The Good Fight (Time Served Book 3) Read online

  The one I’m cradling in my lap, covered in an ice pack? “That’s right.”

  “And that’s your...left wrist.” She makes a note on the chart, but even as she says the words she’s peering at the darkening bruise on my cheekbone.

  “Okay.” I stand up, quick enough I get dizzy and have to sit back down. “This is a waste of time. It’s a sprain. There’s nothing I need here.”

  That’s when the curtains jerk open and she walks in. “Hello,” she says, staring at me, head tilted slightly to the side, assessing. She closes the curtains behind her, the material the same shade of blue as her scrubs. Her dark brown hair is pulled back in a stubby ponytail, bangs swept to the side, and she’s got the darkest, thickest eyelashes I’ve ever seen outside of a magazine. She doesn’t need the ID card hanging on a lanyard around her neck to tell me she’s a doctor, but still she does. “I’m Dr. Susan Jones. If you don’t mind, I’ll be supervising Dr. Keaton.”

  Do I mind? Hell, I’m relieved. If Dr. Keaton comes near me with anything sharper than a pen, I’m taking off. “No, that’s fine.”

  “Great.” With a cursory nod she takes a seat in the lone chair in the corner of the tiny space and gets out her phone, ignoring us. So much for supervising.

  Dr. Keaton pulls in a breath. “Great. Now where were we?”

  I answer her tentative questions with as much patience as I can muster, but half my attention is on Dr. Jones. She’s about 5’7”, a hundred and thirty pounds, not a trace of makeup in sight. She’s got a pretty, angular face, with a square jaw and straight nose. Everything about her is sharp, no-nonsense and entirely uninterested.

  I’m interested.

  Women tend to have one of three reactions to me. One: Wow, he’s big. That’s hot. Two: Wow, he’s big. That’s terrifying. Three: Hmm. He’s of marrying age and has a good job—is he single?

  I’ve gone out with these women. I’ve gone out with the ones who like fighters, the ones who like Wall Street guys, the ones looking for a husband. I’ve dated nice women, not-so-nice women and those that fall squarely in between. For a while I’ve been kind of going through the motions, hooking up with women I know don’t want more than a couple of hours and a couple of orgasms. The encounters are sweet and easy, a way to take the edge off, and nobody leaves wanting or expecting anything more.

  Something tells me that when it comes to Dr. Jones, I’m going to want a whole lot more.

  I hiss in a breath when Dr. Keaton turns my wrist, fiery pain rocketing up my arm. The gesture is gentle but everything hurts so much it feels like torture. She leaps away like she’s been burned, banging into the counter behind her and knocking a plastic bin of syringes onto the floor.

  Dr. Jones glances up at the scene and frowns. “Problem, Dr. Keaton?”

  “It’s, um...it’s a serious sprain,” she answers.

  I try not to roll my eyes.

  “Does it require an X-ray?”

  “Ah, no. No, I don’t think so.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  “Um...” Dr. Keaton has crouched down to pick up the syringes, avoiding Dr. Jones’s penetrating stare as she thinks.

  “Ice?” I offer.

  Dr. Jones shifts her attention me.

  “Ibuprofen,” I add. “Rest, compression and elevation.”

  “Well...” Dr. Keaton begins, returning the syringes to the counter.

  I stand up, more carefully this time, relieved I don’t embarrass myself by keeling over. “I’ll see myself out.”

  “Have a seat,” Dr. Jones says, also rising. “Dr. Keaton’s going to wrap up your wrist, check out this recent injury to your face and give you some sound medical advice. Then you’ll be free to go. Isn’t that right, Dr. Keaton?”

  Dr. Keaton actually flinches. “Yes?”

  Dr. Jones turns that same stare back to me, her eyes the darkest shade of blue I’ve ever seen, the look in them telling both Dr. Keaton and I that we’re not going anywhere until she gives the okay.

  She’s gorgeous.

  I sit down.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later I exit through the sliding glass doors, back into the rapidly dwindling sunshine. My arm wrapped, instructions about ice, rest and elevation tucked into my pocket, I head for the coffee cart parked a few yards away, still doing good business despite the late hour. I skim the lengthy menu for something without sugar or caffeine, settling on a decaf iced green tea and taking it with me to a nearby bench to get some fresh air before I begin the ride home, sans groceries.

  I sigh heavily as I sit, cursing my luck. And here I thought spending my birthday jerking off to a Baywatch rerun would be the most humiliating part of my weekend. How do I tell the guys at the gym I got taken out by a fucking melon?

  I wince as I watch the barista whip up one of those sugary, chocolate concoctions people still try to call coffee. There’s so much whipped cream piled on top it needs a special domed lid to contain it all. On top of that she adds chocolate syrup and shavings. My teeth ache just seeing it.

  “Perfect,” Dr. Susan Jones says, striding up and collecting the enormous cup. “Right on time.”

  “Nine fifteen, Dr. Jones. As always.”

  “Thank you, Paulette.”

  She takes the drink, stirs it briefly with a straw that’s at least a foot long, then glances around for a place to sit. There are a few other benches, all occupied. The only remaining space is next to me. Our eyes meet and she hesitates, obviously reluctant to be stuck next to someone who might badger her for free medical advice. Still, I arch a brow and nod at the vacant seat, suppressing a smile as she fails to suppress a grimace, then approaches and sits down.

  “Hello again,” I say.

  She sips the...thing. “Hello.” A pause. “How are you?” She could not possibly be any less reluctant to ask. She’s sitting on the very edge of the bench as though poised to run, focused on the drink, cheeks hollowed as she sucks on the straw.

  “Better than ever,” I reply. I sip my tea and ignore her. After a minute I feel her glance my way, slowly edging back on the bench when I make no effort to engage her in conversation.

  There’s a full foot of space between us, and for the next little bit there’s only the sound of her slowly rotting her teeth, the click of her fingernail on her phone as she types, and the gradual drop in temperature as the sun descends behind the skyscrapers.

  “Do you live in the area?” she asks eventually.

  “Camden,” I say.

  Her eyebrows raise. “Camden.”

  “That’s right.”

  She looks apologetic, the normal reaction when someone hears I live in Camden. It’s like saying you choose to live in prison. It’s not really a choice.

  “You know how many chemicals are in there?” I ask when she pulls out the straw and licks up the excess whipped cream. For some women this might come across as sexual, but Dr. Jones just looks determined to poison herself.

  “In here?” A faint smile plays across her lips as she scoops up another mountain of whipped cream and pops it into her mouth. “Of course I do.”

  “You’re a doctor,” I remind her.

  “A surgeon,” she corrects me. “Not a dentist.”

  I turn slightly so I can face her straight on. In the gilded sunset she looks softer, the stern set of her features less intimidating. Or maybe it’s the smudge of whipped cream she licks off her top lip that makes her seem like someone I want to get close to. Still, I err on the side of caution and ask a less dangerous question. “What’s a surgeon doing treating a sprained wrist?”

  She makes a disgusted face. “I lost a bet.”

  I try not to laugh at her disgruntlement. “What was the bet?”

  “Not telling.” What is telling, however, is the way she slips her phone back
into her pocket as she utters the word, gaze catching on someone approaching from the hospital. “What, um...” She turns too, one leg bending slightly, and looks at me, her expression suddenly more engaged, more friendly. And entirely strange. “What happened to your wrist?” she asks. There’s a pause, then she carefully reaches over to tap the bandage with one finger. “What did you do?”

  I try not to stare at the older man nearing the coffee cart, his eyes flickering between Dr. Jones, me and the barista.

  In the ER I’d summed up the injury by saying I had an accident at the grocery store, and I’m not about to elaborate now. The good doctor doesn’t seem like the type of woman to go for a man who got bowled over by fruit. “Not telling,” I say. “Who is that?”

  She stares innocently. “Who is who?”

  “Susan.” We both look up at the older man when he speaks. He wears a white lab coat over his scrubs, a steaming coffee cup now in hand.

  She nods politely. “William.”

  He looks at me.

  “Oscar Hall,” I supply after an awkward pause. We shake hands even more awkwardly, and he glances between Susan and me, assessing.

  “Very nice to meet you,” he says finally. “I’ll let you get back to your...drinks.”

  We’re quiet as he goes. When he’s far enough away not to overhear, I stare at Susan. “What was that?”

  She’s trying to polish off her beverage as quickly as possible, wincing when she gets brain freeze. “What was what?”

  The question fades away when she presses her free hand to her forehead and I see the crisp white line at the base of her ring finger. She’s married. Or very recently not, I suppose. I shake my head to clear it of any ridiculous disappointment. “That exchange,” I say, struggling to recall my question.

  But Susan’s now holding out her left hand the way one would when showing off an engagement ring, except for the opposite reason. “Divorced,” she says, answering the real question. “Well, nearly. Three quarters of the way, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “It takes forever. You?”

  “Not divorced.”

  She slurps up the last of her drink. “Lucky you.”

  I sip my iced tea and wait. The area is busy, people in brightly colored scrubs and rumpled lab coats coming and going. Many look at Susan, then me, then look away as though they’ve stumbled across a great secret. Many more look at Susan, frown, then look away. And the men who don’t appear to work at the hospital or already know Susan look at her, then look at me, then look at her again. She’s worth a second look, and she knows it. And she’s waiting for me to ask what I’ll bet every man she’s met since that wedding ring came off has asked.

  “Nine fifteen?” I say instead.

  She frowns. “Excuse me?”

  “Nine fifteen,” I repeat. “That’s what the barista said when you picked up your drink. Do you have a standing order?”

  “Oh.” She flushes slightly. “Yes. A standing order, a tab. Three fifteen, six fifteen, and nine fifteen, on the days I’m working.”

  “You drink three of those a day?” I try not to gawk at her. The scrubs disguise her figure, but as far as I can tell she’s slender and still has all her teeth.

  She shrugs. “Could be worse.”

  “Could be so much better.”

  She laughs a little. “The guy who came into the ER with two mystery injuries is trying to give me health advice?”

  I smirk and lean in slightly. “Tell me what bet you lost and I’ll tell you about one of the injuries.”

  She blinks, those long lashes brushing her cheekbones, casting a tiny spray of shadows on her smooth skin. “I’m winning a battle with a phone addiction,” she says finally, “but lately I’ve been busy and things have gotten a little out of hand. The bet was that I couldn’t go half an hour without checking my messages.”

  “How long did you last?”

  Her lips twitch and her eyes flit away. “Six.”

  “Six minutes?”

  “There’s been a lot going on.” She manages to look a little embarrassed, something I don’t think happens to her very often. “Anyway, if I lost I had to cover his—another doctor’s—shift in the ER for an hour.”

  “Why? What’s he doing?”

  The twitch turns into a half smile. “One of the pediatric nurses.”

  My cock starts to find the conversation interesting. We haven’t known each other long enough for me to bring up sex, but if she initiates it... “Is that for real then? What we see on TV? Doctors and nurses hooking up in the on-call room?”

  She’s pretty when she laughs. “It’s true for some people.”

  “Not you?”

  She lifts a shoulder but doesn’t answer, choosing instead to fix me with the same steady stare she’d pinned me with in the exam room. “Your turn.”

  I blow out a disappointed breath. I was hoping she’d forget. And we could talk about sex. “What do you want to know?” I hold up my bandaged wrist. “This...” I imbue the word with as much boredom as possible, “or this?” I point to my swollen cheek and waggle my eyebrows for good, enticing measure. Please pick the face. Please pick the face.

  Susan’s not fooled. “Wrist.”

  Dammit. I sip my tea and look away. “I got run down by some fruit.”

  “What?”

  The sharp note in her voice makes me turn back, and I see that her dark brows are narrowed, her mouth turned down at the edges. The whole thing makes me want to run a thumb across her mouth, smoothing away the frown, repeating the action with my lips, my tongue. The apathy I’d been feeling before tonight is quickly being replaced by a very strong sense of curiosity. And lust.

  “What?” I echo.

  “Some fruit?”

  I roll my eyes. God, she’s tough. “A crate of watermelons.” And it’s only when I see the understanding dawn in her eyes that I realize she thought I was being homophobic. I laugh, hard enough it makes my already sore face hurt even more, and she has to try to hide her own smile.

  “Well,” I say, finishing my drink and standing. “Thank you for tonight. Maybe laughter is the best medicine.”

  She looks up—way up, her eyes sliding from my hips over my stomach and my chest before finally meeting mine. Then she stands, too, and silently we measure each other. Her slight build is dwarfed beside me, but even with a nine-inch height difference, nothing about her feels small.

  In fact, everything about her says she gives as good as she gets, that she can take a roundhouse kick to the face and get right back up. And damned if that doesn’t turn me on more than it should. Because I like fighters, always have.

  The glint in Susan’s eye says she doesn’t hate what she’s seeing either, and I know she’s waiting for the pickup line that would typically follow this conversation. And I want to give it to her. I want to ask for her number, make plans to meet up when she’s not working and I’m not in dire need of additional painkillers.

  But I don’t.

  Because something tells me Dr. Jones is used to getting exactly what she wants, when she wants it, and I’m not that guy. I want a fight, and if I’m not mistaken, she could use one, too. “Good night, doc.”

  One eyebrow lifts slightly as she recognizes the dismissal. I wait for her to say something but she doesn’t, sticking her hands in her pockets and staring up at me, stubborn.

  And beautiful.

  “Good night, Oscar,” she says. “Drive safe.”

  I nod once and walk away, knowing she’s looking. At least, I hope she’s looking. Because I want her to remember this when I come back.

  Chapter Two

  Fitzgibbons & Sons is located on the top level of a two-story building. Downstairs is divided into three shops, one selling used clothes, the other two offer
ing shoe and appliance repair, respectively. We’re located on a busy street lined with fast-food restaurants, car dealerships, gas stations and the like. It’s not pretty but it’s functional, and the relatively high amount of foot and car traffic makes it safer than other areas.

  Most of the buildings in Camden max out at two floors, which gives me a decent view of the concrete jungle I call home. My office is located front and center, and normally there’s nothing outside to provide a distraction from my work. Today, however, I can’t stop myself from studying the abandoned building six blocks away, its dingy red brick façade making it stand out in the sea of gray. It’s a former tannery that’s been empty since I came back six years ago. The windows are blown out, the front door plastered with no-trespassing signs that have never been heeded, and the dirt lot out back is popular with pimps and dealers.

  I drive by it every time I go to the gym, but it’s only recently that the for-sale-by-owner sign hanging out front started to feel like an actual possibility and not just somebody’s idea of a joke. The initial spark came from Rian, a friend of mine who’s the chef and owner of Mache 42, a popular Chicago restaurant. They have a rooftop garden that provides them with fresh produce, honey and eggs, and with the trend of eating organic only increasing, they do good business.

  Somewhere on my forty-minute trips to Chicago for produce, I’d started thinking about the possibility of having something like that here. A rooftop garden to grow and supply fresh produce to Camden residents. The soil in the overgrown lot out back is too poisoned to grow food, but it could be—

  “You mind if I leave for lunch a bit early?”

  I glance at the clock, then at the door to my office, where Jade Romero stands, tottering on too-tall heels in a too-small dress. She looks younger than her twenty-four years, plays dumber than her 4.0 GPA and aspires to absolutely nothing. She was raised by her father, then, when he passed, her two older brothers took over. She knows how to fight, to fuck and to flee, none of which I know from personal experience.

  For the past few years she’s taken to hanging out at the gym, flirting with most of the fighters, doing more than flirt with many of them. One day she approached me, said she’d heard my receptionist was going on maternity leave and asked if I had a job opening. If my sisters were still alive I’d want someone to give them a chance, so I hired her. I regret it.