Chapter 5
Present day
MOLLY
“You,” I breathed. Even in the air conditioning, I got hot all over.
My heart pounded and I felt more nauseated than I did when I had to saw open the dead man’s brain this morning.
I’d seen all kinds of things in my time as a resident.
Horrible, sad things came through emergency room doors.
I could handle it all. It didn’t mean I wasn’t unaffected.
The sheriff I was supposed to meet to pass on my findings of Lance Mann’s autopsy was him. The guy from the rodeo. The guy whose name I never learned, who’d fucked me and ghosted me. It had been the best sex of my life, the most insane connection and then… nothing.
Nothing because he hadn’t answered the hotel room door that he’d told me to go to. I’d stood there like an idiot with a sore pussy craving more dick.
“Holy shit, I’ve been missing you for six months, pretty girl.”
His words slammed into me like a car going sixty. I even bent in a little from the impact.
He took my hand in his.
My body was a traitor. It remembered his voice. His touch. His scent. But my brain was screaming asshole!
His gaze roved over me from head to toe.
My shift started at seven and I’d already spent six hours in the ER.
I swiped off the surgical cap I wore during the autopsy.
My hair was probably all static as it swiped across my jaw.
I wore no makeup and scrubs did nothing for me.
But he was looking at me as if I was the most beautiful thing in the world, that I was a mirage or an oasis in a desert after walking ten miles.
I wasn’t unaffected. My nipples hardened and my pussy clenched remembering how big he’d been, how hard he’d fucked me.
How I’d felt him for days after and made forgetting him impossible.
How upset I’d been. Sad, because I’d thought there’d been a connection.
Embarrassed, because I’d obviously imagined it.
Then, ultimately, angry. Because a quick fuck was fine. He didn’t have to be a dick about it.
Yanking my hand away, I took a step back.
“Sheriff… Wilder.” His last name was pinned to his chest and I remembered the message that had been left for me to meet him here to go over the autopsy findings.
That star only showed off how his broad chest made his tan uniform shirt stretch taut.
I hated the fact that I was turned on just as much by him with a star on his chest, a utility belt around his waist and a gun at his hip.
“You can’t talk like that. Not to me. It’s Dr. Simon.
And clearly, you haven’t missed me at all. ”
His eyes widened. “Like hell I haven’t!”
I poked him in the chest. His hard, muscly chest. “You stood me up. You made me stand in a hotel room hallway and knock at some random door. The woman across the hall came out and yelled at me for waking her up. Do you have any idea what that was like?”
He winced. “I’m–”
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry,” I snapped, setting my hands on my hips.
I ensured my voice was low because while I wanted to let this jerk have it, I didn’t need the fling between us to get around the hospital.
“If you didn’t want more than a quickie in a closet, that was fine.
You could have just said that instead of humiliating me, too. Or was that the fun in it?”
“Fun? No!” he sputtered. “I–”
“Don’t.” The one word was loud and echoed off the walls. It was pretty ironic having a conversation about a dead non-relationship in a morgue. “I don’t want to hear it. I shouldn’t be mad, really.” I shrugged even. “I got two orgasms out of it. So maybe I should say thanks.”
“Thanks? For orgasms? Listen, pretty girl–”
“Fuck, I told you, don’t pretty girl me. It was fun. It was one time. I understand.” I ran a hand over my messy hair. It’d been a long shift so far and now I discovered the one guy I fell for, who I’d shared some kinky fantasies with, was the county sheriff of the small town I’d moved to.
What were the odds? For me, high, because bad luck followed me everywhere.
I’d left Cheyenne behind after Missy pretty much extorted me for money.
I was a doctor. I knew the signs. She was going to use the money for drugs.
I wasn’t an enabler, but she’d done so many shitty things to me my entire life, it was like me tossing the money one way and then running the other way to escape.
I’d done that by moving to Devil’s Ditch.
Missy didn’t like cold weather having grown up in Florida so I’d thought she’d steer clear of Cheyenne. But no. So I moved farther north. More rural. Devil’s Ditch Hospital had an opening and I snagged it.
“Listen. You don’t respect me as a woman, I get it, but you will respect me as a doctor here in this hospital. You will keep what we did a secret.”
I’d only been on the job for two weeks. So far, things had been going well. Law enforcement and firefighters had come into the ER with patients, but I’d missed the sheriff. Until now.
“Molly–”
I winced, hearing my name come from his lips. I’d imagined him finding me, saying my name. Breathing it in my ear as he filled me with his dick.
I went to the desk, picked up the file he’d come in to discuss, the unattended and mysterious death of a Devil’s Ditch resident and slapped it against his chest. “Here. The report you came for. If you can read as good as you can fuck, then you’ll have what you need to close your case.”
With that, I stormed out of the morgue and headed toward the doctor’s lounge.
Since there were only a few on staff in such a small hospital, there was a chance it’d be empty while I pulled myself together.
My stethoscope was folded in my pocket and I held it against my thigh as I practically ran away.
Sheriff Wilder was my dream come true and my biggest nightmare.
My heart wanted him. So did my vagina. They were both stupid as could be because they were both broken by him.
I had to keep reminding myself that I couldn’t have good things.
That people didn’t give a shit about me.
That I was expendable. That I wasn’t worth more than a quick fuck in a janitor’s closet at a rodeo.
I doubted my time in Devil’s Ditch would be long, but now I had a different reason to move on than my crazy sister. One thing she’d taught me was boundaries and standing up for myself.