Page 44 of Torn In Two

“You gonna hit me again today?” I asked him cautiously. “I just like to be prepared with my makeup kit if I’m going to be sporting a new black eye.”

Hawk sighed. “Listen, I’m sorry about that. I—”

I held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t. I get it. You’re protective. I don’t blame you. After everything Kara’s been through, I would be the same. No hard feelings.” I held a hand out to him.

He stared at it and then at me. “I punched you square in the face. And now you want to shake my hand?”

I shrugged. “Like I said. I understand, and I’m not a grudge holder. I’m a shrink. I’ve seen what that sort of behavior does to a person’s brain, and I’m not down for doing it to my own. Maybe buy me a beer sometime if you see me at a bar and we’ll call it even.”

Hawk took my hand and shook it. “You’re a bigger man than most.”

I chuckled. “If only I could find a woman to say the same.”

Kara groaned. “And here I was, thinking you were a respectable doctor.”

I screwed my face up at her. “Did the glove balloons not give me away earlier?”

She rolled her eyes, but even Hawk’s mouth had a slight upward tilt that made me happy. I didn’t want to be the regular sort of doctor, who people didn’t feel comfortable with. My whole job was getting people to feel as though I was their friend, so they would tell me everything that was bottled up in their heads.

All I’d ever wanted out of this job was to help people feel happy. Maybe the way I did that was classified as unprofessional by my colleagues. But I didn’t want to be a crusty old shrink, who was counting down the clock each session. I had my fair share of those patients who just wanted to rant at me, or in the case of some of my married couples, at each other. I had to pay the bills, like everyone else. But that wasn’t where my heart lay. I was a better doctor for removing the formality barrier and sharing my own stories with patients so they knew I could relate to their experiences. Even if my colleagues didn’t agree.

“What are you two doing here anyway?” I asked them. “I checked your chart before you were discharged and agreed you were all good to go. Did something happen?”

Kara unzipped her purse and pulled out a flyer we’d had posted on the clinic bulletin boards for months, if not years. It was our plea for volunteers, the one we never took down because nobody ever offered up their time and we were always short-staffed. “We’d like to volunteer.”

I blinked. “Seriously? Both of you?”

Hawk narrowed his eyes, suspicion etching into his face. “Unless you have a problem with a biker working here?”

I frowned. “Why would I have a problem with that?”

“Lotta people do. Most people are kinda wary about us.”

I studied him carefully, knowing all too well the kind of damage feeling shunned by your community could do to a person. “How does that make you feel?”

Hawk laughed. “You gonna shrink me or you gonna sign us up and give us a job to do?”

I chuckled at the realization, clicking the end of my pen so the nib dropped down into place. “Definitely the latter. And sorry, it’s a force of habit. Come on, get out of the line. I’ll take you out back and get you the paperwork you need.” I paused. “There’s a police check you need to pass, though…”

Hawk’s expression fell, pure disappointment slumping his posture and tainting his tone. “Well, that counts me out then.”

In that second, I realized I’d judged Hawk too quickly, and my assumptions had been completely wrong. I’d assumed Kara had dragged him in to help her sign up, not that he actually wanted to be here. But the expression on his face said otherwise.

“You kill people for fun?” I asked him.

His eyes widened, and he looked around over his shoulder, but I’d moved us into the doorway of an examination room we didn’t have a doctor for. It wasn’t private, but there was no one in earshot either. “No.”

I nodded. “Okay then. I’m not going to ask if you’ve ever killed anyone in general because knowing your position within your club, I’m just going to assume you have, and that you had a good reason.”

Hawk stuttered. “Okay…”

“You ever rape anyone? Molest a kid?”

The pure disgust on Hawk’s face told me his answer before he even said the words. “What? Of course not!”

I moved into the room and searched around on the desk, eventually coming up with the goods. “You just passed the police check. Here. Fill this out, and I’ll sign off on it. It’s for your ID badges.”

I turned to Kara, handing her a form. “I’m going to assume you don’t kill people for fun?”

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