"Thank you," I said quietly. "What's going on today?"

He was sitting on the bench, his legs spread wide with his elbows resting on his knees.

He hung his head and rolled it, eliciting a few pops and cracks as he did it. "The boss's boss wants to show his prized toy around. He wants to get everyone 'ooing' and 'ahhing' over us and the new EC-135."

I scrunched my nose up at him. "Is that the kind of plane you ride in?"

He chuckled. "It's a helicopter, not a plane."

"Same thing," I sniped back.

"Not even in the least. A plane has fixed wings. A helicopter has blades."

"Whatever," I snapped.

The man could argue with d.a.m.n near anything. He was annoying like that.

And smart.

Very smart.

He could also read me like an open book.

He was getting to me, and I couldn't afford for him to get to me. He'd really hurt me. f.u.c.ked me up so bad that there were times I didn't know which way was up.

Then he shows up, acting as if he hadn't done a d.a.m.n thing to hurt me.

Which made it all the worse.

I couldn't get my hopes up.

Not again.

"Alright. Well, have a good day," I said softly as I walked away.

I didn't look back, even though every cell inside my body screamed at me to turn around to see if he was watching me leave.

I arrived inside in time for a large trauma to enter through the emergency doors.

This wasn't unusual.

We were the biggest facility in the Ark-La-Tex. That's the Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas region.

This particular trauma was a man in a sheriff's department uniform with what amounted to a shiv made out of paper impaled in his eyeball.

"What happened?" I asked Cody as I slipped gloves over my hands.

Cody spoke as he walked with me.

"An inmate stabbed him in the eye with a shiv made out of toilet paper and s.h.i.t made to look like a paper airplane. Guard shot him with the thing sticking out of his eye, though. Dead f.u.c.king center. Inmate's dead," Cody said as he read from the chart.

"Okay," I said as I walked up to the gurney.

"Can you tell me your name?" I asked the young man on the gurney.

His head turned my way. Which consequently meant the paper shiv did too.

"Lamont Thurgood," he rumbled.

"Can you tell me where you are?" I asked as I started hooking him up to the heart rate monitor.

He shook his head.

"That little f.u.c.ker, Jarvis, shoved a s.h.i.t covered paper airplane through my f.u.c.kin' eye. I'm at the hospital where, hopefully, they can get this thing out," he said as he pointed to the airplane.

"Are you feeling any pain?" I asked as Dr. Norwood walked through the curtain.

I didn't much care for Dr. Norwood. He felt like he was too good for us lowly nurses, and he didn't care that we were professionals just as he was.

Sure, I had a lot less schooling than him, but he didn't have to act like I was gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d didn't have any problem delegating tasks. Even ones he d.a.m.n well knew he had to do them himself.

He was a good trauma doc though; which was why the ER still had him hired on, despite the numerous complaints by nearly three quarters of the department.

"No," Lamont said brusquely. "The medics gave me some good meds on the way over. f.u.c.king sucks not being able to see, though."

"I'm sure it does," I agreed.

"Mr. Thurgood, my name is Dr. Norwood. I'm going to take a look at your eye now. That's going to require me to take the bandages from around the paper, though. It might feel funny, but try not to move, okay?" Dr. Norwood asked.

"10-4," he agreed.

The shiv looked about as one would expect.

It was luckily through the side of his eyeball, and not directly in the middle.

With any hope, it wouldn't cause any vision loss. However, it was way too early to tell. They'd have to take him up to the OR, and soon.

"Nurse," Dr. Norwood snapped. "Get an IV in the man already."

I looked down at the line that was already placed in the patient's right side before pointing at it. "He has one in the right AC."

AC stood for antecubital, or more commonly known as the bend of the elbow, and it was extremely hard to miss the fact.

He just liked to make me feel stupid.

"Well then, why isn't he hooked up to some antibiotics yet?" He snapped.

I took a deep, slow breath. "You haven't written the order, nor verbally given the order."

Cody made a sound from the other side of the room where he was inputting information into the COW, or the computer on wheels that we now had to drag around with us into every patient's room.

Dr. Norwood's eyes narrowed on me before they turned to Cody.

"Cody, I need you to start Mr. Thurgood on..."

I stopped listening as I saw a familiar set of hands come from behind me.

"Lamont, my man. What happened to your face?" Cleo asked from behind me.

Dr. Norwood's eyes narrowed impossibly further on the man leaning over my back.

If I didn't know better, I'd say Dr. Norwood was almost jealous, but that couldn't be.

Lamont's head turned until he could see Cleo's face, and he smiled. "Piercing gone wrong."

I snorted, as did Cleo.

"Right," Cleo chuckled. "I heard a guard got shivved. I wanted to come see who it was."

"Lucky old me," he said as he turned his head to Cody, who was hanging up some antibiotics.

"I don't know who you are, but you need to get out of my ER," Dr. Norwood snapped.

Cleo's eyes flicked up, pinning Dr. Norwood like a bug to the front of a speeding car. "Sorry, didn't mean to intrude. I just wanted to check on my friend. I'm leaving."

Cleo backed out of the room with his arms raised, but I didn't miss the glare he aimed at Dr. Norwood, and then the heated glance that landed on me before he disappeared out the doors.

"Boyfriend?" Dr. Norwood snapped.

I glanced at him before getting an alcohol pad to clean the dried blood off of Mr. Thurgood's chin and cheeks.

For some reason, the man's snapped question set my back up, and I snapped right back at him. "That's none of your business."

That was the last thing I wanted to talk about right now; especially to someone that annoyed the s.h.i.t out of me.

I caught Cody's amused grin just as he turned away, and I snorted.

Cody could find amus.e.m.e.nt in nearly anything.

I, however, was definitely not amused.

Rue I shifted from foot to foot as I waited for my ride.

I wouldn't mention that the man was fifteen minutes late.

Oh, who was I kidding? The man was f.u.c.king late and I was exhausted.

Even worse, I had to catch a ride from someone I didn't even know.

Cody had gone home in the middle of the shift sick with a stomach virus. He'd been my ride home. Or he would've been. I wasn't too keen on getting in a car with a stranger.

A loud engine rumbled into the parking lot, and I just knew that that red lifted Chevy was my ride.

It was older, but still in excellent shape.

A man hopped out and walked around the front of the truck. "Rue?" He asked.

His large beard caught my eye, and I was sort of shocked, and in beard l.u.s.t with the man in seconds.

I nodded. "I'm Rue."

He held out his hand, and I accepted it, placing my palm in his and giving it a firm shake.

He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling at the edges. "Nice to meet you. I'm Silas."

That was when the front of his leather vest caught my attention.

It was nearly the same one that Cleo wore, only this one had this man's name, Silas, on it. There was also the word 'President' underneath that.

I swallowed thickly, knowing this man was the president of The Dixie Wardens MC, and I was about to get into a car alone with him.

"Silas," I nodded my head and smoothly extricated my hand from his.

He noticed the maneuver and smiled before opening the door for me.

I looked at it warily.

"I don't bite," he rumbled.

I looked from the tips of his boots to the top of his head before starting forward.

"If you kill me, I'm gonna have Cleo kick your a.s.s," I said softly.

"Noted," he acknowledged.

Once I was in my seat, he slammed the door closed, and walked around the front of the truck before hefting his solid ma.s.s into his own seat.