Devil Rides Wild (Razor's Edge MC #3)

1

The day it all started was crazy at the hospital, as always.

So many car accidents came in, Nikki thought for a second that she might have come to work to the wrong place and had perhaps driven by accident into the city. Sure, her hospital was the largest in the area, but still, they were out in the suburbs… out past the suburbs, really… and they rarely received this volume of trauma cases right on top of each other.

On top of that, three Psych admissions decided to go Full Cuckoo and start tearing the place up before a combination of staff and security managed to get them into restraints.  While Nikki’s job was to work at the reception desk, and she didn’t have to directly deal with those cases, she still found herself scrambling this way and that, trying to keep all the
visitors managed and going in the right direction, and keep her own mind clear of the madness infecting the reception area of the hospital.

Now, things had finally started to calm down, and Nikki plunked down into her chair, trying to catch a breath and get her brain centered.  She glanced at the time on her computer screen and groaned. 
Her day wasn’t even half over.

What she really wanted to do was to dive
back into the paperback novel she had stashed under her desk.  It was the latest of her favorite mystery novel series, Molly Magpie Investigations #27, The Case Of The Midnight Curse, and she’d waited months for it to come out.

Now, she was almost two thirds of the way through it, and boy, was it getting good.  She was pretty sure she knew who the culprit was, but you never really knew with a Molly Magpie novel until the very, very end.  She’d been fooled a bunch of times before, gasping and then nodding as Molly revealed the true perpetrator at the climactic ending.

It was more than just a distraction, it was an obsession, although with a weird night like tonight, even a simple distraction would do. 

“So the guys aren’t here yet?” a sudden voice said behind her.

“Oh!” Nikki said, clutching a hand to her chest. “Oh, hey, Kate.” 

Kate, one of the nurse practitioners who worked in the ER at the hospital.

“Are you okay?” Kate said.

“Yes, you just startled me,” Nikki said.  “I didn’t hear you coming up behind me.”

“Lost in your thoughts?” Kate said. “Or maybe that book I see you reading all the time when it gets slow?”

“My mystery novel,” Nikki said. “It’s a good one.  There’s this guy, he says that this old family heirloom of his was stolen, but…”

“Just be sure that you’re ready for that Biology test you have coming up,” Kate said. “Remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Nikki said. “I’ve been keeping up.”

It was mostly true.  She was a tiny bit behind, but damn it, Molly Magpie was on the case and Nikki needed to know if the guy who hired her was lying or really was the victim he appeared to be.

Kate said, “That’s good, because nursing schools look at your pre-req scores.”

Nikki knew that Kate was right.  She needed to focus more on her studies. 

Kate always seemed to have good advice.  Nikki had been impressed with her from the first time she’d met her at the hospital; she was a nurse practitioner who had worked her way up, and had always made it a point to encourage Nikki to further her career in health care.

Kate had a focus that Nikki felt had been missing
from her own life.  After high school, she’d floated around for a bit, doing this and that, waiting tables,
bartending, working in a salon, and that was all fine, but none of it seemed to fit quite right.  Then, she’d taken the job at the hospital, became friends with Kate, and had been inspired to pursue a similar path.

Which meant that Molly Magpie and her addictive mysteries would have to take a back seat to Biology class for at least a little while.

“You asked if the guys were here,” Nikki said. “Does that mean Wyatt is coming?”

Wyatt was Kate’s boyfriend.  They’d started dating a few months earlier, much to Nikki’s surprise, with Kate being so straight-edged and all.

As opposed to Wyatt, who was a die-hard member of the Razor’s Edge MC, an outlaw biker gang who seemed to know everyone and keep an eye on everything in this town.  Sure, they were a breed apart when it came to outlaw bikers… they didn’t sell hard drugs, and never did violence against civilians… but they were still wild and dangerous and the last kind of men that Nikki would’ve thought Kate
would go for.

They were coming to the hospital tonight to pick up their MC President, Boomer, who had been gravely wounded in a drive-by shooting several weeks ago.  It had been pretty bad… he’d been in a coma, and still wasn’t able to walk, but now he had finally pulled through and was stable enough to be discharged.

Nikki had checked in on him from time to time.  It wasn’t really her job, and the MC had made sure to always have at least one of the brothers nearby to keep an eye on him, but ever since Nikki had seen him in his hospital bed with all of those tubes coming out of him, she thought to herself, he needs some extra looking after. 

So, she’d made it a point to look in on him from time to time when things were slow at the front desk, and talked to him even while he was still in a coma.  She
was convinced it would help him, keep him from getting too lonely while being stuck in all that blackness, and when he finally came out of his coma, she’d been the one to discover it.

By having the ever-living beJesus scared out of her when he actually responded to something she’d said.

Something she sang, rather than said, to be more precise.  She’d been clearing up a few things on the little side desk next to his bed, singing a little song that her mother used to sing when she was cleaning, all the while lost in thought about the latest clues that had been revealed in her mystery novel. 

An old key had turned up, that didn’t fit any of the locks in the giant mansion that Molly Magpie was investigating, and it was driving Nikki crazy.  It had to mean something, the author wouldn’t just put it there and make such a big deal of it and then have it not mean anything…

“That’s nice,” Boomer had said, ripping her out of her introspection, and she’d shrieked and almost peed a little in her pants from the shock.

After her brief freakout, she’d called the shift nurse, who then called in everyone else.  But Boomer always remembered her, and made it a point to talk to her any time she walked by his room or poked her head in.

Boomer was nice.  He was almost like a much taller, leaner, more dangerous version of her dad.  She
might have even found him sexy if she was into older guys. 

“So Wyatt is coming to pick up Boomer?” she asked again.

“I think a whole bunch of them are coming,” Kate said. “Devil will probably be with them.”

Devil, the little firecracker in the MC who always made it a point to flirt with her every time he was at the hospital.

Nikki did her best to look uninterested.  “Oh, I don’t care.”

Kate said, “Yeah, right.”

“Shut up,” Nikki said, slapping her arm lightly.  After catching Kate’s look, she added, “He is cute.  I have to be careful, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have a bad track record,” Nikki said. “I get too excited, fall for a guy too quick, you know?  I’ve ended up with some real losers that way.”

“So you’re going to play hard to get?”

“Not exactly.  But I definitely want to take my time.  Get to know him first, have him meet my family, all that.”

“Are we still talking about Devil?” Kate said.

“Whoever I end up seeing next.  I still don’t know much about Devil, you know?  Other than that he’s cute and real funny.”

“Well,” Kate said. “He’s half the reason I’m down here to meet with them.”

“What do you mean?” Nikki said. “You’re not here to see Wyatt?”

“No, I’m definitely here to see Wyatt, and to see Boomer off.  But, once they wheel Boomer out of here, I have to make sure that Devil doesn’t try to steal the wheelchair when they leave.”

“What?  Do you really think he’d steal it?” Nikki said.

Kate shrugged and said, “He’ll probably pretend that he thought the hospital was giving it to them or something, like a going away present.  Or maybe he really thinks that.  I can never tell with him.  Half of the time, I think he’s an oblivious man-child, and the other half, I think it’s all a clever act so that he can get away with murder.”

Nikki thought about that and said, “Hunh.”

“Look, I don’t want to give you any ideas,” Kate said. “He seems like he has good enough intentions, and he’s always eager to help out.  He’s just such a wild
card.  I don’t know what to think of him.”

“Wild card,” Nikki said to herself, and then, as if those were the magic words to conjure them, the men from the Razor’s Edge MC came through the front doors of the hospital.

There were six of them in total.  First through the door was Wyatt, Kate’s Wyatt, the pretty one who always seemed to be smiling and leading the way. 

Then Griz, Boomer’s son, tall as an oak tree with a beard to match.  He’d recently gotten together with Becca, Kate’s sister, in the most unlikely of couples.  Still, the odd couple must be working, because Becca was now a few weeks pregnant with their baby.

Next, there were two men that she didn’t recognize, and then Pony, who kind of looked like what she imagined GI Joe would look like if he rode with an MC.  He didn’t seem to say much, but that might have been because of the Prospect patch he wore on his vest, or maybe the fact that Devil was always
talking, instead.

Devil came in last, chattering away amicably about something or other.  Shorter than the others, lean and wiry, with a shaved head.  He was always in motion, as if he’d just downed way too much coffee, and he seemed to spark off energy in all directions at once.

She tried to pretend that she wasn’t looking, but as soon as he saw her, Devil brightened up even more than usual and made a beeline toward the front desk where she sat. 

“Hey, hey!” he said, sitting up on the low desk like he owned the place. “Look everybody! Miss Puerto Rico 2020 is here!”

“Stop it with that,” Nikki said, waving him off. “I’m not Miss Puerto Rico 2020.”

“What, 2019 then?” he said.

She clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes, but it was hard to keep from grinning at his flirtations.  Devil seemed like he was about to pile on more of his lines, but the others from the MC were already halfway down the corridor away from them.

“Come on, Devil!” Wyatt shouted back to him.

Devil hopped up off the desk and ran after them, saying, “Right!  Wait for me!  I get to push the wheelchair!”

“See what I mean?” Kate said, as she followed the men toward Boomer’s room. “He probably wants to steal it.”

Nikki watched her go, trying to think about what Kate had said, but she found her eyes drifting over to Devil just before he disappeared around the corner.  He does have a cute little butt, she thought, imaging for a second how good it would feel to grab onto it with both hands and squeeeeeze…

No, no, no.  You have to slow down, Nikki, she thought.  Good girl.  Be a good girl.

“Nikki! Nikki!” a voice suddenly said near her, crashing in on her thoughts about tight little butts.

“What!” she nearly screamed, startled once again out of her thoughts. “God, Raymond, don’t sneak up on me like that!”

Raymond, her youngest, and dumbest, brother.  He was all of nineteen years old and seemed to have every bad habit and none of the good ones.  Almost every week, there was some new disaster he would find his way into, and her guess was, this week was no exception.

“I didn’t sneak up on you,” he said,
holding his arms around his chest and looking forlorn.  “You were staring at those guys.”

“No, I wasn’t.  What are you doing here?”

He looked around, made sure they were alone in the corridor.

“You have to help me out,” he said.

“Now what?” Nikki said, then her eyes narrowed. “Hang on.  What happened to your face?  Your eye?”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Raymond said.

There was a small cut over his left eye, the kind someone gets when something hits them over the ridge of bone lying under the eyebrow.  It didn’t look to be bleeding now, but judging by the blood smudged on Raymond’s shirt, he’d been holding it to the cut to stop it from bleeding.

“Did someone hit you?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter, I…”

“It does matter,” she said. “Who hit you?”

“It doesn’t… look, can’t you just get one of the nurses to, like, clean it up?”

“What do you mean?” Nikki said, then shook her head in understanding. “Oh… so Dad doesn’t see it.”

“You know he’ll freak out on me.”

She threw a pen at him, which he dodged, and said, “I’ll freak out on you, stupid.  Who hit you?”

“This guy.”

“This guy, this guy,” Nikki said. “That doesn’t tell me anything.”

“This guy, G,” Raymond said. “He got mad at me.  It’s no big deal.”

“Uh-hunh.  No big deal.  Why’d this guy G get mad at you?”

“It’s nothing.  He just, you know…”

“No, I don’t know.  That’s why I’m asking you.”

Before Raymond could answer, the parade of outlaw bikers emerged from the depths of the hospital, this time led by Devil pushing Boomer along in a wheelchair. 

Boomer looked a thousand miles better than he had even just a few days ago.  His color was better, he seemed more alert and was able to make the small
adjustments in his chair that everyone takes for granted until they’re injured so badly that they can’t even do that.  All in all, his recovery was pretty remarkable.

Still, Nikki could tell that he was in a lot of discomfort and was exerting himself hard not to show it.  His face was tight, and there was a little delay between something Devil chattered in his direction and his response.

“Hold up here a second, Devil,” Boomer said as they pulled next to Nikki’s desk.

“Ready to go home, Boomer?” Nikki said.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Boomer said, with a little smile that Nikki knew was at least a little forced.  He saw Raymond standing next to her and said,
“Hello.”

“That’s Raymond, my brother,” Nikki said.

“The middle one?” Boomer said.

“The youngest one,” she said.  She’d told Boomer all about her family to help him pass the time, but nobody could ever keep track of all of her siblings.  Even she got confused sometimes.

“What happened to the other guy?” Boomer said to Raymond, nodding toward the cut over his eye.

“Oh, naw, it’s not what it looks like,” Raymond said, smiling and shrugging it all off.

Nikki could tell that Boomer knew that the cut was exactly what it looked like, but he just nodded and smiled and said, “Thanks again for looking after me, Nikki.”

“You take care, Boomer,” she said.

“Oh, I will.  This one has been watching me like a hawk,” Boomer said, nodding toward Kate.

“I just don’t want you to over-do it,” Kate said. “Physical therapy is going to be a long road for you and if you rush it, you could have real complications.”

Boomer winked at Nikki and said, “See what I mean?”

“Okay, come on, Boomer,” Devil said, pushing him toward the exit. “No more flirting with Miss Puerto Rico. That’s my job.”

Nikki watched them file out of the front doors of the hospital, still a little distracted by Devil’s cute little butt, when she realized that someone had walked in through the other set of front doors while Devil, Boomer, and the rest of the MC was going out the other set.  The newcomer made a beeline right
for the desk, but the way Raymond reacted, Nikki suspected it had more to do with her brother than with actual hospital business.

This new guy was of middle height, which made him a little taller than Raymond, and he wore a baggy, over-sized Eagles football jersey, with even baggier sweatpants.  A few gold chains that Nikki suspected might be fake hung around his neck and he walked with an exaggerated swagger.

“Can I help you?” Nikki said.

“I’m looking for this guy,” the man said, nodding toward Raymond.

“Oh, shit, G!” Raymond said, backing away from G and up against the receptionist’s desk.  “What are you doing here?””

“What am I doing here?  You know exactly what I’m doing here, you little shit.”

Nikki felt her blood getting up as she said, “Is this the guy who hit you?”

G sneered down at her. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m his sister, asshole.  Did you do that to his face?”

“Going to do a lot worse than that if he doesn’t pay up,” G said, moving closer to Raymond.

“You get out of here right now or I’ll call Security,” Nikki said, picking up the phone on the desk.

“Go ahead and call your rental cops,” G said. “I don’t give a shit.  It’ll all be over by the time they get here.”

It suddenly felt like the air got sucked out of the room and Nikki’s nerves began fluttering everywhere.  Part of her was fired up and furious over this guy G showing up to threaten her brother, but another part of her was worried that this might turn physical before any help could arrive. 

She’d been around the block before and wasn’t afraid to fight if she had to, but she also didn’t have any illusions about the outcome of a fist fight with a man who might have a gun or a knife hidden under the baggy clothes he was wearing.  She wasn’t sure what she would do if it came to that.

Nikki tried to think of something to say to stall G, buy herself some time to figure out what to do, but then, the front door opened again.  Devil awkwardly man-handled the wheelchair through the doorway and then wheeled it up to the desk, right amongst G and Raymond.

“Okay, Miss Puerto Rico, here’s your wheelchair back.  Make sure to tell Kate I didn’t steal it,” he said.  Then, looking at G and Raymond as if not noticing them before, he said, “Oh, hey, guys, what’s up?”

Neither one of them said anything in response.  Raymond was pressed up against the desk as far away from G as he could get, and G was staring at him, looking like he wanted to tear his head off.

Devil said, “You guys all right?  You all seem kind of tense.  What happened to your eye, dude?”

“That’s my brother, Raymond,” Nikki said.

“Oh, hey, Raymond.  I’m Devil.  Who’s this other guy?”

G said, “You don’t need to know who I am.”

“Well, I kind of do.  Otherwise, how do I know what to call you?” Devil said. “I guess I could make a name up.  Maybe I’ll call you... Pork Sandwich.”

G finally turned toward him, face screwed up into a confused sneer. “What?”

“This is G,” Raymond said.  He still looked like he wanted to climb to the other side of the desk and hide under it.

“G?  Like, just the letter?” Devil said, looking G up and down. “That’s really cool, man!  Like a celebrity or something.  Oprah.  Cher.  Madonna.  Except those are whole words, not just letters.  I guess that means you’re even cooler than they are.”

“Listen, little man, you need to step your little feet away from all this,” G said, now turning to square off towards Devil.

“Hey, come on, don’t be rude like that,” Devil said. “What do you want with Miss Puerto Rico, anyway?” 

“He’s not here for me,” Nikki said.

G said, “I’m here for Raymond.”

“Her brother, Raymond?” Devil said, as if there might be a whole herd of Raymonds wandering around the room. “You’re here for him?  Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” G said.  He looked Devil up and down, clearly not knowing what to think of him.  There was the leather jacket and the Razor’s Edge MC colors that Devil wore, but Devil’s expression was still one of wide-eyed innocence.  “He owes me money.”

Devil looked from Raymond, to G, and back again, before saying, “Oh, no, bad luck, G.  I got some real bad news for you.  You got the wrong guy.”

G said, “No, I don’t.”

“Sure you do.  Happens all the time.  Simple case of mistaken identity.”

“I don’t have the wrong guy.”

The smile didn’t leave Devil’s lips, but it did leave his eyes as he said, “I say you do.”

G swallowed hard once, but he stood his ground.  Nikki could practically hear the gears turning in his head; she’d seen enough guys square off against each other to recognize that G was starting to question if this was a good idea, but his ego also didn’t want to let him back down, especially with onlookers present.

G looked like he was about to say something when the entrance to the hospital opened again.  This time, it was Griz, sticking his head in to call out to Devil.

“Hey, Devil, come on, man!” he said.

Devil never turned to look, but kept his eyes steady on G.  “Hang on,” he said. “I just met somebody.”

Griz took one look, saw the situation for what it was, and moved over to stand by Devil. “You did, hunh?”

“Yep,” Devil said.

“Is it someone I need to meet, too?” Griz said, staring down at G. 

“Don’t know,” Devil said. “G, would you like to meet my friends?”

G took one look at the towering Griz, to the unwavering stare coming from Devil, and clearly made up his mind that this was a losing proposition.  He began to back away from the two bikers, keeping his distance and his holding his hands held wide and open as he made his way to the exit.

Just before he disappeared through it, G pointed at Raymond and said, “This ain’t over, bitch.”

Once he left, the air seemed to come back into the room.  Nikki felt her shoulders relax, having never realized how bunched up they’d been with tension during the entire exchange.

Griz punched Devil on the shoulder and walked back out, saying, “See you outside.”

Devil leaned back on the desk, smiling, almost as if nothing had ever happened.

“He seems interesting,” he said. “That guy G.”

“Thanks,” Nikki said. “Thanks for that.”

“Bah,” Devil said, shrugging that off. “Hey, Raymond, would it be okay if I talk to your sister for a second?”

“Yeah, sure, man,” Raymond said, looking like he’d just received a pardon from the governor at the last second.  “Absolutely.”

Nikki didn’t know if it was the adrenaline from the close call with G, or the fact that it seemed like Devil might actually be making his move and asking her out on a date, but she felt like she was bursting at the seams.  Despite all her earlier talk to Kate about trying to keep her cool and take things slow, all she wanted to do was to jump up, run around the desk, and kiss Devil all over his bald head for what he’d just done.

She managed to keep it together long enough for Devil to say, “Hey, so, are you off at all this weekend?” 

Now she had to struggle to keep from showing the smile that was brimming up from the inside.  

“Why?” she said.

“There’s that county fair that’s in town.  That starts this weekend.”

“I saw it.”

“How about you and me go check it out?”

What took you so long, you sexy little nugget, is what she wanted to say, but what she actually said was, “I think I can find some time for that.”

“Right, right, Miss Puerto Rico’s got that busy schedule.  Get her tiara polished, her sash cleaned…”

“Shut up,” she said, but now her smile was out and refused to stay hidden.

“So you’ll meet me there?” Devil said.

She looked down, gave him a coy little nod. “I’ll meet you there.”