His Private Nurse

He squeezed her hand again, and this time heat burned in her chest, creeping up her throat to her face. Professional, she reminded herself. This was purely professional. Nevertheless, her heart was beating like a big bass drum.

“Can you do it?” he asked, gazing at her with those blue, blue eyes.

Could she? Oh, yes. She nodded, afraid she might gush if she spoke.

“Will you?”

Merrily took a deep breath, drawing her composure around her.

“Please,” he added softly. “Merrily, I need you.”

Something inside her melted, and she said the only thing that she’d even thought of saying. “Yes. Yes, I will.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Jody demanded.

“It’s a job,” Merrily repeated for the third time, shoving toiletries into the small suitcase open on her bed. Since her announcement at breakfast all three of her brothers had been in a lather.

“You already have a job at the hospital!” Lane exclaimed.

“I’ve taken a leave,” she said, returning to the dresser for her hairbrush.

“You can’t move out of here!” Lane protested.

“It’s only temporary.”

“Who’s gonna take care of us in the meantime?” Kyle wanted to know.

Merrily stuffed her nightgown into the bag on top of everything else and closed the lid. “You’ll just have to take care of yourselves.”

“You’re not going,” Jody insisted angrily. “Mom and Dad—”

“—are off seeing America,” Merrily finished for him, straightening, “and even if they weren’t, I’d still be taking this job.”

“I forbid it!”

“Forbid away, but I’m an adult, Jody, and I’ll do as I please.”

“But you can’t,” Lane whined.

“Why not? You do.”

“That’s different.”

She gaped at him, though why she was surprised was beyond her. “It’s not different, Lane. It’s not at all different, and it’s time the three of you came to grips with that fact.”

Jody wagged a finger in her face. “You are my responsibility.”

“Oh, shut up. I’m twenty-six years old. I’m no one’s responsibility but my own, and if you want to be responsible for something, get a life and be responsible for that.” She grabbed the suitcase by the handle and hauled it off the bed while Jody stood there with his mouth open. For a moment she waited in the hopes that at least one of them would show a glimmer of understanding, but only seconds went by before she realized the folly of that. Taking a deep breath, she moved toward the door. She had hauled the rest of her things out to the car last night, leaving only those things she’d needed to dress this morning and the gown she’d slept in.

“Who’s gonna do my shirts?” Lane wanted to know.

“Take ’em to a laundry,” she suggested blandly.

“Who’s gonna cook?” Kyle groused.

“There are ten thousand restaurants in San Antonio,” Merrily said with a sigh.

“I wanna know who this guy you’re moving in with is,” Jody suddenly demanded.

That finally brought her to a halt. She glanced over her shoulder. “This ‘guy’ took a fall down a flight of stairs, dislocated his shoulder and broke his arm. He has compound fractures of the leg, not to mention torn ligaments, a concussion and various contusions. He is helpless and alone, and he offered me twice what I’m making at the hospital.”

Only Kyle had the nerve to block her path, whimpering, “But we already need you.”

She leveled a disgusted look at him and said drolly, “You may be helpless, Kyle, but at least you’re not alone.”

“I am not helpless,” he said, lifting his chin. “I have a college education.”

Merrily rolled her eyes. “So do I.” She began moving toward the door again. “I suggest you hire a housekeeper, but first get your lazy, college-educated butt out of my way.”

To her surprise he hopped aside. Without so much as a backward glance, she carried the suitcase through the door and out of the house. To freedom.

Chapter Four

“You’ll follow us?” Royce asked through the rear window of the SUV, knowing perfectly well that was the arrangement they’d made.

Merrily nodded and waved as she walked toward the employee parking lot, his paperwork tucked neatly beneath one arm. He rolled up the rear window and put his back to it, his injured leg propped on the seat. As the vehicle moved away, Royce put his head back and closed his eyes, disgusted with himself on several levels.

For one thing, just riding in a wheelchair down to meet Dale, who had retrieved his SUV from the house in order to pick him up in comfort, had his heart pounding as if he’d hopped down from the third floor on his one good leg all by himself. For another, he’d just robbed the hospital of a very fine nurse, and he knew that he’d done it for reasons that went far beyond the obvious medical need. The very idea of having Merrily Gage under his own roof, alone with him for weeks, had conjured the sort of dreams that disturbed a man’s sleep. And if that were not enough, at the root of it all was the poor exercise of judgment that had initially landed him in this predicament.

It helped a little to know that he’d already determined to hire Merrily away from the hospital even before she’d shown up in his hospital room wearing neatly cuffed little shorts that made her legs seem as long as she was tall and a top that left no doubt about the maturity of her form. Her breasts were small but high and firm. Their natural shape had been lovingly rendered by that clinging knit top with straps so tiny that she could not have possibly been wearing a bra. She had struck him then as the most natural beauty he’d ever seen. And he wanted her.

Merrily Gage was no girl: she was a woman. Suddenly the possibilities of having her in his employ seemed highly enticing, though pursuing even a semipermanent relationship with Merrily or any other woman was out of the question. He couldn’t deny that he wanted her, so he half hoped that by the time he was physically able to act upon his desires, Merrily would be gone. Hell, he should’ve hired some gargoyle to move in with him and tend to his needs, but he couldn’t be unhappy that Merrily had agreed to help him. His self-disgust didn’t reach that far apparently. For the first time he wondered if he might be the selfish monster Pamela had always claimed he was.

Merrily stopped her car and gaped. “Wow.”

The sandstone house sprawling across the hilltop awed her. The circular drive, arched car shelter and landscaped yard in front were impressive. Tall, arched, leaded-glass windows, the many hips of the copper roof and three soaring chimneys lent an unexpected grandeur to the rolling natural beauty of the setting. Obviously, Royce Lawler was no pauper.

Slowly she started the car forward again and followed the SUV. As she parked behind it under the drive-through, Dale got out and unloaded the wheelchair from the back of the SUV. Merrily went immediately to Royce’s side. He had opened the rear door and twisted around in his seat so that his legs were outside of the vehicle, and he was trying to slide down to stand on his left foot. Merrily quickly ducked under his left arm and slid an arm about his waist, trying to ignore the jolt of heated awareness that accompanied the contact. With Dale balancing his immobile right arm and her supporting the rest of his weight as much as possible, Royce eased out of the vehicle, turned and sat down heavily in the wheelchair. Merrily adjusted the footrests, extending the right to support his injured leg, while Dale unlocked the front double doors and pushed them open.

Moving behind the chair, she grasped the handles and turned Royce toward the house. Royce tilted his head back to look up at her, and though white-lipped, he smiled.

“I cannot tell you how good it is to be home again.”

“I can imagine,” she replied. With such a home, she would never want to leave.

She pushed him into the house, looking around her avidly. The floor of the wide entry hall was inlaid with stone. To the right, one could step up into a large, open dining room furnished with a long plank table and ladder-back chairs with padded seats upholstered in faded denim. Over the table hung an impressive rectangular fixture made of rusty wrought iron, and a large stone fireplace took up one entire wall.

The formal living room opened on the left. Plank floors, this time a step down, were scattered with tanned cowhide rugs and comfortable leather couches. Glass-topped occasional tables of the same wrought iron as the overhead fixtures stood at convenient intervals. Some supported small works of art, bronze sculptures and clay pots. Others held lamps with pierced tin shades. The center wall was composed of a massive double-sided fireplace, through which she caught glimpses of denim sofas in another room.