Chapter 1
Jessica
The sky turns the color of a bruise at quarter past two, and I lose count of the gauze rolls for the third time.
I drop the clipboard on the supply counter and press my hands into my eye sockets. Start over. Four boxes of sterile pads, two cases of saline, one portable defibrillator that Dr. Bryce insists still functions despite the cracked housing. Three rolls of surgical tape. Suture kits—I open the case and count each one, because if this hurricane hits the way the forecasts predict, I won't have time to dig through a disorganized tray while someone bleeds on my table.
Nightfall Medical Clinic empties around me. Folders disappearing into boxes. Nurses wrapping equipment and hauling it to Dr. Bryce's SUV. The staff abandoning ship, one sensible person at a time.
I'm not sensible. Never have been. Two tours in Afghanistan cured me of the impulse.
Through the window, the Pacific churns slate-gray and furious. Palm trees along the boardwalk bend sideways, and the flagoutside the post office snaps so hard the pole shudders. Hurricane Maren. Category three, projected to make landfall by tonight, and every evacuation route out of Nightfall Cove clogs with bumper-to-bumper traffic heading inland.
I turn back to my inventory. Seventeen IV bags. That's not enough. If the storm surge hits—
The rumble reaches me through the walls.
Low. Deep. A vibration that travels through concrete and settles in your chest. Motorcycles. A lot of them, coming from the east, growing louder until the window panes rattle in their frames.
I don't look up. I know who it is before the engines cut.
The Feral Sons MC roll into the clinic parking lot with a flatbed truck stacked high with plywood sheets, two generators lashed to the sides, and enough bottled water to stock a bunker. I catch all of this in my peripheral vision because I refuse—absolutelyrefuse—to look directly at the bikes. At one bike in particular.
Three weeks I've managed to avoid Finn Stone. Every cookout at the clubhouse, every Sunday family dinner Sarah drags me to, every time someone drops his name into conversation like a grenade with the pin pulled—I find somewhere else to be. A shift to cover. A phone call to take. A sudden desperate need to reorganize my sock drawer.
Three weeks since Knox and Sarah's wedding reception, and I can still taste champagne and bad decisions on the back of my tongue.
The garden behind the clubhouse. Fairy lights strung through the cedar trees, the bass from the speakers inside thumping through the floorboards, and Finn leaning against the railingwith his sleeves pushed to his elbows and that crooked grin leveled at me like a weapon.
I'd had too much champagne. That's the excuse, and I'm sticking with it.
He'd said something about the stars—corny, ridiculous, a line that works on women who haven't spent years getting lied to by men with charm to spare. I'd rolled my eyes. He'd laughed. And then the space between us dissolved, and my hands fisted the leather of his cut, and I kissed him.
Not a peck. Not a friendly brush of lips I could laugh off later.
I kissed him like I'd been starving for it. His mouth opened under mine, hot and tasting of whiskey, and his hand spanned the small of my back and pulled me flush against his body—all six-foot-six of hard muscle and warm skin and that deep rumble in his chest that vibrated against my ribs. His broken tusk grazed my lower lip. His braid fell over his shoulder and brushed my arm. I grabbed it and pulled, and the sound he made—guttural,hungry—melted the bones in my legs.
He kissed me back like he'd been thinking about it for months.
And then an hour later I walked back inside to find him at the bar with a blonde perched on the stool beside him, leaning close, laughing, all that warmth pointed at someone else like the kiss in the garden had already evaporated. Like it meant nothing. Like I meant nothing.
I left without saying goodbye.
Stupid.I flatten the clipboard against the counter hard enough to crack the plastic casing.Stupid, stupid, stupid.I know what Finn Stone is. Every woman in Nightfall Cove knows what Finn Stone is. He flirts the way other people breathe—constant, involuntary, aimed at anything with a pulse. The VP of the FeralSons MC, Knox's younger brother, all swagger and dimples, the man mothers warn their daughters about and daughters ignore the warning.
I am not a woman who ignores warnings. I spent six years in combat zones reading threat assessments. I recognize danger when it winks at me across a parking lot.
Which is why I don't look up when the clinic door bangs open.
"Morning, Princess."
His voice hits me between the shoulder blades. Warm and threaded with amusement—like he knows I've been avoiding him and finds it entertaining.
I keep my eyes on the suture kit. "Don't call me that."
Boots cross the linoleum. Something heavy lands on the floor with a metallic thunk that shakes the supply shelf beside me. I glance sideways. He's set a generator down—carried it on one shoulder like it weighs nothing, which tracks, because the thing has to be two hundred pounds and Finn Stone treats gravity as a suggestion.
He straightens. His mouth hooks higher. "Why not? You order everyone around like royalty. It's a compliment."
