She swallowed and then nodded. “I’m sorry.”
She was sorry for automatically thinking that I was a sicko.
Nice.
“Have a good one.” I turned and walked back to my garage.
I was working on restoring a 1965 Chevy Corvair for a friend.
It definitely wasn’t the flashiest of vehicles—I couldn’t do paint and body for shit—but I could work the hell out of an engine.
And that was exactly what I was doing.
Making the baby sing.
My good friend, Ford Spurlock, had bought it for a fraction of its value off of a car lot. And though it needed a hell of a lot of work, we both could see the potential.
He had the paint and body know-how, while I had the rest.
Together we would make one hell of a car and sell it to make a pretty penny.
That pretty penny would then be split, and together we would find the next vehicle to do the same to all over again.
It was a fun side job that had definitely kept me sane over the last six months after getting out of prison.
When Lynn didn’t keep me busy doing my real passion—medicine.
Just last week I had to patch up a few of the Revenants when they’d gotten into a fight saving a group of boys from sex traffickers out of Tennessee.
Granted, I’d been with them at the time and had sustained similar injuries, but I’d been able to do my job until another one of the guys’ wives, Wyett, could patch me up.
“Have a good day, Mr. Zach!” the other, much younger and cuter Zak, called.
I waved without saying anything, and then went back to my work until I got hungry an hour or so later.
Looking at my watch, I grinned.
It was an acceptable time to eat.
My body started to pulse with anticipation, the thought of seeing Crockett again playing havoc on my soul.
It hadn’t been that long since Juniper, the woman that I’d had intense feelings for, broke it off.
And it had taken time to get myself straightened out.
Only, I’d never thought that another woman would catch my eye, and hold it, even better than Juniper ever did.
Getting on my bike, I headed to Crockett’s Corner before I’d even given myself time to think, only realizing about halfway there that I probably should’ve changed my clothes.
I was in a pair of old sweatpants, a tight black wife-beater, and flip-flops.
Hell, I’d even forgotten to put my cut on, which I never did.
When I’d joined up with the MC, I was one of the only ones in the club who really understood club life.
The Souls Chapel Revenants was supposed to be a cover for the side business that Lynn had us doing. A way to cover up our movements, explain why we were all in podunk Souls Chapel, Texas.
At first, everyone didn’t quite understand the rules of MC life.
So I’d taken it upon myself to teach them the ways of this new world, and one of those ways was to always, always, always treat your cut like the valuable possession that it was.
Because if another motorcycle club came into town and saw how they’d disrespected those cuts by not wearing them, they would immediately become suspicious.
It was finally taking root, all those times that I’d hammered it into their brains that it was absolutely not okay to leave the cut at home.
Except, apparently, in my own head.
Then again, Crockett had a way of making me fuckin’ crazy.
Like wearing flip-flops on a motorcycle when the possibility of losing a goddamn toe was very real.
Luckily, I pulled into the driveway that’d become very familiar to me, and parked next to the same truck I always parked next to, which I assumed was either Murphy’s since it never seemed to move or Crockett’s.
Swinging my leg over the bike, I cursed all over again when I realized that I hadn’t even taken the time to go get my damn helmet—something I never forgot, either.
Being a doctor was sometimes more of a curse than a boon.
I knew all the bad things that could happen.
I’d seen the heads split like melons when they’d come into my ER. I’d pronounced seven people dead in my career due to motorcycle accidents, and I still remembered each and every single one of them.
Then again, I remembered all of the people that died on my table.
Though, the most prominent death on my conscience wasn’t from a motorcycle wreck but was the reason that I’d left the world of delivering babies.
I was so lost in thought standing next to my bike that I didn’t realize I wasn’t alone out there until a foot scraped, kicking the rock underneath his feet.
I snapped my head up to see a man all but leaning around the corner of the building, and somehow knew that the reason he was hiding was due to Crockett being outside.