Desperado: Deep in the Heart, Book 2

by Tina Leonard

  “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—an
d 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.”

  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 her
e 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!”