Page 28 of Running Scared
After only a little fussing, Bailey had his flight suit stripped off and that had been stowed too, and then his father and McCauley hefted the dog back in before they both—to Bailey’s surprise—clambered into the back of the cabin and let Bailey pull himself into the passenger seat.
The driver—who had relieved himself on a cactus on the other side of the rig as they’d been stowing gear—was wiping his hands off on a pocket wipe that he pitched in a neat little trash bag hanging from the console between them.
Bailey recognized Val Royal with no trouble at all, but instead of looking pained and fragile and as though the next move might shatter his overtaxed musculature and nervous system, he looked scowly and irritated and ready for bear.
Bailey grinned at him in absolute happiness.God, it was so good to see a relative of Dean’s.
“Wow,” he said as he belted himself in and Val released the air brakes.Val hit a button and their windows purred up, leaving him in a nicely air-conditioned cab with relatively little engine noise.
“Wow, what?”Val asked.He held his hand between the seats and said, “Mack, could you hand me a—Thanks.”
He pulled up two bottles of water and handed one to Bailey, who opened it and guzzled happily.Yeah, he’d had water, but he’d had no idea how long it would last him, and he hadn’t really gone far enough for a good break.
Didn’t mean he wasn’t thirsty.
“Wow, Dean does not fuck around when he’s arranging a rescue,” Bailey told him when the water was gone.He crumpled the bottle, put it in a bag of recyclables hanging from the console, and enjoyed the sound of Val’s gruff chuckle.
“No, I guess not.What surprised you more—to be pushed out of an airplane or to see your dad?”
“To see my dad,” Bailey replied, glancing to the rear of the cab to give his father a smile.People told them they were the spitting image of each other a lot, and Bailey always took it as a compliment.Older, with longish gray-blond hair, Connor Dodge was a treatise on how to age gracefully.He had one of those weathered smiles that made Bailey feel like nothing he did was too awful to forgive, even when he’d been a kid and been nothing but mistakes.
Hearing his father’s voice on the phone every day after Emmett had died had kept Bailey putting one foot in front of the other, even when he’d felt as though every bit of his will had been sucked out of him with a vacuum and a straw, body and soul.
Connor gave him a sweet smile back and hugged Cathy to his chest.
“You even brought his dog,” Bailey said, knowing that talking from the back seat to the front was probably an exercise in frustration and futility.“And my cat.”Bumble had still been groggy when he’d been hefted into the back of the truck, but the water supply and a tiny bit of cat treat had placated him.Bailey figured he’d probably snooze a while more before needing to be let out to wander a bit on the lead and halter Dean had included with his crate.
“I understood they come as a matched set,” Val said with surprise.“Son, I’m old enough to know you don’t separate a man from his dog.”He smirked.“Or my brother’s boyfriend from his cat.”
Bailey laughed a little.“Well, thank you,” he said, feeling the gratitude in his heart.
“You want to thank me?”Val asked.“Then, uhm, could you tell me why we all did that?I mean, I trust my little brother and all, and I’ll take an awful lot on faith, but I gotta tell you, I was toodling along perfectly happy, heading toward Fort Stockton, when Dean suddenly calls me up and rearranges my life.I wouldloveto know why.”
Bailey gaped at him, absolutely stunned.“He… he didn’t even tell you?Oh my God.”
Val hit a switch on his dashboard.“Okay, y’all,” he said seriously into what must have been an intercom.“Listen up.Bailey’s gonna tell us a story.”
Wow.Uhm…wow.Well, given what Val Royal had just done for Bailey and his family on faith, Bailey figured he owed the man one.
If all he wanted was Bailey’s story, well Bailey would make it a ripsnorter.
He told the story with all its elements and finished with “And then Dean threw me out of an airplane, and you know the rest.Sorry!Sorry for the inconvenience—”
Bailey’s father’s voice was crystal clear over the intercom.“You literally knelt in a puddle of blood while mobsters came in and pawed a corpse?Jesus, son—you’ve got balls!”
Bailey snorted.“I didn’t think about it that way, Dad,” he said.“I mostly didn’t want to get gutted like poor Vlade.”
“Vlade?”Val asked, his voice suddenly sharp with curiosity.“Vlade… Karcek?”
“Uhm, yeah?”Bailey supplied.
“Wow.Well, that explains what Dean was doing in Austin all this time—besides you, Bailey.”
As Bailey stared at him, McCauley guffawed.“Fuckin’nice,Val.To your little brother’s boyfriend you said that.Don’t forget I know your family.”
Val grunted.“I mean I know what he was doing there forwork,asshole.”
“What?”Bailey said.“And I don’t know if we’re boyfriends yet—” About the time he was wondering if he could sound any more like he was in the ninth grade, the other three men in the semi burst into a cacophony of laughter.
