Anything You Can Do(77)

Bailey charged toward her dog, trying to run faster, pushing harder than ever before in her life, but she felt as if she were running through water. From the corner of her eye, she saw Austin stretching his long legs almost parallel to the ground with each step, but only the truck appeared to be moving rapidly.

Still several feet away, Bailey panicked as she realized there was no way she could make it. At that same instant she heard the scream of brakes as Austin dove into the truck's path, and the truck, Austin, and Samantha seemed to merge into one.

Hot wind pushed against her as the truck shrieked on past. Her mind rejecting the horror, her momentum carried her on, up to Austin's body lying curled beside the road.

"No!" she shrieked, stumbling over him into the ditch beside a still, furry ball.

For an instant she lay there, trying to summon the effort to get up, to face the probability that Austin and Samantha were both dead. Then she raised her head and found herself staring into a pair of bright brown eyes. Samantha licked her nose.

A surge of relief that her dog was safe mingled with fear for Austin. She snatched up Samantha and rushed to him.

Pressing her ear to his chest, she listened but wasn't sure if she heard Austin's heartbeat or only her own as it pounded more furiously than after the longest run. He couldn't be dead. She refused to even consider that idea. She loved him, and she wouldn't let him be dead.

Plopping Samantha down, she admonished her, "Stay!"

Trying desperately to fight back the panic and remember her long-ago instructions in CPR, Bailey pressed her lips to his and breathed in. "Don't you dare die!" she ordered, pushing on his chest. To her intense relief, a groan escaped, but his eyes remained closed, seemed to scrunch even tighter, as a matter of fact. Another good sign, she decided.

Bailey shook his shoulders frantically. "Get up and fight, damn you!" She bent forward to breathe into his mouth again and noticed his face was wet. For a moment she thought he was bleeding then realized the moisture was clear and coming from her own eyes.

"Is he hurt?"

She looked up to see a tall, thin man approaching from the direction of the now stationary truck.

"Get an ambulance!" she ordered, and went back to her efforts.

"You jerk! I fall in love with you and then you go and die!" She pressed her lips to his again then straddled his supine body as the words of her CPR instructor came back through the panic. If you don't hear cracking noises when you push on the rib cage, you're not doing it hard enough. Better to have a broken rib than be dead. She pushed with all her might.

Austin cursed.

He was alive! She gave another push since the last one had been so successful.

He cursed again, roundly and loudly. Yes, he was definitely alive.

"Are you trying to kill me? Didn't they teach you the difference between CPR and torture?"

Laughing and crying, Bailey fell onto his chest, holding him close. "I thought you were dead!"

He wrapped his arms around her. "Had you worried, huh?"

She snuggled against his neck. "Yes, you had me worried."

"Did you mean what you said?"

"Huh?"

"About being in love with me."

Bailey raised her head and gaped at him. "You were unconscious! You couldn't have heard that!"

"Did you mean it?" He grinned.

"You weren't unconscious at all, were you?"

"Well, that truck did knock the wind out of me. Then you gave such nice mouth-to-mouth, I just didn't see any reason to get up until you started trying to break my ribs."

Bailey jumped to her feet. "You creep! You arrogant jerk! You had me all upset and worried, and you let me make a total fool out of myself saving your life when you didn't need saving!" She bent to scoop up Samantha, then glared back down at Austin. He was still smiling, totally unrepentant.

"Come back here and finish saving my life," he said. "And don't pull that anger business on me. I've got your number now, Bailey Russell. I've seen you when you're really mad." He raised his arms invitingly.

He was right. She wasn't really upset with him, but she wasn't going to give in so easily. "You don't look very dignified lying in that ditch. I will not get down there with you. Get up and come on back to my place. As I recall, we were discussing the error of your ways before this interruption."

He groaned in mock agony and started to rise, then groaned more loudly, more sincerely, and fell back.