The sensible thing to do would be to wait for Alex to return home after work. He could assist with proper wardrobe, then help load her into the car. But D.D. wasn’t feeling sensible. She was feeling stubborn, not to mention as resentful as hell toward her arm, shoulder, Melvin. She was a strong woman. An independent woman. And a detective on a case.

She would dress her own damn self and Melvin could stick that in his pipe and smoke it.

Melvin, of course, had other ideas.

It started when she tried to remove her scooped-neck yoga top. She went to pull the spandex top up over her healthy right shoulder and somehow twinged her left. Then there was the matter of trying to slide the shirt down her left arm, once she finally got it over her head, let alone the matter of sliding off tight-fitting black exercise pants. Definitely no reason to be using her shoulder muscles to shimmy down yoga pants, and yet her left arm burned in response and she could feel sweat starting to bead her upper lip.

It was as if the more she tried not to jostle her left side, the more every movement jarred her neck, shoulder, upper arm. She gritted her teeth, grabbed dark-gray slacks from her closet and determinedly stepped into them. Then began the painful process of yanking them up, inch by inch, with only one good hand. She finally got them slid over her hips, only to be stymied by the fastening button. She tried it four times without luck.

Oversize top, she thought wildly. Or a jacket. She’d wear a long top to cover the open waistband of her slacks; no one would be the wiser.

It made so much sense, she sat on the edge of her bed and cried.

She hated this. Hated the feeling of uselessness and impotence and sheer frustration. She blamed her body for not healing. She resented her shoulder for aching and her stupid tendon for ripping away a chunk of her own bone. What if she never healed properly? It was a rare injury; no one had been able to provide an exact prognosis. Six months from now, would she finally be able to dress herself? Hold a gun? Pick up her child?

Or would she still be here, lounging around in her husband’s clothes, relegated to telling stories of the glory days while secretly wondering about the might-have-beens? She couldn’t be washed-up. Not yet. She was too young, too dedicated, too much of a cop. There was no next chapter for her. Not when she loved this job so damn much.

Even after it had hurt her. Turned her into a shadow of her former self.