"Loneliness—take it from me—is bad for the soul," she said matter-of-factly. "It shrivels it up like a prune. Why don't you walk along the beach and listen to the waves and the sea gulls? Are you afraid of sea gulls, Mr. van der Vere? Do you have a feather phobia or something?"
He was trying not to laugh, but he lost. It rolled out of him like deep thunder, but he quickly stifled it. "Impertinent Miss Steele," he muttered. "Your name suits you. Are you cold and hard?"
"Pure marshmallow," she corrected, removing the lids from the dinnerware. "Just take a whiff of this delicious food. Steak and mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade rolls and buttered asparagus."
"All my favorites," he murmured. "What did. you do, bribe Mrs. Wells to fix it? She hates the smell of asparagus."
"So she told me," she said with a smile. "But it was her night off. I cooked it."
"You cook?" he asked curtly.
"I used to live alone. I'd starve to death if I didn't. Now, if you can't manage by yourself, I'll be glad to spoon-feed you...."
He said something unpleasant, but he got to his feet and stumbled toward the desk.
She walked around it and caught his hand. He tried to free himself but she held firm, determined not to let him dominate her.
"I'm offering to help you," she said quietly, staring up at his scowling face. "That's all. One human being to another. I'd do the same for man, woman, or child, and I think you would for me if our situations were reversed."
He looked shocked for a minute, but he stopped struggling. He let her guide him to his chair behind the desk. But before he sat down, his big hands caught her thin shoulders for a minute and moved upward to her neck and her face and hair. He nodded then and let go of her to drop into the big chair, which barely contained him.
"I thought you'd be small," he said after a minute, groping for the cup of hot black coffee she'd placed within his reach.
"In fact, I'm above average height," she returned. The feel of his warm, strong hands had made her feel odd, and she wasn't sure she liked it.
"Compared to me, miss, you're small," he said firmly. "What color is your hair, your eyes?"
"I have blond hair," she said. "And brown eyes."
"An unusual combination." He picked up his fork and managed to turn over the coffee with one sudden movement. A torrent of words poured Out of him.
"Stop that," Dana said sharply. "I'll walk right out the door if you continue to use such language around me."
"I must remember to search my mind for better words if it will get you out of my hair," he said with malicious enjoyment. "Are you such a prude, little Nurse?"
"No, sir, I am not," she assured him. "But I was always told that a repertoire of rude language disguised a pitiful lack of vocabulary. And I believe it."
He appeared to be taken aback by the comment. "I'm a man, Miss Steele, not a monk. The occasional word does slip out."
"I've never understood why men consider it a mark of masculinity to use shocking language," she replied. "I don't consider it so. Not that, nor getting drunk, nor driving recklessly...."
"You should have joined a nunnery, miss," he observed. "Because you are obviously not prepared to function in the real world."
"I find the real world incredibly brutal, Mr. van der Vere," she said quietly. "People slaughtering other people, abusing little children, finding new ways to kill, making heroes of villains, using sensationalism as a substitute for good drama in motion pictures.... Am I boring you? I don't find cruelty in the least pleasurable. If that makes me unrealistic, then I suppose that I am one."
"It amazes me that you can stand the company of poor weak mortals, Nurse, when you are so obviously superior to the rest of us," he said, leaning back in his chair.
She felt the shock go all the way to her toes. "Superior?" she echoed.
"You do feel superior?" he mocked. "Have you never made a mistake, I wonder? Have you never been tempted by love or desire, greed or ambition?"
She flushed wildly and finished mopping up the coffee. "I'm hardly a beauty contest candidate," she said curtly. "And even if I were, men frankly don't interest me at all."
He raised a curious eyebrow. "Venom.from the little nun? Someone has hurt you badly."
"I'm not here to be mentally dissected," she said, regaining her lost composure. "I'll get you another cup of coffee."
"And I thought you didn't run from the enemy," he mused as she left him.
But she didn't answer. She couldn't.
The new environment and sparring with her patient had kept Dana's mind occupied during the day, but the night brought memories. And the memories brought a gnawing ache. It was hard to believe that Mandy was gone. Sweet little Mandy, who could be maddening and endearing all at once.
She sat by the darkened window of her room and stared blankly down to where the whitecaps were visible even at night. Why did people have to die? she asked silently. Why did it all have to end so suddenly? All her life her mother had been there when she needed someone to talk to, to confide in, to be advised by.
The divorce had been no surprise when it came. The only unexpected thing was that it had taken so many years for her parents to admit that the marriage was a failure. Dana's earliest memories were of arguments that seemed to last for days, interspersed with frozen silences. Fortunately she had had grandparents who kept her each summer, and their small farm became a refuge for the young girl who felt neither wanted nor loved by her parents. Even now, with her mother dead, nothing had changed between Dana and her father. She sighed bitterly. Perhaps it would have been different if she'd been the son her father really wanted. Or perhaps it wouldn't have been.
She got up and dressed for bed. One thing was for certain, she thought as tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over: She was an orphan now. She might as well give them both up, because it was perfectly obvious that her father had no place for her in his life anymore. Her father's remarriage hadn't been such a trauma, because they hardly communicated in the first place. But to lose her mother so soon afterward, with the shock of Mandy's confession that she was going to end it all because of her husband's remarriage, was more than she could bear. There had been no time to adjust to either change in her life. No time at all.
She put out the light and crawled between the covers. Oh, Mandy. She wept silently. Mandy, why did you have to go and leave me alone? Now I have no one!
Tears soaked the pillow. She wept for the mother she didn't have anymore; for the father she'd never had. For the future, all bleak and painful and empty. But there was no one to hold her while she cried.
The next morning Gannon was sitting on the balcony when she carried in his breakfast. The wind was ruffling his blond hair, lifting it, teasing it, and she wondered suddenly how many women had done that. He had wonderful hair, thick and pale and slightly wavy.
"Breakfast," she called cheerfully, placing the tray on the table beside his chair at the edge of the balcony. The outdoor furniture was white wrought iron, and it fit the isolation and the rustic charm of the place.
Gannon half turned, and his pale gray eyes stared blankly toward her. His shirt, worn with tan slacks, had in its multicolored pattern a shade of gray that exactly matched his pale eyes.
"Must you sound so disgustingly cheerful?" he asked curtly, scowling, "It's just past dawn, I haven't had my coffee and right now I hate the whole world."
"And a cup of coffee will help you love it?" She laughed softly. "My, my, you're easy to please."
"Don't get cute, Joan of Arc," he returned harshly. He propped his long legs on another chair and sighed heavily. "Put some cream and sugar in that coffee. And. how about a sweet roll?''
"How about that," she murmured, casting an amused glance at his dark face. "I brought you bacon and eggs. More civilized. More protein."
"I want a sweet roll."
"I want a house on the Riviera and a Labrador retriever named Johnston, but we don't always get what we want, do we?" she asked, and placed the
plate in front of him, rattling the utensils against it loudly.
His chiseled lips pursed angrily. "Who's the boss here, honey, you or me?"
"I am, of course, and don't call me honey. Would you like me to direct you around the plate?" she asked politely.
"Go ahead. I won't promise to listen," he added darkly. He leaned forward, easing toward the coffee cup, and picked it up while she told him what was located where on his plate.
"Why can't I call you honey?" he asked when she started to go back into the house.
She stopped, staring down at him. "Well, because it isn't professional," she said finally.
He laughed mirthlessly. "No, it isn't. But if you're blond, I imagine your hair looks like honey, doesn't it? Or is it pale?"
"It's quite pale," she said involuntarily.
"Long?"
"Yes, but I keep it put up."
"Afraid some man might mistake loosened hair for loosened morals, Joan?" he mocked.
"Don't make fun of morality, if you please," she said starchily. "Some of us are old-fashioned enough to take offense."
With that she marched back into the house, while he made a sound like muffled laughter.
That afternoon he told her he wanted to walk along the beach, a pronouncement so profound that his stepmother caught her breath when she overheard it. Dana only grinned as she took his arm to lead him down the steps to the water. She was just beginning to enjoy this job.
"What changed your mind?" she asked as she guided him along the beach by his sleeve.
"I decided that I might as well take advantage of your expertise before you desert me," he said.
She glanced up at him curiously. "Why would I desert you?"
"I might not give you the choice." He stuck his free hand in his pocket and the muscles in his arm clenched.
"I'm not an easy man. I don't take to blindness, and my temper isn't good at its best."
"How long have you had this problem?" she asked, doing her impression of a Viennese psychiatrist.
He chuckled at the mock accent. "My temper isn't my problem. It's the way. people react to it." .
"Oh, you mean those embarrassing things they do, like diving under heavy furniture and running for the hills when you walk through the door?"
"Such a sweet voice to be so sarcastic," he chided. His hand suddenly slid down and caught hers, holding it even when she instinctively jerked back. "No, no, Nurse; you're suppose to be guiding me, aren't you? Soft little hand, and strong for one so small."
"Yours is enormous," she replied. The feel of those strong, warm fingers was doing something odd to her breathing, to her balance. She wanted to pull free, but he was strong.
"A legacy from my Dutch father," he told her. "He was a big man."
"You aren't exactly a dwarf yourself," she mused.
He chuckled softly at that comment. "I stand six foot •three in my socks."
"Did you ever play basketball?" she asked conversationally.
"No. I hated it. 1 didn't care for group sports so much, you see. I liked to ski, and I liked fast cars. Racing. I went to Europe every year for the Grand Prix. Until this year," he added coldly. "I will never go again, now."
"You have to stop thinking of your blindness as permanent," she said quietly.
"Has my mother handed you that fairy tale, too, about the blindness being hysterical?" he demanded.
He stopped to face her, his hands moving up to find her upper arms. "Do I seem to you to be prone to hysterics, Nurse?''
"It has nothing to do with that, Mr. van der Vere, as I'm sure your doctor explained to you. It was simply a great shock to the optic nerve...."
"I am blind," he said, each word cutting and deliberate. "That is not hysteria; it is a fact. I am blind!"
"Yes, temporarily." She stood passively in his bruising grasp, watching his scowling face intently, determined not to show fear. She sensed that he might like that, making her afraid. "It isn't unheard of for the brain to play tricks on us, you know. You saw the splinters coming straight for your eyes, and you were knocked unconscious. It's possible that your..."
"It is not possible," he said curtly, and his grip increased until she gasped. "The blindness occurred because I hit my head. The doctors simply have not found the problem. They invent this hysterical paralysis to spare their own egos!"
It wasn't possible to reason with a brick wall, she told herself. "Mr. van der Vere, you're hurting me," she said quietly.
All at once, his hands relaxed, although they still held her. He smoothed the soft flesh of her arms through the thin sleeves of her white uniform. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that Do you bruise easily, Miss Steele, despite your metallic name?''
"Yes, sir, I do," she admitted. He was standing quite close, and the warmth of his body and its clean scent were making her feel weak in the knees. She was look ing straight up at him, and she liked the strength of his face, with its formidable nose and jutting brow and glit tering gray eyes.
For just an instant his hands smoothed slowly, sensuously, up and down her arms. His breath quickened. "How old are you?" he asked suddenly.
"I'm twenty-four," she said breathlessly.
"Do you know how old I am?" he asked.
She shook her head before she realized that he couldn't see the motion. "No."
"I'm thirty-seven. Nearly thirteen years your senior."
"Don't let that worry you, sir; I've had geriatrics training," she managed to say pertly.
The hard lines in his face relaxed. He smiled, genuinely, for the first time since she'd been around him. It changed his whole face, and she began to realize the kind of charm such a man might be able to affect.
"Have you, Saint Joan?" he murmured. He chuckled. "Have you ever been married?''
"No, sir," she said, aware of the primness of her own soft voice.
His head tilted up and an eyebrow arched. "No opportunities?" he murmured.
She flushed. "As you accused me, Mr. van der Vere, I'm rather prudish in my outlook. I don't feel superior, I just don't believe in shallow relationships. That isn't a popular viewpoint these days."
"In other words you said no and the word got around, is that what you mean, miss?" he asked quietly.
It was so near the truth that she gaped up at him. "Well, yes," she blurted out.
He only nodded. "Virtue is a lonely companion, is it not?" he murmured. He let go of her arms, and before she realized what he was doing, he framed her face with his big, warm hands. "I want to know the shape of your face. Don't panic," he said.
But she didn't want him to feel that long, ugly scar down her cheek, and she drew away as if he'd struck her sharply.
His face hardened. "Is it so intimate, the touch of hands on a face?" he asked curtly. "Pardon me, then, if I offend you."
"I'm not offended," she said stiffly, standing apart from him on legs that threatened to buckle. His touch had affected her in an odd way, "I just don't like being touched, Mr. van der Vere."
His heavy brows arched up. "Indeed? May I suggest, miss, that you have more inhibitions than would be considered normal for a woman of your years?"
She stiffened even more. "May I suggest that I'd rather have my inhibitions than your ill temper?"
He made a rough sound and turned away. "At any rate you flatter yourself if you think there was more than curiosity in that appraisal. I can hardly lose my head over a figure I can't even see."
The flat statement cruelly reminded them of his blindness. She felt angry with herself for denying him the shape of her face, but she hadn't wanted him to feel the scar. It had made her less than perfect and much more sensitive than usual to her lack of looks.
He started along the beach, faltering. "Are you coming, Nurse, or would you like to see me fall flat on my face in the surf?" he asked sharply.
"Don't try to make me feel guilty, Mr. van der Vere," she said, taking his arm. "I won't apologize for being myself."
"Did I ask you to?" He sighed heavil
y. "I hate being blind."
"Yes, I know." "Do you?" His voice was harsh with sarcasm. "But then, you think I'm having hysterics, don't you, Nurse, so why the sympathy in your voice?"
"You won't try to understand what the term means, will you?" she shot back. "Would you rather enjoy your temporary affliction, Mr. van der Vere? Does it please you to hurt other people out of your own refusal to help yourself?"
He seemed to grow taller, and his face became rigid, like stone. "If you were a man..." he began hotly.
"If I were a man, I'd be an archaeologist," she said pleasantly, "out digging up old bones. I wouldn't be a nurse, so I wouldn't be here, and you'd have no one to yell at then, would you?"
He said a rough word under his breath and his chiseled lips made a thin line. At his sides his powerful hands clenched convulsively.
"Would you like to go swimming with me, Miss Steele?" he said after a minute.
"No, sir, I would not. And shame on you for what you're thinking. The shark would only get indigestion."
He seemed to be muffling a laugh, but he couldn't stop the sound from his throat. It was a delightful sound, full of rich humor and love of life. It was like music to Dana's ears.
"Lead me home, if you please," he chuckled, "The sea is too tempting, I confess."
"It's for your own good that I prod you, sir," she said as they walked along the beach. "Self-pity is self-defeating, you know."
"Was I feeling sorry for myself?" he mused. He stumbled, cursed and pulled himself erect. "Stop leading me into rocks."
"That was a piece of driftwood, and if you'd pick up your feet instead of shuffling along, disturbing sand crabs, you wouldn't trip," she returned with a grin. "Witch," he accused.
"No wonder you wanted to get me in the water," she mumbled. "You wanted to find out if I'd float, right?"
He shook his head. "I think I've met my match," he murmured. "Tell me something, miss. If you and the doctors are wrong, and the blindness is not hysterical, what then? Do you move in to lead me around for the rest of my life?"
She was convinced that the doctors wouldn't have made such a mistake, not with the battery of tests that had been done. But she was weary of arguing the point.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 217