Chapter 6

Well aren’t we just two scoops of grumpy with a dash of asshole this morning.

-Baylor to Reed

Reed

Present

I read the scribbled note and smiled.

Just because you drive a big truck, doesn’t mean that you can park like a dick. :)

It wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be. I knew exactly who it was from. I’d know that pretty handwriting anywhere. Krisney had always had such pretty handwriting. Though, now, it looked a little more elegant.

I flipped the paper over and saw a receipt for a package of Skittles, two Dr. Peppers, and a bag of pork rinds from yesterday.

Krisney.

Though, she likely didn’t know that it was my truck she was writing that note on. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have bothered.

I wanted to tell her it was hard as hell to park a dually in a fucking parking spot made for a goddamn compact car, but then I would have to talk to her. Then I’d have to admit to myself that I fucking missed her.

I’d arrived in town two days prior, and I was walking into my new job located at the county hospital. The private practice that I accepted a position with had their offices there.

My brother, Travis, was kind of pissed that I wasn’t working full-time for him like he’d hoped, but the OB position at the clinic in town had opened up suddenly and I’d pounced on it.

Not that I didn’t love the auto recovery business, but I didn’t like it as much as my job as an OB/GYN.

But the real excitement didn’t have to do with actually being at home. Nor did it have to do with the fact that I was no longer in Germany away from my family.

Nope.

The one and only reason I was excited to be home had to do with a certain strawberry blonde with the long hair and bouncy curls. The one who had the power to bring me to my knees with just a look.

Yep, that woman was my heart and soul. A heart and soul that I couldn’t have.

The night that I found out that her brother had raped my sister—and had been raping my sister for quite a long time—I had called it quits with us.

I loved her, but I wasn’t sure how the hell we were going to come back from that.

I mean, how do you look a person in the face and tell her that it’s okay that her brother raped your sister?

Sure, she didn’t have a goddamn thing to do with it, but my mind wasn’t fucking rational.

It was a swirl of emotions, and I was just trying to do the right thing.

Not to mention I knew it’d be hard for Amy to see Krisney every day and not be reminded of what had been done to her. Now, it didn’t matter, because Amy had committed suicide.

Goddammit.

I wiped my hand across my brow and wiped it on my slacks, wishing I could wear jeans.

And I would…eventually.

Once I was established, then I’d start wearing whatever the fuck I wanted. Until then, though, I’d make it look like I was one to follow the rules.

Which was laughable, really.

Rules were meant to be broken.

Which made me look like a hypocrite seeing as I wouldn’t break my own rules when it came to Krisney.

It hurt to see her fucking handwriting.

It was more than obvious to anyone who ever saw us together, heard about us together, that we still had feelings for each other.

Growling under my breath, I got into my truck and made my around to the doctor’s parking lot, trying super fucking hard not to think about what Krisney had written, or how she fucking smelled, or the way she parted her goddamn hair now.

Nope. I thought about what I was going to do when I got home—drink some beer.

I thought about what I was going to eat—cold pizza.

I even contemplated going to help Travis out once I was done here—which didn’t last long because I decided I was still angry with him for telling me I was a douche bag for taking a job when I knew he needed help.

What the fuck ever.

That man had men working for him now. It wasn’t my fault that he had more work than people to do it.

By the time I’d pulled into the hospital, I’d effectively thought about nothing important.

I walked inside, straight up to the office that I’d be working in, and didn’t stop until I was in what they called my new office but was more like a fucking filing room with overflow filing cabinets.

The cabinets were empty, but they still were taking up the majority of the room.

There was a small desk in the corner of the room that followed the wall in an L shape.

There was a tiny postage stamp-sized window with bars on it and a paper shredder.

That was it.

Not a single thing else to make this room look anything like anything other than what it was – a medical records room.

Grimacing, I set my lunch down on the corner of the desk, shucked my leather jacket, and walked back out to the back area where the other doctor and nurses were gathered around an open box of donuts.

“Ladies,” I murmured, sidling up to the edge of the desk and peering into the box. “Can I have one?”

I’d, of course, eaten breakfast.

I’d eaten a breakfast taco with sausage, egg, and cheese that my mother had made in bulk and stuffed into my freezer. But one couldn’t resist donuts. It just wasn’t done.

“Oh!” The nurse closest smiled and swept her hand over the box like she was doing a magic trick. “Help yourself. We have plenty.”

Dr. Torres grunted. “Yes, please eat all my donuts.”

I grinned at Dr. Torres.

I liked him.

I’d met him before, but with me being in and out of the city for ten years with the Army, and then the Reserves, I hadn’t had time to establish any relationships in the medical community around town.

I’d met him the last time I’d been in town outside of a Waffle House. We’d helped assist a pregnant woman who went into labor while eating her breakfast, and we’d hit it off afterward.

He’d been in the Army around the time that I had, but hadn’t gone into the Reserves like me, but had chosen to open his own practice.

He’d said during that time that if I ever moved home and needed a job, to call him.

I’d done so when I’d gotten home, and it just so happened that he had an opening. Which worked out fucking perfectly for me.

“What’s on the agenda today?” I asked.

Dr. Torres grimaced. “About that.”

My brows rose, but before Dr. Torres could expound on his cryptic statement, another answered my question.

“Do you mind taking Dr. Kemp’s patients today?” the nurse that ran the office asked.

I believe her name was Pearl or Opal, but I couldn’t quite remember. It’d been an old-fashioned name for a young girl, though. I did remember that.

“Sure,” I agreed. “I’d love to.”

And really, I would.

Because I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Hadn’t stopped thinking about her in five freakin’ months.

Every waking and sleeping moment was dedicated to her. Her pussy. The way she tasted. The way she smelled. How she felt in my hands. On my hands.

And I’d never admit it, but I licked my fingers clean the moment I got to my office after leaving her there, standing with my come dripping out of her.

I wasn’t proud of myself.

I’d been stupid, careless and forward.

Never, never, should I have done that at work. Not only because of the moral code, as well as rules of conduct, but because now I couldn’t stop fucking thinking about her.

Yet when it came to Krisney, my control was shot.

When we’d both gone to Germany, neither one of us realized that the other would be there.

We’d done everything we could to avoid each other once we did know the other was there, yet we saw each other everywhere.

Then, after everything that had happened with us that day in the exam room, she’d left without another word.

Germany and the Reserves altogether.

She’d been in the reserves like me and had only been there for a temporary assignment, but I’d thought she’d stay longer.

It surprised the ever-loving shit out of me that she hadn’t.

She loved the Army.

Or at least I’d thought she had.

Maybe the Army was just her escape. Maybe, just maybe, she’d needed to get away from her parents. And once they were no longer in the picture, she had no longer had a reason to stay.

I’d certainly not given her a reason to stay, that was for sure.

Two hours later, I was in the lab looking at a few lab reports for patients when the nurse, Opal, started chatting with me while running her routine tests on a few of the patients’ urine.

I was standing off to the side, with a full view of the little metal door that she kept opening and closing as she explained the process she used when she ran the tests, when I froze.

I looked straight into the eyes of the one person I thought it’d take me weeks to see again.

My mouth fell open, and my eyes slowly went down the length of her body.

Oh, shit.