Every time the guy in the bed opened his eyes, Tamara almost literally had to remember to breathe. He had the most beautiful haunting eyes that she’d ever seen, and it pissed her off that they had such an effect on her. The guy still had no idea where he was, or what his own name even was, as far as she knew. He needed to be in the hospital, but every time she even mentioned it, she was met with opposition by everyone.

“Are you awake?” The guy with the blue eyes and the long, dark eyelashes and dreadlocks looked at her like he was trying to remember her. He’d be hard pressed to do that, since the first time they’d met was two nights ago when her twin brother Tommy and her Uncle Bull had half-dragged/half-carried him into her house and put him in her bed. “Here, can you drink some water?” She put the cup with the straw close to his mouth, but he just looked at it like he didn’t know what to do. She poured a tiny bit of water on a cotton swab and did her best to moisten his mouth. He continued to stare at her without speaking, this time keeping his eyes open longer than he had before. His face was swollen and although she’d done her best patching it up in places, he’d probably have lots of ugly scars. She didn’t think he’d have to worry, though. As long as he had those sexy eyes women would want him. “Can you talk to me?” He blinked and looked like he was trying to talk, but ultimately, he closed his eyes again without saying a word and seemed to slip back into a deep sleep. With a frustrated sigh, she slipped out of the room. She shuddered as she wondered if he had some form of brain damage that they were only making worse by keeping him there.

“Is he awake?” Tamara looked at the guy named Billy. If she felt sorry for anyone in this black comedy that her family had thrust her into, it was him. The night they’d brought the blue-eyed guy in here half dead, Billy’s face had been practically green. While the older lady paced and cussed and smoked like a freight train on the patio, he’d sat quietly waiting to hear how his friend was doing. He’d barely slept since they’d been here and he hadn’t eaten much either. His lanky frame didn’t look like it could afford to lose much weight. He was a good-looking guy, with longish brown hair and huge brown eyes, but he was way too thin for her taste. As soon as she saw him she had an urge to fatten him up.

“He had his eyes open again,” she told him, as she went over to the kitchen sink and washed her hands, “but he didn’t say anything.” Poor Billy looked crestfallen. Tamara had been so tired and so pissed for the past few days that she hadn’t taken any time to figure out who these people were and what they were doing in her house. She simply trusted that if her family left her alone with them, she was safe. Billy seemed harmless, and as crusty as Patty was, she did too. Tamara lived alone, but she wasn’t unused to having strangers in her house. She wasn’t a patched member of the MC, mainly because she was a girl, but she was a respected and trusted member and her house had been used as a sanctuary more than once. She was never worried about it because she knew her family wouldn’t let anyone close to her that would ever cause her any harm. Even in her personal life, her dad, brother, and uncles “vetted” anyone that came close to her. “You want a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.” Tamara poured two cups and sat them on the island between the kitchen and the living room. She could see the woman, Patty, sitting out on the patio, smoking and staring off into space. Billy got up and came over to one of the stools at the island. He gripped his coffee cup with both hands like they were cold and he was trying to warm them up. “You think he’ll be okay?”

Tamara honestly had no idea. She had done her best to patch him up, but she wasn’t a doctor. She didn’t have the heart to tell Billy that, though. It was obvious that his friend meant a lot to him. “I think he’ll be fine,” she fibbed. “He just needs to rest.”

Tamara had just graduated from the registered nurse program at Texas A & M six months before and she’d only recently passed her boards, yet her family suddenly saw her as their resident medical expert. She hadn’t even worked as a real nurse yet; she’d only spent time doing her clinical rotation at one of the local hospitals and several of the clinics in town. She had recently interviewed for a job in the busiest emergency room in the county. Emergency medicine fascinated her and it was what she’d always wanted to do. She grew up watching Stitch, her father’s friend and an ex-Army Ranger, patch up the guys when they couldn’t go to the hospital or the doctor. The gunshot wounds were always her favorite. She knew how twisted that would sound to anyone else, but in her world it was practically a normal sentiment. When she graduated from high school with honors, her father was not only proud, but pleased to pay her tuition at A & M.

It had been three weeks since her interview at the hospital and she hadn’t heard back from them yet. She was sure they did a background on her and that’s why they hadn’t called. She’d wanted the job so badly that she made sure she did everything right. She had dressed professionally, careful to cover up all her tattoos. She had acted like a professional during the interview and most of all, she’d known her stuff. She had graduated at the top of her nursing class at A & M and she’d aced her nursing boards. The interviewers told her they needed someone right away for the night shift and she’d told them she had no problem with shift work. She made sure they knew she wasn’t married and had no kids. Nothing to get in the way of on-call shifts or overtime. They had seemed impressed with her by the time she left and she was sure she’d gotten the job. She couldn’t imagine any reason why they wouldn’t hire her, except for the fact that she was the daughter of the VP of the Head Hunters MC. It was a fact that in this county she couldn’t escape.

“It’s been three days, you don’t think he should be in the hospital?” Billy asked her.

She nodded. Tamara had friends who worked at the local hospital, a little place called Sacred Heart. They kept her supplied with IV bags and tubing, pain medications and antibiotics and a few other things she’d needed to keep Blue-Eyes alive, but the bottom line was, she had no way of knowing what was going on inside his body, or in his head. She barely slept because she was scared to death she’d wake up and there would be a dead guy in her bed. “I do think he needs to be in the hospital,” she said, “but it’s not up to me.” Billy nodded just as the patio door slid open and Patty came in, followed by a cloud of smoke.

“He awake?” She was a crotchety old lady and Tamara didn’t want to like her, but she couldn’t deny that when Patty asked about Gunner or when she looked at Billy, her eyes softened and the rough edges went away.

“He was for a second,” Tamara told her, “but he didn’t say anything.”

“Shit. How the fuck long are we supposed to just sit here and wait?”

As if in answer to her question, Tamara’s phone dinged. She reached for it and saw that it was a text from her brother. “Company coming. Can you throw on some eggs?”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. She’d spent years convincing the other guys in the MC that she wasn’t one of the club girls ready to wait on them hand and foot, but when it came to her twin brother and her father and uncles, she was still the little woman. “Sure, would you like potatoes and bacon with that?” The tone in her head as she texted was sarcastic, but as usual, it went right over her twin brother’s head, or he chose to ignore it, which was more likely.

“That’d be great!” Tamara snorted when she read his reply, tossed the phone on the counter, and told Billy and Patty,

“It looks like we’re having company for breakfast.”

“Can I go in and see Gunner?” Billy asked.

“Of course. You might want to try opening the blinds and talking to him, or playing some music he likes, too.” Those were tricks they used in the hospital for patients in a coma. Gunner wasn’t really in a coma. He’d been awake. He was just unresponsive for some reason. She’d been doing a lot of research online and the best she could come up with was that his body had just shut down for a while to deal with the trauma, or he had brain damage; she wasn’t sure which. She watched Billy go into the room and then she turned to Patty and said, “How are your breakfast skills?”

“Killer,” Patty said, flatly. For the next half hour the two women worked side by side without saying a word, and by the time Tamara’s front door flew open and her family filed in with their “guests,” they had it laid out on the table like a buffet and everything looked and smelled delicious.

Tamara was engulfed by the beefy, hairy arms of her father before she knew what hit her. He’d been out of town for a few weeks and she hadn’t seen him. He squeezed her until she almost couldn’t breathe and then pointed her at a gorgeous clean-cut biker with long blond hair and eyes the same color as her patient in the other room. “This is my pride and joy, Tamara,” her father said. That was how he always introduced her.

“Hi, Tamara.” The sexy biker put out his hand, and she gave it a light shake. “I’m Dax. Your dad tells me that you’re the one we have to thank for taking such good care of Gunner. I really appreciate you doing all of this.”

She dropped the biker’s hand and as she looked at the patch on his chest that said “President” she said, “He should be in the hospital.”

“Tamara…” her dad said in his “watch your tone” voice.

Dax didn’t look offended. He nodded and smiled at her softly. “I’d like to see him, if that’s okay?”

She nodded back at him and showed him to the bedroom. Billy jumped to his feet as soon as Dax walked in the room. Blue-Eyes was still asleep. Tamara closed the door and went back into the dining room, which was now crammed with big bodies filling their plates and raiding her refrigerator. Her twin brother was grabbing a biscuit off the table when he saw her. Tommy could be the world’s biggest asshole but he could also be the world’s best big brother. He put the biscuit and his plate down and went over to her. Without saying a word, he opened his arms and she pressed her face into the sergeant-at-arms patch he wore on his chest. He just held her, because after sharing a womb and twenty-four years of a somewhat chaotic childhood, he knew that was what she needed.