplished anything. I pretended to be contemplating as we crossed the street and clicked into the tall glass lobby of the hospital. Fortunately, we were working on different levels today, so I whispered a quick goodbye to him at the elevators.

“Au revoir, not adieu,” he said, clasping me in a surprise hug.

I pulled away, murmuring something, and headed down to ER.

I scrubbed into my gown in the locker room, but took my time washing my hands and face. I finally released all the tension I’d held in my chest.

Guys like Lem really unnerved me. They were still men, and they were still after the same thing as any other guy, but it always felt like they never saw reality. They had lived in a cotton candy world for so long.

It was like going out with someone from the mental ward. You could never tell what would make them snap.

Of course, it was always possible that I was the mental patient. The guys I tended to date freaked out other people a lot more. They weren’t exactly criminals but they weren’t far away either. I’d dated underground fighters, a bouncer from a club, bikers… ok, a guy who ended up robbing a bank - but that happened way after we broke up.

Most of the other nurses had no idea why I didn’t go for more sensible men. A few quietly respected me for it.

I wasn’t trying to be a rebel or anything. It just made sense to me. Rough men knew the things that weren’t far from the surface of society. If they were dangerous, then it was to deal with a dangerous world.

Still, I’d be lying if I said that their sexy swagger did nothing for me.

So what if the relationships didn’t last. Everywhere else, I was responsible. I helped serve society at work. I was a good daughter to Mamá - as if this lunch wasn’t proof enough. And I did my best to help Elsa.

I’d earned the right to choose the guys I wanted to be with. When things inevitably ended with one, I’d take my licks, then wait for the next guy.

I searched my belt for my ID card, then blinked open the doors to the ER nurse’s station and went inside. Even now, in the middle of the day, the seats outside were almost completely occupied. People of all stripes sat clutching various parts of their body, trying to look more miserable than the next guy.

Lilly looked up from her computer. She had on a red and white floral gown and a white surgery cap that bulged with her thick blonde hair. She looked like a broken candy cane.

“You’re back early,” she said.

“Not early enough, girl.”

“Come on, Lem can’t have been so awful. He didn’t whip it out did, he?”

“Admittedly, not
that
bad.”

She grinned and her round features turned pointy. That earnest face really masked a mischievous heart.

“You’ve never seen social Lem, though.” I flipped idly through a bunch of intake charts that people had filled out. “Every other line was like him drooling over my body.”

“Ew,” Lily said. “Well, he’s never been that way to me.”
“Cause he knows you have Paul already. He’s not going to tangle with that.
Especially
not during mating season.”

“Gross.” Lily threw a paper clip at me. “We’re not animals.”

“We work at a freaking hospital. There’s nothing wrong with calling it what it is. You’re trying to have a kid. That’s reproduction. It’s what everything in the world is trying to do all the time.”

“Sex isn’t all there is to it.”

I ticked my head from side to side. “Actually, I think it might be.”

Lilly hummed a moment. I knew that it meant she was biting down her own judgment.

“What?” I asked.

“Now I see why you go for the guys you go for.”

I found the paper clip and flailed it back at her. “I’m not looking for a family. Elsa’s still a kid herself. Wait, you’re not still trying to sell me on Lem, right?”

“No! I mean, if you don’t like him, you don’t like him. No big deal.”

“But…”

“But…you know, he is kind of a step up from your usual type. Just in terms of potential.”

I had a line all queued up about the potential in her musician husband, but it was too vicious. That was high school me. “I judge potential on things other than income.”

“How about stability?”

“Whatever.” She knew how stable I thought stability really was.

“I’m just saying. At least he’s not the kind of guy who shows up to ER at noon with a busted nose and cracked ribs.” She ticked her head at a guy slumped against an armrest. His face looked like a bruised grape.

“You’re saying I date ER patients.”

“Kind of.”

“Well, then I better get out there and find my dream man.”

I huffed out, put on my best face and started talking to the new arrivals who were just finishing their form.

Lily wasn’t far off. Guys who built muscle out of need often tended to use them. At least it was a way to make sure they still worked.

Down the hall, I heard the automatic door slide open. I looked up from the old woman I was talking to, to see what fresh calamity had stumbled in.

Whatever she had been saying completely fell from my ears.

Mighty.

That was the first word that came to mind when I saw the man walking in. He was tall but solid. He wore a tan shirt and green camo pants, and he filled out both. His skin glowed in a deep, rich tan. Thick cords of muscle ran up the length of his arm - a promise that his strength ran everywhere.

He looked this way, then that. His eyes fell directly on me. They were like crystal lakes.

His whole face had a hard beauty, like someone had taken a solid granite block and sanded it down to perfection. Dark stubble covered his head and traced around his face. The hard edges were still there, but his cheeks, his jaw, his nose - they looked more than strong.

They looked freaking gorgeous.

They also looked to be in an enormous amount of pain, wincing with each stride. His face was pouring way too much sweat for the cool August day outside.

He took a stiff step towards me.

“Sorry, ma’am,” I murmured to the old woman. She only had a mild cold. I hurried over, but as I peered up at the swell of him, I forgot my lines.

“What’s your name, sir?” I finally said.

“Calix Black.”

Calix. I mouthed the word. It sounded like some Roman general. “Are you ok?” I asked.

He frowned at me. “No. That’s why I’m here.”

“What seems to be the problem?” I shamelessly walked my eyes down his bulging torso. His shirt had a US army logo over the right breast. He was military?

“My leg,” he said.

I looked down. Despite all my years of medical training, it was the first time I noticed the thick shirt he had wrapped around his thigh. Above it, the camo was stained much darker.

“You’re bleeding,” I said. “What happened?”

With the same matter of fact tone I might have read out someone’s blood pressure, he said, “I was shot.”

CHAPTER TWO

Calix

The curvy, black nurse made a face at my thigh as if she didn’t believe me.

That made two of us.

I’d been back stateside for three weeks. I’d been in contact with my old biker club for just one.

Already, I had a new scar to deal with. Now I had to protect them from their idiocy. I’d even come here alone.

“Could you show me the site of the injury?” the nurse asked.

I edged the makeshift tourniquet up my thigh. The adrenaline had worn off a half hour ago. Every nudge sent a knife through my muscle.

She knelt and rolled up my pant sleeves

“Oh god.” Her eyes grew to saucers. “Lily, we’ve got a red here.”

My mind blanked as another burst of pain set off. The room dissolved around me. There was only this agony and me.

I had to keep it under control. I could not fall over this.

The club was depending on me. My father was depending on me.

The nurse touched my shoulder gently. There was a tremble to her touch like she was handling an unexploded shell. But my time in Afghanistan had taught me to accept help given.

This was all for a purpose,
I told myself.

“What purpose?” the nurse asked.

Apparently, my mouth was freely voicing my thoughts.

I couldn’t let loose around this woman. Something about her made me too comfortable. Her fingers felt long and graceful, pianist’s hands.

I wondered suddenly, how they would feel wrapped around me.

Christ, Calix.

The pain was making me forget myself. It’d been far too long since I had been with a woman. Afghanistan had offered no acceptable opportunities.

The nurse’s face drifted into my vision, soft and concerned. “What purpose are you talking about?” she asked.

“No purpose,” I gritted out.

I turned the words over in my head. Had this bullet meant anything at all? It felt much closer to foolishness. Even if the plan had gone off successfully, the day would still feel like a waste.

How did any of it advance the cause?

An older, white nurse pushed up a gurney. It’d been a year since my last hospital stay. The medics had carried me to the chopper on a dark plastic mat. Compared to that, this one looked like a cloud.

“Can you climb on?” my black nurse asked.

Her hand urged me forward, like a child trying to move a mountain. But her touch kept the pain from my mouth. I swiveled onto the trolley and lay down.

The cushions smelled like steamed flowers. The pain vanished. I unclenched and finally let myself fade.

The young nurse loomed over me, her narrow, oval face condensed in worry.

Worry, for me?

I wanted to chuckle, but as my sight dimmed, her face remained like the moon.

She had good features. Delicate, but not fragile. Singular, but not exotic. Some men would call her beautiful.

Most would use much stronger words.

Something in me tried to fight that analysis, but it had no fuel.

This was fine,
I thought. It was fine to admire her from a distance. I just needed to remember who I was and what had brought me here.

A new spark erupted in my brain, an incoming round I could not ignore.

“No anesthetic,” I whispered. I couldn’t afford to be unconscious while the cops started digging.

“What?” The nurse asked.

I tried but couldn’t lift my head. I grabbed her hand and clenched her in. “Tell them to only numb my leg. I can handle that.”

The nurse wrenched out of my grip. I realized how harsh my touch had been. She didn’t look angry though.

“I don’t decide that,” she said. “The doctors do. Honestly, they probably are going to put you under. That entry looks way too close to the artery.”

I shut my eyes and tried to think. Even that was too hard.

“Why?” she said. “What happened?”

What happened. It was a simple question but I had to search a long way to find the start of it. It was good I had no voice anymore. Something about her gentle earnestness made me want to tell her everything.