LITMIR.BIZ

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up. She’d always objected when he said that. She never got over the idea that he was just teasing her. She’d never quite believed how much he loved her olive-green eyes, the dark blond wavy hair she complained about, even the crooked front tooth that made her look impish when she grinned.

      With an effort, he moved his injured arm and curled his fingers loosely around hers. The tension in her clenched fist made his chest ache. She’d always been too serious. Always worried about the damnedest things. She obviously hadn’t changed much, he thought wryly.

      He rubbed his thumb across her knuckles, savored the softness of her skin against his. He loved to touch her. She was like silk over steel, her skin as soft as an angel’s. But it was the steel that fascinated him. He admired her determination, her certainty. She never had doubts, never made mistakes.

      Except for him. He was her only mistake, and he knew how much she regretted making it. He’d come into her comfortable little world and dared to disrupt it. She was safety and stability and he was danger.

      He’d always wanted to be a cop. Dana knew that before she’d married him. But when it came down to the reality of it, she hadn’t been able to live with the danger and uncertainty that was a part of him.

      But while it was good, it was very, very good. He reached to push a hair away from her cheek, forgetting his injured arm.

      “Ouch!” he growled, and cursed.

      Dana stirred, turning toward him. She opened her eyes, and when her green gaze met his, it was like old times. Her mouth softened and she almost smiled. “Morning, tough guy.”

      “Morning, chère,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion.

      Her eyes widened and she stiffened, although how she could have gotten any more tense was beyond his comprehension. She’d remembered why he was here, and she wasn’t having any of his New Orleans charm. He knew because the two little frown lines had reappeared in her forehead. She sat up.

      “Oh. I forgot you were…how is your shoulder?” she asked, pushing her hair out of her eyes. The silky blond strands caught around her fingers, and she winced as she disentangled them, scattering pins as the waves tumbled around her face and neck.

      Cody didn’t move, partly because it hurt less when he stayed still, and partly because Dana’s robe had come loose and he could see about eighty percent of one delicately veined breast. His pulse sped up as he remembered the feel of her small, perfect breasts under his palms.

      Dana frowned and followed his gaze. “Humph. Grow up, Cody.”

      “Why?” he muttered. “So I can be as grumpy and stodgy as you?”

      She glared at him. “No, so you can get a real job and quit playing cops and robbers.” She pulled her robe together and got up, then looked down at the brown streaks on the terry cloth as if she’d never seen them before. Her face grew white and she clenched her jaw.

      She looked up at him, accusation and pain in her olive-green eyes. “Go away, Cody,” she said tonelessly, holding up one hand, palm out. “Just…go away.”

      She left the room and Cody turned gingerly onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. Nothing had changed. She still blamed him. Of course, he knew how she felt, because he blamed himself.

      He’d never had a chance to talk to her after he’d gotten out of the hospital. Not really talk. She’d done an excellent job of avoiding him, even while they were still living together. Then, once he’d recuperated enough to go back to work, she’d moved out, and their communications had been through their lawyers.

      He’d tried over and over to tell her how sorry he was. He’d wanted to grab her and hold her and grieve with her over the baby they’d lost. He’d have promised her anything just to wipe the sadness from her eyes. He’d have sworn to her that he’d get out of police work, that he’d sack groceries if she’d just come back to him, but he never got the chance.

      She left him.

      So he’d thrown himself even deeper into his job. But it was never quite the same out there without her to come home to. He hadn’t realized how much he depended on her to be there, until she was gone.

      There was still the satisfaction of putting a criminal behind bars, but without Dana to celebrate with him, it didn’t mean as much. Her admiration for his devotion to his job had been lost somewhere along the way, and with it had gone a lot of his reason for wanting to do a good job.

      Slowly, gingerly, he got out of bed and made his way into the kitchen. Dana had changed into jeans and a T-shirt and was drinking coffee from his favorite mug, the one with the chipped rim. He lowered himself carefully into a chair.

      “I thought you couldn’t find my mug,” he remarked, faintly accusing. “It disappeared when you moved out.” He was a little surprised that she’d kept it.

      Dana’s face burned and her fingers tensed around the rough surface of the pottery mug. “I couldn’t. It was in the bottom of a box.”

      “That was my favorite mug.”

      “It’s not your mug, it’s my mug. I made it.”

      “I know,” he said, smiling. “It never sat evenly. I spilled my coffee at least once a week because it wobbled.”

      Dana couldn’t look at him, and she couldn’t unwrap her fingers from the mug. She had made it for him. It was the only thing she made during that whole ceramics class that hadn’t cracked in the kiln. He’d always claimed it was his favorite. Why, she had no idea.

      With a supreme effort, she managed to speak. “If you want it, you can take it with you when you leave.”

      Cody shook his head and clenched his jaw against the throbbing ache in his shoulder. He hadn’t missed her emphasis on the word leave. “Got any aspirin?”

      She nodded without looking at him and stood up. As she got the tablets and a glass of water and a mug of coffee for him, he looked around the kitchen, wondering what Fontenot had done to her apartment while she was out of town.

      “Sit down, Dana,” he said as he took the coffee from her unsteady fingers. “We need to talk.”

      “There is absolutely nothing to say,” she said, but she sat down and picked up the chipped mug and wrapped her fingers around it again.

      Cody watched as she realized what she’d done and put it down abruptly. It wobbled slowly and noisily on the table until he stopped it with his fingers.

      It was funny how the oddest things took on meaning between two people. He loved the mug because she’d made it. He let it go. It wobbled again until he stopped it. If it had been perfect, it wouldn’t be nearly as precious.

      “I tried to call you Tuesday,” he said, letting his fingers trace the whorls on the mug’s surface. Why had she kept it? he wondered. It hadn’t meant anything to her.

      “I know. I picked up my messages.”

      “Why did you come back last night? Your answering machine said you’d be gone until today.”

      “I couldn’t take Big Daddy and his good old boys talking at me like I was a simpering southern belle.”

      Cody looked up. “Big Daddy?”

      Dana shrugged and her mouth turned up. She reached out and took the mug. “The ultraimportant client I met with in Baton Rouge. You know the type. He owns a chain of hardware stores there. He wants to expand to New Orleans and I was drawing up the contracts. He was insulting, so I walked out.”

      Cody laughed. “You walked out? Dana Maxwell walked out on a meeting with clients? I do believe hell has frozen over again. Call Don Henley and tell him to do another album.”

      Dana banged the mug down on the table. His easy, intimate humor invaded places inside her she didn’t want exposed. The two of them, sitting together drinking coffee, reminded her of lazy Sunday mornings and kisses flavored with café au

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