I winced when I looked at my hand, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that it was going to require stitches.
I had numerous scars on my body, but the ones on my hands from working with these dogs were by far the most known when it came to me.
Gritting my teeth, I pulled an old bandana out of my saddlebags and headed to Zach’s.
When I arrived, it was to find a bright pink car pulling up behind me.
I didn’t stop to spare the person a glance, mostly because I could hear the quiet giggles of a little girl that I hadn’t heard in quite some time.
Two months ago, Zakelina had been shot by her father. He’d shot her in the side of the face, and the bullet had gone through one side of her jaw and had come out the other side of her mouth, luckily only requiring one surgery to repair the broken jaw and another involving plastic surgery on the entrance and exit wounds.
Just last week, she’d been released from the hospital to home health nurses that would help her get back on track to being a little girl again.
And hearing that little girl giggle was enough to make my heart fuckin’ race.
I didn’t usually do girls. Or pink. Or anything that had to do with kids under the age of twelve.
But that little girl had a special place in all of our hearts now and hearing her giggle was the highlight of my goddamn day.
Heading inside, I left the door open for the home health nurse that’d pulled in behind me—you couldn’t mistake their bright, hot pink cars—and headed for the giggling.
I found the giggler in the room with a movie on the screen, and Zach on one side of her, with a sleeping Crockett on the other.
My eyes took everything in, and I walked to the little girl and lightly tugged on a stray curl that I could see had escaped her ponytail.
“Hey, Rotten,” I said. “How are you today?”
Zakelina smiled, showing off her pearly whites.
“Hi, Larry,” she said through slightly clenched teeth. “How are you?”
I held up my hand. “I need to borrow your pillow. I have a boo boo.”
Zach grunted and got up just as there was a hesitant ‘hello?’ from the door I’d left open.
Zach growled, stalking toward the door, and I let him, bending down over the couch to poke Crockett awake.
She blinked at me, eyes furrowing in a cuteness overload. “You better go save the poor home health nurse before he gets another one fired.”
Crockett jolted up so fast that she stumbled.
Zakelina giggled this time at Crockett, but Crockett wasn’t laughing as she darted toward the front door where I could hear Zach starting in on the Spanish inquisition.
See, Zach was very much hard-headed, and since everything that had gone down with Zakelina, and his own wife, he’d become a lot more suspicious of everyone.
In the process, he’d run two other home health agencies off due to his over-protectiveness.
With the two of them gone, I took the couch next to Zakelina.
“What are you watching?” I asked curiously.
Zakelina leaned her head against my chest, and I curled my arm around her carefully, still cautious of her fragility
“Moana,” she answered. “I’ve never seen this one. Daddy wouldn’t let us.”
Her words, though clear, still came through clenched teeth.
She’d had her jaw wired shut in the hospital, and just a few days ago, she’d had the wires removed.
The only thing was, she was still getting used to not having it wired shut. That, and apparently it still pained her to use, so she tended to take the easy way out and not open her mouth all that wide if she could help it.
Which was where the home health nurses came in, helping her get to the point where she could use her jaw like she was supposed to.
Though, the ones that had been fired weren’t the nurses themselves, but the certified occupational therapists.
They’d made her cry due to the pain she was in as she was forced to use muscles she hadn’t been needing to use in a while.
And let’s just say, Zach did not like that.
Granted, neither did Crockett nor me for that matter, but something had happened to Zach. An over-protectiveness that blanketed everybody he knew and loved.
Hell, even to some certain extent, his club brothers.
But with Crockett in there helping deal with the new chick, I got to have me some Zakelina time.
At least, until Zakelina had to get to work a few minutes later, that was.
“Lina,” Crockett called. “It’s time to work with Ms. Catori.”
The unusual name—I was the king of unusual names—had me glancing up and staring straight into a pair of brown eyes that were breathtaking.
Zakelina slowly moved out of my arms and off the couch, heading toward where Crockett was holding her hand out for her.