Chapter 14 Isla
ISLA
“Well, aren’t you the goodest boy,” I say, booping the nose of a mixed-breed pupster who wags his tail every time he sees me.
“He clearly loves you,” Noah says as he joins me. He stands close, perhaps too close, and it makes me feel a little ill.
“I love every pet that comes in,” I say, but edge my way to the doorway back to reception.
I was only back here because a poor little kitten had an accident when I was moving her into their recovery pen.
Thankfully, I’d brought in a spare change of clothes last week, so I was able to get cleaned up and change into my jeans and a simple sweatshirt.
Unfortunately, Noah follows me. “Do you feel like grabbing a movie tonight?” he blurts.
I shake my head. “No, thank you. I’m done for the night,” I say, shutting down the appointments system.
“Wait,” he says. “We could go over the schedule for tomorrow.”
Suddenly realizing I’m here with him alone, I glance up at the clock on the wall that says I should have left eight minutes ago. “It’s my day off tomorrow. And, I have to go because I’m meeting a friend for dinner.”
His eyes go wide. “A friend?”
“Yes. A friend.” I grab my bag from the drawer behind the reception desk and pull out my keys.
“I could join you, maybe.” There’s a hint of desperation in his voice. “If it’s a social thing and not a date.”
For a second, I consider justifying my lie. Expanding on it. But I can’t decide which would be safer. Declaring it is and having him jealous, or declaring it isn’t and encouraging further requests to join.
“No. That wouldn’t work.” I keep the statement to the point, without expansion.
“I’m trying to get to know you better,” he says, but gone is the pleasant tone that veered a little into desperate. His voice is sharp, angry, even. There are frown lines in his forehead.
The shift makes me uneasy. “And in a professional context, I appreciate that. Good night, Dr. Lane.”
His shoulders drop, and the smile returns as if he’s remembered who he is. “Of course. Goodnight, Isla.”
The fakeness of it sends a chill through me.
Thankfully, people mill around as I hurry from the building, but I find myself praying that my car starts the first time. I don’t want Noah to feel inspired to save me.
This morning, I did what Garrett said. I took the long way to work, all the way through town, then turning around at the grocery store at the town limits before weaving my way back to the vet.
And I look up to the ink-blue sky when my engine does function.
It’s a beautifully clear Colorado evening, filled with stars, and I feel lucky.
Lucky that Garrett and Kai…wait, I don’t know if I should call him that.
Garrett mentioned his name, but Jackal didn’t say I could use it.
Either way, I’m lucky that they both looked out for me this morning.
I wonder if I should get them a gift. Something to thank them.
I don’t really have the skills to bake them something. And I’m pretty sure they don’t need anything handy done. I found a stack of notecards in Nanna’s bedside table when I was sorting through them the first night I stayed there. Maybe I’ll write them a note to say thank you.
When I get my next paycheck, I’m gonna have to figure out my budget. There are things that need doing to the house. And I know I’m being unsafe, driving around in the dark with a broken taillight. If a cop sees me, I’m getting a ticket.
But as I approach the turn for our road, another vehicle approaches from the opposite direction. When it gets closer and I see it’s an ambulance indicating it’s about to turn onto my road, my heart races.
Immediately, I wonder who is hurt. Garrett or…
Kai…Jackal…follows the ambulance on his bike.
“Oh, my God.”
Quickly, I park my car at home and run across the road to their house. Jackal tugs off his helmet and rubs his hand over his face, then through his hair. The glass from their front window is shattered all over the ground.
“Are you okay? What happened?” I ask.
Jackal looks as though he’s about to say something, but he shakes his head as he steps off the bike. He glances at the broken window, and I see the despair in his eyes.
“Is Shade…Garrett…okay?” I stand in front of him, but he looks ruined. “Come here.”
I step into his arms to hug him, but instead of the gentle hug I’ve offered, he wraps his arms tightly around me, drops his head to my shoulder, and makes a sound somewhere between a sob and a gasp.
My stomach drops. No second bike. A devastated biker.
For a moment, the scent of leather and the feel of the patch on his back shake me. But there’s something desperately human in the way he’s clinging to me.
The driver’s door opens, and Jackal quickly steps away from me. He rubs his face with both gloved hands and then physically tries to shake himself off.
“You ready to help him get inside?” Butcher says, closing the driver’s door before opening the rear doors of the ambulance. I’d recognize that man’s voice anywhere. I’ve slept with him more times than I care to mention.
And when his old lady, Greer, steps to the back of the ambulance, I’m reminded why I was never going to be good enough. She’s so beautiful, it hurts. And so smart, she was able to become a surgeon.
Butcher reaches out to help her down, and she grips hold of him. “Today, I think I will take you up on that offer. Can’t believe I still have seven more weeks of this.”
Butcher smiles softly, in a way he never smiled at me, and puts his hand on her large bump. “Don’t wish it away. You look fucking beautiful. And let me do all the lifting.”
Greer kisses him. “I’m going to take you up on that offer too.”
I step back, feeling the mixed guilt and shame flood me.
“You’re okay,” Jackal says quietly, his lips close to my ear.
“Isla,” Butcher says in his usual gruff way.
Greer pretty much ignores me.
I can’t say I blame her. Not sure I would want to hang around with a woman who’d slept with my husband before me.
“Hey,” I say. Even the word Butcher, sticks in my throat.
My hand shakes, and so does Jackal’s as he raises it to run his hand through his thick dark hair again. Butcher and Greer work together like they’ve done this a thousand times.
“Can I call you Kai?” I ask.
Jackal turns his head to look at me. “Yes. Will you stay?”
I should ask for boundaries. Ask how long he wants me to stay for. Suggest terms. But it feels like this will be an easy way to return their kindness.
“I will. Is it bad?” I ask.
“He came off his bike at speed. He’s got rib contusions across two ribs, possible concussion, soft tissue trauma on his shoulder, hip, and thigh, and a sprained wrist.”
“And a partridge in a pear tree,” I say out of nowhere.
Kai huffs. “Funny girl.”
“What happened to your window?”
“I’ll explain later.” He grabs his helmet off the bike. “Carry this in, yeah?”
I hold it to my chest as Greer and Butcher tug Garrett out on a gurney. Then, I get my first look at him, and a tight band forms around my chest. If he sees me, he doesn’t say anything and now doesn’t feel like the time to bombard him with questions.
Instead, I follow them inside.
The warmth hits me, first. Then, the quiet and the absence of the smell of damp.
Overall, it feels like a family home that needs some modernization.
There’s a wide hallway with a staircase.
To the right is an archway into a large living room with a smashed window.
The glass glitters beneath the ceiling lights.
To the left is an unfurnished room with empty wooden shelves.
At the end of the hallway is the kitchen and a large island.
Butcher runs back out to the ambulance and brings a wheelchair that has a triangular tractor tread instead of wheels. “This isn’t gonna be fun,” Butcher says.
“Take a suck on this.” Greer offers Garrett a mask connected to two metal canisters. “The chair is designed to give you a reasonably smooth ride upstairs, but there’s no easy way to get you into it.”
“Fuck me,” he mutters, but takes a deep breath anyway.
And I look away, because the cry he makes when moved, and the utter anguish on Kai’s face as he and Butcher move him, shows what I’ve been considering is true.
Because I’ve seen love, even if I’ve never felt it.
I saw it in the way Wraith fell hard for Raven, even when his mind was telling him he was disloyal to his first wife and their child.
I saw it in the way Atom couldn’t stop the steamroller that was Ember, even when he thought it might get him killed.
I saw it in the way Smoke got over his own fears to let Quinn creep into his life when everyone thought it was a bad idea.
I saw it in the way Butcher stepped down from perhaps the biggest and most prestigious role in a motorcycle club for Greer.
And I see it now in the way Kai helps place Garrett’s hands across his lap, then strokes his cheek gently.
I’m sure Butcher and Greer can see it too, but no one mentions it.
Instead, they focus on Garrett, while I just stand there like a spare part, still holding Kai’s helmet. I put it down on the table in the living room and consider leaving. I know Kai asked me to stay, but my proximity to the biker world is increasing the longer I stay here.
The whir of the motor on the chair lift makes me jump, and I listen to the slow and steady thump of it as it hits the stairs. I hear Butcher and Greer trying to inform Garrett of every step.
I’m about to leave when Kai reaches for my hand. His long fingers squeeze mine firmly. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
I look up and meet his gaze. His eyes are red rimmed, like he’s been crying. But something passes between us, a feeling that shouldn’t be happening given what I just learned about the two of them. And yet, it’s not enough to make me let go.
“Wise words,” I say softly as they settle in my chest.
“Not mine. Eleanor Roosevelt. My sister had it pinned to her wall when we were teens. Come on.”