Twitch: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Novella, page 1
Twitch
A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Novella
Cate C. Wells
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Cate C. Wells. All rights reserved.
Edited by Kathy Teel.
Cover art and design by Clarise Tan of CT Cover Creations.
The uploading, scanning, and distribution of this book in any form or by any means—including but not limited to electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of the copyright holder is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized editions of this work, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of authors’ rights is appreciated.
Thanks for reading! Want a heads up on new releases, sneak previews, and special offers? Sign up for my newsletter.
For the women of the Army Nurse Corp. Thank you for your service.
CHAPTER 1
1971, Petty’s Mill, Pennsylvania
“Good morning, ladies!”
The girls around the table leap to their feet. Carol has a half-chewed bite of donut in her mouth, and Barb is holding a dripping spoon.
“Everyone decent?” Dr. Parrish sings out as he strides in, smiling like a car salesman.
It’s a break room, not a hooch. My eyes fly wide open. Shit. Did I say that out loud?
I sneak a glance around. No one’s staring at me. Thank the Lord.
I force a polite smile and remind myself for the millionth time that I’m not at the 62nd Evac hospital in Pleiku, Vietnam. I’m back in my hometown. The land that time forgot.
Holy hell, nurses are still expected to stand for doctors here.
And oh, shit.
Carol clears her throat and jerks her chin upward while I scramble to my feet, sending my chair screeching across the linoleum. Dr. Parrish winces.
I force my smile wider. Nothing to see here folks. This woman is fully in control of herself.
“Miss Grant! There you are.” Dr. Parrish beams, and I stifle the urge to look behind me.
Well, double shit. I’m definitely in trouble if he’s calling me out by name. He hasn’t done that in the five months I’ve worked at Petty’s Mill General.
“Yes, sir,” I say. “Here I am.”
I glance desperately at Barb and Carol, but there’s no help from that quarter. They beat feet for the door. They must figure I’m in trouble, too, and no one wants to get on Dr. Parrish’s bad side. There’s talk he’s next in line for chief of staff, and besides, he’s a bachelor. The girls think he’s a catch.
“Will you join me?” Dr. Parrish gestures at the seat Carol vacated. I smile and hope it doesn’t look how it feels. Fake and painful.
I ease into the chair across from him, remembering to cross my feet at the ankles. I’m still getting used to wearing skirts again. Dr. Parrish takes his time, looks me up and down. My uniform is ironed and my hose doesn’t have a single run. Mother saw to that. Still, I shift, uncomfortable with the scrutiny.
He flashes a smile, the way he does when he talks to Annette or one of the pretty nurses. “Now Miss Grant. Shirlene. May I call you Shirlene?”
He has a deep voice. Very confident. It matches his perfect hair with the dusting of gray at his temples. He’s like a doctor from television.
I nod. He’s called me “Nurse” to this point. Now this whole thing makes more sense. I suppose someone finally told him who my father is.
“You’re Dr. Arthur Grant’s daughter.”
“Yes, sir.”
Well, damn. Guess my days of being just another second shift nurse are behind me. The last thing I need is added attention. Anyone looks too close and all my cracks are gonna start to show.
Dr. Parrish eases back in his chair, unbuttons his coat, and shakes a smoke loose from the pack in his pocket. He offers me one, but I shake my head. My father would kill me.
“Your father’s a bit of a local legend, isn’t he? The number of times I’ve had a patient say, ‘According to Dr. Grant…’ Well, if I had a nickel each time, I’d be rich.”
Dr. Parrish flashes that killer smile once again. Waits.
Oh, Lord. I’m supposed to say something.
I’m so terrible at this. I never was any good at chit chat, but after coming home, I’m absolute garbage at talking. A cat permanently has my tongue.
“Thank you, sir,” I finally sputter.
What am I thanking him for?
Oh, Lord, this is just the worst. This time last year I was elbow deep in guts, shouting directions to a new girl on how to soak a phosphorus burn. I never felt awkward then. I was too busy being scared out of my mind.
Now I’m mad all the time. Mad at my stupid cap that keeps falling loose if I don’t use a hundred bobby pins. Mad I have to sit with my ankles crossed. Mad I can’t remember how to have a simple conversation. It’s as if nothing fits right, and I’ve forgotten how to be normal.
“Miss Grant?”
Oh, crud. He kept talking while I was lost in my thoughts. Now I’m going to really sound like a blockhead. “Pardon, Dr. Parrish?”
“I was asking whether you think he’ll accept the seat on the Board.”
The Board? Oh, yes. Father has been going on about something like that at the dinner table. I drift off a lot, but that sounds familiar.
“I’m not sure, Dr. Parrish.”
“Well.” Dr. Parrish keeps smiling at me, letting the moment get long and truly awkward, and when I say nothing—because my brain is short-circuited from the effort of holding myself together—he eventually slaps his thighs and rises.
I remember myself this time and stand, too.
“You must keep me posted, Miss Grant. You can be my man on the inside.”
His man? Heat creeps up my neck. I’m sure he doesn’t mean it in any kind of way…still. I cut off my hair in Pleiku, and since I’ve been back, I’ve gotten self-conscious about it. All the women in Petty’s Mill have long hair, the hippies and the housewives.
“Oh, and Miss Grant?”
I nod, flustered. This chat is already longer than any I’ve had in a long time.
“I see you gave Mrs. Applebaum an aspirin?”
I exhale. Now I’m on surer footing. Patient care is the one thing I still feel confident about.
“Yes, sir. We couldn’t find you, and she was due for another.”
That megawatt smile drops, replaced by thin, pressed lips.
Huh?
“Ah. Now, Miss Grant. I understand your last job was—” He searches for a word. “Overseas. I’m sure you became used to a certain, uh, informality. Blurred lines. But it is the practice here at Petty’s Mill General that the doctors make the prescribing decisions. I’m sure you understand.”
I don’t. Not at all.
Does he understand that in Pleiku, I decided who got prepped for surgery and who got rolled behind a fabric screen to wait for help that would come too late?
That I made that decision, time after time after time. I did.
I can hear my pulse start pounding in my ears, and my nails bite into my palms. I can’t say that, those words would only come out as a scream, and I if I started, would I ever stop?
Oh, shit, what do I say?
“Yes, of course,” I bite out, forcing my head down so he doesn’t see the rage in my eyes, and I stare at my ugly white shoes.
Dr. Parrish pats my hand as he leaves. “Good. We’re on the same page.”
We are not. We’re not even in the same century. The same planet.
The longer I’m home, the more I feel like Dr. Parrish and this hospital and the whole of Petty’s Mill is just ambling along in this other timeline where nurses can wear white shoes and doctors have time to give a shit about a damn aspirin, and I’m supposed to be the same as I was, the same as Barb and Carol, but I’m not, not anymore, and I want to scream, but I can’t.
So instead of losing my mind, I autoclave the bedpans and restock the gowns in station two.
I keep my mouth shut, and I pull myself together.
CHAPTER 2
The next day, I remember to stand when Dr. Akerman and Dr. Parrish walk in the breakroom. Dr. Akerman ignores us nurses as usual, but Dr. Parrish says, “Good morning, Shirlene.”
Barb narrows her eyes. This is going to make me even less popular with the other girls. I’ve already overheard Barb saying I’m “too much” and I “put myself forward.” I don’t mean to, but it’s hard. Sometimes the quiet here makes me jumpy. I have to keep busy, or I’ll leap out of my own skin. Besides, it’s hard to stand around idle when there’s work you know how to do.
I manage to stay under the radar until the end of my shift.
It’s quiet, oppressively so, and I’m so in my head that when the emergency room doors burst open, slamming the walls, and they come in, loud as a freight train, shouting for a doctor, I nearly choke on my heart.
Four bikers in leather jackets and beat-up blue jeans come barreling toward the nurse’s station. Long beards, long hair, reeking of cigarettes and booze. Barb gives a little yip and clutches her cross. I step out from behind the station.
Two men are arm-carrying an unconscious man. A fourth stumbles in after, blood streaming down his forehead
“Medic!” the bleeding man shouts, wild-eyed. “Medic! Medic!”
Dr. Parrish and Dr. Akerman rush in, shoo Barb away, tell her to get Dan and Joe, the orderlies.
I don’t know what to do.
I mean, I know what to do. I lift on my toes, ready to rush in. I’ve done this a hundred times.
But not in this place.
Here I wash and scrub. Fold and rinse. I do what I’m told.
There’s a lot of activity, and I wait to the side, feeling stupid and useless, listening for a doctor to give me orders. The unconscious man is prepped and taken for x-rays. They suspect a head injury. Maybe pressure on the brain. Dr. Akerman takes his case.
Dr. Parrish has Dan escort the bleeding man into triage, and then he calls for me to get a bag of IV antibiotics.
Finally. I’m so grateful to be useful, I bolt like a race horse out of the gate.
It only takes me a minute, but as I join them in the room, I realize that we have trouble.
The wild-eyed man is behind the gurney, and he’s wielding the IV pole like a spear. Dr. Parrish has slipped behind the exam table to the far corner. His white jacket is ripped. He’s eying the curtain, but it’s a few steps too far.
“Back off!” the man shouts, lunging at the doctor. It’s a fake lunge, I can tell, but Dr. Parrish can’t. He steps back hard and hits the wall.
“Calm down, sir.” Dr. Parrish raises his hands. There’s no way the man with the pole can hear him. Not with those blown-out eyes.
Somehow, while I was scrambling for the IV bag and before the man went total apeshit, someone removed the remnants of his jacket. He’s in his undershirt now. It’s tight, and it’s clear that this man out-muscles Dr. Parrish. And Dan. And Joe. All three together.
“Nurse, go get security!” Dr. Parrish raps out.
The man jerks and turns my way.
One minute he’s feral, menacing. The next, he’s still. He has the pole raised, but he’s not jabbing the air all frantic anymore. The only thing about him in motion is his chest, rising and falling as if he’s just come up from drowning.
His eyes drill into mine. They’re gray, and despite the strong scent of spirits, they track me while I slowly raise my hands.
He swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs under the skin. His beard is shorter than the other men’s. His hair is shaggy, but hangs not even past his ears. He reminds me of someone.
“There you are,” he says, his voice rough as sandpaper. A chill runs down my spine. Oh Lord, I think I know this man. I’m not sure from where or when, but I do. It sounds bonkers, but he feels like a place I’ve been before.
“Put that down now,” I say.
He does.
“Sit.” I point to a stool.
He stares at me.
Oh, no. What if he doesn’t listen? I’m no coward, but he has an easy sixty pounds on me.
I hold my breath, but then he shakes his head a little, like he’s clearing it, and he sinks down, stretching one long leg out, letting his shoulders slump. He’s wearing black boots. His feet are huge.
He dominates the small room.
I step forward.
“Nurse,” Dr. Parrish warns. I shake my head at him and nod toward the door. He takes his opportunity and ducks out. I can hear him calling for security, but I’m not worried about that now.
My patient has a head wound and severe lacerations not only on his arm, but on his torso. Blood is soaking through the white t-shirt. I need to finish what Dr. Parrish tried to start, and get him set up with IV antibiotics.
I sidle up to him. I make my movements slow and exaggerated, like I learned to do in Pleiku.
He eyes me warily, but stays still.
“I’m going to check out this arm now,” I say, and when he doesn’t bolt, I cradle his torn-up forearm and gently guide it to rest on the table.
He lets me, blinking up, the gray of his irises expanding and banishing the black, softening his gaze.
“Make a fist,” I say. I tap his uninjured arm. He complies.
He’s very muscular, so it’s easy to find a vein.
“Just a little prick,” I say.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that from the ladies before,” he croaks.
Huh?
Was that a penis joke?
I snort. Almost miss the stick. My gaze darts up, and that wild, desperate look he had has totally receded. He’s grinning. An earnest, lop-sided grin.
I can’t help it. The corner of my mouth tugs up.
“You’re so pretty,” he says.
I roll my eyes. In Pleiku, there were a hundred men to every American woman. You got used to pick-up lines real quick. I’m not a looker—never have been—but goodness knows I’ve heard them all.
“And you’re pretty banged up.” I tape the cannula to his forearm and go about hanging up the IVF bottle.
He snorts. Oh, crud. I just lobbed him a real softball.
I expect him to run with it, but he doesn’t. Instead he stretches out his other leg and leans back against a cabinet.
“This would be easier in the bed,” I say, and the instant the words are out, I slam my mouth shut. What is wrong with me tonight?
My patient grins ear-to-ear, although the way he’s lifted his injured arm from the bed and tucked it close to his chest, putting pressure on his side, he must be in considerable pain.
“Would be hard,” he wheezes.
“Pardon?” Now that I’m looking, I see there’s blood on his teeth. Internal injuries? My stomach sinks.
I really need Dr. Parrish to come back.
“Hold up. Lemme try that one again.” He draws in a breath and hisses. I’m guessing bruised ribs at the very least. “In bed. It’d be harder.” He shakes his shaggy head, shoots me a sheepish look. “I swear I got a good dirty joke in there somewhere. Brain’s bein’ a bit glitchy.”
“It’s just not coming,” I sympathize. Then my hand flies up to my lips.
A bark of laughter fills the room, husky and rich, and I can’t help it. I giggle. His dancing gray eyes meet mine, and I’m struck by that feeling again. I know this man.
And that’s when Dr. Parrish returns with Dan, Joe, and two men from security.
“You’re not needed here anymore,” Dr. Parrish says, coupling his words with a condescending glare. I suppose I’ll be getting an earful about overstepping again.
I glance back one time before Dan tugs the curtain closed. My patient is ignoring the men surrounding him. Instead he’s taking me in like I’m a magic trick, a bemused smile still lingering under his thick beard.
My stomach does a little flip, and I press my hand to my belly in surprise.
“I guess you aren’t an angel after all,” he says.
After what just came out of my mouth? I guess I’m not. I shrug. Smile back.
Then the curtain closes, and time starts again.
CHAPTER 3
After I finish my rotation, cleaning and polishing all the instruments and storing them neatly, I drive home. To my parents’ house.
They assumed I’d move back home when I was discharged, and I didn’t have it in me to break my mother’s heart. She’d been half insane with worry for me the entire time I was overseas. I’ve been making do bunking with my sister Deb since Jean, the youngest, stole my room as soon as I left for basic training. It’s okay for now, but I keep my eye on the apartment listings in the back of the Petty’s Mill Gazette.
At the dinner table, I can’t stop my brain from trying to place the biker with the gray eyes. Did we go to school together? We might have. I certainly steered clear of the juvenile delinquents back then. I had some idea about keeping myself on the path of righteousness. Or at least not letting a boy feel me up until we were engaged.
A week in Pleiku cured me of thinking there was anything sacred in this world. Bodies, minds. All could be blown to hell in a second, and God didn’t seem to be keeping tabs at all.
I try to distract myself, focus on the conversation, but it’s hopeless. I can’t even make myself take a bite of my mother’s chicken a la king. Gosh, how I longed for it in Pleiku. Now it’s in front of me, and I can’t eat.
