“Call Brock,” I barked at Jaxon as we rushed through the sliding glass doors that led to the emergency room.

“For what, Bear?” He put his hand on my shoulder to stop my rushing pace.

I glared at him before gritting my teeth. “Tell him where to find that chick’s bike. Have him bring it to the garage. Someone needs to see if it can be salvaged. This poor woman has been through hell tonight, she should go home to a working bike.”

I was raging. It wasn’t about that damn bike. It wasn’t even about the damn girl—I didn’t even know who the fuck she was. It was that there was someone that could be saved and for fuck’s sake, I needed a damn win. She needed to be all right and her fucking bike needed to be fixed. It was the first positive little sliver of hope in sight, the only thing I could see to grasp on to.

Jaxon turned and walked out the door without another word. There was a determined look in his eyes; he needed a victory just as badly as I did.

I strode up to the nurses’ station with conviction, my chest puffed out, my head high in the air.

“Can I help you, sir?” A blue-haired nurse in green scrubs with bright pink lipstick on her crooked teeth beamed up at me from her rolling chair.

“There was an ambulance that just arrived with a young woman who was in an accident. Can you tell me where they’ve taken her?”

She pursed her lips. “Are you family?”

I shook my head.

“I’m sorry, but I can only give patient information to next of kin. You understand, right? It’s hospital policy.” She smiled sweetly, batting her eyelashes quickly.

I bowed my head, silently counting to ten to calm my thoughts. In a low voice, I cooed, “I’m the one that found her while my friend and I were traveling home from a long trip. I just want to make sure she’s doin’ all right, ma’am. I’m sure there is some information you can give me on her status, isn’t there? I wouldn’t feel right leavin’ here without knowin’ how that little lady is doin’. She was all alone on the side of the road. Some jerk must have run her off the road and left her there for dead. I don’t want to think what might have happened if we hadn’t found her when we did.”

The thick charm and sob story worked its magic on the kind nurse. She gave me the room number the Jane Doe had been taken to.

After wandering the halls and getting turned upside down more times than I could count, I finally found my destination. I stood outside the woman’s room, staring through the window as she lay in her hospital bed, still unconscious. She was mostly covered by a white blanket, but what was exposed of her body was bruised, scraped, and swollen. I didn’t know what to do. Standing there like a damn fool, I felt helpless. The desire to sit by her side and hold her hand was overwhelming, but the fear of freaking her out when she came to kept my feet rooted in the narrow hallway.

“How’s she holdin’ up?” Jaxon had finally found me. I turned slowly on the heels of my boots to look at him as he made his way to my side. The bags under his dim eyes were turning purple from exhaustion.

“I don’t really know,” I admitted, following him to a row of gray plastic seats just a few feet away.

“You gonna hang out here until she wakes up?” he asked, probably already knowing the answer.

I ran my fingers through the long bristles on my chin and neck. “It just don’t seem right leavin’ her here all alone to wake up in a bed hooked up to machines. That ain’t fair to her.”

Jaxon nodded, leaning back farther into his seat. “You know she’s gonna be freaked when a burly ass biker strides into her room claiming to be her knight in shining armor, don’t ya?”

Leave it to Jaxon to not sugarcoat his feelings about the situation in the slightest. “It’s better than the alternative.” I looked over at my number two as he narrowed his gaze at me.

“And what’s that?” He questioned.

“Walkin’ away.” I let my head fall back onto the cool wall.

Jaxon shoved up from his chair. “This isn’t gonna bring Abel back. You do know that, right?”

His sharp words cut through me. “I know,” I muttered. “It ain’t just about that. It’s about doin’ the right thing.”

“For her or for you?”

I ignored his question completely.

“Coffee?” he asked, already walking away.

“As long as you make it Irish with that flask I know you got hiding in your cut,” I replied.

He glanced over his shoulder before turning the corner to head toward the cafeteria. “Aye, brother.”

* * *

Jaxon and I must have dozed off for a few hours because I was startled awake by the blaring of an alarm a few rooms down from where we had parked ourselves the night before. Nurses and doctors rushed past, flying into the room to save the patient.

I stretched out my stiffened back before nudging Jaxon awake. The low light of the sunrise was coming in through the windows giving the stark hospital a golden glow.

Through a yawn, Jaxon muttered, “Gah, damn it. What the fuck time is it?”

I shrugged. “Too fucking early.”

It took me a few seconds to remember why we had been sleeping in uncomfortable plastic chairs in the middle of a hospital.

I leapt to my feet. “She’s awake,” I whispered as I tiptoed toward the young lady’s room. She was sitting up, staring blankly at the television in the corner of her room. The droning of a news report was my soundtrack for walking in and startling the poor girl half to death.

She let out a piercing shrill as I knocked on the open door and her dainty hand flew to her chest. Clearing my throat, I continued to make my way into her room.

“Ma’am, I’m Rudiger Beringar. I was the one who found you last night on the side of the road.”

Her eyes were still wide. She was frozen. All she did was blink at me for what felt like a lifetime.

To fill the silence, I continued, “Everyone calls me Bear, not that that makes a difference to you or anything. I just wanted to stick around and see for myself that you’re doin’ all right and that the docs here were takin’ good care of ya.” Rubbing the back of my neck, I shuffled my feet all the way to the foot of her bed. “I know you don’t know me from Adam, and I promise I’ll leave you alone, but I wanted to leave my business card with you. I had one of my mechanics pick up your motorcycle and bring it to our shop. I’ll personally take a look at it and make sure it gets fixed up good for ya.”

I dug a card out of my wallet and set it on the bed by her feet.

“All right then. I’ll leave ya to gettin’ some rest. I hope you feel better soon, darlin’.”

I was one foot out the door before she finally spoke.

“Why’d you stay all night?”

Out of all the things she could have said or asked, that just didn’t seem like the right question.

I turned to her, staring right into her smoky eyes. “Because I didn’t want you to wake up here alone. No one should be alone after what you went through, and to be honest, I selfishly needed to know you were okay. I needed for you to be safe and taken care of.”

She patted the side of her bed. “Want to sit with me for a while, Bear?”

Her voice was meek, and there was a sadness to her that I understood. I had so many questions, so many words I wanted to say—not to comfort her, but to distract myself.

“Yes, but in one second.”

Walking out of her room, I shook Jaxon’s shoulder again. “Head on home, brother.”

His groggy eyes fluttered open and he sucked in a deep breath as he woke up again.

“You stayin’?” he asked while stretching.

I turned to look back at the room. “Yeah, for a bit.”

“See you at the shop later.”

I watched Jaxon trudge down the hallway and disappear around the corner before I went back to her bedside. In silence, I took a seat in a cushioned chair under the window, looking right at her.

“Thank you,” she muttered before wiping a tear from her cheek.