Chapter Twenty-Four
As Aaron held Bailey, he tried to let himself relax. She was safe. The guys were dealt with. Even though this bullet wound wasn’t exactly making him feel fantastic right now, he knew it could be treated. He would have been dead by now if it was lethal.
“Hey, Aaron.”
Lawson stood next to the van, waiting for them to break from their embrace. Aaron winced as he turned around to face him, doing his best to keep the pain from his face. He didn’t want to worry anyone.
“We’re going to get one of our guys to drive you down to town,” he explained.
“Xavier let Willis know what’s going on, and they’ve got emergency personnel standing by at the hospital for you and Willis will meet you there.
Cade and I will make sure this scum gets to the station to be locked up, once and for all.
Bailey, you need medical attention, too.
” Lawson pointed at her. “You look about as bad as he does.”
“Not quite.” Xavier walked over and chimed in. “But you lost quite a bit of blood, too.” He nodded at her shoulder. “That needs to be cleaned and treated as soon as possible.”
“Thank you,” Aaron replied, his voice coming out weaker than it had before. He could see those dark spots at the side of his vision again, and he tried to blink them away.
“Aaron, are you all right?” Bailey asked, the worry evident in her voice as she pushed away some of his sweat-soaked hair from his face.
“I will be,” he replied, and she offered him an arm to help him to his feet. He leaned on her heavily, and she draped one of his arms over her shoulder to help guide him to the car waiting to get them out of here.
It was carnage out on the road. Truck parts were scattered everywhere from the wreck, and Lee was making a scene, fighting hard to try and break free. He didn’t stand a chance against the people around him, but he had never known when to give up.
Bailey managed to get Aaron into the car, and laid him out on the back seat. She climbed in behind him and put his head on her lap.
“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered to him, though there was some doubt in her voice. How bad was it? He planted his hand on the wound as the driver pulled away from the chaos around them, driving them the rest of the way down to the small town at the bottom of the mountain.
Aaron looked up at Bailey. For the first time since he had seen her on the side of the road, he noticed there was a mark on her arm—a wound, actually.
Then he suddenly remembered the blood smeared in the overturned truck.
She had been injured, and he was just recalling it.
Getting to her, keeping her safe, taking down the guys…
All of it was running together. But now that the adrenaline was leaving his system, he was remembering the rest. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten that she’d been hurt, too.
He lifted his head to look at it, and when she noticed him staring, she shook her head.
“It’s nothing.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“I just got a few scratches in the crash.”
“A few scratches?” Aaron exclaimed. “That looks worse than a few damn scratches—”
“Please, Aaron, you need to rest,” Bailey begged him, gently pressing on his shoulders to guide him back down to the spot he had been in before.
He was going to make sure they were done and out for the count.
He was going to do everything in his power to make sure they never got out of jail.
Never had the chance to do something like this to anyone again.
His head pounded with anger, almost distracting him from the pain rushing through the rest of his system. He wanted to tear them apart, limb from limb. He wanted to make them pay for thinking they could dare lay a hand on the woman he loved.
“It’s okay,” she promised him. “I’m fine, really. I’ll be healed up in a few weeks. It’ll be like it never happened.”
His jaw was still clenched, his body still tense at the thought of them doing that to her.
“Aaron, it’s over,” she reminded him gently, still running her fingers through his hair.
“There’s more than enough now to put them behind bars for good.
They won’t stand a chance after this. They’re going to have to face the reality of what they’ve done, and you know how hard cops go after their own. ”
He nodded. She was right. When people found out what they had been doing, they would put them away for a long time.
It would only be a start when it came to finding justice for the people who had been hurt by their crimes, of course, but it would be something.
After so long fearing them, so long wondering if they were going to come after either him or Bailey, he never had to worry about that again.
“I know,” he breathed back, and she leaned down to plant another kiss on his lips. He reached over to grip her hand tight, never wanting to let her go.
He settled his head back against her lap. He still felt the pain, but he could also feel himself starting to relax, feeling so tired…
“Aaron.”
Bailey spoke his name again, and he could just about make her out through the fog enveloping him right now. He was exhausted all of a sudden. Maybe just the rush of adrenaline he’d needed to survive tonight, or maybe something else entirely, but his eyes were starting to droop.
“You need to stay awake,” she told him, shaking him slightly. He managed to half open his eyes again, his gaze landing on her above him.
“I know,” he mumbled.
“It’s not going to take us long to get there,” she promised him. “We just passed the restaurant we had dinner at, remember?”
He smiled at the memory. That was when he had kissed her for the first time.
When they had told each other how they really felt, and slept together for the first time that night.
No matter what happened next, he knew he would always be glad he got a chance to share that with her.
He never wanted to forget how it felt for her to tell him to kiss her, just like he had imagined a million times over the years.
“I remember,” he replied, but his words came out a little slurred.
She tightened her grip on him slightly, and he felt her starting to panic.
He didn’t want to scare her, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stay conscious.
He knew he shouldn’t fall asleep—he didn’t know how much blood he’d lost. But with every passing second, he felt himself shutting down.
He needed to focus. He needed something to focus on that would fill his mind the way he needed right now. He squeezed her hand again, letting her know he was still there.
“Tell me about us,” he murmured. “Tell me how you feel about us right now.”
She took a deep, shaky breath. She looked out the window for a moment, as though pondering his question, before she responded.
“I thought about us all the time,” she murmured to him, looking down at him and even managing a smile.
“Even when we were apart, I thought about us. I just couldn’t forget you, no matter how much I wanted to, no matter how much easier it would have made my life if I did.
If I could have just left you behind, I could have started a new life for myself. I could have moved on…”
She trailed off, then shook her head.
“But that was never going to happen,” she confessed. “Even back then, I knew I loved you. Even thinking you’d turned on me. I used to wonder if there was something more to it, because the man I knew…the man I knew would never have done that to me.”
She took another breath, closing her eyes for a moment, as though bringing it all back to mind again.
“And I never thought I could live without you forever,” she went on. “I always wanted you back in my life. And then, when Ziegler and the others turned on me, there was only one person I could think of to go to for help.”
She smiled down at him. “You.”
He tightened his grip on her slightly. His vision still wasn’t entirely clear, but the sound of her words cut through the confusion around him completely.
He couldn’t deny how much he loved her, not even if he wanted to.
He felt the same way she did, and he was glad to hear her say those words, even if the circumstances were far from perfect.
When he was better again, he would say all of this back to her, make sure she knew how much he cared for her. Just as soon as he could string a sentence together without slurring again.
“And I know I haven’t always made it easy for us, you know, since we’ve been back together again,” she continued.
“But I think I was just scared. Scared that something was going to pull us apart again. I couldn’t have lived with that.
It was why I left. I know it doesn’t make sense, but it just seemed safer to get out of there before either of us got too attached, especially with Ziegler and the others on our tail. ”
She shook her head, her face dropping.
“And I wish I could have come back to you without bringing them with me,” she whispered, her voice cracking.
He reached up to cup her face, even though his body cried out with every movement.
“You didn’t bring them,” he murmured. “They were always going to come find me. I’m just glad you trusted me enough to help you when you needed it most, even after what happened.
I would do anything to protect you. You know that, right? ”
“I know that,” she replied. “I can see it now.”
He smiled, dropping his hand back down to his side with a wince.
A silence hung in the air between them. The only sound was the wheels of the car bumping over the road. And then, he spoke again.
“And what about…our future?” he asked her. “You’ve covered our past. And our present. What do you think’s going to happen now?”
She parted her lips, trying to find the words to express what she wanted to say.
Maybe it was unfair of him to ask her so soon after they had taken down the men who’d been chasing her.
But he wanted to know—he wanted to be sure she saw the same future for them that he did.
Up until an hour or so ago, they hadn’t been able to think past the immediate threat.
But now? Now, they could do just about anything they wanted.
“I want to join the force again,” she replied firmly.
“And do everything I can to make sure people like them are weeded out of whatever departments they’re infecting right now.
I can’t stand the thought of more of them out there, and more people who are working with them and don’t even know it.
If they hadn’t tried to pull me into it, I would have just worked with them without knowing.
I’m never going to let that happen again. ”
He could hear the certainty in her voice, and it made him proud.
She had come so far since she had been a rookie, but she’d had the same determination and certainty since day one.
She had always been ready to take on the world, and now she would.
He could tell. And he wanted to be there to support her every step of the way.
“And what about the lodge?” he asked her, his voice weaker.
“What about it?” she replied, looking down at him and brushing another strand of hair away from his face.
“You think you’ll stay?”
She smiled slightly, cocking her head at him. “Hmm,” she murmured, tapping her finger against her bottom lip. “I don’t know about that. Would have to be some pretty good reasons to stay, right?”
“Wheatie?” he suggested, and she laughed.
She leaned down to kiss him again. “I can think of a few other reasons,” she murmured against his lips before she pulled back. “And there’s plenty of work I can do here. You said Sheriff Willis is a good guy, right? I’m sure he’d be willing to help me with a job.”
He gazed up at her, hardly able to keep the smile from his lips. It was exactly what he’d wanted to hear, what he’d needed to hear.
The car pulled to a stop.
“We’re here,” the driver called to them.
“You’re going to be okay,” Bailey murmured as she helped him out of the back seat of the car.
“As long as you’re here, I will be,” he agreed.
But as he stood, he slumped against her, and the last thing he heard was Bailey scream for help as the whole world went black.