Rogue (Rogue Angels MC #1)

Chapter 10

10

Melody

My shift doesn’t actually start until eleven AM, but everything about last night was just too perfect. The kiss it ended with was just perfect too. So spontaneous, with the sun rising in the color of new gold in front of us and the sea whooshing under us like from some movie. We were already all alone on the pier, but the kiss made me feel like we were the only two people on earth. I haven’t felt that way in years and years. Not since I was very young and still believed my very own prince charming would sweep me off my feet.

But I’ve fallen in love with too many bikers since then. And been let down by all of them. Slammed down into the ground with the harsh reality that club girls just aren’t forever-type lays. I can’t go through that again. I won’t. Especially since I just know that letting myself get lost in all that soft, bubbling charisma Rogue brings will lead to the greatest fall yet. If that kiss was anything to go by. If his caring eyes and kind heartedness are anything to go by. If the desire in his eyes, which feels like hot flames licking my skin when he looks at me are anything to go by.

I won’t get sucked in.

It’s too painful when I get spit out on the other side.

My new life has started.

One where the past is just memory and nothing more.

I didn’t think much as I rushed after the ambulance that pulled into the bay after he dropped me off by the curb. I didn’t even think about how I need a shower and at least a couple of hours of sleep. Or, failing that, a triple espresso, no milk or sugar.

I just let the paramedics give me the info I need about the patient they brought in, the words washing over me like the most soothingly cold rain.

“Mrs. Diaz, eighty-nine years old, hot water burns to her left hand and thigh, pulse 150, BP 190/88, slightly tachycardic, not altered but distressed. She did this last night. The daughter came in this morning, found her like this. She hardly let us check the wound, but it looked infected.”

“I bet,” I say and smile at the patient as the clerk directs us into trauma room one. “We’re going to take really good care of you Mrs. Diaz. Can you tell me what happened?”

Her hand is wrapped in thick yellowing wrappings and she’s holding it to her chest, tears rolling down her cheeks, her eyes the size of coffee cup saucers.

“I was making chamomile tea for my husband. He can’t get to sleep without it,” she says in heavily accented English. “And I slipped on the carpet. Who is with Diego? Someone has to stay with my husband?”

She’s getting more and more agitated.

“Is someone with the husband?” I ask the paramedics.

One of them nods. “The daughter stayed.”

I tell that to Mrs. Diaz, and also inform her that I’ll be checking her wound now, but I’m not sure she understood me well enough. She keeps asking about her husband, looking more and more agitated.

As soon as we’re in the trauma room, I ask the nurse to hook her up to the monitor, start an IV line and rattle off an order for all the tests I think she might need.

“All this for a hot water burn?” the nurse asks. I hadn’t met him yesterday, but his nametag reads Jamal. “What if she doesn’t have insurance?”

“The thing is, Jamal,” I say in a much kinder voice than I feel like using. “I don’t know when Mrs. Diaz saw a doctor last, so I’d like to give her a thorough check-up while she’s here.”

“Whatever you say, doc,” Jamal says and gets started on the orders.

I tell Mrs. Diaz I’ll be right with her, and walk over to a side table to store away my purse and put on gloves and a disposable gown. When I turn, Rogue is standing next to Mrs. Diaz, a fire burning in his eyes and a big grin on his face.

“Just so you know, we will be seeing each other again,” he says.

I can’t help but smile too. “You mean like right now?”

I walk past him and take Mrs. Diaz’s hand to start the examination.

He chuckles. “Yeah, only better.”

“You can’t be in here, sir,” Jamal tells him pointedly.

“This’ll just take a second,” Rogue says without taking his eyes off mine.

“It’s fine,” I tell Jamal, and he just rolls his eyes, then leaves the room to take the bloodwork to the lab.

“I’m going to examine your hand now, Mrs. Diaz,” I say. “Will you let me?”

She presses her bandaged hand harder against her chest and winces. “It hurts. But it will heal. I wrapped it up nice.”

In places, the fluids from the infection had already started seeping through the gauze.

“I need to see, Mrs. Diaz,” I tell her gently. “Will you let me?”

“It hurts,” she says. “But it will heal just fine.”

She keeps glancing at Rogue and back at me.

“You really shouldn’t be here, Rogue,” I tell him. “I’ll see you later.”

“Rogue? What kind of name is that? It means something bad… like rascal, no?” Mrs. Diaz asks him.

He walks over to the other side of the bed and takes her uninjured hand. “You can call me Gabriel, ma’am. Why don’t we talk while the nice doctor examines your hand. She won’t hurt you. She’s very good.”

She has eyes only for him now. I’m not surprised. That charisma is literally pouring from him now.

“Gabriel like the angel?” she asks and hardly reacts as I take her hand gently, but she still doesn’t relax it enough to let me unwrap the makeshift bandage.

He smiles at her. “Exactly like the angel, yes. My mother is very religious. She gave all her kids names from the bible. Are you religious?”

She nods.

“Why don’t we pray while the nice lady doctor makes your hand better?”

Mrs. Diaz looks at me and I smile and nod. “It won’t hurt a bit. I’ll give you something for the pain. And I’ll be done very quickly.”

Mrs. Diaz swallows hard and nods then looks back at Rogue and squeezes his hand. He starts praying with her in Latin of all things.

He’d make a great priest, I’ll give him that. For a few moments even I can’t help just listening to his lulling, caring sound of his voice. Then I remember I have work to do and get to it.

Mrs. Diaz is so engrossed in Rogue’s prayer that she hardly flinches as I unwrap her hand even though the bandage is already stuck to her burned skin in places.

The burn isn’t as bad as I expected, but the paramedics were right, it is infected. Burns usually get that way fast, especially in older people.

Jamal is standing by the door, holding the saline and a box of bandages, just watching us.

I irrigate the burn as the best I can then call him over to finish setting up Mrs. Diaz’s IV.

“And I want to start her on antibiotics,” I tell him.

Mrs. Diaz is laying back now, her eyes closed, her pulse and blood pressure in normal range.

I wait for Rogue to get to the Amen.

“Your hand will heal nicely, Mrs. Diaz,” I tell her once he does and she opens her eyes again. “But I have to examine your leg now and Gabriel needs to leave.”

She smiles at him. “That was very nice. Almost as nice as Sunday Mass that Father Rojas holds. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” he tells her. “I will be going now, but you’re in good hands.”

Then he releases her hand and follows me out the door.

“I think you might’ve missed your calling after all,” I tell him once we’re in the hall.

He grins. “That would make one of you. But I do what I can. That poor lady just needed a little comfort.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I don’t think I would’ve been able to calm her down without meds.”

“You can make it up to me by saying you’ll have dinner with me again tonight,” he says.

“Tonight I will need to sleep,” I tell him.

“Come on, Rockheart, just say yes,” he says and grins wider. “You know you want to.”

“What did you call me?” I say and laugh.

“I don’t like the way we left it,” he says. “So, I want a do over. I think you do too.”

I do want to see him again, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea. But I do know that everything is pleasant and warm when he’s here, and kind of turbulent and cold when he leaves.

I might change my mind again later, but what I say is, “I’m on until seven tonight.”

“And you’ll see me then,” he says and just keeps looking at me, that hot forest fire raging over the cool mountain lake in his eyes. It’s impossible to look away from them.

“I should get back to my patient,” I say. But I still can’t look away.

“Probably a good idea,” he says and seems to be having the same issue.

But I’m a grown woman and a doctor with a patient waiting. I finally get up the common sense to look away first and go back into the trauma room.

But I really don’t want to.

If I was ten years younger, or even just five, I could spend days just looking into his eyes. Or thinking about doing it.

Which is what I’ll be doing for the rest of the day. Good idea or not.