Cody Walker's Woman

Don’t let her die, he prayed. Not now.

“Stay with me,” he whispered, his hand tightening around Keira’s, and in his heart he heard the echo of her words from that very first night, “I will.”

Other words crowded his throat as he realized he’d never said he loved her. Even when he’d told her he wanted all of her, even when he’d told her that he needed her trust in every way there was, somehow he’d never been able to get the words out. Each time he’d started to admit it to her and to himself, he’d drawn back.

You were afraid.

He closed his eyes for a moment. Yes, he’d been afraid. He’d made love to her, and the beauty of that one night and her priceless gift to him he would take to his grave. He’d told her she was his woman, and he’d meant it, then and now. He’d even told her he wanted nothing less than her heart, mind, body and soul. But he’d never said...

“I love you, Keira,” he whispered, squeezing her hand.

Had she known what was in his heart? When she’d told him, “I love you, Cody,” had she known even then he loved her, too? God, he hoped so. Somehow it seemed important that deep inside her she knew how much he loved and needed her. That she remembered it in the recesses of her soul, so that wherever she was, wherever she went, she carried that knowledge with her.

And that the knowledge would bring her back to him.

“Stay with me,” he whispered again. He bent down and brushed her cheek with his lips, and when he straightened he had to blink several times to clear his vision.

* * *

He was still there twenty-four hours later. He’d dozed fitfully in the chair beside her bed, but he refused to leave or even to relinquish the left hand lying so still and white against the sheet for more than a couple of minutes. When his own arm turned numb, he switched positions and switched arms, but he refused to break the connection.

It was almost as if he could somehow transmit his own breath, his own blood, his own strength into her body by holding her and never letting go. “Stay with me,” he whispered time and again. And throughout the endless night and the following day she did, her quiet breathing reassuring him that she was still alive.

He was still there when they came the next morning to tell him she would live.

Chapter 23

Cody stood in D’Arcy’s office. “I can’t go along with it,” he said steadfastly. “It’s not right. You know it and I know it. I’ll do whatever I have to do to stop you from applying special rule eight in this case. Even if means the end of my career here.”

One corner of D’Arcy’s mouth lifted up in a half smile. He shook his head. “Don’t worry, Walker. I had no intention of applying special rule eight. It won’t be easy, but this case is going to trial.”

Cody sighed with relief as a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. Not that his job was safe, but that he hadn’t been wrong about D’Arcy after all.

But D’Arcy wasn’t finished. He said softly, “And it’s not the end of your career with the agency. Just the end of being a special agent.”

Cody’s brows drew together, puzzled. “I don’t follow you.”

“You can’t be a special agent if you’re sitting behind this desk.”

Stunned, Cody said, “What?”

“I’ve been waiting years for someone with enough courage and conviction to buck me on special rule eight...and the guts and determination to make it stick. I knew when the agency first crafted it that special rule eight was too broad, too vague. But I trusted myself to know when and how to apply it...and when not to. I just needed to find someone else I could trust knew it, too.” Now both corners of D’Arcy’s mouth lifted in the beginning of a real smile. “I thought all along it might be you.”

“You’re leaving the agency?”

D’Arcy chuckled. “Hardly. But the head of the agency in Washington wants to retire next year. He’s been pressuring me to become his deputy, preparatory to taking over the whole organization when he retires. I just couldn’t do it until I found a replacement for me here.”

Cody still couldn’t believe it. “Me? Become you?”