Page 4 of Lightning Strikes

I move my hand over his body and add more sedation for him to sleep through the night and then head to my office to update my notes and files while I wait for Blake to come in so that I can criticize him for his poor etiquette.

My clinic, my rules.

“Hello?” I hear Mac call out from the reception area and I yell out for him to meet me in my office. I hand over the notes that Melissa left for him, and he reclines against the wall as he reads them over. He sighs as he steps out into the hall and calls it in. I peek up over my laptop as I watch his firm ass as he steps out, shaking my head at myself. He’s still in his uniform and has his black cowboy hat on his big ol’ head. He’s around six-foot-three with a muscular, cut body… yet his pretty boy face doesn’t match the rest of him. Slightly chubby cheeks, light green eyes, and long, light brown hair that’s shaggy and falls into his eyes when he’s not wearing his hat.

He groans as he steps back into my office, sliding his phone into his pocket. “I should have more information tomorrow, good thing the guy remembered the license plate number, makes it easier for all of us… Can I see the pup?”

I raise a brow at him, giving him a quick hug, then guide him into the hospital. I open up the door that leads to the sleeping, tiny puppy that’s been through far too much for someone so young.

“Damn.” He whispers and shakes his head. “Maybe I can adopt him and you can come by every day to see him?” He winks at me and I cluck my tongue at him.

“Not going to happen, Mac. I’ll probably never mate or move in with another man again. Or date… Or look at another man… Or ever have sex again.” He laughs out loud and I shove him through the door and back to my office.

“That’s a good one, Ang. No sex? You?” He nudges my shoulder with his arm and wraps his arms around me. “I call bullshit, you remember how good we were together.”

I elbow him in his stomach and glare at him over my shoulder. “You’re just as bad as I was before Adam… Still. I’m sure your little black book is so full that you had to buy a third one.”

He sighs and leans up against the wall as I take my seat behind my messy desk. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m not lookin’ for a mate… Neither are you. We’re both good. I don’t see why you can’t warm my bed with the feeling strikes.”

I press my lips together as I roll my eyes at him. He knows everything that happened between Adam and me. Hell, the whole pack knows. “Maybe in fifty years.” He chuckles and tips his hat to me on his way out of my office and I hear the front door close behind him. Mac… He’s been my best friend since I moved to Prescott. His parents became a second mom and dad to me, especially after the disappearance. We tried ‘dating’ years ago, but all that came from it was best friends that sometimes fucked. We even attended the same university, lived together…

I still love him, I always will, but he never grew up, or manned up to his feelings. So we ended it mutually just slept together when we were in the mood until Adam finally made a move… And what a horrid mistake that was.

I was so enamored, so blinded by his touch and smile… His eyes and body… That I didn’t believe the rumors until it was too late. Midnight black hair that is always in a disarray as if he just woke up. Dark, stormy gray eyes that see into your soul. And his perfect, cut body that has been touched by so many females before, during, and after me.

If Carolina thought that her pregnancy would stop him from sleeping around, she’s just as delusional as I was. I can still smell his heady, musky scent in my cabin and I have scrubbed, burned, and changed everything in my living room and my bedroom. Well, not all… Maybe when I’m able to take some time off, I’ll remodel the whole damn cabin.

I haven’t attended one pack meeting or run since everything imploded… And I’m not sure I even want to be here anymore. Mac, his parents, and my clinic are what’s keeping me tethered to this northern Arizona town…

The cabin depresses me, the pack lands enrage me, and the town, as a whole, saddens me. The humans are lazy, rude, and don’t care about anyone aside from themselves. Their lives are a drop in the ocean to shifter lifespans, and you would think they would enjoy the time they had.

Instead, they poison themselves with drugs and alcohol, are quick to anger, and jump out of perfectly good planes for fun. It’s like they don’t want to live their full ninety or so years.

I sigh as I check the time on my laptop and find that Blake is now thirty minutes late again… It’s time to hire more vets, techs, and I need a damn vacation. It’s just Blake, Cassie, Melissa, and me that work here. It was going so well until Cassie had a baby and Blake started slacking.

I type up an email to Melissa, for her to start posting on the job sites, and hire two more vets, another tech, and go through all of the timestamps for Blake’s tardiness. I already know that his notetaking has taken a nosedive. Into an underground sewer filled with vermin. And then lit itself on fire.

I pull up his contact information in my phone and call him. If he couldn’t handle the night shift, then why did he request it?

I slam my phone down on my desk after he doesn’t answer and lock up the doors and settle down for the night. He’s been talked to, written up… Shit I can’t fire him until I hire more vets, or I’ll need to shut down the office overnight, which is impossible with two patients in the hospital recovery rooms. I pull up all of the appointments for the next week and don’t see anything of too much importance. There’s another clinic about five blocks west, so I can always give them a call and pass off my clients if worse comes to worst.

And I donotwant it to come to that. I can sleep in one of the recovery rooms so that I’m close to Cutie and the pup… Mac can bring me some clothes. Melissa will probably feed me…

I sigh as I head to the hospital and settle in for a long night. I’ll probably be locked in here for a week.

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