Desperado: Deep in the Heart, Book 2 (33 page)

“Yeah. She is. She’s off on some junket to Alaska right now. Suddenly, she doesn’t want to live where she’s lived all her life. She stayed with her sister for a while, then joined a tour going through Alaska. Who knows where she’ll go after that?”

Stormy gazed up over her shoulder at him. “Experiencing some new things is healthy for a person.”

“Maybe your parents would like to visit my ranch, then.” He gave her an evil grin. “We don’t have many long-haired hippie types in Desperado, but maybe they could start a trend.”

“I’d want Hera to try to fix my mother’s hair, that’s for certain. She must have dyed it with carrot juice or something. Bozo Orange.”

“Aw, now.” He snuggled under her ear to kiss her. “She probably thinks your purple hair is extreme. I know I did when I met you.”

“Did you? You didn’t find me attractive?”

“Well, not in the…um, usual sense of the word. You made me mad. You argued with me.” He bunched her hair up in his hand so he could kiss the back of her neck. “Nothing’s changed, has it?”

“Nothing except that I’ve fallen in love with you,” she whispered.

“I love you, too,” he repeated the words he’d said earlier. “Why won’t you marry me?”

“Because you’re not in love with me. It’s like you just said, you weren’t attracted to me when you first met me. And nothing’s changed.”

“Now, wait a minute! That is not what I said!” Cody pulled back. “You’re putting words in my mouth.”

She sat up and reached for a robe. “But it’s true, Cody. You’re not in love with me. You want to marry me because of the baby. We’re a responsibility.”

“I still love you,” he said stubbornly, reaching for his jeans.

“Yes, but you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t thought I was pregnant. You wouldn’t ask me to marry you if I wasn’t having our baby.” She stared at him. “Would you?”

“Well—” He stared at her, hung up like a sheet twisted in a clothesline. “That’s not the case, so I don’t see the need to worry about it.”

“I do.” She rose from the bed. “I’m not your dream come true, Cody. It terrifies me to think that you’ll marry me because you’re doing what you’ve always done, take care of people since your daddy died. But you might meet the woman of your dreams one day, and there I’d be. Tying you down.”

“I don’t understand your brain. You want to talk about what-ifs. I want to act on what is. Let’s not dwell on what might have been.”

“I don’t think I can,” she said sadly. “My parents got married because of me. They weren’t ready for a child, and I was always in their way. I don’t want to be in your way.” She looked at him, her eyes haunted. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to marry a renegade.”

Cody stared at her. “Me? I’m an easy-going, always-been-in-one-place-all-my-life country boy. You’re the renegade.”

“No, I’m not. I just want a normal life for my child.” She turned her back and walked through to the dining area.

“You don’t even know what normal is,” he said, following her. “If you’re defining normal as average, you’re not average.”

“All I know is that I’m in love with you. And you’re not in love with me. It doesn’t bode well for a future together.”

He shook his head at her. “You’re making this as complicated as one of Pick and Curvy’s melodramas. We’re having a child together. It’s irrelevant how I felt about you when I met you.”

“It’s relevant how you feel now. And you’re not in love with me, are you, Cody?” Slowly, she forced herself to slide her gaze up to look at him.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yes.” She was going to have to be satisfied with that, Stormy knew. He couldn’t say what she wanted him to say because he didn’t know what she wanted to hear. “You’re here.”

“Come back to Texas with me until you have to leave for China.” He slipped his arms around her. “I need to get back to work. If you come back to Texas, you can help me vaccinate livestock.”

“Mm. Sounds like fun.” Stormy closed her eyes.

“We can talk some more about this being in love stuff. I’ve heard Hera and the ladies talk about Oprah. I know how important it is to thrash around about emotional stuff.”

She laughed. “I’m not thrashing.”

“You are. You’re trying to make a perfectly simple situation hard.”

Smacking him on the arm, she moved away. “There’s nothing simple about what’s getting hard on you right now. And since that’s what got us into this problem in the first place, I’m going to go take a shower.”

“Hey, wait a minute.” He caught her by the hand. “This isn’t a problem where I’m concerned. Why is it a problem?”

“Well, it is, Cody. We’re going to have a baby with only one resident parent at a time, unless one of us gives up our home and our job as we know it.”

“Can’t you work out of Desperado? I’ve got room for you to have an office in the house.”

“I could,” she said uncertainly.

“Maybe I’m not the only one who doesn’t like to be uprooted.” He gave her a measuring look.

“I don’t. I’ve been honest about that. I travel well because we never settled down, but I like having a home to return to. It’s good for me to be close to the action.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I know. Same with me.”

“So one of us has got to give. And you can’t be away from your cattle six months of the year.”

That was true. “No. But I still say we can work this out. Let’s shower.” He pulled her toward the bathroom, forcing a reluctant smile from her. “And then I want to see what’s in all those shopping bags you brought home. I never knew a woman who likes to shop as much as you do.”

“That’s because there are no department stores in Desperado,” she said, allowing him to drag her.

“There are. There’s the K-Mart, and the Dollar Store.” He jerked the robe off of her and lifted her under the running water with him. “You’ve probably bought all you need for a while, anyway. Come back and help me vaccinate cattle until you have to leave the country.”

“All right,” Stormy said. She reached to lather him in some strategic places, and Cody forgot about cattle and department stores and not being in love.

An hour later, Stormy and Cody were dressed and sitting on the sofa gazing out the window of her apartment. She’d been quiet for the last few minutes and idly he got up to look down at the street from the balcony. Sliding the door open, he saw signs of bustling activity: people walking, cars crowding the street. He turned to Stormy with a grin, which faded quickly. She was pale and not smiling.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head limply. “My stomach aches a little.”

Instantly, he came to sit at her side. “I told you nothing good could come of eating raw fish. You probably made yourself sick.”

“Oh, Cody.” She gave him a wan smile. “Would you mind if I went and laid down for a second?”

“Absolutely not.” He helped her to her feet. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No, but thanks. I’m sure I’ll feel better after I lie down for a while.”

“I’ll sit out here and let you rest.” He felt guilty that he’d been in bed with her as often as possible. Watching her go into the bedroom and close the door, Cody frowned. Maybe they’d made love more than was healthy for a pregnant woman, even though Stormy wasn’t near her due date.

“Cody!”

He dashed into the bedroom. “What?”

Stormy’s frightened voice came from the direction of the bathroom. “I think…I think I’m bleeding.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Cody rushed Stormy to a hospital, fear choking the breath out of him. She looked so white and strained as she clutched her middle. He prayed silently, desperately, words running around in his mind like an endless train. He helped her into the emergency room.

“My wi—I mean, my girlfriend’s bleeding,” he stated urgently to the nurse at the desk. “We’re afraid something might be wrong with the baby.”

“How far along is she?” The sour-faced nurse glanced over the desk at Stormy.

“About six months.” He wished the woman would just take Stormy back so she could see a doctor. “Maybe seven.” For his life, he couldn’t remember.

“Seven,” Stormy said on a moan.

“Fill out this form, and this one, and sign down here.”

Cody stared at the clipboard he was given. His son’s life could be in danger. He leaned over the desk. “She’s bleeding! She needs to see a doctor. There’s two lives at stake here, hers and the baby’s. If I have to, I’ll go back and—”

“Sir!” the nurse snapped. “I understand the urgency. I will take her back, and you can sit and fill out the paperwork for her. That’s how this ER works.”

“Fine.” His gaze flicked to Stormy. Her arms were crossed tight against her midsection. “Please hurry.”

The nurse’s face softened a bit. “I could go faster without these delays,” she said sternly, but not nearly as much as before.

He was left alone with the papers and his foreboding. Stormy hated hospitals with a passion. Wouldn’t go near one.

Hadn’t made a whimper of protest when he’d said he was bringing her here. She had to be awfully frightened for the baby’s sake. He sat down heavily in a vinyl chair and closed his eyes. And prayed.

Two hours later, the doctor came out to get him, his face sad and sympathetic. “Your girlfriend had a miscarriage, Mr. Aguillar.”

A cold fist of denial hit Cody. “Can’t you do anything?”

“We tried.” The doctor shook his head. “Unfortunately, you and Miss Nixon have different Rh factors in your blood. Had her gynecologist known of this, no doubt an injection of Rhogam would have been advised. She should have been fine with this first pregnancy, but the fact that she’d had a blood transfusion at one point in her life complicated the situation.”

Cody’s brain tried to hang on to what he was hearing. “I don’t understand all the medical terminology. Is Stormy going to be okay?”

“She’ll be fine. We’ve given her something so she’ll sleep. She’s quite distraught because she had to go through an actual labor process.”

“You gave her something so she’d sleep?” Cody’s eyes glinted hard at the doctor. “Did she know that?”

“She was aware we were giving her medication. Is there a problem?” The physician eyed Cody cautiously. “She didn’t indicate one.”

“I’m not sure,” Cody murmured. “Are you positive she’s going to lose the baby?” He couldn’t accept that the child was gone. He would never hold his baby. His heart tore apart with agonizing denial and crushing disappointment.

The doctor’s dark eyes softened with commiseration. “Miss Nixon had lost a lot of blood, Mr. Aguillar. And the fetus was aborting. I’m sorry.” He put a hand on Cody’s arm. “We’ve given her a Rhogam shot so that future pregnancies…” He trailed off at the look of anguish Cody sent him. “Why don’t you go home and try to get some rest? Miss Nixon was almost asleep when I came out here to talk to you.”

“No. I need to see her.” Cody headed toward the double doors of the emergency room, not waiting for the doctor to advise him differently.

“The last door on the left,” the doctor instructed.

Cody went in the room, his heart clenching at the sight of Stormy’s pale face. She turned toward him, her face drawn, her eyes sleepy.

“Cody,” she said weakly.

“I’m here.” He grasped her hand and hung on.

“I lost the baby.”

Her mist-violet eyes stared up at him in frantic despair. He hated the helplessness that trapped him. He could do nothing to help her—and he would have given anything to be able to. “I know.” He patted her hand which clutched tight to his other wrist. “I’m so sorry, Stormy.”

“No. I’m sorry.” Tears began streaking down her cheeks. “It’s all my fault.”

“Shh. No, Stormy. It’s nobody’s fault.”

“It is my fault. The baby knew I was afraid of it.”

“Every new parent experiences that same feeling, I’m sure. It’s normal. I was scared, too. But the baby knew you would love it, honey.”

She shook her head, wiping at tears that couldn’t stop. “It didn’t want to come to a mother who wouldn’t appreciate it. I was trying, but I…I didn’t know how. I think the baby knew I wasn’t doing everything I could to make it healthy.”

“Stormy—” Cody began, to try to check the flow of her frantic words.

“I told my obstetrician we had compatible blood types.”

Chills prickled along the back of Cody’s neck. “Why?”

“I assumed we did!” She was crying so hard now that Cody handed her a tissue with one hand and pulled a chair over with his boot so he could sit next to her. “I’m O-positive. It never occurred to me that you’d be in the minority of the population with a negative factor. And we weren’t together enough…”

She held her hands up to her eyes, rubbing them with the tissue.

“Oh, no,” Cody murmured. She hadn’t wanted him to know about the baby, so she’d made an assumption on something that had jeopardized her pregnancy. It had been a hell of a gamble. “I’m A-negative,” he said pointlessly, since the information couldn’t help them now.

Her head lolled back against the flat hospital pillow. “I’m so tired,” she whispered. “I feel so old.”