by Diana Palmer
“What is it?” Dana asked quickly, sensing disaster.
Lorraine sighed. “The X-rays—there was a mixup: One of the new people at the hospital mistook Gannon’s for another patient and mislabeled them. It wasn’t really her fault; she was certain that someone else had made the mistake and was trying to correct it.”
Dana felt her face whiten. Gannon was sitting very straight, quietly sipping his coffee.
“There was something on the X-rays they’d wrongly linked to another patient,” Lorraine finished wearily. “When they did a brain scan, it came back clear, so they repeated the X-rays. That was when they discovered it. It’s been weeks, you see, and they’d told the other patient that nothing could be done.” She shrugged. “Oddly enough, his sight came back…It was only in one eye and was apparently truly hysterical in nature.”
“Which mine isn’t, apparently,” Gannon growled. He set the coffee cup down so roughly that it sloshed everywhere, burning him.
Dana jumped up to dab at it and he pushed at her roughly.
She fell against the table with a gasp, and at the tiny sound he seemed to calm all at once.
“Dana?” He reached out. “Dana, did I hurt you? Dana!”
She rubbed her side. “I’m all right,” she said quickly, shaking her head at Lorraine, who was rushing toward her. “I’m all right.”
He moved closer, his whole look one of abject apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You didn’t. I collided with you, that’s all.” She let him find her hand and clasp it warmly. Surges of pure pleasure shot up her arm at his touch. “I’m really fine.”
He drew in a steadying breath. “Come down to the hospital with us, will you?” he asked. “I need you.”
No three words had ever sounded quite so sweet to her. “Of course I will,” she said. “I’ll be here as long as you need me.”
Lorraine went to get her car keys, looking oddly relieved.
The next few hours seemed to drag on forever, and Dana felt cold fear eating away at her as Gannon went through test after test. Lorraine paced and muttered and looked increasingly more concerned.
Finally they were called into Dr. Shane’s office, where the rotund little physician stated the evidence of the tests bluntly and without pulling his punches.
“It’s shrapnel,” he said quietly, watching Gannon start. “Apparently from the accident—a tiny sliver that lodged itself in the brain, affecting the optic nerve.”
“Can you operate?” Gannon asked curtly.
“No.”
Dana’s eyes closed, hurting for him, because now it was permanent and now he knew it. She was already going over it in her mind before Dr. Shane continued, having seen that type of injury in war patients.
“The only chance you have to regain your sight,” the doctor told Gannon, “is if the shrapnel should shift again. And it isn’t completely impossible, you know. A sneeze is violent enough to dislodge it, although it isn’t likely to. I’m afraid that’s all the hope I can give you. If we were to try to operate, we could do irreparable damage to your brain. It’s far too delicate and too great a risk. I’m very sorry about the mixup in the X-rays, Gannon, but it would have made no difference if it hadn’t happened. The condition is inoperable.”
Gannon stood up quietly and held out his hand, shaking the doctor’s. “Thank you for being honest with me. As you see,” he added ironically, “I was right all along.”
“Fortunately you have a nurse to help you cope,” Dr. Shane reminded him, “and a computer company to provide you with excellent assistance in those new techniques that help the blind communicate with the outside world. You’ll do well.”
“Yes,” Gannon said. “I’ll do well.”
He was putting on a great front. He looked like a man without a care in the world, but Dana didn’t believe it, and neither did Lorraine.
“Stay with him,” she pleaded, drawing Dana aside when they got back to the beach house. “I’m afraid for him. He’s taking it far too calmly to suit me, and you’re the only person he’s going to allow very close to him.”
“I’ll take care of him,” Dana promised. She touched Lorraine’s arm. “Please don’t worry. I’ll take care of him.”
“Yes, dear, I know you will.” She smiled sadly. “It’s in your eyes whenever you look at him. But don’t let him hurt you, Dana.”
“I haven’t that choice anymore,” she admitted softly, smiling before she turned and went into the study with him and closed the door.
“Would you like something to eat?” she asked when he stood out on the balcony, listening to the waves crash against the shore.
He shook his head. Behind him his hands were clasped so tightly that they looked white in spite of their tan.
“Can I do anything for you?” she persisted.
He drew in a deep, slow breath. “Yes. Come here and let me hold you.”
Denying him was the last thought in her mind. She went to him as if she had no other function in life but to do and be anything he wanted of her.
He found her shoulders and pulled her close, wrapping her against his big, taut body. His body suddenly convulsed, and he buried his face in the long strands of loosened hair at her throat.
“I’m blind,” he ground out harshly, and his body shuddered once heavily as the emotions poured out of him. “Blind! I knew it, I knew…Dana, what will I do? How will I live? I’d rather be dead…!”
“No!” She pressed closer, holding him, her hands soothing, her cheek nuzzling against him, her voice firm and quiet. “No, you mustn’t talk that way. You learned to cope before; you can again. You can get used to it. I’ll help you cope, I will. I’ll never leave you, Gannon, never, never!” she whispered.
He rocked her against him, and she felt something suspiciously wet against her throat where his hot face was pressed. “Promise me,” he ground out. “Swear to me that you won’t leave me unless I send you away. Promise!”
It sounded very much like an ultimatum, and she was afraid of what he might do if she refused or argued with him. “Yes, I promise,” she agreed softly. Her eyes closed and she savored the feel of him against her, the warmth of his body comforting, like the crush of his big arms. “I promise.”
He seemed to slump in relief, and his fingers against her back soothed, idly caressing. “It was a blow,” he confessed softly. “I had expected…I had expected them to find something operable, you see. I wanted a miracle.”
“Miracles happen every day when people still believe in them,” she reminded him. “You’re still alive; isn’t that a miracle in itself? You’re big and healthy and you have everything in the world to live for.”
“Everything except my sight,” he said shortly.
“I’ll remind you that there are many people in the world without sight who have accomplished quite a lot despite it,” she said. “Singers, artists, musicians, scientists…nothing is a handicap unless you force it to be. You can accomplish anything you want to.”
“Even marriage?” he scoffed, lifting his head. “A family?”
“That as well.”
“And who would marry the blind man, Nurse? You?” he laughed, and his smile was cruel; his hands on her arms bit in painfully. “Would you marry a blind man?”
“Yes,” she said with her whole heart, loving every line of his face, oblivious to what was happening, even to the words themselves as she drowned in the joy of being near him.
He blinked, and the hardness drained out of his face. “You would…marry me, Dana?” he whispered.
“Any woman…”
“You,” he corrected curtly. He shook her gently. “Would you marry me, blind?”
“Gannon, if it’s a rhetorical question…” she began unsteadily.
“Will you marry me, Dana?” he persisted, making each word clear and strong. His face hardened. “No more red herrings. Just answer me, will you?”
“But do be sensible—we don’t love each other,” she p
leaded.
“You love me,” he corrected, smiling when she stiffened. “Oh, yes, it stands out a mile, even to an inexperienced man, and I’m not that. I know how you feel. You sound and smell and feel like a woman in love, and when I touch you this way, you melt against me. Professional compassion? No, Dana, it isn’t that. Now is it?”
She swallowed, her lips parting. “It’s…infatuation,” she whispered. “You’re so alien from any man I’ve ever known, and I know nothing of men. Is it surprising?”
He shook his head. “Not at all, but I’m going to take shameless advantage of it. Marry me, Dana. I can’t promise you undying love, but I’ll take care of you; I’ll be good to you. And all you have to do in return is lead me around and keep me from blowing out my brains….”
“Stop it!” She pressed her hand frantically against his warm, hard lips and trembled when they pressed back into its palm.
“Would you care that much?” he laughed. “You don’t even want my money, do you, little one? That in itself makes you an oddity in my world. Take a chance, Dana—say yes. I’ll make it good for you, in every way there is.”
She wanted to. She needed to. But it wasn’t possible, and she knew that too.
“I can’t,” she whispered miserably.
He stiffened. “Why not?”
“Because there’s every possibility that someday you’ll regain your sight—the doctor told you as much—and what if you did and found yourself tied to someone like me?” she ground out. “You’d be ashamed—”
He stopped the tirade with his lips. She went taut under the hard, demanding pressure, feeling something unleashed in him that had been carefully controlled up until now. She pushed against his broad chest, but he wouldn’t relent, not an inch.
“Ashamed of you?” he growled at her lips. “Never! Now, stop talking nonsense and kiss me back. We’re going to be husband and wife, so you’d better learn to like this with me. We’re going to do quite a lot of it through the years ahead. Come on, don’t turn away. Kiss me.”
“I won’t marry you, I won’t,” she protested.
“Then we’ll be engaged until I can make you change your mind,” he murmured, brushing his lips maddeningly over hers, feeling the helpless trembling of her mouth at the newness of the caress. His hands dropped to her waist and brought her gently against him. “Just engaged,” he whispered. “All right, butterfly? I won’t even rush you to the altar. Just agree to that much and I’ll stop talking about leaping onto the rocks….”
She shuddered at the thought of his body bruised and broken by those huge boulders. “Gannon…”
“Say yes,” he whispered. His mouth bit at hers—warm, slow kisses that drugged her, that drained her of protest.
She reached up to hold his warm face between her hands, giving in to a pleasure she’d never known. “I shouldn’t,” she told him.
“But you’re going to,” he murmured, smiling. “Sweet little mouth, it tastes of honey, did you know? Now, stop talking and kiss me better. I’ve had a terrible morning. Make it better for me, can’t you?”
She wanted to say no, she wanted to ignore the proposal, she wanted to run. But she heard her own breathless voice agreeing with him, felt her body lifting against the crush of his arms, felt herself go under in a maze of sweet magic as he kissed her long and tenderly. And then Lorraine was suddenly in the room, offering congratulations, and it was too late to protest, to take it back. Before she could open her mouth to deny it, she was drinking champagne as Gannon van der Vere’s new fiancée.
Chapter Seven
Once Gannon decided to come out of his shell and cope with the reality of his blindness, he seemed to change overnight. He called in one of his computer experts and they locked themselves away in his study for the better part of a day. When the caller left, Gannon was grinning from ear to ear.
“I’d love to know what’s going on,” Dana ventured as she joined him, closing the door gently behind her.
“Progress,” he said. He lifted his head. “Where are you? Come here.”
She went to him as naturally as if she were walking into a room, feeling his big arm draw her close to his side with wonder.
“Did it happen?” he asked, his voice mirroring the same uncertainty she felt. “Did you really agree to marry me?”
She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I was out of my mind,” she confessed. “I should have said no. You’ll regret it….”
“Never!” He turned her into his arms and stood holding her tightly, his breath warm and soft at her ear. “Never, not as long as I live. We’ll have a good life together.” He found her chin and lifted it. “Dana, you meant it? You do love me?”
She swallowed. Where was her pride, her caution? He’d as much as admitted that he didn’t love her, that all he could offer her was companionship.
“Yes,” she said anyway, studying the lines and angles of his face with soft, loving eyes. “Oh, yes, I meant it, Gannon.”
His chiseled lips parted on a heavy breath and he seemed troubled. His hands moved up to her soft arms and stroked them idly. “I feel as if I’m cheating you,” he confessed. “Perhaps…perhaps we should call it off—now, while there’s still time.”
She understood. He was telling her that he could never love her. But she was willing to settle for what he could give; even the crumbs of his affection would be more than she’d ever had in her young, lonely life.
“I’m willing to take the chance—if you are,” she said after a minute, and the strangest expression crossed his hard features.
“I’ll take care of you,” he told her. “That may sound ridiculous, coming from a blind man. But if you trust me with your future, I’ll do everything in my power to see that you don’t regret it.”
She smiled. Hesitantly, shyly, she reached up to touch his face, her fingers cool and trembling where they brushed against his cheek.
He flinched, and she started to tug her hand back, but he caught it and pressed it firmly against the warm, slightly abrasive flesh of his face.
“No, don’t draw back, Dana,” he said on a whisper. “You startled me, that’s all. I like to be touched by you.”
“Your face is rough,” she murmured, studying it. “You have to shave twice a day, don’t you?”
He nodded, smiling. “You’ll discover after we’re married that I feel like a bear early in the morning.”
She blushed to the roots of her hair, and her breath caught. He heard it, laughing delightedly.
“Oh, bright spirit,” he breathed. “What did I do in my life to deserve something as untouched and untarnished as you?”
She felt tears warm her eyes at the unexpected words. “I’m only a woman,” she reminded him.
He shook his head, and his eyes sought the sound of her voice. They were dark with emotion, narrow, as if he’d have given anything at that moment to be able to see her.
“No, you’re something completely out of my experience,” he corrected. “The women in my life have been hard and jaded. I never realized that fact until we met. I think you’ve spoiled me, Dana. I didn’t know there were people like you left in the world. My world certainly wasn’t peopled with them.”
“Your world sounded very superficial to me,” she said quietly. “As if people walked around without really feeling deeply, or thinking deeply, or participating in life.”
“That was so.” His hands moved up her arms to find her face and cup it. “I had nothing and never knew it. You make my darkness bearable, purposeful. I begin to understand what you said to me at the beginning about a life of service.”
“You do?” she whispered.
“That man who just left? He was my computer expert. We are beginning research on a unit that will outperform our present equipment designed to better assist the blind.” He grinned delightedly. “The first of many innovations, I expect. I think that I have never felt such pleasure as I feel at this moment, not only because such a device will assist me, but becaus
e it will assist so many others like me.”
She burst into tears. She couldn’t help it. Such a statement, coming from the hard, cold man of her early days there, brought such joy that she couldn’t contain it.
“Dana,” he whispered, drawing her gently closer, rocking her. “Doesn’t it please you to have reformed me?”
She could hardly speak at all, she was so choked up. “Oh, yes, it pleases me,” she said fervently. “Gannon, what a beautiful thing to do!”
“Contamination,” he whispered wickedly. “Being around you is making a civilized man of me. How do you like that?”
“I like it very much,” she replied, pressing closer.
“So do I,” he murmured. His hands smoothed down her tumbled hair. “It is, at least, a beginning. For now, Pratt has left me a device that we marketed last year. Come, I’ll show you how it works.”
She dabbed at her red eyes, following him to the desk, where a computer was sitting, along with a printer.
He sat down in front of the machine, booted up the system and fed a disk into it. Immediately, a mechanical voice began reading to him what was obviously a marketing report. He leaned back in his chair, grinning in her direction.
“What do you think?” he asked, interrupting the program with a light touch on the keyboard. “It gives me access to any company information I might need, at the touch of a finger.”
“This is great,” she whispered.
“The tip of the iceberg,” he returned. “The computer revolution has done more for the visually and audially impaired than anything else to date.”
“But I thought your company specialized in electronic equipment?” she murmured, standing close.
“It did. Now it’s going to specialize in sensory aid devices for the blind and deaf,” he said firmly. “And the first order of business is going to be finding ways to cut costs and make that equipment easily affordable for the people who need it.”