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.
