The water was positively ambrosial—clean, just the right temperature, and somehow a little minty. I gulped the whole thing in five seconds flat, prompting Dick to pick up a second glass and press it on me. While I was drinking, he rubbed soothing circles on my back. The tension lines in his face gave way with every mouthful of water I swallowed, but he still seemed pretty pissed off.
I noted that the donor bag was marked AB negative. I had no idea how Dick managed to get a pint of my rare blood type, much less several, but I would never criticize his shady connections again. God bless Dick’s criminal underbelly. Sitting beside me, he carefully arranged my legs over his lap and pulled a thick fleece blanket up to my shoulders.
“You can’t ever do that to me again, Andrea. Do you understand?” he demanded, his voice cracking a bit over my name. He never used my real name. This was very bad. “When I broke in here, you barely had a pulse. Your blood pressure was next to nothing, and your breathing was so shallow I had to double-check it against a mirror. Damn it, you could have died. You can’t do that to me. I just lost Gilbert. I can’t lose you, too.”
“Dick—”
“You scared the hell out of me,” he said. “Did you even realize that your shirt was soaked in your blood? I had to cut it off to clean you up.”
I glanced down. I appeared to be wearing nothing but my lacy white camisole, which was crusted in rusty red stains. And my couch, which was a lovely periwinkle color, was smeared with the same coppery smudges. This was not a good night for my stain-removal budget.
“Damn, I really liked that blouse.”
Dick did not look impressed with my glibness.
I grimaced. “I’m sorry. It was a new client. She didn’t know the limits. And I don’t know if Sophie realized how much she took.”
“Sophie was there?” He seethed, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “And what did she do when she saw that you were damn near drained?”
“She dropped me off at home.”
Dick’s nostrils flared. “Really?”
I nodded, even though the motion made my head ache. “Thank you for taking care of me,” I said.
“Well, hell, what else was I going to do?” he scoffed. “I wasn’t going to let you go gentle into that good night—not when you have plenty of insults stored up for me.”
“We don’t ever have to tell Jane about this, OK?” I said, forgetting my drained brain’s assurance that Jane was the one to call. “She’s been dropping hints about how risky my job is. I’ve basically handed her this I told you so on a silver platter.”
“I won’t tell her, Red, but I happen to agree with her. I don’t think your job is safe. I know you like your clients, but if this is the risk, it’s not safe. It’s just not.”
I nodded. “I’ll consider it.”
“Thank you.”
“Why didn’t you just take me to the hospital?” I asked.
“No time,” he said. “I barely had time to call my contact at the blood bank and have him meet me here.”
“What? Why?” I asked, shaking my head. “Why did you even come over?”
“You weren’t making any sense, and I knew you wouldn’t drink on a night you were doing a feeding. I was afraid something like this had happened.”
“And you just happened to know a guy who had access to the rarest blood type in America?”
“I might’ve had some set aside at the blood bank for you, just in case.”
“You had a backup plan just in case a client drained me?”
Dick shrugged. “I have backup plans for the people and things that are important to me.”
I didn’t know if it was the brush with exsanguination or the bashful, tender expression on Dick’s handsome face, but for some reason, my eyes welled up just a little bit. Dick Cheney cared about me enough to have contingency plans in place to protect me from myself. I’d always assigned selfish motivations to Dick’s schemes, but there could be nothing gained from arranging “backup blood” for me. Dick had done something utterly selfless—and most likely very expensive—for me.
I cleared my raw throat around the lump gathering there. “Why didn’t you just turn me?”
Dick absently checked the port in my left hand, stroking down the medical tape there. “We never talked about it. I didn’t want to make that decision for you. Everybody has the right to make that call for themselves, Red. I wouldn’t take that from you.”
I pressed my lips together, tangling the fingers of my left hand together with his, even though it tweaked the port. “Thank you.”
“Here,” he said, twisting so he could reach the high, narrow table I’d set up behind my sofa. He retrieved two large coffee-house-sized mugs. One smelled sort of herbal and yeasty, while the other contained a dark brown meat-scented liquid.
“Beef consommé and barley tea. I know it sounds disgusting . . . because it is. But you need the iron. And the barley tea is supposed to help your hemoglobin levels.”
Sniffing the barley tea delicately, I sipped at it and shuddered, but he tipped the cup against my mouth, making me take a much longer drink.
“How do you know how to start an IV?” I asked him, wiping my mouth. I winced when the medical tape pulled at my skin.
“You know, over the years, I’ve developed a lot of life skills. It hurts me that people don’t believe I have them.”