Page 13 of German

I might have been raised with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I wasn’t a brat.Not about stuff like this.I appreciated my father had reached out to someone to protect me while he was out of town, and I wasn’t trying to make the man’s job more difficult and dangerous than it already was.

German didn’t respond, only cut the engine and pocketed the key fob.“When we get back to your dad’s house later, I want you to make a list of people you don’t get along with.Even if you think the feud isn’t noteworthy.Sometimes it’s the small things that set a person off.”

Nodding, I opened my door and stepped outside.“I made one for the detective who came to our house after Christine was injured.Until you arrived, he was parked outside of our house most days.Now it seems he’s found better things to do with his time.”

“He’s still around,” German informed me.“He’s just trying to camouflage himself better since I showed up.”

That surprised me.“Why would he hide from you?”

German smiled.“Cops and my Club don’t always get along so well, Maddy.”

I guess that made sense.I’d seenSons of Anarchy.Law enforcement and bikers seemed to be natural enemies given their opposing agendas.Still, that the detective would go out of his way to hide from German was wild to me.

We entered the building and I pointed toward the waiting area.“You can have a seat and wait for me there.I’ll let everyone know you’re not a client and you’re my ride home.”

Since the gym, I’d been racking my brain for a reason to give people why this six-foot-plus, muscular, leather-clad biker was shadowing me.Try as I might, there weren’t many good options that quickly came to mind.In the end, I decided to tell them he was a friend of the family visiting for a few weeks and we were going out after work.It might be a little weird, but at least it was plausible.

German took a seat and pulled out his phone.As he scrolled, he peered around, taking in all the entrances and exits available in the office.Carol, a coworker who’d been at the clinic for years, gave me a raised eyebrow when I took a seat beside her at the front desk.

“What’s with the hunk?”the forty-something-year-old woman inquired with a naughty smile.

I blushed a little as I stored my purse under the counter.“He’s a friend of the family,” I hastily explained.“We’re going out after work to meet up with my aunt, so he decided to tag along and check out the clinic.”

“Wouldn’t mind if he was my friend,” Carol teased good-naturedly, as her eyes openly appraised him now.

I gave the pretty brunette a genuine smile.“Has it been busy today?”

Carol sighed.“We’ve been absolutely slammed!Between the endless phone calls, last-minute schedule changes, and walk-ins, we haven’t had a moment to ourselves all morning.”

This place was a zoo.It was hopping more than any club I’d ever been to.I guess people loved their pets.And I couldn’t blame them.I loved Mr.Jingles more than anyone had a right to love a four-legged rage machine.That old man had my heart in ways that should be outlawed in all fifty states.

“Coffee is on in the back if you want a cup,” Carol told me, our conversation interrupted by yet another phone call.

As Carol dealt with a distraught pet owner whose golden retriever had eaten a pack of sugar-free gum that contained Xenatol, I began checking the schedule log for the day.Deep into my work, I didn’t see Tish walk up to the reception desk.

“Who’s the gorgeous man in the leather?”she demanded in a loud whisper, as she leaned in over the counter, her bright blue eyes shining with mischief.

Reading through the text portal about a cat that had an ongoing UTI, I was startled by the sudden interruption.“What?”It took a second for her words to sink in.“Oh, that’s just a friend of my family’s.”

While I didn’t hate Tish, I’d never been too fond of her either.She was flighty, called out of work often, and was generally too immature for my liking.The last thing I wanted to do was set her up with German.Not wishing to ask myself why that was, I simply wrote it off as too complicated an issue to navigate.Yup.I was sticking with that answer.

Her brow rose as though she were waiting for more information.“And his name would be?”

“German,” I reluctantly provided, when I couldn’t come up with a legitimate reason not to.

Tish squished up her pretty, tanned face.“Is that a last name or a first name?”

Oh God!I didn’t know.Not able to say that without appearing like my whole story was a ruse, I did the logical thing and lied.“Um, it’s his last name.”

She looked at me as though she thought I was slow.“So what’s his first name?”

Fuck!Now I was stuck.“Clark.”

I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.Clark was the name of our mailman.He’d dropped off a package two days ago for my father and I’d had to sign for it when Gretchen was at lunch.

“He doesn’t look like a Clark,” Tish surmised.“German definitely fits him better.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s why he chooses to go by the nickname instead of his family name,” I lamely explained.

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