Chapter 5 – Harper
Dr. Meyers drops the file on my desk at eight-fifteen on Wednesday morning like it's a grenade she's tired of holding.
"Knox Sullivan," she says. "Road name Gear.
Iron Havoc MC. Referred to us six weeks ago for a hand injury, two fractured metacarpals, improperly healed, needs structured rehabilitation or he'll lose forty percent grip strength in that hand permanently.
" She pauses. "He has missed every single appointment. "
I open the file. "Every one?"
"Called once to reschedule. Didn't show for that either." She gives me the look she reserves for problems she's delegating. "He works at the club garage on Mill Street. I'd like you to go introduce yourself in person. Sometimes they respond better to a face."
I close the file. "I'll go this morning."
She nods and leaves, and Rosa appears in the doorway approximately four seconds later, because Rosa has the situational awareness of a woman who listens at walls.
"You're going to the Iron Havoc garage," she says.
"I am."
She leans against the doorframe. "Gear is grumpy. Stone will stare at you. Blaze will flirt with you." She holds up a finger. "And Ronan will pretend you don't exist."
I pick up my jacket. "Helpful. Thank you, Rosa."
"I try," she calls after me.
The garage doors are already rolled up when I get there, the morning air carrying the smell of motor oil and metal half a block before I arrive. Two bikes are up on lifts. Classic rock comes from a speaker somewhere inside. I step into the entrance and let my eyes adjust.
Three men look up.
One of them I recognize immediately.
Ronan is at the far workbench, half-turned away, working on a carburetor with the focus of a man who doesn’t like being interrupted. Black henley, sleeves pushed up—my brain clocks his forearms before I mean to. Tattoos, muscle, the deliberate way his hands move over the engine.
I make myself look away.
The man closest to me—big, dark-haired, trouble written all over him, wipes his hands and offers one.
"Well," he says. "You must be the new PT."
"Harper Collins." I shake his hand. Firm grip, warm. "You must be Blaze."
He looks genuinely delighted that I know his name. "Rosa?"
"Rosa."
He laughs. "I like you already." He nods toward the man on the stool to his left, older, sharp-eyed, with a sarcastic set to his mouth and his right hand wrapped in what looks like a self-applied bandage that tells me everything about why he hasn't been coming to his appointments. "That's Gear. He's the one you want."
"I'm fine," Gear says, without looking up from the parts he's sorting.
"Knox." I use his real name deliberately, because people respond differently to it when they're trying to be difficult. He looks up. "Those two fingers. Can I see?"
A pause. He holds out his hand with the resigned expression of a man who knows he's already lost but hasn't decided to admit it yet. I crouch beside him, unwrap the bandage carefully, and take a look.
The scarring from the fractures is visible. The stiffness in his ring and middle fingers is obvious even at rest.
"How's your grip strength?" I ask.
"Fine."
"Can you close your hand fully?"
He tries. Can't.
"Right," I say, rewrapping it gently. "So, here's what's going to happen.
You're going to come see me at the clinic, three times a week for six weeks, and I'm going to make sure you get full function back in that hand.
Because you're a mechanic and you need these fingers, and right now you're running on borrowed time. "
He stares at me.
"I don't bite," I add. "Unless you skip again."
Blaze makes a sound that might be a laugh disguised as a cough.
From across the garage, and I feel it before I hear it, a low voice says, "Go, Knox."
One word. That's all. But Knox straightens slightly, and when he looks at me again something in his expression has shifted.
"Fine," he says. "Thursday."
"Thursday," I confirm, and stand up.
I should leave. File accomplished, appointment made, job done.
Instead, I find myself drifting toward the third man by the far wall, enormous, dark-eyed, arms folded across a chest that could stop traffic. He hasn't moved or spoken since I walked in, and there's a VP patch on his cut.
"Stone?" I try.
He looks at me. Nods once. That apparently constitutes a full introduction from Rex Callahan.
"Nice to meet you," I say, and mean it.
The corner of his mouth does a very small, very controlled thing that might be the ghost of a smile. I'll take it.
Then I make the mistake of turning toward the far workbench.
Ronan has set the carburetor aside. He’s facing me now, leaning back against the bench, arms crossed, dark eyes steady on mine, and the full effect of him in morning light, in a space that’s entirely his, is… a lot.
His jaw is tight beneath the short beard, the scar catching the light. He looks carved from the mountain itself—immovable, exactly where he belongs.
My stomach does a thing I pretend doesn't happen.
"Harper." My name in his mouth—low, deliberate, like he's placed it carefully.
"Ronan." I keep my voice even. Professionally breezy. "Your hand okay? From the work?"
His eyes drop briefly to his own hands, then back up. "Fine."
"Good. Any joint pain from the cold? Mountain temperatures can—"
"I'm not a patient."
"I know." I smile. "Just making conversation."
He looks at me for a long moment. That measuring look he does, like he's calculating things and doesn't like where the math is landing.
Up close, I can smell engine oil and leather and a warmth underneath both of those things, something that has no business being that distracting.
His shirt is just a henley. It shouldn't be doing what it's doing.
His forearms are right there on the bench and I am a professional healthcare provider who is absolutely not thinking about what those hands would feel like if they…
"You get what you needed?" he asks.
"Yes." The word comes out perfectly steady. I'm proud of it.
"Then you should probably head back." He picks up the carburetor again.
Dismissed.
I say goodbye to Blaze, who salutes me like I'm leaving for war. I nod at Stone, who nods back with the solemnity of a man signing a treaty. I give Gear one more look that means Thursday, no excuses.
Then I walk out into the cool mountain morning, and I keep my pace even until I'm half a block away.
And then I breathe.