was just like before. Like all the times before. “You haven’t changed a bit. It’s just like the last time, and the time before that. How many times were you shot in the two years we were married? Three times? Four?”
Dana hadn’t seen much blood in her life, and most of it was Cody’s.
Chapter Two
Dana licked dry lips as she peeled fabric away from Cody’s skin. It didn’t matter if he’d been shot three times or thirty. It was too many. The last time had been a head wound. Then the blood had streaked his forehead and his cheek and had run down his neck to soak the collar of his shirt.
“And how many times did you go to the doctor? Once. And that wasn’t even your idea. You were unconscious, for God’s sake!”
She hadn’t ever wanted to see his blood again. That was why she’d left him. It was the reason that, no matter how much she loved him, no matter how much it had hurt her, she’d had to leave. His job had always come first. Always had and always would.
“Dana, could you shut up and get on with it, please?”
She pushed the memories to the back of her mind and concentrated on getting the sweatshirt off without tearing open his wound. “Oh, Cody,” she moaned.
His beautiful golden skin was torn and bloody. The holes in the sweatshirt matched the holes in his arm, right through the meaty part of his bicep. Blood oozed out of both wounds.
Dana stared in fascination as the present and the past rushed toward each other like runaway trains. She had to concentrate to keep them from colliding in her brain.
Cody. Wonderful, dangerous Cody. The only man she’d ever loved. Once she hadn’t been able to imagine life without him.
Then, as she began to realize just what being the wife of a cop meant, the possibility of life without Cody became all too real. She’d already had more experience than she ever wanted of waiting at home for someone who never came back. She couldn’t face that again, not even for Cody.
So she’d divorced him. He wasn’t her problem anymore, hadn’t been for four years.
She kept on talking, more in an effort to ground herself in the present than because she actually had anything to say. “How many times can it happen, Cody? How are you always in the middle of the danger? Why does it always have to be you?”
He didn’t answer, just lay there, his sweat staining her new pillowcases, his eyes squeezed shut and a grimace of pain marring his even features.
She pressed her lips together and stood, holding out her bloodstained hands like a surgeon as she backed out of the room. “I think I still have some gauze pads and peroxide from the last time,” she muttered as she walked into the bathroom, reached for the faucets and ran cold, clean water over her hands, watching in bitter fascination as Cody’s blood ran down the drain.
She dug around in the bathroom cabinet until she found the supplies, and brought them and a wet washcloth back into the bedroom.
Even in the middle of this latest crisis with Cody, the sight of him lying on her bed caught her off guard. She stopped dead still in the doorway. For a split second, the years vanished, and she and Cody were together and in love. Dana was shocked at the spear of desire that streaked through her. She winced and shut her eyes briefly.
Cody opened his eyes to a slit and gazed suspiciously at the bottle of peroxide. “You brought that stuff with you when you moved out? That means it’s four years old? You sure it’s still good?”
Dana straightened. His words reminded her of why he was here. “I’m sure it’s okay. I’ve kept it capped. Remember, the hospital gave it to me when I brought you home.”
“I remember.”
The bitterness in his voice surprised her. She glanced at his face, but he’d closed his eyes and his breathing was ragged. She sat down beside him on the bed.
“We were married two years and you were shot two times. It’s like you’re some kind of a bullet magnet.”
Cody lay on his side, his mouth set, his jaw clenched, the tendons in his neck standing out. There were lines around his eyes, deep lines, lines that hadn’t been there four years ago. Her fingers twitched to smooth them out. A strange regret raised a lump in her throat.
He licked his lips. “I’ll tell them to quit picking on me, okay? To shoot somebody else for a change,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll tell them you said so. But could you shut up for a minute and give me some water and maybe an aspirin?” Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead and ran down his face. “I’m hurting a little.”
The lump in her throat swelled and tears stung her eyes. Damn it, Cody. Don’t make me feel sorry for you. I will not cry for you!
She tried to steel herself against his pain. It had always scared her to death how vulnerable, how fragile he looked when he was hurt. Usually he was so strong, so competent, so capable. He’d always been bigger than life to her. His tall, lean body had always seemed invulnerable.
She’d trusted him, admired him, loved him with all her heart. She’d always loved to watch him move. He moved so fast, so gracefully for a tall man, handling himself like a dancer or a predatory cat, his energy and strength barely constrained inside his golden skin. But when he was hurt, like now, he looked smaller, human, breakable.
Dana forced herself to stop thinking and just act. She inspected his wounds and saw that blood still oozed down onto the remains of the sweatshirt. She poured peroxide onto the raw flesh. The liquid foamed and sizzled and Cody sucked in a long, hissing breath.
“Hey…” he groaned raggedly.
“I’ve got to clean it.” Her voice sounded harsher than she’d intended, but she had to do something to stop the memories. She didn’t want to be here doing this for this man who lived his life so close to death it had almost driven her insane. It had driven her away. Why couldn’t you love me enough to stay safe?
Cody opened his eyes and looked at her. “I know. Sorry,” he said, and smiled.
Oh, Cody. His smile stole her breath. It was still as angelic as it had always been. Her heart hurt to see him so pale and gaunt, smiling at her and apologizing.
The intervening years hadn’t really made that much difference in him physically. He’d gotten harder, if that was possible, maybe leaner. Where before he’d been a handsome, cocky young man, now he was more mature, more solidly male, and even more handsome. The lines in his face added character.
His hair, damp and matted, was still honey-brown and soft as a baby’s. His face was streaked with sweat, the skin drawn tight over the bones, but his eyes were the same electric blue, with thick brown lashes that were obscene on a man. Right now, the blue eyes seemed filled with pain and regret and something else she couldn’t identify.
His gaze slid downward, and she felt it, like fingers, touching her neck, her collarbone, the hastily pulled-together edges of her bathrobe.
“Sorry I interrupted your bath,” he whispered. “You always hated that.”
“Ha,” she sniffed. “I never
