Desperado: Deep in the Heart, Book 2 (34 page)

He leaned over to kiss her temple. “Your system’s shocked, Stormy. You’re overwhelmed. You’re going to be tired for a while. And the doctor gave you a sedative.”

“A sedative?” She opened her eyes briefly to stare at him. “No wonder I feel so heavy. I feel so…”

Her voice trailed off. Cody realized she’d fallen asleep. He reached to hold her hand, gently rubbing her skin with his fingers. A tear gathered in one eye and then the other, finally working down his cheeks. He wouldn’t have allowed himself to cry in front of Stormy. She needed his strength today. But he couldn’t help feeling sorry for her and for himself. They’d lost a child. He’d looked forward to holding the baby. Once he’d learned of the pregnancy, anticipation had begun building inside him. He’d daydreamed about being out working, daydreamed about teaching his work to his child, about buying first boots and a hat for his baby.

Cody pressed a palm against his eyes to try to stop the flow. He had wanted this baby very much. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t thought he was ready to be a father. He’d wanted the child Stormy had been growing inside her.

Come back, baby,
his mind cried. Absolute grief and heartache tore through him as he stared at Stormy’s translucent skin, her very still features. There wouldn’t be another one, he knew suddenly. This baby was the emotional glue that had bonded them together. She was going to some faraway place, and he would head back to the ranch alone. There would be no happy ending.

“Stormy,” he murmured, though he knew she couldn’t hear, “we should have taken better care of each other.”

When Stormy awoke, grogginess kept her from fully opening her eyes. The weighed-down sensation didn’t stop her from remembering she’d lost her baby.
Oh, no,
she thought, fresh tears welling up behind her eyes.
Why didn’t I do this right? Why didn’t I just tell Cody in the beginning? I’d still have my baby. I’d still have Cody.

The pressure of his hand on hers told her he was still beside her. She refused to allow her eyes to open and see the remorse that would be on his face. The cadence of his voice had changed when she told him that she’d assured the doctor their Rh factors were the same. Louder than a thunderclap, she’d heard the horror in his voice. He hadn’t said an accusatory word, but she knew. Flaky, wacky, loony were words that came to mind. She’d heard the same tone when she’d told him the truth about the baby. Irresponsible.

Maybe it was true. Certainly she had never dreamed of the consequences or she would have told Cody immediately about the baby. But people had been having babies for hundreds of years! What had they done before Rhogam had been invented? How could she possibly have known of this problem?

Remorse forced her to keep her eyes closed. She couldn’t bear to see him. She pretended she was asleep and hoped he would go away. Cody had offered to marry her because of the baby.

The baby was gone, and she was pretty certain the marriage proposal was, too. She’d killed the only link between them.

In his voice, she’d heard the death of his love for her. She wanted to cry for that, too. It was all so sad. It was so sad that she had done something so dumb. She had nobody to blame but herself for losing everything she’d wanted.

“I think you’d better come to the hospital,” Cody told Sun over the phone. “Stormy doesn’t seem to be responding the way the doctor thinks she should. I don’t know if it’s the medication they gave her, or depression. But maybe having her mother would help.”
Someone who knows her better than me
, he was forced to add silently. The vibrant woman he’d known was only a pale remnant of herself. She wouldn’t look at him. When she opened her eyes, she merely looked out the hospital room window. Her once vibrant hair lay limply on the pillow, no longer alight with shine and fire. Without her saying it, he knew she was avoiding him. She didn’t want him there any longer. The baby had brought them together. Its loss was tearing them apart.

“I can come,” Sun said. “You don’t think they’ll check her out today at all?”

“No. The doctor is concerned that something else is bothering her. She’s just…not Stormy.” It was hard to explain, but he felt strongly it had to do with her heart. She’d been so looking forward to the baby. The old fighting spirit had been strong within her, to the point that she’d planned on taking the baby to Africa with her.

She was grieving, and Cody didn’t think anything the hospital recommended was going to help her. Healthwise, maybe, but emotionally, Stormy needed to lean on someone.

She seemed damned determined not to lean on him.

“Moon and I will be right down, Cody.” Sun hung up the phone.

Cody stared at the black receiver in his hand and sighed. He glanced over at the sleeping woman in the hospital bed, his eyes automatically shying away from the intravenous tube in her arm. One thing was for certain, the pills they had given Stormy for sleeping seemed to have an adverse affect. Instead of sleeping peacefully, she thrashed and moaned in her sleep. He wondered if she had told them anything of her medical altercation with prescription pills.

Clasping his hands tightly together in fists, Cody decided the next time Stormy awakened, he was going to ask her about that. She hadn’t been interested in speaking to him, or much of anybody, but it was high time he got the truth out of her. If she hadn’t made the doctor aware of her problem with drugs, then he would, patient-doctor privilege notwithstanding. All the fight had gone out of the woman he knew to be a renegade, a stand-on-her-own lady. What he feared more than anything was that the will to fight an addiction to painkillers might have also gone out of Stormy, as long as she was suffering over the baby she’d lost.

“Mother, you’ve got to get him to leave!” Stormy said urgently, as soon as Cody went down the hall to get a soda. “I’m fine! He watches over me like a hawk and it’s driving me crazy!”

Sun eyed her, orange-puffed hair aflame. “He seems to think you need watching.”

“I don’t! I’m just sleeping a lot. But it’s hard to rest knowing he’s here watching my every move!”

“He’s worried about you. I should think you’d find that reassuring. Once upon a time, you said you didn’t think he cared about you enough to marry you. Now you know he does.”

“You don’t understand. I’m a responsibility now. He’ll stay here until he knows I’ve recovered. Cody is a natural-born protector. But…I killed his baby with my selfishness.” Stormy sighed deeply, her heart tearing in two. “I can tell you that it’s over between us. He won’t tell you that, or me, right now. Not while he’s shouldering this burden. But it’s over. It goes against a protector’s instincts when someone kills something they love.”

“Stormy, aren’t you leaving Cody out of this scenario? Shouldn’t you ask him how he feels? Give him a chance to say his feelings have changed, if they have?” Sun’s penciled eyebrows soared.

“I can’t bear to hear him say he doesn’t care, Mom. But he acts different. And that tells me a lot.” She picked at the cheap hospital bedspread, too miserable to explain more.

“Honey, you’re a bundle of hormones right now. You don’t know what you’re hearing. Everything is magnified five hundred percent after a trauma like this. Please try not to upset yourself.” Sun reached out a comforting hand and smoothed Stormy’s hair. “Put it all on hold for now.”

“I can’t. I can’t bear for him to stay here any longer.” Agitated, Stormy pushed herself farther up on the pillow. “He came out to California because he’d figured out about the baby. Once I confirmed it was his, he proposed. None of this would have happened if we hadn’t used a condom that was past its sell-by date. Trust me, Mother, he wasn’t interested in getting tied down and now that the baby is gone, there isn’t any reason for him to marry me.”

On the other side of her, Moon scratched his head. “I think you ought to listen to your mother. She’s making sense to me. Why don’t you just wait a while, then air all this with Cody? If he wants to make the great escape, he’ll tell you.”

“I can’t bear waiting for it to happen. It’s awful knowing someone feels tied to you! I never wanted to be added to his list of burdens!” Unwanted tears sprang into her eyes. “Please try to understand how desperate I feel about this. Say something, anything to him, but please get him to go back to Texas!”

“All right.” Moon patted her on the hand. “Don’t get upset like this. Mother and I will tell him something. You go to sleep now.”

“Thank you.” Stormy closed her eyes and allowed her head to fall back onto the pillow. Cody had to leave. She couldn’t stand him hanging around to take care of her. He needed to go home and take care of Mary and Annie and his mother. But not her. She didn’t need him to take care of her. All she wanted was for him to be in love with her—and she’d killed that dream as surely as she’d killed her baby.

Cody froze outside Stormy’s hospital room. “Say something, anything to him, but please get him to go back to Texas!” he heard her plead. He nearly dropped the soda from his hand. Never would he have guessed she felt like that! His pride burned inside him, even as he tried to rationalize why she might feel that way. She was upset. And he understood that. Maybe after more than forty-eight hours had passed, the shock of the miscarriage would wear off.

But a miscarriage ought to make a woman want her partner’s support more. His fingers tightened on the aluminum can. Annie enjoyed Zach being around even more, now that she was in the advanced stages of pregnancy. He’d even redesigned one of the smaller bedrooms as an office so that he wouldn’t have to be away much.

Maybe that was the crux of the situation. Stormy wasn’t pregnant. His eyes burned at the fresh, raw sense of realization. Possibly his presence was keeping her from dealing with the loss the way she might be able to if he left. He closed his eyes briefly, almost too embarrassed to walk into the room. Facing Sun and Moon was going to be awkward as hell now that he knew they were troubled over having to give him his walking papers.

He made up his mind at that moment. Striding into the hospital room, Cody set the untouched soda down in front of Sun. “Moon, could I talk to you for a minute? In the hall?”

“Sure.” Moon got to his feet, his sandals squeaking as he walked. “What’s up?” he asked, once they were outside.

“I called and checked my messages while I was in the cafeteria. Something urgent has come up with my ranch. I left a friend of mine watching over my cattle while I was gone, but with the heat and all, a few problems have surfaced. I’m going to fly back this afternoon.”

“Oh, sure, sure.” Moon nodded, his expression serious, as if he knew exactly what kind of problems Cody might be facing on a ranch. “I understand completely.” His tone was so relieved, Cody had to remind himself that the man was a guitar player, not an actor, and hadn’t prepared himself for his impromptu part.

“Is Stormy awake?” He knew she wasn’t.

“Oh, no. She just…um, dozed off.” Moon’s eyes were wide with eagerness.

Cody made himself look indecisive. “I hate to leave without saying goodbye—”

“Oh, she’ll understand.” Moon quickly waved his worries away. “I’ll tell her an emergency cropped up. Trust me, Stormy is an adaptable girl. Don’t worry about her. Sun and I will stick close to her, and she’ll come through this smelling like a rose.”

Stormy had learned to adapt at her parents’ knees, Cody thought grimly. She’d adapted to being pregnant without him. Now obviously, she wanted to adapt to not being pregnant without him. A solo return to her life as it had been.

“Well,” he said, reaching out a hand for Moon to shake, “thanks for everything.” He didn’t know what the hell he was thanking Moon for—letting him off the hook, maybe? “Keep in touch.”

“We will, I’m sure.” Moon nodded as he released Cody’s hand. “Don’t worry about us. We’re hanging tough, man.”

Cody backed away after poking his head in one last time to peer at Stormy. Her eyes were closed. She appeared to be sleeping quietly. He couldn’t see Sun’s face as she watched her daughter, staring down at her while she slept.

Suddenly, Cody felt like an intruder. He nodded at Moon, put his hat on his head, and strode down the hall. No baby, no woman to make his wife. He was an outlaw, riding off into the sunset.

Alone.

An hour later, Stormy opened her eyes. “Hi,” she said to her parents.

“Hi to you.”

Sun looked so anxious that Stormy frowned. “Is something the matter?”

“No, dear.” It looked as if Sun forced the worry from her expression. “How do you feel?”

“Much better.” Surprisingly, she did feel a little stronger. She glanced around the room, looking for Cody’s strong, watchful presence.

“Cody had to leave,” Moon said.

“Did you ask him to?” Stormy ignored the sudden shock of dismay she felt at her father’s words.

“No. He’d gotten an emergency call from Texas. He had to return.”

“I see.” Stormy closed her eyes, the sweep of energy she’d been experiencing flushing back out of her body. She did see.
Just as I thought I was going to make it over this hill, I feel myself sliding back down.
Tears rushed into her eyes, but she wasn’t about to let her parents see.

I just didn’t want him to want to leave. I wanted it to be like the time I was sick in Desperado, and though I told him to go, he wouldn’t. He stayed with me and cared for me and held me, and that’s when I knew I was falling in love.