I wasn’t sure what the difference was in this moment, but I said, “Never was one.”
“Why?” she wondered.
I frowned, slammed the door closed. “Why? You want to know why?” No one had really asked me that before.
“I always want to know why,” she countered.
Hardin smirked.
I ran a hand over my head. Her curiosity in the face of a slashed tire and freezing temperatures and whatever fuck-a-doc douche canoe had said to her, surprised—and amused—me.
“Well, to cut down on weight sometimes, for example with an electric car or fuel efficiency,” I told her. “Or because the car company’s cheap.”
When I turned back around to face her, she was staring up at the sky and mumbling, as if asking God for a tire to drop from the heavens for her.
My lips twitched, and I glanced at Hardin. She was wound pretty tight, although I’d be pissed too if someone sliced my tire. I was catching on that this seemed to be her all the time. Yeah, she needed someone in her life to slow her roll a bit. Slay some fucking dragons, because a doctor like her seemed to somehow have a shit-ton of them. She was too young and probably spent way too many hours inside a hospital to stir up enemies.
“Do you have to be back in the ER or are you done for the day?” Hardin asked.
“Done. Very done.”
“Good,” I replied. “We can tow you into the shop and swap it out.”
I wasn’t keen on fixing it and forgetting it. Or her. Someone had slashed her fucking tire. I wasn’t planning on letting her out of our sights anytime soon. She just didn’t know it yet.
I could see her mind working over the options, which weren’t very many. We were the only tow in town, and there wasn’t a big-box store in Cutthroat that sold tires. I wouldn’t call our little operation a monopoly, but if she wanted her tire fixed, we were the only men for the job. Or any other job she might need filled.
It was time to stop thinking and start moving.
“Look, sweetheart, you can say yes and get your cute ass in the truck to keep warm while I hook your car up, or Hardin can toss you over his shoulder, put your cute ass in the truck to keep warm, then I’ll still hook your car up. Which is it?”
Her eyes widened and she licked her lips. I’d bet my right nut that my taking control had turned her on. When she spun about and went over to the truck without an argument or a why, I knew my nuts were safe. Hardin opened the door, grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up into the cab. Yeah, she needed a guiding hand, and we were going to give it to her. And more.
3
SAM
* * *
The day had turned weird, really weird. Really fast.
I was at ease having my hands inside a cracked chest or open abdomen. In the operating room I was in my comfort zone. I knew what to do, the next steps. I could see it in my mind. Consider every possibility.
Now? I wasn’t at home in my sweats with my book as mentally planned. As was my normal routine. My comfort zone. Instead I was at the Gallows, the popular bar on Main Street, with Mac, the bad-boy hottie who’d showed me his dick, and Hardin, his huge, linebacker-sized friend. His hot friend.
Hardin had deep auburn hair, a color most women would kill for. Once he removed his hat, I could see it was cut much shorter than Mac’s, neat and tidy, along with a trimmed beard. I didn’t see a single tattoo, but there was a lot of body that was hidden beneath a blue plaid flannel and jeans. If he carried an ax, he’d be a full-fledged lumberjack. I felt small and weak beside him. I might be able to resect an aorta, but I was sure he could lift a car.
Yet he didn’t seem scary. He was quiet, gave off a sense of calm that was oddly reassuring, even when I’d been pressed between the two of them in the cab of the tow truck, had thought of Mac’s threat to spank my ass if I were a bad girl.
I was never bad.
The testosterone pumping off the two of them must
have fried my brain because here I was. I was so far out of my element. I’d turned down coworkers’ offers for a drink after work. Every time they asked. Why had I agreed to get some food with Mac and Hardin? My ovaries must have made me say yes.
To two men. And that was the second thing that made this day weird.
Oh yeah, the third? I saw a guy’s penis—Mac’s penis—and it hadn’t belonged to a patient. And that had clearly made me lose my mind. That penis was attached to the hottest guy ever and that made it the hottest penis in existence. It wasn’t just a penis, it was a dick. Penis was a clinical term. Medical. The thing Mac had let spring from his jeans was blatantly sexual. Virile.