My Protective Biker (Bloomfield: Motorcycle Club #6)

Chapter 1 — Carina

The cicadas are so loud this afternoon that I almost don't hear the clinic door chime.

I'm elbow-deep in setting a splint on a stray tabby's broken leg, murmuring to him while the pain medication keeps him purring and pliant under my hands, when the bell above the entrance rings.

I glance up just long enough to register a young woman hovering near the doorway, dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, something wrapped in a faded beach towel cradled against her chest like she's afraid it might shatter.

"I'll be with you in just a minute," I tell her, keeping my voice low and steady the way I do with every frightened animal and every anxious owner who walks through my door.

She nods without speaking and stays where she is.

I can feel her watching while I check the alignment of the splint one more time, adjusting the padding where it sits against the tabby's foreleg, making sure the wrap is snug enough to stabilize the bone but not so tight it will cut off circulation.

The fracture is clean, which means if I can keep him still and medicated for the next six weeks, he should heal without surgery or complications.

He blinks up at me with golden eyes, still floating on the edge of pharmaceutical bliss, and I scratch behind his ears before I peel off my gloves and turn my attention to the girl waiting by the door.

"What do we have?"

She crosses to the exam table in three quick steps and sets the towel down with a care that borders on reverent.

When she unwraps it, another cat stares up at me with wide amber eyes, his orange fur matted with dirt and something darker that might be old blood, his whole body trembling with pain or fear or both.

"I found him on Route 9," the girl says, and the words tumble out so fast they nearly run together.

"About a mile out from town, he was just dragging himself toward the shoulder and there were cars and I didn't know if I should move him but I couldn't just leave him there and I didn't even know if you'd be open but your sign says Tuesday through Saturday so—"

"Hey." I look up from the cat and meet her eyes, let her see that I'm calm, that this is manageable, that she did the right thing. "You did exactly what you should have done. What's your name?"

"Zoe."

"I'm Carina." I'm already running my hands over the cat with the kind of gentle precision that comes from seven years of veterinary practice, checking for the injuries I can see and the ones I can't. His left front leg is wrong, the angle too sharp where the bone has snapped clean through, and when I apply the lightest pressure just above the break, he flinches hard enough that I feel it in my chest. "Okay, broken leg for sure.

Let me see what else we're dealing with. "

I work methodically, talking Zoe through each step because anxious owners need the explanation as much as the injured animal needs the treatment.

The internal bruising along his left side is concerning but when I palpate his abdomen, checking for rigidity or swelling that would indicate bleeding, I don't find anything that screams emergency surgery.

No other fractures. Underweight, the kind of skinny that says he's been fending for himself for weeks, but his gums are a healthy pink when I check them and his eyes are bright despite the pain.

Young too, maybe four months old, still all paws and ears.

"Is he going to be okay?" Zoe's hands are knotted together in front of her stomach, knuckles gone white.

"He should be," I tell her, and I make sure she can see in my face that I mean it. "The leg is a clean break. I'll splint it, keep him here overnight so I can monitor him for any internal bleeding I might have missed, and if he's stable in the morning, you can take him home."

Her whole face transforms. "Really?"

"If you want him."

"I do. I really do."

The door opens again.

I don't look up right away because I'm checking the cat's respiratory rate, counting breaths with my fingers resting light against his ribcage, but I feel the change in the air.

The way the small clinic suddenly feels smaller, the way the space itself shifts to accommodate whoever just walked in.

"You okay?" The voice is low and even, directed at Zoe, and something in my stomach tightens at the sound of it.

"Yeah." Zoe doesn't look away from the cat. "I called you because I didn't know if I should just bring him here or call first or—"

"You did the right thing."

I finish counting respirations and straighten, and that's when I actually look at him.

He fills the doorway.

That's the first thing that registers, not his height though he has to be over six feet, not his build though his shoulders are broad enough to nearly brush both sides of the frame, but the way he occupies the space itself.

Dark hair going gray at the temples. A strong jaw that's just starting to show the years. Gray-green eyes that scan the clinic with focused attention, assessing everything before deciding what it requires from him.

He's wearing a black leather vest over a plain t-shirt, patches visible even from across the room.

Those pale eyes land on Zoe first, quick and thorough. Then on the cat. Then on me.

The impact is immediate and visceral.

My pulse kicks up hard enough that I feel it in my throat.

Heat crawls up my neck and spreads across my chest, and I'm suddenly aware of how I must look right now, hair pulled back in a practical ponytail, wearing scrubs that do nothing for my figure, no makeup because I stopped bothering with that when I moved to Bloomfield.

Not that it matters. Not that I want him to notice.

"What are we looking at?" he asks, and his attention settles on me with the same thorough focus he gave everything else.

I have to clear my throat before I can answer.

"Broken leg. Probable bruising along the left side but no signs of internal bleeding that I can find.

He's young and healthy under the road damage, so the prognosis is good.

I'll splint the leg, keep him overnight for observation, and if he's stable in the morning, Zoe can take him home. "

He's assessing me the same way he assessed the room when he walked in, and I understand with a small shock that he's deciding whether I'm competent. Whether Zoe is safe here. Whether he can trust me with something that matters to his daughter.

"You do this often?" he asks. "Strays?"

"Often enough." I turn back to the cat, needing to do something with my hands. "Bloomfield doesn't have animal control. People bring me what they find."

He nods once, economical. Then his attention shifts back to Zoe. "You want to keep him?"

The hope that floods her face makes my chest ache. "Can I?"

"If Carina says he's good to go home, yeah." He looks at me again, and this time I catch it, the way his gaze drops for just a fraction of a second before coming back to my face.

It's fast. Quick enough that I could almost convince myself I imagined it. But I feel it like a physical touch, that brief assessment of my body, and the warmth in my skin intensifies.

"What do we owe you?" he asks.

I quote him the exam fee plus overnight observation. It's fair, maybe slightly under what the county clinic would charge.

He doesn't argue. Just pulls a worn leather wallet from his back pocket, counts out bills with hands that are scarred and callused across the knuckles.

He hands the money across the exam table.

Our fingers brush during the exchange.

It's nothing. The kind of accidental contact that happens a dozen times a day, meaningless and forgettable.

Except I feel it all the way down my spine.

His hand is warm, the calluses rough against my skin, and that brief press of his fingers against mine sends a jolt of awareness through my body that makes my breath catch.

I pull my hand back too fast, fumble the bills, have to focus on smoothing them out so I don't have to meet his eyes.

When I finally look up, he's watching me.

Not smiling. Not giving anything away. Just watching with those pale gray-green eyes that seem to see more than I'm prepared to show.

"Thank you," Zoe says, breaking the moment. "Can I come by tomorrow to check on him?"

"Clinic opens at eight." I manage a smile that almost feels normal. "Come by whenever you want."

He's already moving toward the door. Zoe follows but pauses at the threshold to look back.

"I'm going to call him Hamlet," she says, like naming him will make him officially hers.

"He'll be here waiting," I tell her.

Then they're gone. The door closes. The bell chimes.

Through the front window I watch them cross the parking lot to a dark blue pickup that's seen better years.

He opens the passenger door for her, waits until she's settled, closes it with care. Walks around to the driver's side with an economy of movement that suggests he doesn't waste energy on anything unnecessary.

The engine turns over and they pull out onto the road, and I'm still standing here with my pulse beating too hard and my skin too warm and the ghost of callused fingers burning against mine.

I force myself to focus.

Finish treating Hamlet with methodical precision, setting the splint, giving him pain medication, transferring him to one of the overnight cages with water and a soft blanket.

Clean the exam room. Check on Mrs. Parrett's terrier recovering from dental surgery and the Morrison's beagle who's still offended about this morning's anal gland expression.

Process paperwork. Return phone calls. Check inventory.

The whole time I'm thinking about gray-green eyes and callused hands and the way he filled that doorway.

By the time I lock up at five, the late summer heat hits me like a wall. Cicadas scream from the trees and the air is thick enough that breathing feels like work.

I walk home the same three blocks I walk every evening, past houses with wide porches and overgrown gardens, and the entire walk I'm processing what just happened.

The way my body responded to a simple touch. The way I can still feel the warmth of his hand against mine.

This is not me. I don't do this.

I'm practical. I left Harrisburg eighteen months ago specifically to build a life that was calm and controlled and entirely my own.

I get home a little after five-fifteen and make dinner because the routine is familiar even when my appetite isn't. Chicken, vegetables, salad. I eat at my kitchen table with a book propped open, the same mystery novel I've been working through for weeks.

I read three pages and can't tell you what happened in any of them.

All I can think about is the way he looked at me. Assessing. Thorough. Like he was cataloguing everything he saw.

I try reading again after I clean up. Manage another chapter by forcing myself to focus on every word. It almost works.

By eight-thirty I give up and go to bed early, exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with the physical.

I lie there in the dark staring at the ceiling.

Think about callused fingers and the electric shock of contact. About gray-green eyes that saw too much. About a leather vest with patches I couldn't quite read and what Vigil MC means beyond motorcycle club, which implies complications I moved here to avoid.

Think about his daughter and the way he opened the truck door for her, twenty years of being that kind of father.

Think about the fact that I'm lying here obsessing over a man I met for ten minutes, whose last name I don't even know.

I roll onto my side, close my eyes, try to sleep.

But all I can see is the way he filled that doorway, the way his eyes held mine just a beat too long, the way his fingers felt against mine.

I lie there with my pulse too fast and my skin too warm, listening to cicadas through the open window, knowing with absolute certainty that this is not stopping.

That tomorrow when Zoe comes to check on Hamlet, I'm going to be hoping he comes with her.

And I don't know what to do with that want except feel it and tell myself that attraction is just chemistry, that chemistry doesn't have to mean anything, that I can keep my distance and let this fade.

Except I don't believe it.

Not even a little bit.