Crash & Carnage by Emma Slate

Chapter 1

A couple of months earlier…

“I’mstupid jealous of you right now,” Emily said with a shake of her head.

“You’re jealous of me?” I demanded. “Why?”

“Why? Because you get to examine that hottie over yonder.”

“Over yonder?” I asked in amusement. “You cute little Texan, you.”

“Shut up. And check him out.” Emily tilted her head toward the examination area. A man with dirty blond hair sat on a hospital bed, his left hand pressed against the lower right-hand side of his body. His face was pinched in obvious pain.

He had scruff for days and hair that was mussed just enough to look like a woman had been running her fingers through it. He wore a black leather vest and leather boots with thick soles.

“When did he come in?” I asked.

“About fifteen minutes ago. Justine checked him in.”

“That means his information is already in the system,” I said, reaching for my tablet with his medical files. “Justine is a powerhouse of organization and efficiency.”

“She missed her calling as a Marine general.”

I grinned, turned my attention back to the patient’s chart, and reviewed his symptoms. “Appendicitis.”

“You sure?”

“Can’t be completely sure without examining him first, but yeah, I feel pretty confident.”

“Wanna bet?” she asked.

“What did you have in mind?”

“If you’re right, you have to come out to happy hour with me and the other nurses.”

“And if I’m wrong?”

“How often are you wrong?” she asked. “You’ve been here a month, and you’ve already got the best diagnostic statistics of any doctor in the ER. I’m literally betting that you’re right to ensure that I win.”

“Now you’re just trying to flatter me.”

“Is it working?”

I smiled. “Kinda, yeah.” I raised the tablet again and looked at the man’s chart for his name.

“Adderly Ford,” I said. “What kind of name is Adderly Ford?”

“The hot kind.”

“You’re boy crazy.”

“Boy crazy is for teenagers. I’m man crazy—and totally proud of it. You could do with being a little man crazy.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I bet he smells like woodsmoke and whisky,” she said dreamily.

He probably smells like cheap perfume and sex. A man who looked like him—dressed like him—yeah, he screamed skirt chaser.

I looked in his direction. He was staring at the ground, wincing with each breath.

“Please sniff him and report back,” Emily said.

“Emily,” Justine barked from a few feet away.

I saluted Emily and left her to go toe-to-toe with Justine. With the tablet in one hand, I approached the man.

“Mr. Ford,” I greeted. “I’m Dr. Ward. I’ll be examining you today.”

He slowly raised his head and stared at me with glassy, gray eyes. Dove gray. Beautiful. Fringed with long blond lashes.

“Call me Boxer.”

“Boxer,” I said with a nod.

“You’re my doctor?”

“Yes.”

He attempted a grin, but it came out as a grimace.

“What?”

Boxer grunted. “Nothing, I just—wow, okay.”

I pulled the curtain closed around the cot to give us privacy. After setting down the tablet on a stainless-steel tray next to the bed, I reached for a pair of Nitrile gloves.

“I looked at your chart, and I need to examine you. Will you please unbutton your pants and lift your shirt?”

“Your wish is my command,” he joked, but his smile was strained. His complexion was ashen and the blond hair at his temples was dark with sweat.

He lowered his jeans a couple of inches and raised his black shirt so that I could see his belly. I ignored the six-pack, the light dusting of blond fuzz, and the swirls of ink marking his skin. I gently palpitated his tender abdomen.

A hiss of air left his mouth.

“How long have you been in pain?” I asked.

“A few days. I took some ibuprofen, which seemed to help a bit, but today it got a lot worse. It’s not going away, Doc.”

“You can button your pants now. I’m ordering some scans to confirm what I believe is appendicitis, but I’d like to get you in to surgery as soon as—”

Boxer leaned over and vomited on my sneakers.

“Possible,” I finished with a sigh.

* * *

“His pressure is dropping, Dr. Ward,” Jackie said.

“Dr. Maxwell,” I called out to the anesthesiologist, my eyes still on Boxer, who was draped and unconscious on the table. “Talk to me.”

Dr. Maxwell had jumped off his stool at the beep.

I dropped the suture clamp onto the operating tray. The nurses rolled over the defibrillator setup in case I needed to jump start Boxer’s heart.

“Looks like he’s having an allergic reaction to the anesthesia,” Dr. Maxwell pronounced. “I’m administering epinephrine. Everybody take a deep breath and give it sixty seconds.”

Dr. Maxwell quickly prepared a syringe of epinephrine from the tray in front of his station and administered it to Boxer’s IV. After a few moments, the beeping stopped and Dr. Maxwell said, “His pressure’s stabilizing. I think we’re good.”

There was a collective sigh of relief in the room, and then Jackie rolled the defibrillator back to its position in the corner.

“Excellent,” I said. “Let’s finish flushing out the cavity, and then we can close.”

The operating room was my sanctuary. My haven.

I was good at this. Sometimes, I felt like it was the only thing I was good at.

“He was lucky,” Jackie said.

I looked up at her. Her brown eyes were crinkled at the corners, and I knew she was smiling behind her mask.

“Lucky, how?” I demanded.

“His appendix only just burst—it could’ve been a lot worse.”

“Nearly slipping into anaphylactic shock from an allergic reaction to the anesthesia for a routine surgery doesn’t sound very lucky to me.” I sighed in frustration.

An hour later, I strode into the waiting room and looked around. A group of swarthy tattooed men wearing leather sat in the corner, and for just a moment I found myself observing them before I said, “I’m looking for Adderly Ford’s—Boxer’s—family.”

“That’s us.” A dark-haired, hulking, broody giant rose. He gestured to several other men with him. “We’re Boxer’s family. I’m Colt.”

He held out his massive paw toward me. I shook it firmly and tried not to be intimidated.

“Nice to meet you, Colt.” My eyes swept over his leather vest pocket with a patch that read, President.

It all made sense now. Boxer’s nickname. The leather vest. The boots and tattoos.

Boxer was a biker.

The few people in the waiting room had given Boxer’s friends a wide berth. The men in leather saturated the space, their collective aura radiating a back-the-hell-off energy that was both mesmerizing and titillating.

Another man with dark brown hair and a jaw that looked like it could cut marble peered at me as he asked, “How is he, Doc?”

I had to tilt my head back so I could meet his eyes and then my gaze wandered from him to the others.

“His appendix ruptured,” I announced.

There was a smattering of rumbled curses, but when I raised my hand to get their attention, they surprised me by quieting down almost immediately.

“He’ll be on heavy antibiotics for a couple of weeks, just to ensure there’s no infection. We cleaned his abdominal cavity, and we’ll monitor him closely the next couple of days while he’s here.”

“Whew.” The blond blue-eyed devil shook his head. “I knew the fucker was sicker than he said he was.”

“You were the one passing him the bottle of bourbon,” Colt said dryly. “To help him self-medicate.”

“When can we see him?” the blond asked me, ignoring Colt completely.

“Tomorrow during visiting hours. Right now, he needs to rest.”

“Tomorrow it is then. Come on, boys,” Colt called to the other men in leather. To me, he said, “Thanks, Doc.”

The men trekked to the elevator. Their vests all had the same emblem on the backs: a skull flanked with angel’s wings. I hadn’t expected them to be genuinely concerned about their friend’s well-being; I knew very little about bikers or biker clubs, only what I had seen in pop culture.

I also couldn’t believe how insanely attractive they all were. They were all so virile and…earthy.

“Um, was that a fleet of hot bikers I just saw?” Peyton asked.

“I prefer the term convoy,” I joked. “But yes.”

“Wow. Just wow,” she said, as we headed toward the lounge.

“Yeah, I didn’t think bikers could look like that. I expected… I don’t know. Something else.”

“I get it.” She chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“You were staring up at them, and your eyes were ping-ponging from one to the next.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said with a laugh as I followed her into the staff lounge.

She went to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of water and handed me one. “It’s okay, you know.”

“What is?”

“To admit you want to scratch your itch with a biker.”

“Me?” I raised my brows. “What about you?”

“What about me,” she averred.

“Yeah, okay. You’re not ready to scratch your itch and neither am I.”