Free Desperado: Deep in the Heart, Book 2 by Tina Leonard Page B

it.
    “Stormy?” he whispered, thinking maybe she’d gone to sleep. Like a horizontal line she lay across the bed, unmoving.
    Very slowly, she turned her head to squint at him out of eyes that suffered. “I don’t want you to see me like this,” she said on a breath.
    “Jeez. If you’re sick, Stormy, let’s not worry about me seeing you. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
    “I don’t know.” She closed her eyes.
    He took that to mean she wasn’t in any condition to bean him with a shoe. A very bad sign. Closing the door behind him, he strode to the bed and stared down at her. “Can I get you a glass of water? Aspirin?” He didn’t know what was ailing her, which made him feel helpless. It was hard to see her feeling so poorly.
    She started to shake her head, but suddenly jackknifed to a standing position and raced to the bathroom. He could hear her being violently ill on the other side of the door.
    “Damnation,” he said to himself. What could be making her so ill?
    A second later, she only made it back to the bed because he leapt to his feet and helped her the rest of the way.
    “Cody, I’ve never been this sick,” she said on a groan. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
    He helped her lie down. Without speaking, he got a cool washcloth and laid it on her forehead. “Close your eyes,” he instructed. Quickly, he tried to organize the thoughts swirling in his mind. Mary had thrown up from drinking mint liquor. He didn’t smell liquor on Stormy.
    Annie had said the morning sickness made her throw up in the worst way. Stormy was tossing her crackers mighty bad.
    What if she was pregnant?
    He closed his eyes.
     
     
    It was the fortieth time she’d thrown up, Stormy was certain. There was nothing left in her stomach, and worse, Cody Aguillar was witness to the depth of her misery. She wanted desperately for him to go away, yet she hung on to him like a lifeline.
    Oh, my God. I’m going to die.
    She must have spoken out loud because Cody said, “Not if I’ve got anything to say about it.”
    If she could have managed a smile, she would have. As it was, she tried not to move.
    “Stormy, you’ve got to help me out here. If I know why you’re sick, I can maybe figure out what to do for you.”
    She didn’t care.
    “Are you pregnant?”
    Rolling her head his way, she did her best to glare at him through pain-glazed eyes. “No.”
    “I know you haven’t been drinking.”
    “No.” She didn’t think even booze could make someone this ill.
    “Stormy, I think I should take you to a doctor. You’re mighty ill for not knowing why. What if you’ve got appendicitis?”
    “No.” She heard him sigh deeply as he shifted his weight from where he sat on the bed.
    “Were you sick in Shiloh?”
    “No.” It was almost the best she could manage. “We ate lunch, then Mayor Higgins took me to talk to some folks, then we came back. I started feeling ill then—”
    She barely made it to the bathroom in time for another round. To her mortification, she felt Cody standing behind her, grasping her hair up off of her neck. “There’s nothing left inside me,” she gasped.
    “You’ve thrown up enough for ten people just since I’ve been here. Can you stand?”
    She shook her head. He lifted her under the arms. “Stormy, if you ate in Shiloh, that’s probably what’s wrong with you.”
    “Why?”
    “They…some of those eateries aren’t owned by the most hygienic folks you’ll ever meet.”
    “It’s the town of honest people.”
    “Yeah.” She heard his snort. “That doesn’t mean spit, for one thing, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean they should be operating restaurants. Somebody’s paying off the health inspector big-time.”
    It no longer interested her that there was an ongoing feud between the two cities. Right now, she wanted to die. “My stomach hurts.”
    “It should. Stormy, you have two choices. You can let me take you to the hospital, or I’ll take you to my