When she started to walk past him, he reached out. “Please.”

She shook out of his hold and removed her sunglasses with a swipe of her hand. The fatigue he saw in the mirror every day sat behind her eyes. The words I fucked up sat on the tip of his tongue. He opened his mouth to tell her he was an ass, a scared ass, and then she wiped the back of her hand under her nose and looked down.

Blood.

“Damn it,” she muttered.

She leaned forward and dug into the purse, retrieved a tiny tissue, and blotted her nose.

“Are you OK?”

“It’s a bloody nose, Doctor. I’m fine.”

Only the blood was overfilling her tissue and running down her arm.

His forearms throbbed as he fisted his hands to keep from reaching for her. It was obvious she didn’t want his touch.

That gutted him.

A drop of blood hit her white shirt, and she blew out a string of obscenities that would make a sailor take note.

“The ER is ten feet away with plenty of gauze to help you with that.”

She glared before twisting on her heel and walking toward the back entry.

He walked beside her, not touching, and punched in the access code. The double doors of the bay opened to the activity and noise of the department. A few heads swung their way.

“Hey, Walt.”

He smiled at Valerie before reaching into a supply cart just past the nurse’s station. He found a pack of four-by-four gauze and pulled a stack. He brushed her hand away as he pinched her nose and kept pressure.

“I got it.” She tried pulling away, but he reached around her to keep her put.

“Hold still!”

She growled and glared.

That he could deal with, then he saw a tear fall down her cheek. “Damn it, Dakota. We were moving too fast. I care too much.”

Now the tears were rolling. Thankfully, Valerie moved in and stopped all conversation. “You should sit down,” she told Dakota. “B-nine is empty. I’ll put her there.”

Valerie placed a gloved hand over his and led Dakota away.

Her head was pounding and her brand-new angora sweater was ruined.

Damn him!

Valerie moved her behind a curtain and pulled more gauze. Without taking away any pressure, she switched the cloth and forced Dakota’s head down.

The taste of blood rolled down her throat with a gag.

“Thanks, Valerie.”

“No problem.” Valerie took Dakota’s free hand and placed it over hers. “Hold this . . . tight.”

They made the switch and Valerie stepped away to pull more supplies from a cart at her side. “Does this happen a lot?”

Dakota shook her head. “No. Well, a couple times this past week.”

“This bad?”

Is this bad?

She swallowed again, hated the taste.

“No.”

“The humidity is down. Nosebleeds increase with the dry air.”

“I live closer to the beach,” Dakota told her.

Instead of asking more questions, Valerie pulled the blood pressure cuff from the overhead monitor and turned it on. “I’m just going to check your blood pressure.”

Dakota looked up only to have Valerie place a hand to her head and push it back down. “Humor me.”

Dakota rolled her eyes and lifted her left arm. What blood pressure and nosebleeds had in common was beyond her.

The cuff on her arm pumped up, started to loosen, then pumped up again. “Ouch.”

“Hold still.”

The death grip of the cuff finally gave way with an error message on the monitor.

Valerie moved away, saying she’d be back.

If not for the feeling of her nosebleed continuing, Dakota would have slithered out of the department. So long as she didn’t need to see Walt, she’d stay put.

Valerie returned with a manual blood pressure pump and replaced the automatic one.

After encouraging Dakota to spread out on the gurney, with her head down, Valerie took her pressure again. On the second attempt, Dakota started to worry. “Is there a problem?”

Valerie removed the stethoscope from her ears and attempted a smile. “Do you have high blood pressure?”

Dakota shrugged. “No. Not that I know of . . . why?”

“Your pressure is high, which might be why your nose sprung a leak.”

“What does blood pressure and nosebleeds have in common?”

“Quite a bit, actually.”

Not convinced, Dakota swung her feet off the gurney. With the movement, the bleeding worsened. “Make it stop, Valerie.”

“Keep the pressure and your head down. I’ll be right back.”

She disappeared again, when she returned Walt was with her, his face stone white.

Here she’d taken so much time to make herself sex in high heels and now she was lying on a gurney with a perfectly brilliant sweater ruined and ready for burial, dried blood down her arm. So much for her plan.

“Hey, hon.”

“Don’t!”

He took her warning and passed a look to Valerie, who looked away.

“Your blood pressure is probably driving this nosebleed. We bring one down, the other will slow. In the meantime we need to stop up this bleed.”

As much as she wanted to tell Walt to go to hell, she couldn’t. “What do we need to do?”

“I’m more than willing to take care of you without paperwork, but the hospital needs to start a chart.”

Dakota closed her eyes, not willing to look at him any longer. She forced a slow, deep breath between her lips and blew it out. “Fine.”