Page 64 of Running Scared
Bailey grimaced.“Yup.I think Glen’s right.”
“Which means you can tell the kid waiting in Juarez that it’s gonna be okay, right?”Damien said soberly.“He was in bad shape about this guy.”
“I’ll tell him,” Bailey promised, thinking of Chance’s quiet sacrifice to stay behind.“And Reg too.TheyneedDean and Marcus to be okay.”
“Will they be?”Damien asked, and to his credit, he was earnest about it, and not cavalier like he could have been.
“I hope so,” Bailey said, and his voice came close enough to cracking that he didn’t use it much after that.
IT WASN’Tuntil they got back in the air that Anthony thought to contact his father, who told Val and Chance and organized the hospital crew, and after a tension-wrought five hours of Bailey and Damien keeping up a steady stream of IV fluids, antibiotics, and painkillers for all three of the injured, Glen brought the plane in for an effortless landing, so smooth Bailey almost fell asleep between the time the wheels hit the ground and the time the back hatch was opened by the ambulance drivers, ready to take their patients away.
An eternity later, he found himself—rumpled, dirty, and exhausted—asleep next to Dean Royal’s prone figure.He was sharing a room with Marcus and Birdie, because Mexico apparently didn’t fuss about patients who knew each other sharing rooms.Marcus would be asleep for many, many hours following a good five hours in surgery, and while visitors were allowed,everybodywas cautioned to keep things quiet and the lights dim in deference to a concussion trifecta.
Bailey dimly hoped that more brains had been knockedintoheads than knocked out of them.
He would dearly love to help with the knocking.
MyGod, he was angry.
He hadn’t allowed the anger to build until he’d known they would all be all right, but he wasfurious.It wasn’t until this blissfully peaceful moment, staring hungrily at Dean’s face, that he reckoned with what had almost happened.
He’d closed his eyes tightly, hoping for some equilibrium, when he felt Dean’s rough hand cupping his cheek.“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
Bailey felt that permission in his bones.
“You’re goddamned right I am,” he growled, keeping his voice down but infusing it with every moment of worry, every moment of fury, every moment of painful self-revelation that had peeled the skin off his nerves in the last five days.“Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?”
“Pushed you out of an airplane?”Dean asked, like he really wasn’t sure.
“Oh, that is the least of your sins,” Bailey snapped.“Youwent away.There I am, thinking, ‘Oh my God—we might have a future!’and youwent away!”He fought to keep his voice even.“I need you to not go away,” he tried to snarl, but it came out more like a whimper.“I’ve had a lover go away and it… itruinedme.It destroyed me.I thought I wasdead,and then you ravished me in the goddamned ER crib, and suddenly I had a pulse.And then youcame backto me, and I wasstunned,because living didn’t suck like I’d been afraid it would, and right when I thought, ‘Wow, we might be able to livetogether,’ youwent away!”
“Oh, baby,” Dean murmured, rubbing the moisture under Bailey’s eyes away with a cracked thumb.“I won’t go away if I can help it.Emmett couldn’t help it—you know that, right?He was just doing what you do.Being a hero.He was just being a good guy.He wouldn’t have left you if he could have helped it.Who in their right mind would want to leave you?”He smiled slightly, and his eyes—half-open and hazy—closed with obvious reluctance.“I’d do a lot to come home to a man like you.”
He fell back under then, and there was nothing left for Bailey to do but cling to his hand and cry.He didn’t even ask how Dean knew about Emmett—he figured the answer would be, as it always was, “FBI.”Of course Dean knew about Emmett; Dean knew everything about Bailey, from how he liked to be touched to how he liked his eggs done.He knew Bailey wouldn’t jump out of an airplane unless his cat was next to him and his father was waiting for him on the ground.
And he knew Bailey had been hurt before he’d shown up on Bailey’s porch with a sprained elbow and then ravished Bailey into next week.
But he’d kept showing up.And when Bailey needed shelter—hell, when Bailey’s father needed shelter—Dean had provided.And when he’d been off slaying Bailey’s dragons, his family had stepped in, like Dean had known they would.
Bailey had no choice.He’d figured that out five days ago, and he knew it even more keenly in his blood now.He had no choice.Whether Dean went off on an adventure and never came back, or went off and came back until they were both too old for adventures, Bailey had no choice but to be with this man, the man who held his hand when he was hurt and made a home when he wasn’t.
It hit him then, like a slug to his stomach, that he might not ever be going back to Outskirts General Hospital ER again.Sarree could retire.Austin would function without him.But Bailey wasn’t going to live anywhere Dean couldn’t come home to.
Simplest decision of his life.
“Dean?”he asked plaintively, wondering if he was still awake.
“Yeah?”Not entirely awake, Bailey thought, but he wasn’t ready to give up the conversation yet.
“Why do you work in Sacramento when your family lives in Bakersfield?”
“Dunno,” Dean muttered.“Ask Marcus.His idea.”
“If Marcus was willing to transfer to Bakersfield, could we live there too?”
He watched the smile overtake Dean’s face even as he slipped under.
“Sure, Doc.Sure.”
