Page 32 of Savage Heart

“You know her?” he asked, his tone hard but his voice soft. Again, he didn’t want to chase her off, especially if she was one of Liz’s friends.

The nurse, whose nametag read Nancy, nodded.

“Yeah, from school. Shit, I read the name on the chart, but I never in a million years thought it wastheElizabeth Simpson—the one I knew, anyway.” The nurse was babbling, no doubt nervous because of the “don’t fuck with me” vibe he was putting out.

Fuck. Sucking in a breath, he pulled back on the menace, and offered the small woman a smile.

“You weren’t interruptin’ anythin’ but my troubled thoughts.” He winked, and she blushed so hard, so fast, he thought she’d pass out from the blood rush to her face. “You do what you gotta do for our Liz.”

Nancy blinked, her blush deepening, before she hurried to the bedside, did whatever she needed to do with the equipment, wrote stuff on the sheet of paper on the clipboard near the foot of the bed, then paused to stare down at Liz’s sleeping face.

The woman sighed, shaking her head.

“I heard about what happened to her—the nurses chat like a knitting circle. I just didn’t think….”

Taking pity on the woman, and surprised at the coincidence that a student who attended Stanford with Liz was also working in Vegas, he inquired softly, “You said you know Liz from school?” He sat back down, crossed one leg over the other, and fought to push her to answer. There were things about Liz he didn’t know—so many things, like how she was in school, especially with a baby in tow. Was she happy? Was she safe? Did she make friends? Had she found anyone to replace him?

Nancy smiled sadly.

“Yeah. We met during first year med classes. She was so damn smart, but so humble about it. When I was bumbling around, trying to find my ass, and feeling in over my head, she was there to talk me down from the ledge. She made me realize I didn’t actually want to be a doctor, that I just wanted to use medicine to help people. After a lot of thought, and a few nights of tequila haze, she helped me enroll in the nursing program.” She laughed, grinning. “And here I am.” She raised her arms, then let them drop, just as her smile did. “She raised that baby all on her own, going to classes, doing clinicals, working part time—she was a fucking machine, but she still was a friend to everybody.”

Swallowing hard, his gaze slid to Liz. In the short time they were together, he’d experienced the warmth and persistent kindness that was all Skizzy. No, she hadn’t had the best life, but she’d made the best of what she’d been given. She pushed, and persevered, and was determined to make something of herself. Her tenacity, grit, and beauty in strength were some of the reasons he’d fallen so hard for her. They were also one of the reasons he’d let her go. She’d needed to shoot her shot at her dreams, and she couldn’t have done that from her shitty apartment, tied to a piece of shit biker with no life goals except to ride his bike, down a few beers, and build his MC.

And, fuck, letting her go hurt like hell. But it had worked. She’d left him in the dust, and from what Nancy said, she’d taken Stanford by storm. There had been nothing left for her in Vegas, so he was glad she’d made a new life for herself—andtheir daughterin California.

Fuck. He had a daughter. Sighing, he scrubbed a shaking hand down his face and almost missed what Nancy said.

“…take out from Gino’s. She loved that place. Does she still order three pies just to have leftovers for the week?” Nancy asked, not understanding she’d just scrambled Trouble’s brain.

He coughed, unable to breathe or swallow or think.

Finally, his body came back online—as did the rush of thoughts.

“Gino’s? Gino’s on Forsythe?” he asked. Gino’s was a local pizzeria run by a family going back generations. As far as he knew, the only Gino’s worth knowing was the one in Vegas.

Nancy’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, is there any other Gino’s?”

His heart raced, then shuddered, then limped. She couldn’t be saying what he thought she was saying.

“Liz…Gino’s….” The words weren’t coming, and he could tell by the look of concern on the nurse’s face that she thought he might be experiencing a stroke.

“Um. Liz ordered Gino’s all the time. She joked that it was a pregnancy craving that never went away. She ate it all the time, so much so that she had pepperoni on her shirt when she came into labor and delivery—where I was going my rotation—the night Erika was born. We even had her med school graduation party in the banquet room in the back of the restaurant.”

Trouble slumped into the seat.

It couldn’t be true.

Med school graduation party. At Gino’s. In Las Vegas.His brain was slowly piecing the truth together, bit by bit, and his heart was failing to pump enough blood to make it make sense.

Until it did. It made horrible, terrible, soul-crushing sense.

Clearing his throat, Trouble asked a question that would make or break his entire being.

“Wh-where did you go to school?”

Again, Nancy’s furrowed brow met his question.

“Right here, at the University of Nevada,” she answered, her words, so easily spoken, ripping a hole in Trouble’s world.

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