Page 17 of Running Scared
The rest had been sprains and contusions and paperwork, and another story Dean made Marcus swear upon his life he’d never tell Dean’s family.
Just like Dean swore to never tell Marcus’s parents that Marcus’s ratio of bed partners was 60/40 men.
Dean assumed these were the things partners shared, and since he and Marcus never shared with anyone but each other, nobody had disabused him of that notion yet.
And Marcus had not once questioned Dean’s attachment to Bailey.
Dean could only be grateful he didn’t question it now.
Okay.First things first.Where to deliver the package.
Dean was still moving about the apartment, packing Bailey a go bag.He knew the basics of Bailey’s wardrobe and figured jeans, cargo shorts, and T-shirts would about cover the spectrum in June, but he added a hooded sweatshirt just in case, as well as socks, underwear, and a pair of tennis shoes, all of which he rolled into tiny bundles, fitting everything Bailey could possibly wear into a Rollaboard Dean found in his closet.
He packed a satchel with water, power bars, and kibble, and stacked that neatly next to the two small suitcases near the door entrance.He stripped out of his suit and into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, along with his rubber-soled hiking boots, and then, while the plan was still fresh in his brain and not spoiled by too much thinking, he called his brother.
“Val?Where are you?”
“About an hour from Fort Stockton.Left Vinnie’s place near Austin about three hours ago.Just dropped off some breeding cows, why?”Val did a lot of business for Vinnie, who was Val’s best friend and sort of a millionaire cattle rancher.
“I need you to do two things for me in quick succession.The first is going to involve talking to a man in Fort Stockton you’ve never met and convincing him and his dog to go with you.The second is going to be… trickier.Once you have the man and his dog, I need you to head southwest to the Chihuahuan desert.”
“Thefuck—”
“Yes, I know it’ll take about five hours.I will have instructions for you by the time you get there.”
“Dean, I was slated to do a pickup in an hour—”
“Can somebody else do it?”Dean realized his voice was pitching, and he tried to rein it in.His family was and always had been ride or die, but until this moment, Dean had never really needed them to either rideordie.He’d always been self-sufficient, a thing that had hurt his mother and baffled his siblings, and he’d never really understood their need to be in each other’s lives to the extent they were.
But now, oh God, now—
“Dean, what is this about?”
Dean swallowed.“Remember that doctor?”he said, his voice at a rasp.
“The one you hit on when I was in the hospital?”Val asked, but his voice was weirdly gentle.
“He… he’s in trouble,” Dean told him.“It’s not his fault.He saw something.I… his father, his father’s dog, his cat—they’re all he’s got.I can get him out of danger, but I need to—”
“You need me to get the guy while you get the bad guys,” Val said, and Dean’s eyes grew hot.Val was the oldest and the bossiest, and God, he could be an insufferable ass sometimes, but he also had never let any one of them down.
“I can get them,” Val said.“And I can get them down to LA.Can you have somebody pick them up when I’m there?I’ve got Rory in the cabin with me, Dean, and he’s got a gig in LA the day after tomorrow, and I’d hate to make him miss it.”Val’s boyfriend was an old contact of Dean’s from the Bureau—and he was a crack shot.Perfect.
“I’ll figure it out,” Dean said on a breath.“I’ll call Chance—he’s on summer break anyway.Somebody will come meet you, I promise.But first—”
There was a knock at the door that was unmistakably Marcus’s.
“First, you gotta get a move on.No worries, little brother.All you had to do was ask.”
“Thanks, Val,” Dean said in a rush.
“No worries.Let me know when you’ve got the rest of your plan doin’, okay?”
“Oh yeah.It’ll be a doozy.”
“Can’t wait.”
As Val signed off, Dean took a step back and gestured to the go bags and the supplies with a jerk of his chin to the six-foot-plus man with the hard eyes, the square, capable jaw, and the bronze skin.Marcus Cabrillo was anamazing-looking man, but even knowing he sometimes swung Dean’s way, there’d never been any chemistry between the two of them.Sibling chemistry, yes, but sexual?Not even a little.
