“No, My, no.” He shook against me. “Just need … privacy.” He gritted out.
“We need to be alone.” I shooed them away, glad Pennington’s had paid to close the bungee jumping attraction for the morning so there was no one else around but staff.
Finally, Baird seemed to relax as we reached the end of the trail that led to the car park. He slumped to his arse so suddenly, I thought he was passing out.
“Baird.” I dropped to my knees.
He waved a weary hand at me in reassurance.
“What happened?” I smoothed a hand over his bent knee.
“I … I had the thought a few seconds after I jumped. When you mentioned the pressure on your head, it hit me that maybe this was a bad idea for me.”
Oh God. Oh heck. Why didn’t I think about that? His injury. I squeezed his knee.
“It’s probably fine.” His voice was rough. “But once I felt the pressure, I started to panic down there and every time I yo-yoed, the pressure felt worse. By the time I got back up …”
“The lightheadedness is anxiety,” I realized.
Baird looked embarrassed but nodded. “Aye.”
“You know that’s totally normal, right?” I pushed against him, gently turning his face to meet my eyes. “Baird, you suffered a traumatic head injury. You nearly died. The fracture might have healed, but the mental fractures from a near-death experience … those take much longer to heal. There’s no shame in that.”
The muscle in his jaw clenched. “I hate that I can’t control when I’m going to feel this way about something. It just fucking happens. This time on film.”
“I will personally ruin any arsehole here if they ever publish that footage, Bear.”
His lips twitched. “Aye? Are you my protector now?”
There were those words again, desperate but terrified to squeak out of me. “Aren’t you mine?”
Baird’s expression turned tender. “Always.”
“I’m always yours too.” I leaned in and brushed my lips over his.
When I pulled back, his countenance had turned somewhat intense. “Maia, I?—”
“Everything all right?”
Annoyance sliced through me, but I gritted my teeth against it and turned to see the instructor standing a few feet from us, a worried look in his eyes.
“Do you have water? And maybe a piece of chocolate or something?”
“I’m all right,” Baird insisted.
“You will be,” I promised.
Bruno joined us as the instructor darted off to retrieve the water and chocolate.
“I’ve had the camera crew delete the last few minutes of footage,” he assured us as he approached. “Is everything okay?”
“Baird didn’t eat before we left for the shoot,” I lied, covering for him. “His blood sugar dropped with the adrenaline.” I had no idea what I was talking about, but I hoped it sounded plausible.
Bruno seemed to think so and slumped with relief. “Oh, I’m glad to hear it’s nothing serious. We have what we need if you two want to go home.”
“Thanks, Bruno, I appreciate it.” The director had been much nicer to us ever since he got a scolding from Hilary Erstwhile about the footage permissions.
As Bruno departed, I helped Baird to his feet.
