by Diana Palmer
“You make me sound like a potential mugger,” he ground out. “I wouldn’t attack you!”
“How reassuring; I was worried to death about that,” she said with a teasing laugh.
All his bad humor disappeared at once. “I’ll bet you were,” he muttered. He found her hand and clasped it in his, and she felt a strange little shock of pleasure at the warm strength of it. “Nothing personal, Nurse. I only need to be led and I can hold on to you more easily like this. All right?”
She looked down at his brown hand holding hers. “All right,” she said meekly. It wasn’t professional of course. But it was…practical.
He was easier after that, more approachable, regaling her with stories of his travels while she took him walking and driving in the car and tried to ease him out of his cold shell. Some of the tales he recounted were frankly shocking, and she began to wonder at the wildness of the life he’d led.
“What about your own life?” he asked while they were drinking coffee at a local restaurant. Their table overlooked the ocean, and Dana picked at her apple pie while her eyes drank in the blueness of the water, the whiteness of the beach, dotted with swimmers in their colorful bathing suits.
“Hmmmm?” she murmured dreamily.
He made an impatient sound. “Are you worshipping the view again? Lorraine said you watch the ocean as if you’re afraid it may vanish any second.”
“I love it,” she said sheepishly. “We don’t have oceans around Ashton, you know. Just open land and a lot of farms and cattle.”
“How big is Ashton?”
“About five thousand people,” she told him. “It isn’t far south of Atlanta, but it’s mostly rural. I grew up there. I know most everybody else who did too.”
“Is that one of those towns where the sidewalk draws in at six and everything closes for the night?”
“Very nearly. We don’t even have a bowling alley. Although,” she added, “we do have a theater and a skating rink.”
“How exciting,” he mused. “No bars?”
“We’re in a dry county,” she replied.
“You don’t drink, I gather.”
She sighed, watching the ocean again. “Mr. van der Vere, I never have. I’m sure my life is duller than dishwater compared to yours.”
He lifted his coffee to his chiseled mouth, frowning slightly. “My world was an endless round of parties, cruises, business conventions, casinos and first-class travel. It was never dull.”
She tried to imagine a lifestyle so hectic, and failed. “Were you happy?”
He blinked, staring in her direction. “Happy?”
“I can look it up in the dictionary and read you the definitions, if you like,” she murmured.
“I was busy,” he corrected, idly caressing the coffee cup. “Occupied. Entertained. But happy?” He laughed shortly. “What is happiness, Nurse? Tell me.”
“Being at peace inside yourself, liking yourself and the whole world all at once,” she said simply. “Going about your work with your whole heart and loving what you do.”
“You’re talking about a feeling,” he said, “not the trappings that go with it.”
“Exactly. I could be just as happy working in a sewing plant or digging in a garden as I am nursing, if it fulfilled me,” she told him.
“I imagine a family could provide you with the same sense of purpose,” he remarked. “Have you not wanted a husband and children?”
She toyed with her pie and laid down the fork to pick up her coffee. “Mr. van der Vere,” she said after a minute, “I’m a very plain woman. I have rigid views on life and the living of it. I don’t have casual affairs, I work hard and I keep to myself. It’s very unlikely that I’m ever going to find a man dumb enough to marry me.”
He sat up straight. “You spend so much time running yourself down, Miss Steele,” he said after a minute, scowling toward her. “Is it deliberate, calculated to keep people at arm’s length?”
She laughed. “I suppose so. I like my life, why change it?”
“Yet, you seem determined to change mine,” he reminded her.
“That’s different. Yours needs changing,” she said pertly. “You were about to go into permanent hibernation, and frankly, Mr. van der Vere, you’re not the best companion in the world to hibernate with. You’d have driven yourself crazy.”
He burst out laughing, his voice deep and amused, the sound of it like silver bells in the darkness. “And you’re sacrificing yourself to tend me, no doubt.”
“Of course,” she returned, joining in the game. “Think of all the other people in the world I could inflict myself on!”
He seemed about to say something, then thought better of it. He finished his coffee in one swallow. “I wish I could see you,” he said surprisingly. “I wonder if you really are as plain as you like to pretend.”
She thought about the scar on her cheek and lifted her eyes to his broad, hard face. “Yes,” she said softly. “I am.”
His mouth broke into a smile. “Beauty is only skin deep, they say, miss.”
“Yes, sir,” she sighed, “but ugly goes all the way to the bone, doesn’t it?”
He laughed loudly, and the sound was infectious. She laughed with him, wondering at the easy comradeship of their developing relationship. He was like another man, and she felt herself changing. Despite her neat nurse’s uniform, which seemed to be drawing its share of curious stares, the woman inside it was being drawn inexplicably closer to the big blond man across from her.
They passed a wreck on the way back to the beach house. Dana paled as she watched ambulance attendants drag an unconscious form from the tangle of metal and glass, but she didn’t make a big thing of it. The rest of the way back she talked about the scenery and described houses and beach property to him. But inside she was reliving every minute of the wreck that had killed her mother.
That night it was inevitable that the nightmare would come. She saw the truck coming toward her, felt the impact, saw the unearthly position of her mother’s body….
Someone was shaking her roughly; a deep voice was cursing as her eyes flew open. She shook her head, breathing raggedly, and found Gannon and Lorraine standing by the bed. Gannon was wearing a dark robe over his pajamas, and Lorraine was clutching a delicate pink negligee around her, her face troubled.
“We heard you scream, dear. Are you all right?” Lorraine asked, concerned.
Dana sat up, trying to calm her wild heartbeat. Her eyes were full of tears, and she felt sick all over. “It was just…just a nightmare. I’m sorry I disturbed you both.”
“It’s all right,” Lorraine said. “We were worried. Will you be…?”
“I’ll sit with her for a moment,” Gannon said curtly, ramming his hands into his pockets. “Would you have the maid fix some coffee and bring it up?”
“I’ll do it myself,” Lorraine said, turning. “I could use a cup, too. Back in a minute.”
“You don’t have to stay with me….” Dana said tautly.
He felt his way to the chair by the bed and sank into it. His blond hair was tousled, his face was grim, his blind eyes bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept at all. His pajama top and robe had fallen open over a mat of blond hair that seemed to cover his broad chest, and he looked impossibly masculine in her bedroom. He made her nervous.
Oddly enough, he seemed to be concerned about her. He looked toward her, his eyes troubled. “I won’t leave you, Dana,” he said quietly, and the sound of her given name on his lips disturbed and flattered her.
She pushed back her long hair with a ragged sigh and dabbed at the tears with a corner of the sheet. “I should get up,” she murmured, tossing back the covers to reach for her robe at the foot of the bed. It was blue terrycloth, and old, but it made her feel more secure with a man in the room—even a sightless one.
“Self-conscious?” he asked gently. “You aren’t used to men seeing you in your nightclothes, are you? Not that I can see….” he growled. “Are you all right
? What happened?”
“I had a nightmare, that’s all,” she said, and the mattress sprung up as she got to her feet and tied the robe securely.
He stood up at the same time, colliding with her. She gasped and clung to him to keep her balance, and the magic of his warmth and strength made her knees even weaker.
“Dana?” he whispered, bending.
Incredibly, he found her knees and back and lifted her completely off the floor in his arms, holding her to his chest.
“Mr…. van der Vere…” she protested.
“My name is Gannon,” he breathed, searching blindly for her mouth. “Say it….”
“Gannon…”
His lips took his name from hers, and she felt their warm, soft pressure against her own with a leap of her heart. She stiffened, but when the pressure continued with the same tenderness, she let her taut muscles relax.
“That’s it,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. I only want to comfort you a little, that’s all. Please, don’t deny me the one altruistic gesture of my life.”
She watched his face as he kissed her again, softly, with the same undemanding pressure as before. His mouth was warm and hard, and she liked the feel of it rubbing against her own. She liked the minty sigh of his breath on her lips and the smell of him and the strength of his arms holding her.
She let her arms slide around his neck and her mouth tentatively moved against his, a tiny movement like a tremor. He stiffened; his arms tightened. Then his brows began to knot and his face hardened. All at once his mouth burrowed between her lips and the kiss became complete.
She gasped and pushed at his shoulders, and he drew back immediately, breathing hard.
“Predictable, wasn’t it, little one?” he whispered with a wry smile. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take liberties. I really did mean to comfort you and nothing more.”
“It’s all right, I understand,” she said shakily. She watched his face with awe. She hadn’t dreamed that a kiss could be so…frighteningly affecting.
“Perhaps we’d better have our coffee in more sedate surroundings after all,” he murmured dryly as he set her back on her feet. “You’re a temptation, miss, and you have a very sweet young mouth that I could learn to like all too well. I don’t want to see you rush wildly away because I lost my head in the darkness.”
She dragged her robe closer. “As you said,” she replied, “it was the darkness. And my fear.”
He touched her sleeve. “The wreck we saw this afternoon—it brought back unpleasant memories?”
“Yes, sir.” She pushed back her hair. “Hadn’t we better go? Your stepmother will have a pot of coffee by now, I expect.”
“Yes, I expect so.” He let her take his arm and lead him out of the room. “And I thought I was the patient,” he teased softly. “Perhaps we were both mistaken.”
She made a tiny sound and smiled as they joined Lorraine in the dining room.
Chapter Five
A minor crisis in Gannon’s company kept him occupied on the phone for hours the next day, and an unexpected visitor arrived just as the cook was putting dinner on the table.
“Dirk!” Lorraine cried, smiling. She jumped up from the table and darted toward a tall, dark man while Dana tried to figure out who the newcomer was.
He was as dark as Gannon was fair, and not nearly as big. He had an easy smile and his face was that of a man who laughed a lot. The only Dirk whom Dana had heard mentioned during her stay at the beach house was Gannon’s brother, but of course this couldn’t possibly be him…could it?
“And who is this?” Dirk asked, when Lorraine stopped hugging him, nodding past her to where Dana sat neatly in her nurse’s uniform at the long table.
“Gannon’s nurse, Dana Steele. Dana,” Lorraine said with a gay smile, “this is my other son, Dirk van der Vere.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” Dana said politely.
He grinned, and she realized suddenly that he wasn’t much older than she was. And where Gannon’s Dutch accent was detectable, Dirk spoke English without the trace of an accent.
“The pleasure is all mine,” he corrected. “Am I in time for dinner? Great, I’m starved.”
“What brings you down here?” Lorraine asked.
“Gannon. He’s in the study, as usual, I take it?” he continued, ramming his hands into the pockets of his gray suit. He sighed. “We’ve got a strike on our hands, and it’s all my fault.”
“Is it, or is Gannon just blaming you?” Lorraine murmured with a tiny smile.
He chuckled. “Know him pretty well, don’t you? No, I suppose if he’d been in my shoes, he’d have averted it. That’s true enough.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t in a position to promise too much until I could talk to Gannon.”
“Can you iron it out?”
“That’s what he had me fly down here to find out. Two of the union people wanted to come with me, but Gannon wouldn’t allow it: he didn’t want them to see him…like this.”
“If only he weren’t so sensitive about it.” His mother sighed.
“Amen.” He turned to Dana. “Making any progress?”
She laughed. “Not too much, but at least I’ve coaxed him out of the house a few times.”
“It’s just that we can’t mention his blindness,” Lorraine added. “He won’t even listen when the doctor discusses the reason for it.”
“Maybe he wants to be blind. Have you ever thought of that?” Dirk asked soberly. “No, hear me out,” he continued, when the older woman would have interrupted. “You know how hard he was pushing himself before the accident. And there was Layn hanging on to him like a leech, dragging him around the world with her…. He was going twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours, and it was telling on him. Maybe his body did it to him to save itself.”
“Layn,” Lorraine said bitterly. “Where is she now, do you know?”
“Hanging around with a rich sheikh, I hear,” Dirk said coldly. “Where I hope she stays. You do realize that if Gannon regained his sight, she’d be back here like a shot?”
“Surely he wouldn’t take her back,” the elderly woman said.
Dirk laughed. “Are you kidding? You’ve seen Layn; what sighted man could resist her?”
Lorraine sighed wearily. “I suppose you’re right.”
Dana was sitting quietly, listening. Layn must have been the woman who had walked out on him when he was blinded. According to what they were saying, he must have cared for her very much. She stared into her plate. Against a woman like that, what chance would a plain woman have with a man like Gannon van der Vere? She blinked. Why should she have such an odd thought? She didn’t care about him, so what did it matter about the woman from his past?
She became aware suddenly that Dirk was watching her, but when she looked up, he grinned.
“Deep in thought, Miss Steele?” he asked. “How in the world did Gannon manage to find such an attractive nurse? This is a pretty dull place.”
She flushed at the unexpected compliment. She’d thought the scar down her cheek would detract from what slight beauty she possessed, but Dirk hadn’t seemed to notice it. “You’re very kind,” she murmured, “but I love it here.”
“Dana isn’t like Layn, my dear,” Lorraine said with a gentle smile. “She’s managed to get your brother out of the house, out of his shell. He’s even allowing me to have a small party next month for his birthday—just intimate friends, you understand, but isn’t it a big step in the right direction?”
Dirk chuckled. “Yes, indeed. Miss Steele must be a miracle worker of sorts,” he added, winking at her. “Well, let me go and face the dragon. Then perhaps we can sit down to a peaceful meal.”
He wandered off toward the study. The door opened and closed, and there was a loud discussion behind it.
Lorraine laughed softly as Dana’s head lifted curiously.
“Nothing to worry about, Dana,” she said. “They argue constantly, especially when it comes to company pol
icies. Gannon would like to expand the business; Dirk is cautious. Gannon believes in the generous approach to labor negotiations; Dirk is conservative. They’re very different.”
“I suppose most brothers are,” came the quiet reply. “I’ve always hated being an only child. I used to hope for a brother or sister when I was little.”
“Your parents couldn’t have other children?”
Dana shifted uncomfortably. “No,” she said simply, letting it go at that.
“I’d better have the maid get a room ready for Dirk. No doubt he’ll be here at least overnight. I never expect quick solutions when my sons start discussing company politics.” She patted Dana on the shoulder and left the room.
It was another hour before the men joined them at the table, and Dana was starving. The beef and scalloped potatoes had been kept warm, and now fresh rolls and asparagus with hollandaise sauce was being brought in by the cook.
“That smells like asparagus,” Gannon remarked as he slid cautiously into his chair at the head of the table. He looked out of humor, but Dana noted that he wasn’t scowling as fiercely as usual.
“It is,” Lorraine said. “Everything settled?”
Dirk only laughed. “If you believe that, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Arizona I’d like to talk to you about.”
“In the middle of the Painted Desert, no doubt,” Dana murmured, tongue in cheek.
Dirk’s eyebrows lifted. “However did you guess?”
Gannon was listening to their conversation, and his face darkened. “How long are you staying, Dirk?” he asked curtly.
“Oh, a couple of days, I suppose—now that you’ve phoned Dobbs and gotten the union off my back,” the younger man added wryly.
Gannon made a gruff sound and waited for Dana to fill his plate and tell him what was where. The others watched the small ritual with careful amusement. It was so new for them to have Gannon docile.
Her eyes ran over his hard face like silk, liking its rough contours, the broad forehead and jutting brow over his gray eyes. He was a handsome man. Dana could almost picture him in evening clothes; he’d stand out anywhere.