dread overriding her anger.
His left arm hung uselessly at his side, and in the lamplight, she saw what she hadn’t noticed before. Blood dripped slowly onto the floor.
“Oh, Cody, you’re bleeding. What have you done now?” she moaned, mesmerized and horrified by the dark drops that trickled down his motionless fingers to fall onto the polished wood.
He shrugged and tried to grin, but a grimace of pain crossed his face. His eyes closed and his legs buckled and he slid down the wall.
Through lips white with pain, he muttered, “Dana, don’t be mad. I’ll leave.”
Déjà vu surrounded her in shades of slowly dripping red, spinning her head crazily. “You obviously can’t leave. You can’t even—” her voice caught on a sob “—stand up.” She hated her accusing, bitter tone, but she couldn’t help it. She’d been here, done this, and she didn’t want the T-shirt.
“Look at you. Damn it, Cody….” He hadn’t changed—although that was no surprise. He’d never changed and he never would. He would always step right into danger’s path. He would always be the same cocky, brash kid she’d fallen in love with at first sight.
They’d only dated a few weeks before Cody had talked her into getting married. She’d been in law school, and he’d just joined the New Orleans Police Department. But that was a long time ago. Now their marriage was over, and he had no right to come into her house, bleeding and hurt. He had no right to make her start worrying about him again. She opened her mouth to say so, but his head lolled to one side and his body slumped.
“Oh, God.” She stared at her ex-husband, passed out on the floor. She kneeled down and pushed his silky hair out of the way to feel his forehead. “Cody, wake up! What do I do?”
He opened his eyes and looked a little to the left of her head. “Whoa,” he whispered. “There’s two of you, Dana. Wow, twice as much to love.”
Something deep inside her ached with loss and sorrow. No. Please don’t use the word love. I can’t stand it. She concentrated on helping him.
“Where are you hurt? What happened?” She stood up and pulled on his unbloodied arm, trying vainly to master the queasy fear that was stealing her breath. Cody was hurt. Again. “Can you stand up?”
He looked at his left hand, covered in blood. “Look. I’m bleeding on your floor. I’m sorry, Dana, I know how much you hate a mess.” His voice was faintly slurred. He wiped his fingers on his jeans, streaking the dusty fabric with thick black blood and shearing what was left of Dana’s breath from her lungs.
Her gaze followed the path of his hand. Blood. Cody’s blood. “Cody, shut up. Talk to me.”
Cody laughed weakly. “Pick one, chère.”
“How bad are you hurt? Should I call a doctor?”
“No!” He pulled himself upright with a huge effort. “Please, Dana. No doctor. It’s not that bad. Just a flesh wound. Damn,” he whispered, leaning back against the wall, his face turning paler, if that was possible. His forehead furrowed and more lines appeared on his face. He looked as though he was in agony.
Dana’s heart pounded so loudly the echoes seemed to reverberate around her. Cody was in trouble. It was the same old story, the same old Cody, and Dana felt the same old terror squeezing her chest.
Not again. I can’t do it again.
Because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, she grabbed his good arm and draped it around her shoulders. “Damn it, Cody, when are you going to figure out you’re not immortal? When are you going to realize that those bullets are real? This isn’t cops and robbers. That’s not make-believe blood.” She stopped herself with an effort. Her voice was beginning to sound hysterical.
“When are you going to…remember my name is not ‘Damn it, Cody.”’
She sniffed in exasperation. “Come on. We’ve got to stop that bleeding.”
“I know. Messing up your floor.” Cody was mumbling and leaning heavily on her. He was almost out again.
She glanced at the tiny bathroom, then dismissed it as too small. Instead, she turned him toward the bedroom. “Wait a minute. Can you stand, just for a second?” She peeled his arm from around her shoulder and jerked her new Battenberg lace bedspread off the bed.
Cody made a short, derisive sound and Dana’s face burned. “It’s brand new….” She stopped, embarrassed. He was bleeding to death and she was worried about a bedspread.
“Don’t worry, chère, I understand. Hard to get that blood out…wouldn’t want a stain. Wouldn’t want a mess.” His voice was fading, but she heard him.
She started to respond but Cody was losing his fight to stay upright. She caught him around the waist as he swayed.
“You still smell like roses,” he said, his voice rumbling against her shoulder and his breath warm on her ear. “Al…always like roses.”
And you smell like danger, and trouble, and everything I lost. “Can you stand up long enough to get the jacket off?”
“Maybe,” he said. But just as she reached for the collar to pull it off his shoulders, his knees buckled again and he crumpled onto the bed. “Then again…maybe not.”
“Damn it, Cody, how can you joke at a time like this? You’re bleeding and in trouble. Try to take it seriously, please. Turn over. I’ve got to get that jacket off.” She pulled at the sleeve, and when it slid off, she saw where the blood was coming from. Her stomach turned upside down and she had to swallow against the queasy lump that began to form.
“Oh, God,” she breathed as her stomach pitched. “Cody, you’ve been shot.”
“You got that right,” he whispered, then groaned as she tugged on the torn sleeve of his sweatshirt. It was soaked with blood and stuck to his skin. There was an ugly black hole in the upper arm.
She looked at his back. Another hole marred the shoulder. “Is—is this the same b-bullet? How many times were you shot?”
“Just once,” he gasped. “It went clean through. I heard it hit the wall behind me.”
Dana moaned at the picture his words evoked. “It went through,” she repeated doggedly. “That’s good, I think. We need to get you to the emergency room.”
“No.” Cody shook his head against the pillow and grabbed her wrist with his good hand. “Just wrap it up, please.”
She pulled away. “God, Cody. You’re the most stubborn man I’ve ever known. You need stitches, and probably a tetanus shot, and a blood transfusion for all I know.”
“No, I don’t. Got a tetanus shot, last year, when I—never mind. All they’d do is…wrap it up. Please, Dana?”
“Fine,” she grumbled, grabbing a pair of scissors from the sewing box under her dressing table. “What do I care, anyway? It’s none of my business. I don’t know why you even came here.”
Her fingers shook and her mouth filled with acrid saliva
