Dare to Submit (18 page)

“Instead of accepting her explanation and apology, I basically stripped her of her defenses, got pissed at myself, and sent her on her way.” The memories of that night were still crystal-clear and just as painful now as then.

Max shook his head and let out a low whistle. “Because you’d rather push her away than lose her some other way. Like I said, abandonment issues.”

“Go away.”

He shrugged. “Hey, if the shoe fits…”

It did. Too well. Decklan just hadn’t viewed things from that perspective. Sometimes Dr. Freud had good points, not that Decklan would tell him and give him any more of a swelled head.

But the gut-wrenching truth was he’d taken a woman who was just waiting for everyone in her life to find her lacking and he’d done just that.

“Shit, man. Look.” Max pointed to the television screen.

Decklan glanced up, and his heart practically stopped beating as he read the closed-captioned words on the screen,
Presidential candidate Senator Stephan Ritter and family involved in shooting downtown.

“Hey, turn the volume up,” Max yelled to the bartender.

The man did as Max asked, and bits and pieces of the report filtered through to Decklan.

The senator or a member of his immediate family might have been shot, according to witnesses from inside the restaurant… Information is sketchy at this time but … taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital
.

Spots flashed in front of Decklan’s eyes, and his brother Gabe’s voice sounded from inside his own head as long-buried memories rose to the surface.
Mom and Dad were in an accident … eighteen-wheeler … the car rolled … no survivors. Mom and Dad didn’t make it.

Decklan knew he wasn’t that kid again, but Amanda had been with Brad at the event, and there’d been a shooting, and someone had been taken to the hospital. He couldn’t live through that kind of loss again. He just couldn’t.

Suddenly Decklan felt himself being shaken hard, and he refocused on the dark club walls and his best friend in front of him. “Come on. I’ll get us a cab to the hospital,” Max said.

But Decklan remained frozen in his seat.

“Hey, buddy. You okay?” Max asked with true concern in his voice.

When Decklan didn’t answer, Max handed him his cell phone, which he’d left lying on the bar. “Call her. Make sure she’s okay.”

He didn’t know what he’d do if she wasn’t. All this time spent angry and hurt, when they could have worked through things together. Now if she’d been hurt, if she was killed… His stomach rolled at the thought.

“Decklan, dial the damned phone or I’m going to beat the shit out of you in order to bring you back to the here and now. Snap out of it,” Max demanded loudly.

To his shock, Decklan burst out laughing. “You did not just use your dom voice on me.”

“Thank God you’re back.”

Decklan pulled up Amanda from his favorites and hit send on his phone, but it went straight to voice mail. His insides felt like ice, but he pushed forward. He already knew what it was like to live without Amanda in his life for a short period of time. Being separated by death just wasn’t an option. So as the taxi headed for the hospital, Decklan prayed fate wasn’t going to shit on him a second time and rip someone he loved away from him.

The cab dropped them off at the Emergency Room entrance. Decklan left Max to pay. The media had already begun to set up camp outside the hospital, but in the chaos, Decklan was able to slip through the main doors and into the waiting room.

Heart pounding a mile a minute, he found the desk and braced both hands on the counter. “I need to know if Amanda Collins was the shooting victim.”

“Are you family?” the older woman in charge asked. “Because we can only reveal patient information to family.

Decklan clenched his hands into fists in frustration. “Look—” He reached for his badge, determined to use any means necessary to get inside.

“Cardiac emergency!” paramedics called out as they rushed in, carrying a man on a stretcher and heading through a set of double doors.

The woman behind the desk jumped up, forgetting all about Decklan, obviously rushing to help organize things inside.

Max glanced at him. “What’s up?”

Decklan shrugged. “They won’t tell me anything.” But the Nazi behind the desk was gone for now. “I’m going in.”

He walked straight through the same double doors the paramedics had used seconds before. He was immediately engulfed in chaos, no doubt thanks to the current emergency and the fact that someone in the senator’s family had been shot.

He scanned the room and saw the senator. So he was okay. Decklan kept going, his gaze hitting on the senator’s wife, who had blood all over her clothes and was crying and being comforted by her husband. No sign of Brad. Or Amanda.

His hands were sweating badly, and panic threatened to engulf him.

“It’s not her,” Max said, putting a solid hand on Decklan’s shoulder.

He hadn’t realized his friend had followed him inside. “How do you know?” he asked, hope building inside him.

Max shrugged. “I charmed a nurse, how do you think? It’s the senator’s son, Brad. He was hit.”

Decklan’s knees nearly buckled. He wasn’t relieved Brad had taken a bullet, just that it wasn’t Amanda. “How bad?”

“No news yet. He’s in surgery to have it removed.”

Decklan glanced around. “Then where’s Amanda?”

“In a cubicle. She was hysterical, and they had to sedate her. Apparently she was there. Had her hands on his fucking chest, Deck. She’s in three.” He pointed to an area cordoned off by a blue curtain.

Decklan brushed past Max and made his way to the cubicle, ignoring a nurse who tried to stop him with her nagging voice.

He pushed open the curtain and stepped inside. Amanda lay still in a propped-up hospital bed. Blood covered her black-and-white dress, an eerie scarlet spattered all over. Her arms held blood traces as well. He knew she’d want that gone as soon as possible.

He stepped over to the bed. She didn’t stir.

“Sir, you’re going to have to leave.” A nurse walked up behind him.

“The hell I am. She needs someone here when she wakes up. Would you want to come to alone in a cold hospital covered in your best friend’s blood?” he asked the woman.

She opened her mouth.

“I thought not,” he said, not letting her speak. “I’ll call you when she wakes up.” He turned away from her, ending the discussion, as far as he was concerned.

“I’ll be right outside,” she told him.

He refocused on the woman lying so quietly and said a prayer of thanks. He hadn’t prayed since he was a kid, but he did so now, knowing he was lucky. That he’d let his own fear and maybe even his ego get the better of him. If he’d lost her without ever telling her he loved her, he never would’ve forgiven himself.

He wasn’t about to live in fear anymore. And he wasn’t about to live without Amanda. So he pulled a chair up beside the bed, lifted her hand in his, and settled in to wait until she came to.

*     *     *

Amanda woke up, and the first thing she noticed was a bright light overhead. She blinked and immediate memories came flooding back. The hot summer air, the sidewalk outside the restaurant, the sound of a gunshot, and Brad’s blood. So much blood.

She struggled to sit up, intending to look for him, but dizziness assaulted her, and she fell back against the uncomfortable bed.

“Easy.” A strong hand came to rest on her shoulder.

“Decklan?” She turned toward him, surprised to see him here, and wondered if she was hallucinating.

“I need to let the nurse know you’re awake.” He squeezed her hand and started to rise.

“Wait. How’s Brad? Is he…” She couldn’t get the last image of him out of her head and swallowed over a sob.

“He’s going to be fine,” Decklan said in a soothing voice. “And you need to stay calm or that nurse is going to give you another sedative.”

She swallowed hard, her mouth and throat dry. “I lost it. The ambulance left with Brad. His mom went with him. The senator took me with him to the hospital. We got here at the same time as the police. They wanted answers. I looked down at my hands, and there was blood everywhere. No one would tell me how Brad was, and I got hysterical.” She ducked her head in embarrassment.

“A form of post-traumatic stress.” A nurse with black hair pulled back, who looked to be in her mid-fifties, walked over to her. “I heard voices. You’re awake, which is good. Your friend here is right. Stay calm. You don’t want us to have to sedate you again.”

“Okay.”

The woman took Amanda’s blood pressure and temperature while Decklan hovered. “All normal.” She smiled. “I’ll bring you something to drink, and you should be out of here soon. But the police have been waiting to talk to you.” The nurse, all brisk efficiency, strode out of the room.

“Do they know who … shot Brad?” she stumbled over the words as she asked Decklan.

He met her gaze and shook his head. “Frankly I had to sneak in here to see you. I wasn’t about to risk being thrown out by wandering around out there.”

“Luckily for you, I’m braver than he is,” Max said, pushing back the curtain and walking in. “I’ve been so busy making myself useful bringing people food and drinks from the cafeteria, no one thought to ask who I was or throw me out. I’ve got as much of the story as I could overhear from listening in on the senator’s family.”

Amanda shook her head and laughed. She glanced at Decklan to see his lips turned upward in an almost-grin. Even he found his friend amusing.

As much as she wanted to know why Decklan was here and what it really meant, she was desperate for information about the shooting too. “Tell me what you know,” she said to Max.

He braced a hand on the rail at the end of the bed. “From what I can gather, and it isn’t much, they have a guy in custody. They also picked up the senator’s campaign manager for questioning. No one’s saying why.”

Amanda shivered. “He always scared me.”

Decklan ran his fingers back and forth over her hand. She wondered if he realized he was doing it or just how soothing she found his touch. It was driving her crazy, not knowing what had brought him here—or if he planned to stay.

“We’ll know more when the cops talk to the press or release a statement,” Decklan reassured her.

Max nodded. “And now that I know you’re okay, I’ll leave you two alone. Make the most of the time you’ve got, because the cops will come in to question you any minute.” He shot Decklan a pointed glance, then stepped over to Amanda and kissed her cheek. “Let him take care of you, doll.”

Max straightened and walked out, leaving Decklan and Amanda alone.

NINETEEN

D
ecklan never got the chance to talk to Amanda. As soon as Max left, the cops came in to take her statement. Knowing her story was necessary and he wouldn’t be getting her alone unless she spoke to the police, he resigned himself to waiting. Though the officer in charge asked him to step outside, Amanda insisted he not leave her alone—not that he’d had any intention of walking away. Not ever again.

She answered question after question, her voice trembling, her face pale as she recounted the event, until she looked ready to pass out. Decklan ground his teeth through the entire telling, her fear and panic becoming his as he realized how close she’d been to the bullet that had hit her friend. And all he could do was place a hand on her shoulder and listen. He’d never felt more useless in his life.

Finally, the cop had enough. He told her he’d be in touch if he had more questions. She was drained and exhausted, and the last thing Decklan wanted was to force her to have another emotional conversation with him.

She had to go through another check of her vitals and a talk with a doctor and a social worker about post-traumatic stress and what to expect once she left the hospital. Decklan doubted she processed anything they told her, but he did. And he intended to make sure she knew she wasn’t on her own in dealing with this. Anything that affected her affected him, and he would make sure she knew it.

The doctor signed her out, and then she insisted on checking in with Brad’s family. They were warm and kind to her, worried about her welfare as they assured her that Brad was in recovery now and would eventually be fine.

She was swaying on her feet, and Decklan had had enough. “Time to go home. You need to rest.”

She shook her head, an obstinate look on her face. “I want to wait until Brad’s in a room and can have visitors. I need to see for myself he’s okay.” She glanced up at him with those big brown eyes he normally couldn’t resist.

He steeled himself against her appeal. If she wasn’t going to look out for herself, he’d just have to do it for her. “You can come back tomorrow when Brad’s more awake and you’ve had some sleep. You’re dead on your feet.”

“But—”

He grasped her arm and led her away from Brad’s family. “Do you really want Brad to see you covered in his blood?” he asked, his tone deliberately gentle but firm.

She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again. “Fine. You win.”

“It wasn’t a contest.”

He would have picked her up and carried her out, but he didn’t trust her not to make a scene. And it would only be making
him
feel better to have her in his arms. She was still hurt and angry with him, and he didn’t blame her.