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Authors: Arlene James

His Private Nurse (14 page)

BOOK: His Private Nurse
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Royce struggled into a sitting position, still deep inside her, and wrapped his arms around her slender back, crooning and rocking with her. “It's all right, angel. I've got you. I've got you.”

Gradually, she relaxed. Her arms slid down to her sides, and she laid her head on his shoulder. Her tears dwindled and dried. Several moments later she lowered her knees, coiling her legs around his hips. Slowly her movements became more purposeful, directed. Finally she slid her arms about his neck, shook back her long, glorious hair and looked up at him. A new, sensuous knowledge glowed in her eyes, so erotic and keen that it took his breath away. That part of him inside of her leaped in recognition.

Suddenly she pushed him down onto his pillow again, curling her legs backward. On hands and knees, she caged his body with hers, long hair swirling about them as she rocked and rolled against him. She assaulted his mouth, swirling her tongue against his so expertly that she succeeded in diverting a large part of his attention. The end came so quickly and suddenly that he almost didn't pull out in time. Indeed, if he hadn't flopped them both onto their sides and yanked back, he wouldn't have made it. Head reeling, he barely registered the indignant toss of her head or the heat of her glare. Then she smacked him in the belly with the flat of her fist.

“What do you think you're doing?”

He laughed, too happy in that moment to care if the whole world went to hell in a handcart. He could barely gasp out the explanation. “I didn't want—” The words died abruptly in his throat.

He did want, dammit. The image of a hugely pregnant Merrily struggling to catch a glimpse of her own feet filled him with such longing that he could have wept. He'd have gladly, joyously given her a baby if anything about it had been fair or even possible. He gulped down the emotion and pulled her against him.

“It wouldn't be wise to make a baby now,” he managed.

“Oh.” She dropped her gaze. “Right. I should have thought of that.”

“I should've asked before we, uh…”

“Made love,” she finished for him.

He tipped her head back with his hand curled beneath her chin. “Yes, before we made love.”

She smiled in that slow, erotic way of every woman who knows her own power over a man. “You're pitifully easy to seduce.”

He laughed, his vacillating emotions swinging once more to joy. “So I am.”

She snuggled against him with a satisfied sigh, one arm looped loosely about his waist. “Well,” she said, that single word encompassing the entire wealth of her sensual discoveries this night.

“Well,” he whispered, settling her more comfortably against him.

She lifted her head, peering up at him. “Can I stay here tonight?”

He tapped the end of her nose with the tip of one finger. “Just try and leave this bed.”

She smiled and pushed up to reach across him and switch off the light. Rolling onto his back, he couldn't resist palming one of those luscious breasts until she twisted away to pull the covers up over them. She sank down beside him once more, pillowing her head in the
hollow of his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her and folded her close. Lying there in the dark with Merrily stretched out naked beside him, Royce could only wonder at the miracle that she had brought into his life. Just when his world had been at its darkest, Merrily had brought him light and love. For a time. He would not think beyond it.

She relaxed against him, sighed, and he assumed that she slept—until she suddenly spoke.

“I have to go into town tomorrow.”

She had left the house on her own only once in the weeks since they'd arrived here from the hospital, so he was naturally puzzled. “How come?”

Her head lifted from his shoulder, and he felt the piercing directness of her gaze. “You don't want me to send Dale after condoms, do you?”

The implication that they would share more of this incredible loving delighted him, and the idea of rubbing his best buddy's nose in it drove his head back with laughter, but in the end good sense prevailed.

“No, angel,” he agreed, still chuckling, “let's not do that to poor old Dale.”

“Good choice,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder once more.

He tightened his arm about her, knowing that she was the best choice he'd ever made. That moment when he'd decided that he had to have Merrily Gage for his personal nurse had been his sanest, and the moment she'd agreed, his luckiest.

She yawned loudly, covering her mouth with her hand. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “Guess I'm more tired than I thought.” Her words trailed off at the end, and within moments she slept.

Royce stared into the darkness, floating on a cloud of satiation. Before he had been content. Now he was happy.
It seemed so odd, foreign, almost unnatural, and logically he knew that it couldn't last. One day soon he would have to let her go, but when that hellish moment came, at least he'd have these wonderful memories with which to temper it, and if he was very, very lucky, he might even have a few more. It was enough. Almost.

 

“Nnnnaaooo!”

Merrily jerked awake, heart pounding with nameless terror. “Royce?” He thrashed, chest heaving, limbs twisting. “Royce!”

“Ah-ah!”

Suddenly he went still, and Merrily knew instantly what had happened.

“You've had a bad dream.”

Panting into the darkness, he clutched her wrist with his strong left hand. “Kn-knife,” he gasped. “Oh, God.”

Pushing up onto her elbow beside him, she asked, “You dreamed about a knife?”

“Yes. A-are you all right?”

“I'm fine. You woke me, crying out in your sleep.”

“Oh, God,” he said again. “I dreamed that she was here, in this room, watching us, and when I looked up, she raised the knife, but I was so overwhelmed, so dazed, that I couldn't stop her.”

“Pamela.”

“Yes.”

“And she stabbed you this time.”

“No!” He lifted his hand to her hair and, burrowing deep, cupped her nape. “It was you. She stabbed you in the back. You were on top of me. We were making love, and I looked up and she was there. Oh, God, Merrily, what have I done?”

Reaching across him, she found the lamp, fumbled for
and finally located the switch. Light pushed back the shadows. “You haven't done anything I didn't want you to do, Royce,” she told him practically, “and Pamela is not here. It was just a dream.”

He swept her hair back over her shoulder with the fingertips of his right hand. “It was so real. I've never been so frightened.”

“It was a dream,” she told him again.

“Or a premonition.”

Frowning, Merrily stacked her hands atop the center of his chest and laid her chin atop them, looking up at him. “Do you really think she'd do something like that, take that kind of chance?”

He screwed up his face. “I don't know. I just don't know.”

“You're the one she wants to hurt, not me.”

“Hurting you
would
hurt me, and that's exactly how she operates. Don't you see that? I cannot allow you to become a target for her.”

Merrily spread her hands and laid her cheek over his heart. Everything in her rebelled at allowing Pamela to control their lives. Surely their love was stronger than her hatred. Then again, Royce had never said that he loved her, only that he cared. Perhaps she confused one kind of caring for another, but perhaps one kind of caring could
become
another, given time.

“I'm not leaving you until you're well,” she stated flatly.

He lifted his hand to his hair, plowing his fingers through it as far as the pillow. “I don't want you to,” he admitted softly.

She ignored the big
but
hanging at the end of that statement and snuggled down at his side, her head moving to the hollow of his shoulder. “Well, that's settled then.”

“Angel, you don't know what you're getting into.”

She rose up and looked at him. “I think I do. I know the risks and I know the rewards, and as far as I'm concerned it's no contest.”

He smiled at that and, reaching up, pulled her head down until their foreheads touched. “And what rewards would those be, Nurse Gage?”

Closing her eyes, she answered his smile with one of her own and slid her hand down his chest to the flat of his belly. His muscles contracted beneath her palm, and he chuckled.

“Ah,
those
rewards.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Any chance I could ‘reward' you right now?”

She opened her eyes and slid her hand lower, asking innocently, “For what?”

He sucked in his breath. “For touching me like that. Um. For being the sexiest thing ever to stumble into my life. Literally.”

She laughed, a husky sound. “I think my ‘stumbling' days are over, or my fumbling ones, anyway.”

“Oh. You're probably…ah…a-absolutely… Merciful heaven, d-don't stop!”

“Not until I get my reward,” she whispered, shifting her head to bring her mouth to his. He curled his arm about her neck, groaning deep in his chest even as he plied her mouth with his.

She smiled to herself, feeling victorious, heroic, even. Nurse Merrily Gage, private nurse extraordinaire, healer of broken bones and other injuries, banisher of bad dreams. Lover.

But for how long? How long?

Chapter Thirteen

T
he sudden howling of the alarm made Merrily jump and drop the head of lettuce that she was rinsing in the sink. Water splashed over the edge of the counter top. Dancing back out of range, she slapped a damp hand over her heart, scowling with irritation. Since the night she and Royce had become lovers, the alarm had been armed twenty-four hours a day at Royce's insistence. Merrily had humored him, not that she was afraid of Pamela. To her mind, Pamela was like every other bully. When faced with a determined equal, she would show her true color, which was undoubtedly yellow. As long as the woman effectively held his children hostage, however, Royce was not her equal.

Grabbing a dish towel, Merrily ran for the control panel on the wall of the interior hallway that led to the dining room. If the alarm wasn't turned off within the first minute, the police were automatically notified. She punched
in the turnoff code, and blessed silence descended until Royce shouted from the den, “What's going on?”

“I don't know yet,” she shouted back. Then she punched the button on the intercom and spoke into the microphone, knowing her voice would be heard from every outside speaker. “Is anyone there?”

“Dale.”

“It's Dale!” She shouted at Royce before hitting the microphone button again. “Where are you?”

“What do you mean, where am I?” Dale shot back. “I'm at the front door.”

“Well, why didn't you ring the doorbell? Oh, never mind. Hold on a minute.” As she hurried toward the door, she tossed aside the towel and said to Royce, who had made it as far as the den door on his crutches, “Relax. Dale's at the front door.”

He rolled his eyes and hobbled toward the breakfast table, where she would soon be serving lunch, mumbling, “Why the devil didn't he just ring the doorbell?”

She strode down the hall and opened the door to find Dale leaning against the frame shaking his head. “What is going on?”

“You set off the alarm.”

“Sorry about that. Must have accidentally touched the doorknob when I was reaching for the bell,” he muttered.

Merrily turned and led the way back into the house. “The silly thing shouldn't be on during the daytime, anyway, if you ask me.”

Dale closed the door and followed her. “I take it your employer has decided otherwise.”

Nodding, she sighed. “He's afraid for me.”

“For
you?

She lowered her voice. “He had a bad dream where Pamela supposedly attacked me. She went to my brothers
the other evening and painted Royce as this wife-beating child abuser with a hair-trigger temper. They naturally hot-footed it straight over here and demanded I come home with them. Royce threw them out, but now he thinks I've become a target for Pamela's vendetta.”

“Royce
threw
them out?”

She tossed him a grin and made a jabbing motion with one hand. “More like drove them out at the end of his crutch.”

“How many brothers do you have?” Dale asked skeptically.

She smirked wryly. “Three. Choice specimens, believe me.”

“Must be, to let a wounded man on crutches run them off.”

“Who?” Royce demanded, as they had drawn near the breakfast room.

“You,” Dale answered. “You're the only gimp around these parts.”

“True,” Royce retorted. “Your handicaps have to do with personality and mental capacity. Sit down, since you obviously came for lunch.”

Dale turned to Merrily. “If it's no trouble,” he began hopefully.

“None at all.”

“Don't mind if I do, then.” Rubbing his hands together, he skirted the table and pulled out a chair.

Royce turned his face up to Merrily, saying, “Angel, reset the alarm before you finish lunch, will you?”

Merrily sent a told-you-so look at Dale, absently dropped a kiss on Royce's puckered mouth and was heading toward the kitchen when Dale drawled, “No need to ask how you're getting along, considering obvious developments.”

Merrily froze, realizing they'd just given themselves away. Those quick kisses felt so natural and had become so commonplace that she hadn't thought twice about doing it in front of Dale.

Royce cleared his throat and stated calmly, “You wouldn't know an ‘obvious development' if it bit you.”

“Maybe, but I sure do recognize one when it kisses you.”

“Eat your heart out, Counselor.”

“I'd rather remove yours with a spoon.”

“You're welcome to try.”

“Gonna hit me with your crutch?”

Merrily whirled around. “Oh, please!” She folded her arms. “That will be enough out of you two. Now either play nicely or I'll be forced to send you to your rooms.”

“Works for me,” Royce goaded, glaring at Dale but speaking to Merrily, “provided you come with me as usual, darlin'.”

“You devil,” Dale rumbled.

“Royce!” Merrily scolded.

“What?” He turned a perfectly innocent expression on her, not fooling her in the least. “You didn't want him to know?”

“It's not that! It's just that Dale isn't interested in our, uh…”

“Sleeping arrangements?” he supplied pointedly.

“Personal business,” she snapped, cheeks flushing with heat.

He lifted an eyebrow, glaring at Dale. “He seems mighty interested to me.”

“As interested as you are in letting me know you've staked a claim,” Dale said tightly.

“Just cut it out!” Merrily snapped. “You're behaving like a pair of roosters scratching in the barnyard. You're
best friends, for pity's sake, and who I do or do not choose to sleep with is not open for discussion.”

Dale's face suddenly looked chiseled from stone. Royce, on the other hand, grinned cheekily. “Yes, ma'am.”

He winked, and she knew then that he'd done it on purpose, turned his face up for that kiss, rubbed Dale's nose in their relationship, as if Dale was really interested in anything more than flirtation. Whirling away, she escaped to the control panel, where she armed the system once again, angrily punching in the code. Somewhere along about the third number it occurred to her that Royce had indeed, as Dale had put it, staked a claim, whether he'd meant to or not. He was jealous, and he wanted Dale to know that she was taken. Smiling, she punched in the remaining two digits.

“You're smarter than I thought you were,” Dale said reluctantly to Royce.

After a moment Royce sighed. “More selfish, you mean.”

“Well, that goes without saying,” Dale agreed wryly, and the mood instantly lightened to one of sassy banter. “But be forewarned, good buddy, I may decide to acquire a private nurse of my own.”

“Want some help figuring out which bones to break?”

“You would know.”

“And I'd be glad to show you.”

Merrily rolled her eyes and headed back to the kitchen. While they verbally sparred, she finished rinsing the lettuce, made some garlic toast, set a third place at the table, and got the chicken salad out of the refrigerator. By the time lunch was on the table, talk had turned to someone who worked in Dale's office, someone Royce evidently knew and in whom Dale had little confidence. They
laughed about this character's latest legal foibles. Then Dale put down his fork and pushed away his plate.

“Sugar, that was a great lunch,” he said to Merrily. “Your taste in men might be suspect, but your food's always top-notch.”

She templed her hands over her plate and asked dryly, “Does that mean you'll be doing the dishes in appreciation?”

Dale gaped at Royce as if to ask, “Do you believe this girl?” Then he folded his arms and retorted, “Fat chance. I'm the one going home alone, remember? Let the fair-haired patient here do the dirty work.”

Royce quickly held up his cast. “Not this week.”

Merrily rose and began gathering dishes, commenting drolly, “Real princes, you two. I think I'll trade you both for a troll with a pointed hat and a sponge.”

“Ouch,” Dale said.

“Double ouch,” Royce amended.

“Ah, poor baby,” Merrily teased Royce. “Did that hurt?”

He slid an arm around her waist, suggesting silkily, “I guess you'll just have to kiss it and make it better.”

She smiled and bent down, touching the tip of her nose to his. “Maybe after I finish the dishes,” she said in her most sultry tone.

Royce lifted his cast and cut his eyes at Dale, asking dryly, “Wouldn't happen to have an extra-extra-large rubber glove on you, would you?”

“You wish,” Dale retorted.

Merrily laughed and carried the dishes into the kitchen. She had placed the dishes on the counter and started back to the table when Royce said, “Okay, law boy. You didn't drop by just for the free lunch. What's up?”

Dale glanced at her as she moved to stand at Royce's
side, all teasing at an end. Royce reached up and idly looped his arm about her waist, waiting for Dale to speak.

“The judge signed an order this morning instructing Pamela to take Tammy to an independent doctor for counseling.”

Merrily felt Royce sag against her. “That's good, isn't it?” she asked quickly.

“That's excellent,” Royce said, squeezing her. “How did you finally manage it?” he asked Dale.

“The nanny. She began changing her tune when she saw Pamela slap Tammy, but she really started singing when Pamela threatened
her.

Royce sat up straighter. “Threatened her how?”

Dale shrugged. “Said she'd see to it the woman never worked again, that she was going to tell everyone the woman was a lousy nanny. About what you'd expect from Pamela.”

“But nothing physical,” Merrily clarified.

“Not overtly, no,” Dale said, “but after talking to the judge again, the nanny wisely followed my suggestion and took a job out of state.”

“But you don't really think Pamela would physically attack the nanny,” Merrily said.

Dale just looked pointedly at Royce then back to Merrily, as if to say, “Isn't it obvious?”

Royce abruptly asked, “When can Tammy see the doctor?”

Dale reached inside his suit coat and removed a folded sheet of paper. “As soon as you pick one from this list that the court gave me and we can get an appointment.” He unfolded the sheet and slid it across the table to Royce, adding, “I've added stars by the names of those I was able to get recommendations on and crossed off a couple I've been told don't handle children very well.”

Royce studied the list. Merrily did, too, and recognized several names on it. One in particular stood out, though, and she put her finger on it. “This woman is an excellent doctor and one of only two actual psychiatrists on the list.”

“You know her?” Royce asked, looking up.

Merrily nodded. “She's a medical doctor specializing in pediatric psychiatry. I've tended several of her patients. One of them was the only survivor of an automobile accident that killed both of his parents. When I met him, he was an eleven-year-old who had tried to commit suicide by throwing himself in front of a moving car. He threw feces at me the first time I tried to check his bandages. Dr. Denelo completely turned that kid around. He's been adopted, and I understand he's an honor student. Dr. Denelo carries a photo of him, along with those of many other patients, and she updates me on him every time I see her. She's very highly thought of.”

“I'm sold,” Royce said, pushing the paper back to Dale.

“I'll make the appointment,” Dale affirmed.

“Tell Dr. Denelo I said hello, will you?” Merrily added. “It might speed things up a bit.”

“Can't hurt,” Dale agreed.

Royce squeezed her again and looked up. “Thanks, angel. I appreciate your input.”

“I'm just glad I could be of some help in this.”

Dale refolded the paper and stashed it back where he'd gotten it, shaking his head at Royce, “Looks like your luck has turned in a big way, pal of mine.”

“It's about flipping time, if you ask me.”

“Here, here. Well, I have to get back to the office.” Dale rose to his feet and stepped away from the chair. “Thanks for lunch.”

“Our pleasure,” Royce said as Dale pushed the chair under the table.

“Absolutely,” Merrily agreed, adding, “I'll have to see you out and lock the door behind you.”

“Well, have it, then,” Dale teased, walking around the table and offering her his arm.

“Hey, now, no funny stuff,” Royce warned.

“As if,” Dale retorted.

“As if you thought you could get away with it,” Royce returned.

“Maybe I could,” Dale suggested, waggling an eyebrow at Merrily.

“Hmm,” Merrily mused, looking him up and down with squinted eyes. “Maybe a dye job and a little plastic surgery. No, make that a lot of plastic surgery.”

“Hey!”

Royce roared with laughter. Dale pretended hurt feelings, sticking out his bottom lip. Merrily just grinned, grabbed his arm and set off, dragging him along with her.

“You sure know how to burst a boy's bubble,” Dale grumbled good-naturedly.

“You'll get over it,” she said dryly.

“I might,” he told her, dropping his voice, “since it's so obvious how you feel about him.”

“I'm wild about him,” Merrily admitted softly, “absolutely wild.”

“Like I said, the man's luck has obviously turned.”

“I hope so,” Merrily replied with heartfelt sincerity.

“So do I,” Dale admitted.

They came to a halt in front of the door, and Merrily let go of his arm, saying, “I'm glad to know that. I could never forgive myself if I came between the two of you.”

“No harm of that,” Dale told her with a crooked smile, “since you so obviously prefer him.”

“You're number two on my list,” she offered in consolation.

BOOK: His Private Nurse
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