Page 15 of At Last

5.

Caitlin

It’s been five days since Duke showed at my home, cooked me dinner and gave me the single best orgasm of my life. I took the week off to see to Jade’s recovery, referring my patients to Dr. Brighton, the onlyothergeneral practitioner in town. Older than dirt and thinks women have no place in medicine. Hell, he thinks women have no place out of the kitchen, which is rough for my female patients he has to see, but my daughter comes first.

She’ll always come first.

Her bruising has been healing nicely. Come Monday, I’ll have to go back to work. But for today, after I got my girl bathed and dressed, we loaded in the car to head to Nashville. I’ve been thinking Nashville might be a nice place to move. So we’re having a girls’ day to check it out. Just the two of us, since we don’t have anybody else.

We’re about fifteen minutes outside of Thornbriar when some jerk, probably texting and driving, passes us but veers back over too soon, cutting me off. I swerve hard to the right to avoid a front end to tailend collision, but he sideswipes my car, forcing us off the road.

I lose control, pulling hard left on the steering wheel in an effort to straighten us out, at the same time I slam on the break. We end up skidding on the gravel. The rear of the Jeep clips the rock and bounces off, swinging us around until we head-butt the mountain. My front airbags deploy, as do the side-curtain airbags. I turn to check on my daughter, scared in her car seat.

A hit and run. Exactly what I don’t need today, or ever.

The seatbelt has Jade’s little body pressed taut and erect against the seatback. She wears a stunned face, and her bottom lip trembles, but otherwise she appears to be fine. “What happened?”

“Someone hit us, Princess Jade. How are you? Does anything hurt, baby?”

“No Mama,” she answers right away, though it’s with a thickness to her voice.

“Are you scared?”

Slowly, she nods, continuing to hold back the tears by trembling her little lip.

While reaching into my purse on the floor of the passenger side—it had been thrown from the seat—for my cell phone, I try to reassure her. “Okay, you’re okay Jadie. I’m going to call for help.”

About ten minutes after my call, a police cruiser rolls to a stop behind us, all six plus feet of sculpted Sgt. Tommy Doyle exits the vehicle. I know him from around town, but also, he’s Elise’s husband’s best friend. I got to hang out with his wife Maryanne that girls’ night in. She’s a paralegal at Brown, Morris and Lazinski, in Bartleton, one town over. Funny, beautiful, a delight to be around.

Tommy approaches our car, and I roll down my window. “Sgt. Doyle.” I greet him.

His gaze cuts from my car to my eyes. “Girl please. You partied with my wife. She likes you, which means I like you. Which means to you, I’m Tommy. Not Sgt. Doyle.”

A laugh bubbles up, a laugh because he’s so downhome, so personable, that I can’t help it. “Okay.”

“So what the hell happened?”

It takes me ten more minutes to explain everything that went down, since I have to pause in several places for him to write down the account on a tablet, while asking poignant questions along the way. When finished taking my statement, he calls the tow for us.

Tommy waits with us until the tow shows. Ellis Auto & Towing written in bold, red lettering across the side of the truck with the phone number printed below.Crap.Ellis Towing? Duke’s company.

One of the brothers, a man called Sly, exits the vehicle where he saunters up to us, greeting Tommy before taking in my car and giving a low, slow, over dramatized whistle. Sly’s long, dishwater hair he keeps pulled back in a ponytail, hangs down his back. And his cut is visible from beneath his coveralls because he neglected to button them all the way up, probably on purpose to show his affiliation with the Lords.

He’s very handsome, too. A full beard. Deep blue eyes. Chiseled jaw and high, straight cheekbones. And no wedding ring, which means he undoubtedly has a whole slew of females hanging around at any given time, for any level of companionship.

“Hey Dr. Brennan, this doesn’t look too bad. Still, how ya doing?”

Shoot.He’s nice, too.

“Uh, we’re fine. Thank you for asking.”

“We?” he asks, then peers inside the backseat. “Shit. You got a baby in the back.”

“I’m not a baby.” Jade protests loudly. “I’m in pweschoowl.”

“Sorry, little miss.” He smiles a beautiful sly smile, and I get it, the nickname. “Forgive me.” He finishes then turns to Tommy. “Can you take them? I don’t have room for the booster in my truck.”

“No problem,” Tommy answers.

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