His Private Nurse Read online

  He thought she looked good enough to eat, but he said only, “Starving.”

  “I’ll take care of that as soon as you take your medication.” Moving to the bedside table, she poured a glass of water from the pitcher she had obviously placed there earlier. She lifted the tail of her plaid cotton shirt and pulled a pill bottle from the pocket of her comfy jeans. Uncapping the bottle, she shook an antibiotic tablet onto the corner of the table. Next she helped Royce sit up and handed him the pill.

  His head swam. His arm throbbed. He stared down at his palm. The oblong tablet looked as if it had been made for a horse rather than a human, and he remembered with a grimace how the things stuck in his throat.

  “Do you need something for pain?” she asked.

  He was hurting in more places than she knew at the moment. For one thing, his bladder felt as if it were about to burst. He slapped the pill into his mouth, took the glass of water that she offered him and washed the thing down. It felt like a brick in his throat. He handed back the glass and said bluntly, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Want the urinal?”

  “Hell, no,” he snapped. “I want to walk into my own bathroom and use the toilet.”

  “Will you settle for a ride into your own bathroom?” she asked lightly, going after the wheelchair.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s what I thought,” he grumbled, scooting laboriously to the edge of the bed. She parked the chair next to him, and as she bent forward to throw the covers back out of his way, her shirt gaped open just enough for him to see the mounds of her small, firm breasts and the scrap of lace molding them. Suddenly his need elevated to extreme. He put his left foot on the floor and pushed up. Too quickly.

  “Whoa.” She caught him around the waist, helping him get his balance and sustain it until his head cleared. For a moment he considered falling back onto the bed and taking her down with him, but the ache in his limbs reminded him how foolish and fruitless that would be. He pivoted and sat, dropping his left arm over his lap as she adjusted the footrests. Rising, she moved behind the chair and pushed him forward.

  The chair rolled through the wide door into the cool bath, then turned into the shower room. He leaned forward, reaching out to push open the batwing doors with his good arm. A second set of such doors shielded the toilet. She helped him pull those forward so that they locked in place. “I can handle it from here,” he told her gruffly.

  This was the worst part of being injured, the lack of privacy and the inability to take care of the smallest, most ordinary intimacies without assistance. Thankfully, Merrily sensed that. Without argument, she set the brake on the wheelchair. He lifted the left footrest with his good foot, then grabbed the batwing door and pulled himself up. Hopping on his left foot, he entered the alcove. Merrily swung the short, louvered doors closed at his back.

  Leaning his good shoulder against the wall, he managed to shove down his shorts. Then he positioned himself in front of the toilet, balanced on his one good foot. Unfortunately, he was in no shape to take care of business at the moment and his strength was fast waning. Closing his eyes, he tried to think tranquil thoughts, but the vision that popped up before his mind’s eye was Merrily bending over his bed, her shirt gaping open to reveal the creamy mounds of her breasts.

  Gritting his teeth, he opened his eyes and muttered, “This is what I get for hiring such a pretty nurse.” Something clattered loudly in the shower room. “Merrily?” he asked anxiously.

  “Sorry. No harm done. I, uh, knocked over the towel stand.”

  Realizing that she’d overheard him, he smiled. At least he wasn’t the only one uptight at the moment.

  Some minutes later, he was ready to collapse but, nonetheless, relieved. As he eased into the chair, Merrily appeared from the other room. She briskly wheeled him to the sink so he could wash his hand. He looked up into the mirror, shocked by his haggard appearance. Suddenly he realized that his teeth felt almost as fuzzy as his jaws looked.

  “There’s a toothbrush, comb and electric razor in that second drawer,” he said, indicating the cabinet. Merrily immediately went to fetch them. He brushed his teeth easily enough, but halfway through shaving the strength in his awkward left arm began to fail seriously. Without a word, Merrily took the razor from his hand and began applying it to his jaw. “You seem to have done this before,” he commented over the whir of the razor, noting that she held the shaving heads just right against his skin.

  “One time my brother Lane broke his right thumb and sprained his left wrist trying to do a handstand. He was drunk, of course.”

  “Ah.”

  “Then there was the time Jody burned both his palms on a hot car radiator. I not only shaved him, I brushed his teeth for a whole week.”

  “And Jody would be?”

  “My oldest brother.”

  “Sounds like you’ve taken pretty good care of those brothers of yours.”

  “Too good maybe,” Merrily conceded with a sigh. “You should have heard the fit they pitched when I told them I was moving out for a while.”

  Royce lifted both eyebrows and asked, “Didn’t you tell them it was a job?”

  “Sure. They’re just overprotective, that’s all. Plus, without me they have to do their own cooking, cleaning and laundry.”

  Wondering just how overprotective they were, he asked wryly, “Did Dale show you how to activate the home security system?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think it necessary to set it unless we leave the house. Right?”

  Stroking his now smooth jaw, he muttered, “As long as I don’t have to fight off three angry older brothers. I’m not up to it at the moment.”

  She snorted and began to comb his hair back. “As if. Lane thinks he’s bad when he’s drunk, but the truth is he’s a mouse. Fighting’s way too much effort for Kyle— I doubt he even knows how to make a fist. And poor, dull Jody, though he thinks of himself as on a par with our father, is all bluster.”

  Putting the comb aside, she began cleaning the razor. She was nothing if not efficient, his Nurse Gage. Royce looked himself over in the mirror and decided he looked some better. “How come you’re still living at home together?” he asked.

  Merrily shrugged and began putting everything away. “It’s a patriarchal thing. My dad likes to say he’s from ‘the old school.’ Mom never worked outside the home, and he always insisted that he wanted his kids close because families are supposed to stay together, but I think it was more a matter of control. Now I suspect even he might agree that he overdid it a bit. When he retired, they bought one of those big motor homes and hit the road. They couldn’t seem to wait to get out of here. Of course, he made me and my brothers promise to stay in the house and take care of one another.”

  “Sounds to me like you do most of the taking care of.”

  “Yeah,” she admitted, “seems that way to me, too, which is part of the reason I’m here.”

  “Part of the reason?”

  She shrugged. “The timing was right.”

  He felt a spurt of disappointment. The timing was right. Why did that rankle? What had he expected her to say, that she couldn’t resist his darling blue eyes, that she was determined to hang around until he was healthy enough for her to jump his bones?

  Meeting his gaze in the mirror, she asked, “Ready for something to eat?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Want to sit at the table by the bedroom window while I get together some food?”

  “Okay.”

  She wheeled him into the bedroom and parked the chair at the small table where he sometimes sat to read the paper of an evening. She handed him the magazine she’d been reading, one of his architectural publications, and said, “I won’t be a minute.” She looked to the console mounted in the wall beside the bed and asked, “Think you can get to the intercom if you need me?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “I’ve asked Dale to get you a cowbell a
nd a pair of crutches.”

  “A cowbell?” The crutches he could understand, but a cowbell?

  “You could keep it with you,” she said, “and if you need me but couldn’t get to the intercom, all you’d have to do is ring. I figured it would have to be a pretty big bell or I wouldn’t hear it in this big house.”

  Wryly, he shook his head. So he was to be belled like a rank bull. She didn’t know how appropriate the metaphor was. In this case, however, the bull was hobbled. “So long as I don’t have to eat hay,” he joked.

  “I think we can do a little better than that,” she said, swinging away.

  Ten minutes later he stared down into a bowl of soup ringed with crackers. “I don’t suppose this is the first course?”

  “That hungry?”

  “I was hoping for a steak about two-inches thick, maybe a baked potato, loaded.” He peered into the pale-amber liquid in his cup and added, “And coffee, strong, black coffee.”

  She put her hands on her hips and said in a very kindergarten-teacherish way, “Tell you what. If you’ll eat your soup and drink your tea, I’ll pan sear that ham steak you’ve got in the fridge, and bring that up.”

  He picked up his spoon, loaded it and said dryly, “Just get it up here by the time I’ve finished the soup or I’m liable to start on the napkin next.”

  She turned on her heel, noting aloud, “Patient has a hearty appetite.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” He swallowed the warm soup. It was pretty good, actually, not the canned variety. The cup he eyed with more trepidation. Halfway through the soup, however, he decided to give it a try. Lifting the cup, he sniffed. Didn’t smell like any tea he’d ever had, but it wasn’t unpleasant, a touch of cinnamon, perhaps. Cautiously he sipped and tasted something very fruity under-laid with honey. Not bad. He sipped a little more and went back to the soup, polishing it off in just a few bites. The crackers went the same way, and when Merrily returned with the ham steak and the teapot, his cup was empty, too.

  Smiling, she plopped the steak down in front of him, fork and knife crossed atop the plate. As she refilled his cup, she asked, “Feeling okay?”

  “Pretty good actually,” he said, picking up the fork. A moment later he realized that his clumsy left hand and a simple fork weren’t going to get the ham sliced. Merrily picked up the knife and waited. He stabbed the fork into the ham steak, holding it in place, and she quickly sawed off several bites for him. Impatiently he forked the first into his mouth. “Mmm.” After gobbling down the rest, he planted the fork in the steak again. Merrily immediately cut the remaining steak into small pieces. A few minutes later, he laid his fork across his empty plate, drained his cup and sat back with a sigh. “Ahhh.”

  “How are you feeling now?”

  “Excellent. Full and relaxed.”

  She smiled and began stacking the dishes. “This may not be the best time to ask, then, but what would you like for dinner?”

  “Hmm.” He thought it over, trying to remember what he had in the pantry. Finally he shrugged. “Surprise me.”

  “How’s Chinese?”

  He lifted both brows, impressed. “Great.”

  She straightened, her hands going to her waist. “Have a favorite dish?”

  He decided to test her expertise. “Pressed duck?”

  Her smile turned cagey. “I’ll let Dale know.”

  He felt his brow furrow before he could derail the reaction. “Dale?”

  “Mmm-hmm. He’ll be paying off on a debt.” She tapped the rim of his cup, asking, “How did you like it, by the way?”

  Confused, he waved his hand. “Fine. What is it, by the way?”

  “A piece of cake,” she replied smugly.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She chuckled. “Actually, it’s herbal tea.”

  “Herbal tea!”

  “And the reason you’re feeling so mellow right now.” He couldn’t keep the shock off his face. “Don’t worry,” she went on cheerfully. “I checked to be sure there would be no interactions with your medications.”

  That had never occurred to him. “I don’t drink herbal tea. I mean, I didn’t drink herbal tea before this.”

  “I know. Dale told me.”

  Realization dawned. “And you bet him that you could get me to.”

  She just smiled. “Sure you still want Chinese?”

  He wanted to feel used and manipulated, but he couldn’t. She’d hadn’t tricked or nagged him into drinking the tea. She’d just left the damned cup next to his plate and let him decide for himself whether he liked it or not—and he had, did, like it. He laughed. “Tell him to use Chung Pao’s Garden. It’s not the best pressed duck in town, but it’s the most expensive.”

  She laughed. “Actually, we didn’t really say when the loser would have to pay up, so for tonight you may have to settle for the chicken I’ve got thawing.”

  “Only one?” he joked.

  “I’ll see if I can’t find something to go with it,” she promised. “Meanwhile, if you’d like some more tea…”

  “No, thanks. I’m mellow enough.”

  “Fine. I’ll just take care of these, then.” She picked up the dishes and turned away.

  Suddenly he decided to get back a little bit of his own. “You know,” he said affably, “it’s almost worth falling down a flight of stairs to have herbal tea served to me by such a beautiful woman.”

  She bobbled the dishes and several hit the floor, bouncing harmlessly on the carpet. Gasping, she dropped to her knees to gather them up again. Royce bit his lip to keep from laughing, but then she stretched, reaching for a spoon, and the pull of denim across her neat little rear end hit him in the groin. No longer feeling quite so mellow, he averted his gaze, but it crept back again a moment later as she rose to her feet, the tray balanced carefully in her hands.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, hurrying from the room.

  He felt rather like a heel, considering that he was the one who ought to apologize. She was just too easy to bait, his sweet little nurse, and too good at what she did—and too easy to like, too easy to need. If he wasn’t careful, he’d never again become as self-sufficient as he’d once been. Determined that would not be the case, he decided it was time to begin ordering his world again. He had done it before under much more egregious circumstances. Falling down a flight of stairs was nothing compared to losing custody of his children.

  The first order of business was to bring as much normalcy back to his situation as possible. Looking down at his bare chest, he decided that the most obvious course was to dress himself. With some difficulty he turned the wheelchair from the table and maneuvered it across the room. It took a while to find an old T-shirt and get the scissors from the cabinet in the bath, but by the time Merrily returned, he had the shirt laid out on the bed and was trying to work the scissors with his left hand in order to cut out the right sleeve.

  “Can I do that?” she asked, and he tossed down the scissors with disgust. So much for taking charge of his life again.

  Quickly, expertly, she cut away the right sleeve and enlarged the armhole. Then she handed the T-shirt to him and sat down on the side of the bed, leaning back slightly, her upper body weight supported on her stiffened arms. Smiling to himself, he fumbled with the shirt until he could slip the newly cut hole over his cast, then he shoved his left arm through the intact sleeve and wrestled the thing over his head. The satisfaction was worth the effort.

  Merrily sat up straight, asking, “Ready for a nap?”

  He grimaced at the bed and confessed, “I’m tired, okay? But what I’m most tired of is lying in bed.”

  Instantly she suggested, “How about the recliner in the den?”

  He closed his eyes. “Yes, please, Nurse Gage. Bless you, Nurse Gage.”

  She skipped behind his chair and started it moving. “Oh, don’t thank me yet. Wait until I’ve beaten you at gin rummy.”

  “Gin rummy?”

  “Can you think of anything else you’d rather we do?
”

  He could, but thankfully he wasn’t up to it. “What makes you think you can beat me at gin rummy or anything else?”

  “Wanna bet on it?”

  He grinned. Stupid he was not. “No, thanks.”

  “Good answer.”

  Laughing, he sat back and enjoyed the ride.

  Chapter Six

  “I think we can manage with this,” Merrily said, waving the long, narrow box of plastic wrap, “at least until the shower sock I’ve ordered arrives, but since you can’t get your cast or right leg wet, we’ll have to settle for half a shower.”

  “Half a shower,” he echoed uncertainly, the lines bracketing his mouth and shadows darkening his eyes telling her that he was tired, despite having napped again before dinner, which had consisted of roasted chicken, rice pilaf and bean salad, Dale having pleaded inconvenience. She was content to allow him to set a date for paying his debt.

  “Unless you’d rather have that sponge bath, after all,” she suggested hopefully to Royce.

  He made a face that perfectly expressed his feelings on that subject, even if his previous objections had not. “So how do we go about this half shower?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and it seems to me that since the ledge around the tub is so wide, you can sit on the inside corner of it with your back against the wall. We’ll prop up your right leg on the edge to keep it dry and you can balance yourself by placing your left foot inside the tub. I’ll soap you and use the sprayer from the tub to rinse you off.”

  “I’ll soap me,” he insisted, “and you can hand me the sprayer. Otherwise you’ll have to get in the tub.”

  “I don’t mind. I’ll just roll up my pants and shuck my shoes so I can stand in the water. We only need a couple of inches.”

  “Fine,” he snapped, “but I think I can wash my own body.”

  “Okay,” she replied carefully, going down on her knees to begin wrapping his right leg with plastic, “whatever you say.”

  She knew that he was grouchy because he didn’t feel well, and she didn’t take it personally. Instead, she concentrated on mummifying his right leg, bulky stabilizer and all, in plastic wrap from his kitchen. At the top of the plastic “sock” she fastened an elasticized hair band with a metal clasp, after carefully testing it to be certain it wouldn’t cut off his circulation. It would never survive a real shower, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances. Rising, she wrapped the remaining plastic around the top of his shoulder and under his arm to get the edge of the hard cast there.