Tate grabbed her hand. His eyes warmed, and he bent his head and kissed the tip of her finger, flicking his tongue across her fingertip so quickly all she could do was gasp.
“Right now I am. You can walk or I’ll carry you. My guess is, you’d rather walk.”
Their gazes clashed and he narrowed his eyes at her. “This isn’t a joke, Dace. I’m going back in and you’re coming with me. I’m not leaving you in the parking lot with a bunch of bikers who don’t like me very much. Whip thinks I claimed you, and I’m not giving him a chance to test our devotion.”
“Yeah, about that claiming thing. What the…” Her remark ended in an enraged shriek as Tate grabbed her out of the wrecker cab, slung his arm around her waist and lifted her off her feet. He bent his head and whispered into her ear.
“With me. Right the
hell
now.”
By this time, Fred had strolled up with his bag of takeout food, ready to take off with Dace’s car in tow. Tate placed Dace carefully on the asphalt, leaving his arm around her shoulders. As they walked back to her Honda, Tate turned to him and spoke in a low tone to the burly driver.
“Fred, tow her car to the place she asked and send the bill to the bar. You’ve got a week of dinners coming, all on me. Got it?”
Giving Tate a glare that would have melted steel, Dace grabbed her tote bag, her backpack and her dead cell phone off the front seat of the Honda, and locked up her car. Tate was behind her, no more than a step away, and when she was done, he took the bags from her hands and slung them over his shoulder. Grabbing her hand, he urged her in the direction of the bar.
Whip and his crew had already returned to the parking lot, and were preparing to leave. Some of them had climbed on their cycles; the rest were stamping out their cigarettes and draining their beers, dropping the empties in the parking lot. As they powered up one at a time, the night air filled with the thrumming roar of the powerful Harleys.
As Whip noticed Tate and Dace watching him, he gave them another chin jerk.
Dace noticed the two younger men who had stayed outside to watch the motorcycles waited until everyone else had mounted up before they climbed on their machines and pulled to the back of the line. Two by two, with Whip alone in front, the men pulled out onto the deserted street and accelerated, the reverberation of the engines echoing off the deserted buildings.
Tate still had hold of her hand, and they were almost at the door of the bar when Dace pulled back. “Oh, wait. Fred still has my driver’s license and my AAA card. I need those. Hang on, I’ll be right back.”
She turned and darted back across the street toward Fred’s wrecker.
Chapter Six
Watching Dace dash across the street as the motorcycles were pulling out of the lot, Tate thought his heart was going to pound out of his chest for the second time that night.
For a split second he thought about chasing her. Whip was already two blocks away, but there were still several bikers remaining in the parking lot, including the two prospects. They hadn’t pulled out yet because a black pickup truck had backed into a parking place at the lot’s entrance, partially blocking the way out.
Logically, he reasoned it out. Whip was the immediate threat and he was gone. Not one of his crew would ever try anything without Whip’s permission, so Dace was safe.
He couldn’t explain why this woman was important to him, or it was so vital to keep her protected; after all, he’d met her for the first time a couple hours ago. She felt right in his arms, like she completed some missing part of him he hadn’t known was gone. Beyond that, she had done something no other woman in his life had ever done, and she did it not once, but twice. She made him laugh so hard he cried. Afterward, it was as if a weight he’d been oblivious to carrying had dissolved in his gut, and he felt lighter, easier in his skin.
Still, there was one thing he’d learned from his military tours overseas, and that was to trust the tingling sensation in the primitive animal instinct part of his brain screaming
beware
… That warning had saved him more than once from walking into a FUBAR situation; the kind that sent the remains of his brother soldiers home in body bags.
That limbic scream was echoing inside his head right now and getting louder.
What the fuck…
He scanned the street again. Dace was walking away from the wrecker, waving at Fred over her shoulder, and heading back toward the bar entrance. Fred had his wrecker in gear, the Honda in tow, and was inching toward a barely visible back alley at the rear of the parking lot. The remaining bikers had gotten off their motorcycles and were standing near the black pickup, having a conversation with the people inside. The truck’s windows were darkly tinted, but he could make out two heads and possibly a third. Still, they weren’t shouting and they didn’t appear to be having a confrontation. No other traffic rolled by the bar, and the street was quiet.
Deciding he was acting overly paranoid, he turned around and reentered the bar. As he opened the door, the ear-splitting rock and roll blasting from the band’s amplifiers hit him like a physical blow. Deafened by the music, he let the door slam behind him, and moved back behind the bar to have a word with Jack, to see how much whiskey Whip and the Dark Riders had cost him. He also had to let Jack know he was leaving shortly to take Dace home.
He had high hopes her hospitality would extend to an offer of breakfast and coffee—and maybe a sleepover, without the sleeping—not necessarily in that order. They had gotten a taste of each other in Fred’s wrecker, and he wasn’t averse to a second helping. He hoped she felt the same way. This woman had affected him, and while his dating skills were rusted to the ground, he was going to do his best to get them back in working order.
Pronto.
His bartender tapped him on the shoulder. Jack moved his fingers in the universal “yak-yak-yak” motion, indicating he wanted to talk to Tate. Pointing to his ear, Tate shook his head, and gestured toward the stockroom, where the door would block out some of the noise once they closed it.
He looked up, just as Dace came hurtling through the heavy front door, slamming it against the wall.
“A man’s been shot. Call 911. Now!”
She twisted around and ran out.
Fuck.
Fuck!
Never ignore the feeling.
Chapter Seven
A few moments earlier, Dace was on her way back to the bar. After she waved goodbye to Fred, she decided to give a wide birth to the group of bikers still standing by the black pickup. As she passed the black truck, the once-quiet conversation became a loud one.
Dace heard angry shouting and a stream of furious-sounding Spanish invectives, ending with the word “
pendejo
”. Two sharp cracks ripped through the air, and she knew instinctively the noises were gunshots. She dropped to the ground as the men standing near the truck scattered, some diving for cover and some reaching for their own weapons, tucked in their waistbands, to return fire.
The black pickup’s engine revved into a scream as the truck lurched into motion, bouncing over the curb, and screeched into a sliding turn as it swerved out of the lot, rear tires sliding and leaving long dark strips of melted rubber behind on the asphalt. The barking retort of the gun shots still echoed in the dark night.
One man was lying motionless on the ground, half on his side, with his left arm arched over his head. There was a spreading pool of dark liquid under the body; even in the dim light Dace knew it was blood. She recognized the biker as one of Whip’s crew.
Acting on instinct, she ran to the downed man’s side. The other bikers in the lot had already fired up their machines and were beginning to pour out of the lot, presumably to wreak their vengeance on the occupants in the pickup truck. In the blink of an eye, the street was empty except for the fading roar of accelerating motorcycles, leaving Dace standing alone over a gunshot victim bleeding out on the asphalt.
Dace spared a glance at Fred’s orange wrecker; he was out of the lot, his revolving yellow lights barely visible in a narrow back entrance alleyway she hadn’t noticed before. Her Honda still hung from the wrecker’s hook, and she sent up a quick prayer to the automotive gods that her car remained free from bullet holes.
She bent down and checked for a pulse. It was weak and sporadic, but at least it was there. Out of habit, she reached for her pocket to get her phone, and then remembered it was dead in her backpack, across the street in the bar. She realized the biker’s phone lay smashed into pieces on the ground by his heavy boots. No help there.
For the second time that night—albeit moving much more quickly—Dace ran across the deserted street toward Shooters. She burst through the front door, hitting it with so much force it banged against the wall.
“A man’s been shot. Call 911. Now!”
Chapter Eight
Tate vaulted over the bar and raced out of the door, his long legs eating up the distance between him and Dace. By the time he reached her, she was squatting down, bent over the body of a man sprawled on the ground.
Tate recognized him as one of the prospects left outside to watch over the motorcycles for Whip’s crew. For the second time that night, he dug his phone out of his jeans pocket and made the call to 911.
After he hung up, he crouched next to Dace. She had moved the man flat and was monitoring his pulse with her fingers on his neck. Carefully, she pulled up his torso to assess the bullet wound. “Dammit, it’s a through-and-through,” she muttered to herself. “Go get some bar towels or something clean; I’ve got to get the bleeding slowed down or he will go into shock.” She snapped her instructions at Tate without looking away from the bleeding man. When he didn’t move, she looked up at him. “Go! Now! What the hell are you waiting for?”
Tate ran back to Shooters, pushed through the gawking bar patrons now standing on the sidewalk, and grabbed up a stack of clean bar towels and an unopened package of paper towels. As he raced back outside lugging his load, he heard the ambulance siren faintly in the distance. No music had ever sounded sweeter to his ears.
“Here.” Dace was still in full command mode. “Help me lift him up so I can pack the exit wound. I need to get pressure on that wound, stat, so we can slow down the blood loss.”
Tate shoved the towels at her. Dace’s capable, no-nonsense hands—the ones Tate had admired a few hours ago—were now frantically wadding up towels and stuffing them under the unconscious prospect’s shoulder.
The ambulance siren grew louder and shriller, finally cutting off as it bumped over the curb and stopped a few feet away. The onlookers from inside the bar had moved across the street and were now standing in a wide circle around the downed man, watching Dace tend to him.
As he moved aside to let the EMTs wheel the gurney through the group of people, Tate was stunned to hear one of the EMTs say, “Hey Doc, surprised to see you on scene. What have we got?”
“Male, early twenties, GSW through-and-through, right upper torso…”
As her voice droned on, giving the info to the EMT on the prospect’s condition, Tate took a deep breath.
Dace was a doctor?
Sure, he saw the scrubs; and, like the sexist chauvinistic bastard he was, he immediately thought “nurse” or “technician”.
Instead—surprise, surprise, his Dace was a doctor, and a damn competent one, if her instructions and patient assessment to the EMTs was any indication.
Wait a minute…
His
Dace? When in this long, eventful night had she become
his
Dace? He didn’t commit, he didn’t do relationships, and he liked his life. Most important, he didn’t have time for a girlfriend; not even one with benefits. Yet suddenly, in his mind she was HIS. He couldn’t explain what he felt…he just knew he felt it.
He watched as the EMTs loaded the wounded man on a gurney, strapping him down for transport. Dace climbed up into the rig, still talking to the EMTs, and started wiping down the prospect’s arm with disinfectant, preparing to insert an IV line.
Tate followed her into the rear of the ambulance without a second thought, and slid next to her on the bench seat. Dace noticed him and thrust an ambu bag into his hands. “Make yourself useful. Keep this fitted over this nose and mouth, and squeeze the bag every few seconds. It will keep the air moving through his lungs.”
Dace gestured at the EMT riding in the back. “Get the IV line in, hang a bag of saline, and get some fluids running. I need a pulse ox and BP before I call it in. Randall’s on OR rotation tonight, and he’ll need an orthopedic assist for sure. Maybe a reconstructive guy, too, depending on the damage. Give me your radio.” She held out her hand.
Tate watched Dace grab a radio mike, her scrubs now smeared with blood and streaked with dirt. “Central Receiving, this is Dr. Dace Robinson, en route via ambulance with a male victim, BP ninety-six over seventy, pulse fifty-three, early 20s, six feet, one-eighty, brown/brown, GSW, through-and-through, right upper torso, no ID on victim. We need blood type and cross-match, have OR standing by as patient will need immediate surgical intervention to address bleeding…”
She was in her element, directing emergency operations and saving the life of a man she had never met. His heart grew warm and an unfamiliar feeling…
pride
?…bloomed in his chest. Dace was a warrior—and she was magnificent.
Sirens screaming, they pulled into the emergency entrance of the hospital. Doctors and nurses swarmed out of the automatic doors, opening the rear doors of the ambulance and extracting the prospect on his gurney. Dace jumped out, as did the EMT riding with them. Tate followed.
It struck him that her peers respected her. The doctors in white coats carrying stethoscopes who met the ambulance listened while Dace briefed them, and then dispersed to carry out the agreed-upon tasks.
Dace watched as her patient’s gurney was loaded on an elevator to the surgical floor. As the doors closed, her shoulders slumped, and Tate saw her rub her upper arms, as if to shake off exhaustion. Her scrubs were filthy, and her dark braid had half unraveled, strands of loose hair straggling down her back. A moment ago, she was in control, using her training to stop a man from losing his life. Now it was three a.m., and his woman had to be running on empty.