She paused for a second, then turned around to clean up the mess we’d made. “Emory.”
“That’s a cool name.”
She turned around and narrowed her eyes at me once again. After shaking her head, she said, “You’re kinda moody, aren’t you…uh?”
“Holden,” I answered.
“Cool name,” she mimicked, and then made a snorting noise. “Have a good night, Holden.”
Chuckling to myself, I left the clinic with a stupid smile on my face. It had been a very long time since a woman had been able to do that to me.
“What were you thinking, letting a human fight a shifter?” I asked Six, knowing my tone was probably not very respectable but I was still annoyed by what had happened to Ray the previous night. Sure, at the end of the day, it was Ray’s fault for entering a fight, but unless he knew shifters existed, he really had been at a serious disadvantage. That shifter could have easily killed him.
“I wasn’t thinking anything, Craig,” he replied, using my last name like he always did. “I put Rusty in charge of the fights, but clearly that was a mistake. One he will definitely be working off when I demote him back to prospect and he pays off that eight-hundred-dollar medical bill.”
I’d called Nora earlier today to settle the bill, as I refused to let anyone do anything free for me, and she’d said $800 would cover it. I’d given her my card, and Six had handed me cash as soon as I had gotten in earlier this evening to pay for it.
“Good. Hope he learns to screen fighters better.”
Six took a swig from his glass. “Stupid fucker said the shifter ‘promised’ him he’d fight like a human if he was going up against one. For fuck’s sake, could he be any stupider? I swear, if he wasn’t my neighbor’s kid, I’d just fuckin’ kill him.”
“I hear you on that, boss.”
Six turned to talk to another club member and I walked off to watch the latest fight, but unfortunately, my mind wasn’t on my job. It was on Emory and her shiny red hair and tight ass. I briefly wondered if she had rosy pink nipples under that scrubs top, and if her backside was as firm as it looked when being spanked.
It had been way too long since a woman had awoken anything in me. After doing my time, I’d just concentrated on rebuilding my life, getting a job, and finding someplace to belong. Now that I had achieved those things, I wondered if I didn’t deserve some kind of happiness in my personal life.
A quick scan inside my head, thinking of my past, I soon realized that no, I didn’t deserve it. I’d made too many mistakes and I would just keep making them, I was sure. I didn’t need to fuck anyone else up. Especially someone so seemingly nice and good as Emory was.
Sure, she was a bit of a firecracker—but weren’t all redheads? I loved how she didn’t let me boss her around. She seemed to hold her own, and I liked that about a girl.
Pushing thoughts of Emory from my brain, I watched the fights and made rounds at the fight club to make sure nobody was acting like an idiot. Thankfully, it was a quiet night.
114
Emory
I smiled warmly at the elderly woman. “I hope you feel better, Mrs. Jensen.”
She smiled back at me, her wizened face and watery eyes looking genuinely happy and relieved it had only been a bladder infection that had brought her into the clinic and not something more serious.
I watched her walk out with a prescription for some antibiotics and then checked the mounted computer screen in the corner of the room. There were, apparently, six people in the waiting room. Business was picking up, and I was happy for my Aunt Nora. She had busted her ass as a nurse for the past twenty-five years, and this clinic had been her dream come true. I was just happy she’d encouraged me to follow in her footsteps and go to nursing school so I wouldn’t have to struggle like she had when she was my age. My twin cousins, Brandy and Nathan, had just been babies when her husband, Rick, along with my mom—Nora’s husband’s sister—had died in a motorcycle crash, leaving poor Aunt Nora to not only have to raise her twins alone, but me, too. I supposed I had a father, but who knew where he was. I had only been five when my mom and Uncle Rick had died, so there would be no way for me to know who he was now. And I had made peace with that a long time ago. Aunt Nora had been and still was like a mother to me, and I would do anything for her. Anything but get on a motorcycle. I had detested the things my entire life and wondered why anyone would ride one of those damn death traps.
As I made my way to the front of the clinic to collect the next patient, my mind drifted to Holden, the big-ass biker who had been in here the night before. He’d mentioned he’d known Aunt Nora—had done the electrical work for this clinic—but that seemed odd, considering I was positive he was in a motorcycle gang. I’d seen his leather vest with the logo on it, depicting some kind of wild cat. And honestly? It hadn’t been the first time I’d seen that patch. Before working here, I’d only done my time in the emergency room of the biggest hospital in San Antonio, and I had seen plenty of those guys come in.
Always discharged themselves against medical advice, and always, always paid in cash before they left. That was why I was a bit shocked when Holden had offered me a credit card last night. It was also why I refused to take it, leaving it
