Dare to Submit (Dare to Love #4)(35)
Author: Carly Phillips

Because it was daytime, there wasn’t any play going on, just a few members having a drink or meeting to talk. A big-screen TV hung above the bar, playing the news, and Decklan kept an eye on the closed captions while waiting for Max.

“Good to see you,” Max said, joining him at their favorite seats by the bar. “So what’s the deal with Amanda? You two back together yet?”

Max knew the bare-bones details about Amanda’s fake relationship with Brad. He knew nothing about their interaction after, specifically Decklan’s behavior. He’d always known that no matter what he decided about the future with Amanda, he owed her an apology for preying on her weakness. That hadn’t been his intention.

“Not yet. I’m going to go talk to her in a little while. She’s got one last required event with the Ritters.” Then, to quote Brad, she was free. And once there were no external barriers keeping them apart, he intended to make things right.

“And then you’re going to get your girl?” Max asked.

“That’s the plan.”

“Does she want to be gotten?” he asked, laughing.

Decklan groaned. “That’s the big question. I f**ked up.”

Max leaned an arm on the bar, studying him with too-knowing eyes. “Well, no shit, buddy. You’re you. You have abandonment issues.”

Decklan rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t you become a shrink? Then you could spend your days analyzing everyone else’s problems and you’d be too sick of it to bother with mine.”

Max grinned. “Because my father left me his business, that’s why. Now let’s get back to you.”

“Okay, Freud. I had a visit from her best friend. The senator’s son. I gave him a piece of my mind, but in a few succinct words, he let me know I hadn’t handled things with her any better.”

After signaling for a drink, Max turned his attention back to him. “Spell it out.”

“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.