by Stacy Gail
“So.” Lilah, Fin’s wife and one of Killian’s best friends since childhood, cleared her throat. “That kiss between the son of Keir Brody and the daughter of Delphine Faircloth just happened, right? You all saw it?”
“Oh, Kill and Dallas have been getting, shall was say, close for a while now,” Celia said, and Killian looked back in time to see Ry’s wife smirk at the clearly shocked Lilah. “I guess you’ve been too busy being super-vet now that you’re an official partner at the Petrosian clinic.”
“What I’ve been busy with is planning Fin’s and my wedding now that we’ve set the date for this November. But, wow, if crazy stuff is happening around me, like a Faircloth and a Brody deciding to bury the hatchet and I didn’t even notice, then I seriously need to come up for air.”
“Is that what the kids are calling sex these days? Burying the hatchet?” Ry asked Celia, who snorted. “I’m telling you, darlin’, I just can’t keep up with all the new slang these days.”
“It’s not funny,” Killian gritted out while the others chuckled. Goddamn it, he was being torn apart while they all fucking laughed. “None of this is fucking funny.”
“I know it’s not, brother, which is why I’m going to do my damnedest to keep it light, whether you like it or not.” Clearly unrepentant and wearing his usual sardonic smile, Ry still seemed to know enough to keep to his side of the miniscule room. “You do get that we’re luckier than most families, yeah? We’re in a city that has one of the highest-ranked hospitals for successful living-liver transplants. We can afford to make that transplant happen, and we’ve got a donor you kidnapped off the street, who’s happy to be here and wants to see Des make a full recovery. There’s no way in hell I’m going to let the gloom and doom set in, because I’m keeping my eye on that fucking silver lining. Today’s the day where we get shit done for Des. Today’s the day everything’s going to get better for him from here on in.”
“All of that sounded so hopeful and awesome, until you said the word kidnapping.” Lilah rolled her eyes and looked to her fiancée, Fin. “It would’ve been such a Hallmark moment, but then that popped out of his mouth.”
“It is what it is,” Fin sighed, grimacing. “Dallas is great and all, but she started out in our lives as one thing—spare parts.”
“Spare parts.” Just thinking about carving Dallas up—even to save his brother—made Killian want to break something. “Goddamn it. What a fucking nightmare this is.”
“All kidding aside, Kill, this was the reason you brought Dallas Faircloth back to Bitterthorn,” Fin said, and the tension they were all grappling with shadowed his eyes to the point where they seemed almost black. “The only reason you started this crazy sleigh ride with her in the first place was because she was a viable donor.”
“So calling a good woman spare parts is a great idea, yeah?” Never before had Killian wanted to put his fist through something like he did at that moment, and Fin’s face was looking like a mighty fine target. “And hey, what the fuck, why don’t I just keep Dallas around afterward, put more scars on her in case our danger-loving, beer-drinking dumbass brother might need another spare part from her after this? How ‘bout that, Fin? Keep her as a spare parts hunk of meat so we can all fucking breathe easy that Des will be okay?”
A faint sound brought his attention behind him, and he stared in horror as Dallas opened the door wider.
“I need the room, so everyone but Killian get the hell out.” Her tone was fierce, just like it had been when they first met, and it tied his already churning stomach in knots. With her eyes never leaving his, she flung the door open wide for everyone to leave, then stepped into the room like she was ready to go twelve rounds with him.
Just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse. “Dallas... Jesus, that wasn’t what it sounded like. I swear I’m not keeping you around for—”
“Killian, I need you to be quiet, because what I have to say is important, and I don’t have a lot of time right now.”
“Dallas—”
“Shut up.” To his surprise, she reached out and caught his hands in hers, her eyes filled with anxiety while her icy fingers gripped his. “First, you don’t have to worry that I’d ever believe, even for a second, that you’ve been romancing me just to keep me around for spare parts for Des. I’m not that stupid, and you’re not that cruel, so have a little faith in me, okay? Have faith in me, because I have faith in you.”
Relief hit him so hard that for a moment all he could do was stand there trying to pull air into his lungs. “Thank God.” When she smiled up at him, he couldn’t restrain himself any longer. He pulled her into a bone-creaking embrace and wished to God he’d never have to let go. “I don’t want you to do this, baby.”
“I know, and that leads me to my next point, and the reason I came back to talk to you. You need to know that I’m pretty freaked out right now. So freaked out, in fact, that I need you to be strong for the both of us. Telling me that you don’t want me to do this isn’t helping.”
If anything, he tightened his hold on her. “What the hell do you want me to do, lie? I can’t do that, Spice, not even for Des. The thought of you being cut into...” Shit, he was going to fucking lose it.
“Listen to me,” she said, and her voice shook for the first time with the weight of what had to be the world crushing down on her. “This is my second chance to save Des, baby. I tried, but I couldn’t save him when we were kids. Life has given me a second shot at getting this right, and this time I’m not going to blow it.”
“Jesus Christ, Dallas, this isn’t about you and Des being stuck in some goddamn nightmare of a closet when you were children. We can find someone else, another donor—”
“You heard the doctor. Des has days, at the most, and probably way less than that. There isn’t anyone else. I’m it. I have to do this. What’s more, I want to do this. I’m just so sorry that it’s going to be hardest on you. Not me, or Des. You. That’s why I came back in here. I can’t imagine what I’d be feeling if I were in your shoes right now, torn between worrying about my brother or my lover. But I know you. I know how deeply my beautiful Killian feels things. What you’re going through now must be hell, and I’m so sorry. I’m just so sorry this is hurting you now.”
“Torn apart.” The words barely made it out of his throat, it was so tight. “Right here and now, I’m being torn apart.”
Tears flooded her eyes, as if his confession wounded her. “That’s why I needed to tell you while I still had the time that I love you and I believe in you. I didn’t want to waste another minute keeping that to myself like an idiot.”
God, she was killing him. “Dallas.”
“I believe in you so much that I know you can be strong enough to keep your shit together for the both of us now, okay? You need to do this for me, and for Des.”
“Fuck.” He held onto her as if she were the only thing keeping her alive. Maybe she was. “Don’t ask me to let you go and just not give a shit about it. I definitely give a shit about it, and I’m not fucking okay with any of this.”
“You have to be,” she whispered against his neck, and her arms gave him a squeeze that was almost as powerful as his. “I’m counting on you to be my strength, because there’s something else you need to know.”
An icy dagger sank into the very core of his soul. “What?”
“I once told you that when I was a teenager, I had an appendectomy and I nearly died. Come to find out, we redheads have a tiny glitch in our sixteenth chromosome, and among other things, this glitch makes it so we react unusually to anesthesia. We need more to put us under, but that could also turn out to be a tiny bit, um...lethal.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he ground out, and this time he couldn’t stop the pain from shadowing every syllable. “I’m going to kill Des for putting you through this shit. You can’t do this, baby.”
“I can, because the docs here are going to know about how they had a hell of a time knocking me out when I was seventeen, an
d then nearly killed me by giving me too much. The last anesthesiologist didn’t know about this glitch, but they will now, so it’ll be safer. They’ll be prepared.”
“Fuck prepared. They’re going to cut you open. How the hell am I supposed to be okay with you getting cut open? Jesus, how am I supposed to be okay with you being put under when that alone could kill you?”
“I only told you about this because I want you in on all the consultations, so that means you’re going to hear about this anyway. I just wanted you to hear it from me first.”
“You can’t do this.” He could lose her. Oh dear God, he could lose her.
“Killian. Baby.” She reached up to frame his face in her hands. “There’s no other way.”
“Then marry me,” he said without thinking it through, but even as he heard the words, he decided there wasn’t a damn thing in the world wrong with them. “Marry me now, right now, before they put you under.”
He’d never seen her eyes go so wide. “What?”
“You’re going to need someone to be your strength, right? Well, they won’t let anyone into ICU who isn’t family. You don’t have anyone. Let me be your family.”
She stared at him as if he were suggesting a human sacrifice. “I can’t let you do that, Killian.”
“It’s not just because you don’t have anyone else, though that’s one hell of a huge reason,” he added, while the thought of her alone and in pain while he couldn’t get to her was enough to drive him insane. “I want you to be my wife. I want you to belong to me, to be completely mine, before you go under the knife. And I want this to happen right the fuck now.”
“Why? I mean, what’s the point?”
“I’m not going to lose you. You marry me, that means you’re mine. I’ll tie you to me so I won’t fucking lose you.”
She began to shake her head. “Killian, that doesn’t make any sense. You don’t just marry someone out of the blue because you’re afraid to lose them.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what we’re doing.” And it wasn’t open for a goddamn debate.
She, however, seemed to think otherwise, because she was still shaking her head. “Baby, the fear of death is no reason to get married.”
“Yeah, it is.” Fin barged through the door, with Lilah trying—and failing—to hold him back. “And before you say it, yes—we were all listening in, and I’m not going to apologize for it because you’re wrong, Dallas,” he went on, pointing right at her. “I nearly lost Lilah this past spring, and it opened up my eyes to what life is all about. First and foremost, I saw that it was fleeting. It’s here one minute, but it could be fucking gone the next. The only people who win at life are the ones who have the guts to grab at it while they can. That’s what Kill is doing right now. He’s grabbing for what he holds dear, and that’s you. You’re obviously having the same reaction Lilah did when I proposed by not taking Kill seriously, but he doesn’t deserve that. Nothing clears a man’s head like the possibility of death. You need to get that, because my brother is going through enough hell without you denying him the one and only thing that matters to him now, and that’s holding on to you the only way he knows how.”
“And just so you know how serious I am, nothing happens until you until you say yes,” Killian added, and he knew she got the picture when she looked back to him with a small gasp. “You don’t sign any papers or go into any surgery until you are my wife. Say yes.”
“But Des—”
“I know. My God, I know, and I fucking hate that we’re between a rock and a hard place when it comes to making a decision here, but I’m not moving on this. Marry me, right the hell now, Dallas, or nothing happens.”
“Ms. Faircloth.” Dr. Vasquez and a technician in scrubs came in, wheeling a laptop on a trolley. “We really need to get going on getting you checked in.”
“She’s not doing a damn thing until she agrees to marry me,” Killian told the doctor flatly, and he didn’t give a damn when both the doc and the technician did synchronized jaw drops. “She marries me first, and then I’ll allow you to cut my woman open.”
“Uh, that’s very sweet, Mr. Brody, but we don’t have time to wait for the three-day waiting period for you two to get married.”
“All we need is a judge to waive that waiting period, right?” Ry stood in the doorway behind the doctor, for once in his life looking dead serious as he trained his gaze on Killian. “What about my godfather? A Texas Supreme Court judge should be good enough to waive that damn rule, yeah? Hell, knowing Jasper, he’ll probably insist on doing the ceremony himself. What do you think?”
“Call him.” Killian looked back to Dallas as Ry turned away, already grabbing up his phone. “The only thing you need to do now is say yes.”
“You’re crazy,” she said instead, because Dallas always had to be a damn rebel.
“That’s not a yes.”
“Please, Ms. Faircloth,” Dr. Vasquez implored, her tone increasingly desperate. “We need to get you admitted now and start the pre-op tests. Those alone take hours, and we don’t have much time to play with here.”
“Yes,” Dallas whispered, as pale as milk and looking like she was about to keel over. “The answer is yes.”
Chapter Eighteen
A hospital gown wasn’t exactly the wedding gown of Dallas’s dreams. But then, nothing in this situation could ever be described as a dream. A nightmare, maybe, but that was as far as she was willing to go.
Right before the Honorable Jasper T. Mahoney arrived and performed a quick civil ceremony with Killian’s brothers standing at his side and Celia and Lilah standing with her, Dallas had been allowed to peek in on Des. If anything, he’d looked skinnier than ever, with a complexion that was waxen and scarily lifeless.
The sight of him shot a renewed pulse of determination through her veins. This wasn’t how he was supposed to be. Her little brother was meant to freaking live, not lie there hovering near death. Right from the beginning, she’d started this crazy ride with one thought only—to save her brother. Nothing would stop her now.
Not even the reality of the simple gold wedding band that had been placed on her left ring finger.
The band was gone now. It had been taken away by hospital staff and given back to Killian almost immediately, but Dallas could still feel it there, like a phantom limb. Even now, as she stood by the hospital bed she was supposed to be lying in, she couldn’t stop messing with the ring finger that had been adorned oh-so briefly by a wedding band.
Holy crap, a wedding band.
She was a married woman.
And she was married to a man she loved, who didn’t love her back.
God, what a mess.
At least she didn’t regret telling Killian that she loved him. Things were serious now, life and death serious. She hadn’t wanted to go to her grave without telling him what was in her heart. She’d wanted him to know he was loved. That was all. He was a good man worthy of all the love this world had to offer, and she’d needed him to know he had it.
The one thing she hadn’t counted on was his reaction to it.
The last thing she’d ever wanted to do was make him feel responsible for her feelings. Obviously, though, that was exactly what she’d done. Just like when he’d kidnapped her due to a compulsion to take care of Des, he’d gone similarly overboard with her once she’d confessed her feelings. Killian was the ultimate protector, driven to go to whatever extremes he could think of to take care of the people he felt responsible for. And if this was the end of the road for her, he could rest easy knowing he’d taken care of the woman who loved him the best way he knew how.
That was sweet.
But hardly realistic.
God willing, this wasn’t going to be the end, for Des or for her. Once all was said and done and everyone made it successfully through surgery, she’d be a married woman with a husband who’d regret his crazy-ass impulsiveness. Inevitably, there would come a day when he’d look at her and see nothing but an anvil crushing the
life out of him.
Far more than the impending operation, that thought filled her with dread.
“Dallas.” The door to the private room the Brodys had somehow managed to get for her swung open. The man occupying her thoughts, along with another white-coated woman, came in. The woman, blonde and bespectacled, wore a friendly smile and had a clipboard in hand. “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”
“I’m going to be in bed for a while after today, so I’m taking full advantage of feeling awesome and staying upright for as long as I can.” Her gaze went from her husband—holy crap, her husband—to the woman. “Hi.”
“Hello, Mrs. Brody.” Dallas didn’t know what struck her more—the fact that the woman had a strong Russian accent, or that she was now Mrs. Brody. “I’m Dr. Elena Smirnova, your hand-picked anesthesiologist. Is it all right if we sit down? I’m going to be on my feet for a long while with you, so I’d like to rest my poor tootsies while we can.”
“Of course.” Nervously she swallowed and sat on the edge of the bed while the blonde woman took a seat in one of the two chairs in the room. Instead of taking up the second seat, Killian joined her on the bed and took her hand in his like it was the most natural thing in the world. “So, about you being on your feet a long time... How long does this sort of operation usually take?”
“Without complications, about seven hours or so,” Dr. Smirnova said, getting a pen out of her breast pocket. “But for you, we’re all thinking it’ll be best to get you in and out of surgery as soon as possible. The longer any patient is under anesthesia, the greater the chance for complications, and this is even more so with your history. That’s why I wanted to come in and let you know what our game plan is. Do you have any questions about the procedure?”
“You said you were hand-picked.” Killian kept her hand in his while he spoke, and the rock-solid strength that flowed through his touch kept her from bursting into stressed-out tears. “Why is that? Do you have some sort of background in cases like this?”