Rogue (Rogue Angels MC #1)

Chapter 6

6

Melody

It’s my first day working at County General ER and I’m on the twenty-fifth hour of my thirty-hour shift. Things were starting to blend together as they usually do at about this point of a long workday. I came out for some fresh air and a coffee in the ambulance bay, but if I was expecting a stiff breeze to clear my head the reality of spring in LA had other ideas.

The sun is setting, coloring the sky a dull orange, and the smell of gasoline fumes coming from the busy avenue running past this hospital hangs low in the air, acrid and strong enough to make my dry eyes water. The sound of sirens is an ever-present reality in this part of the city. Even when none are coming this way.

I came straight to work after the two-day party that followed Hunter and Trixie’s wedding back home in Pleasantville, so all goodbyes I made were wrapped up in a lot of joy and a lot of booze. But they were goodbyes and the reality of that, of the fact that ten years of my life is now irrevocably over, has started to seep in every time I get a moment to just be.

Luckily, I haven’t had much time to just be.

Since I got here, I’ve already worked on three traffic accidents, four heart attacks, a stabbing, several gunshot wounds and countless smaller complaints. The amount of paperwork I still have to complete is a small mountain by now and given the fact that everything about the charts is done completely differently here than at the last hospital I worked at, I’m probably looking at hours of overtime as I attempt to complete those later.

But that’s fine.

I don’t really have anywhere else to go yet.

There’s no bed waiting for me, because I haven’t even had time to get a motel room yet. Everything I own is packed in the back of my station wagon and once I’m done here, I think I’ll just push everything to the side to clear enough space to lie down and sleep in the back. I don’t think I’ll have the energy to do much more than that. Especially since I’m looking at another shift just like this one tomorrow. Or today, depending on how you look at it. The best way to look at it is to just let days and months lose all meaning. Once it all becomes just hours, it’s easier to keep track of it all. I learned that little trick as a medical student and intern and I think it’ll help me get through the years to come as I make my way up to being a fully licensed doctor.

But hours can be misleading too. They’re short. But they can easily become long. Too long.

It’s been 239 hours since Edge was taken to the ER in San Diego with a wound he might not survive. And 232 hours since I last spoke to him.

And 225 hours since I first called the hospital to get an update on his condition. All I learned was that he’s still in critical condition and that they have moved him to the jail ward. And that as soon as he’s stable and healed enough, he’s getting moved to an actual jail.

He was shot in a battle that Devil’s Nightmare MC fought in San Diego about ten days ago. The aftermath of that battle, which I spent stitching and fixing up the men that were my only family for ten years, is still something I see every time I close my eyes. At this point, I’m afraid I’ll see it forever.

I couldn’t do much for Edge. Not with the bullet stuck in his stomach. All I could do was stitch up his wound to prevent even more blood loss. And I almost messed even that up because my hands were shaking so badly. But the last I checked—22 hours ago—he had already been transferred to prison and was expected to make a full recovery. I whooped very loudly when I heard that news.

One of the nurses—Shelly—waves to me as she exits the ER. Instead of waving back, I get up from the narrow bench I’m sitting on, thinking they need me inside.

She laughs as I join her. “Relax, I was just saying hi. You look beat.”

I grin at her. “I’m about to get my second wind.”

It’s a total lie. Even if my second wind came, it’d pass me right by. What I need is a good long sleep. I’m not hopeful that’ll come even after I leave for the night.

She lights a cigarette and offers me one. I take it, even though I quit two years ago and even though I know it’ll make me queasy. Which it does, the ground under my feet feeling like jello, and shapes in front of my eyes running together like oil stains on water.

“You can go take a nap in the on-call room,” Shelly says. “I’ll wake you if anything comes in.”

I shake my head and let the cigarette just smoke in my hand. “Better if I push through at this point. If I fall asleep you probably wouldn’t be able to wake me up.”

She laughs. “I can wake anyone up. Been doing it for years.”

She’s about my age, with curly brown hair and a heart-shaped face. The light blue nurse’s scrubs make her eyes glitter like the ocean on a calm afternoon.

“How long have you worked here?” I ask.

“Four years. And never a dull moment.”

She says this loudly over the deafening wailing of a siren as an ambulance comes rolling in. I drop my cigarette in the ashtray atop the garbage can we were standing next to, and move to follow her to the ambulance.

“Dr. Howard is taking this one,” she says. “You can enjoy your break a little longer.”

Dr. Howard—Howie, as he asked me to call him—is the ER Chief and he’s been the one supervising me for most of the day. He’s in his early fifties, with his long graying brown hair pulled into a low ponytail, and a sparkle in his blue eyes each time a new casualty comes in. A true emergency medicine doc right down to his core. He lives for his job. I still can’t decide if I want to be just like him when I grow up, or whether he’ll be the reason I go looking for a calmer job once I finally get my license to practice medicine unsupervised.

Howie whizzes right past me on his way to the ambulance, his ponytail streaking behind him.

The guy they pull from the back of the ambulance is about Edge’s age, about his build and the paramedics are saying it’s a GSW—a gunshot wound—to the chest and abdomen.

At least Edge only got shot in the stomach. That’s my last thought before I’m back on the dirty floor of a garage trying to keep him alive on that terrible morning. The colors of the world all turn black in front of my eyes, and my hands start shaking so hard I have to stick them in the pockets of my white coat, which doesn’t help any.

I chose emergency medicine as my specialty because of all the wonderful men and women who worked so hard in the ER to save my real family after they were in a car crash. They were my only light on that night I spent in the waiting room of a San Francisco hospital, praying, crying, hoping they’d succeed. They didn’t.

Edge saved my life a few days later, when I tried to join them in death. He rode by as I stood on the railing of a tall bridge, preparing to jump off and succeeded in talking me down. And then he brought me with him to the Devil’s Nightmare MC clubhouse where we both stayed. He saved my life and when it came to me returning the favor, I couldn’t do the same to for him.

“I was hoping to run into you here,” a familiar voice says.

I turn towards the voice, and the swirling black colors that are the world for me right now dissolve into the mostly brilliantly green eyes I’ve ever seen.

“It’s you,” I mutter.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Rogue says, grinning at me. “I hoped you’d be happier to see me.”

His smile is infectious. His eyes mesmerizing. His voice like the chords of a beautiful song.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” I say, blaming my tiredness and dark thoughts for this piece of brutal honesty.

Fact is, he’s been on my mind a lot these last few days. And not just because he’s the only person I sort of know in this city.

“No?” he asks, his eyes disappointed, but his lips still stretched into a grin. “I was actually counting the days until I saw you again. You’ve been hard to keep off my mind.”

Typical biker. Just saying exactly what’s on his mind, no matter the situation and setting. Plus, his lust for me is also plain to read in his eyes. I feel like the club girl I was, not the doctor I am now. And I kinda like it. Despite myself.

“Is that so?” I ask.

“What time do you get off?”

I laugh. “Get straight to the point, why don’t you?”

“Life’s too short for anything else?”

His eyes turn darker as he says it, like the sun shining onto the peaceful lake of his eyes hid behind clouds and now its waters can’t gleam anymore.

“Sorry, it’s been a hell of a day,” he says and actually looks sheepish. “Running into you here is definitely the highlight. And I know you ER docs sometimes have to take off running, so I didn’t want to waste my shot.”

Fact is, he wasted his shot when he decided to be a biker. Which was probably years and years ago.

But I do like hearing what he’s saying. And his smile. And his eyes. And the way he fills both his leather jacket he’s wearing and the red shirt with a dragon over the chest he’s got on underneath. And the way he reminds me of home. Of the life I left behind. Of my wild and free days when life was just one endless day of having fun and enjoying myself.

But that’s just it.

“I’m on for hours still,” I tell him. “And I get to do it all over again tomorrow. I’m afraid I’m no fun these days.”

There. I’ll let him down easy since he’s a nice guy.

“So, about midnight?” he asks. “That’s probably how long I’ll be here too.”

“Is your wound bothering you?” I ask. “I can take a look.”

The offer is out of my mouth before I thought it through. Luckily, he shakes his head.

“Your stitches are holding very nicely,” he says. “But you can take a look later, after I take you out for a drink.”

There’s no mistaking the real meaning in his words. And despite myself, despite being up for over twenty-five hours, despite the world being all fuzzy and wobbly, I really like the idea of getting naked with him later. It’s that Latin charm he exudes. Hard to fight.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say. So much for letting him down easy.

“Come on, let me buy you a drink,” he says. “As a thank you for saving my life if nothing else.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as saying I saved your life,” I say. “Your wound wasn’t fatal.”

“Maybe that’s not all I meant,” he says, his eyes still exuding desire, but looking a little surprised now too. Like he didn’t want to say what he just did.

The wailing of sirens grows louder as two ambulances pull into the bay.

Shelly comes running out of the ER followed by a couple of other nurses, Howie and two more residents.

“A two-vehicle collision, Mac truck versus a minivan. Mom, dad, grandma and a minor. All critical,” she yells at me.

And the world is just a black swirling mess in front of my eyes again.

“You all right?” Rogue asks, studying my face very closely with his soft, beautiful eyes.

“I gotta take this,” I tell him. “I gotta help.”

“Do you?” he says and releases my arm. “You look like you need to sit down.”

I can’t answer. All I can do is shrug and let my legs automatically take me to the first of the arriving ambulances.

“I’ll be here when you’re done,” he calls after me.

And I’m really, really happy to hear that.

After working in emergency rooms for going on three years, very few traumas still faze me. But traffic accidents such as the one Shelly just described always will. Because I lost my family this way. My mom and dad, my little brother, my grandma. All the family I had.

And the thought of Rogue being here when I’m done with this trauma, to smile at me, and ask me out, tell me he wants me, and look at me like I’m the only woman he sees, is the only thing that is lifting me up as the paramedics pull out the grandma and start rattling off her vitals.

It makes no sense. I don’t even know him. I don’t even want to get to know him. But I can’t deny it either.