“I know it hurts,” she said. “I can back off the morphine dose if you like. It might give you some relief without putting you to sleep.” That boxy jaw set stubbornly, spurring her to explain. “It’s better to stay on top of the pain if you can. If you let it get too bad, your mind won’t be any clearer and it’ll take more meds to control it.”

Grimly he closed his eyes and nodded. She made the adjustment and depressed the pump herself before switching the pulse monitor on the end of his left index finger to his right hand. “That ought to give you a little more dexterity.”

“Thanks.”

“You don’t happen to be left-handed, do you?”

“No such luck.” He sent her a wry, lazy look that sped up her heart.

“Too bad.” She bent to pick up the plastic urinal, only to knock it under the bed. What was wrong with her? She hadn’t been this clumsy since Donald Popof had asked her to the prom. Disgustedly she got down on her knees and fished the large plastic jar from beneath the bed. Rising, she hooked the handle over the bed rail and asked, “Think you can manage by yourself?” His gaze met hers blandly, and she knew by his demeanor that the drugs were beginning to take effect.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“You can lie on your left hip if you keep your body aligned with the traction bar,” she advised matter-of-factly, “but don’t let the container get too full or we’ll wind up having to change your bed. Okay?”

He looked away. “Okay.”

She went to the sink and dampened a washcloth with antibacterial fluid, then draped it wordlessly over the bed rail within easy reach.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes. Can I get you anything?”

Those blue eyes settled on her again, and a small, appreciative smile flitted across his face. “Food.”

A good sign. She checked her watch. “Dinner trays will be up in about an hour. Meanwhile, I’ve got crackers, ice cream and popsicles, if you’re interested.”

“Forget the popsicles,” he said wryly, meaning that she should bring everything else.

Chuckling, she headed for the door, allowing him the privacy necessary to relieve himself.

Royce eased onto his back, more comfortable than he had been since he’d awakened nearly an hour earlier, and let his mind wander where it would. Not surprisingly, it went straight to Nurse Gage. She had displayed unusual sensitivity, first by refraining from scolding him for putting down the bed rail and trying to get to the phone on his own and then by allowing him to tend to his personal needs in privacy. He felt better just knowing that he wasn’t completely helpless, and he couldn’t help feeling grateful that she hadn’t mentioned that kiss.

He wondered if he ought to apologize for it, then upon reflection decided that it was best to let her think he didn’t remember kissing her, though in fact it was one of the first things he had remembered. At the time he’d assumed it was all a dream, and that was how he was going to treat it, like a freaky dream that had brought him a moment of pleasure in the midst of physical anguish. He suspected it would be easier for both of them that way, especially her.

What a strange little creature she was, his Nurse Gage, alternately clumsy and efficient, small but strong, brisk and professional but with a gentle sympathy warming the muted green of her eyes. He wondered what she would look like with that long braid unbound. Would it lie sleek and straight across her shoulders or wave and curl?

She either wasn’t married or didn’t wear a wedding ring while working. Somehow he figured it was the former. Youth aside, she just didn’t have the look of a settled, married woman.

He frowned disgustedly at the train of his thoughts. For one thing he had much more important matters to ponder. For another, he was in no position to pursue a woman, even if his health weren’t an issue, which it clearly was.

Deliberately he turned his mind to other things. When could he speak to his daughter?

He wasn’t married. The thought circled through her brain all the while she stuffed her pockets with saltines and plucked ice cream bars from the freezer. It was only at his door, however, that Merrily confronted the rise of enthusiasm inside her with a stern rebuke.

“Don’t be an idiot, Merrily,” she scolded under her breath. “He may not have a ring on his finger, but there’s a woman around somewhere.” No doubt she would ascend at any moment, miniskirt flapping and kohl-darkened eyes sparkling with tears of concern. Shoot, a man like that probably had them lined up to hold his hand and stroke his fevered brow.

That kiss had been nothing more than a drug-induced fluke. He wouldn’t be seriously interested in a woman who looked so much like a kid that, at twenty-six, she still had to buy her clothes in the junior department, which was pretty much why she stuck to uniforms, jeans and simple shirts. Nope, Royce Lawler was not for the likes of her, and to think otherwise would be, in the immortal words of her eldest brother, Jody, cruising for a bruising.

Hiding her own interest behind her nurse’s demeanor, she went in to play her chosen role of angel of mercy armed with crackers and rapidly softening ice cream.

Chapter Two

“So apparently she found you right away,” Dale said, speaking of Royce’s nine-year-old daughter Tammy.

Royce nodded and attempted a smile. “Lucky.”

“I’ll say. She called 911 and me, then tossed a blanket over you and sat with you until the paramedics arrived.”

Royce frowned. “I don’t remember any of that.”

“Pretty gutsy, if you ask me,” Dale commented. “She was terrified you were dead. I told her to stay with her little brother, but she said Cory was asleep and she didn’t want you to be alone. She was sobbing, poor kid. I tell you, I flew. Got there right after the ambulance. Guess she called her mom, too, ’cause Pam was there when I arrived. Pretty odd, since she lives farther from your place than I do.” He eyed Royce and added, “She said something about being at a restaurant on the south side of town. I asked her twice which one, but she never did say.”

Royce kept his expression carefully impassive. “Tammy knows I’m going to be okay, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah, the doctors told us so before Pamela sent her and Cory back to her house with that nanny she hired, but Pam stayed here until you were out of surgery and came around in ICU.”

I’ll bet she did, Royce thought cryptically, recalling the moment he’d opened his eyes in ICU to find three disembodied heads bending over him. He hadn’t known to whom they belonged or where he was, but when he’d been asked to cough, he’d done so. He’d grunted answers to questions he couldn’t remember now, but he clearly recollected when one unfamiliar voice had said, “You took a bad fall, Mr. Lawler. Do you remember anything about it?”

He’d known even then what he had to say, and if asked today, he would say the same thing. “No.”

“Huh?” The tall, lanky attorney with the dark-brown hair and eyes looked at Royce as if wondering whether or not he should call the nurse. He and Royce had been friends since high school, despite having attended different colleges. He was the one person in Royce’s life with whom Royce could be completely honest—until now.

Royce cleared his throat. “I mean, um, no doubt she was hoping I’d broken my neck.”

“She did ask what provisions you’d made in your will for her and the children,” Dale said wryly.

Royce sighed, guessing, “And she was some ticked off when you told her that as my ex-wife, emphasis on the ex, she was not entitled to be provided for.”

Dale chuckled. “She really went ballistic when I informed her that Mark Cherry and I are to be coexecutors of the trust you’ve established for the kids. Come to think of it, your parents weren’t best pleased, either.”

“You mean they were here?” Royce asked dryly.

Dale’s face went carefully blank. “Yeah, sure, till we knew you were going to be okay.”

“Meaning they didn’t stick around to be sure I came out of surgery all right,” Royce surmised correctly.

It was nothing more than he’d expected. He’d been at odds with his parents for as long as he could remember. Even as a kid he’d felt that he must’ve been switched at birth. He just didn’t seem to have anything in common with his socially prominent, appearance-driven parents. They’d never forgiven him for preferring to work with his hands rather than a calculator, and when his younger brother had eagerly embraced the family banking business, Royce’s fate as “the disappointment” had been sealed.

Dale, bless him, quickly changed the subject. “I want to ask for a postponement of the custody hearing. You’re in no shape to take on two kids by yourself now, anyway, and you know perfectly well that our position’s been iffy from the start.”

Royce nodded in reluctant agreement and rubbed his left hand over his face. His shoulder ached, his head felt heavy, and his leg throbbed above the knee. Shifting in a futile effort to find a more comfortable position on the narrow, lumpy mattress, he said what they both knew. “We’re no closer to proving she’s a threat to the children than we were when we started.”

“She’s crazy smart, that woman,” Dale said with a sigh. “She’s been real careful to make her threats in private to no one but you. The only thing we’ve ever had in our favor is the fact that she’s a proven adulteress.”

“Which means nothing when it comes to custody issues,” Royce said.

“Listen,” Dale said, shifting his chair closer to the bed, “if we could just get one of the kids to testify that Pamela has repeatedly lost her temper with them…”

Royce was shaking his head. Now he stated his position emphatically. “No. Absolutely not. I won’t have my children pressured to testify against their own mother.”

Dale sighed. “Well, Cory’s too young to be believable, and Tammy wouldn’t, anyway.”

“You don’t understand the pressure she lives under, Dale. No one can unless they’ve lived with Pamela. Everything that displeases her, no matter how slight, is a major betrayal to her. That means one emotional, irrational scene after another until your whole life becomes nothing more than a fruitless exercise in trying to please her, to stop the tirade. Eventually you realize that it’s impossible, but you can’t get out and you don’t dare give up. I know. I’m an adult, and after two years I’m still trying to fight my way free. Imagine what it must be like for a child. I tell you the truth, Dale, if Mark and I hadn’t walked in on her and Campo in the act, I’d still be married to that vampire.”

Dale knotted his hands into fists. “I still want to clobber that guy every time I think of him. You built his house, for pity’s sake, and not only does he try to cheat you out of your earnings, he sleeps with your wife—on the living room sofa, no less!”

“And I keep telling you,” Royce said, aware that he was beginning to slur his words, “it was the only way out for me. I can’t be anything but grateful to the creep.”

“Yeah, but if he hadn’t dumped Pamela,” Dale pointed out, “she’d have left the kids with you and beat a path with him to the Mediterranean.”

Royce closed his eyes, a smile quirking one corner of his mouth. “So Claude Campo is smarter than me. He sure wised up faster than I did. Can’t blame the fellow for that.”

“You were a senior in college when you married Pamela,” Dale argued. “You thought you’d nabbed a hot redhead to spend the rest of your life with. How were you to know she was a basket case that was slowly unraveling?”

Royce smiled. Trust Dale to defend him. “Anyway,” Royce said, getting the conversation back on track, “about Tammy. I don’t want anyone pressuring her, not about her mother and not about my fall. You got that?”

Dale nodded. “Sure, sure. Her animosity toward you is nothing more than an attempt to placate and please her mother. That’s what you’ve always said, and seems to me that her recent behavior reinforces it. I mean, she saved your life. If she hadn’t found you and called an ambulance, shock would have….”

“Finished what her mother started,” Royce muttered. To his chagrin, Dale pounced on that unwise statement.

“I knew it!” He came up out of his chair. “You’d never fall down your own deck stairs. She pushed you. The witch pushed you!” He punctuated the air with the jab of one forefinger, then dropped his hands to his waist. “We need a private investigator.”

“No.”

“We’ll punch holes in her alibi, sink her for good.”

Royce struggled up onto his left elbow to make himself understood. “No.”

“But you said—”

“You misunderstood.” Collapsing back onto his pillow, Royce massaged his temples with thumb and forefinger. “I only meant that Pam’s been punishing me for everything that has ever gone wrong in her life. No doubt she believes that if I died it would serve me right. That’s what she’s been teaching my kids ever since the divorce.”

Deflated, Dale turned the armless, molded plastic chair and straddled it. “And they’re too young to know that you divorced their mother because you caught her naked, humping a client in your own home.”

Royce cut his gaze sideways. “Succinctly put.”

Dale sighed and hunched forward, hanging his sharp chin on the edge of the chair back. “So that leaves us right where we’ve always been. Square one.”

“Not exactly,” Royce said, disciplining a yawn. Blinking, he fought off the drug-induced lethargy. “I want you to find a therapist for Tammy. She has to have been traumatized by all this.”

Dale fixed him with that no-nonsense, lawyer glare of his. “Royce, did Tammy see her mother push you? Is that what this is all about?”

“No. And even if she had, I wouldn’t let anyone badger her about it. She needs to talk to someone she can trust, someone neutral. I mean it, Dale, someone neutral. This isn’t part of the case. This isn’t discovery. This is my daughter. She needs help.”

Dale straightened and nodded. “Right. Sorry. I’ll get on it as soon as I leave here. You know, though, that Pamela’s going to fight us on it.”

Royce nodded wearily. “I’m going to ask my doctor and the kid’s pediatrician to recommend it.”

“That’ll help,” Dale said doubtfully.

The door swung open then, and Nurse Gage walked through bearing a green plastic tray. “Dinner.”

Despite his fatigue, Royce’s stomach rumbled and he smiled. “I think I’m hungry enough even for hospital food.”

“I didn’t know anyone got that hungry,” Dale quipped as the nurse slid the tray onto the bed table.

Apparently unamused, she pointed a finger at Dale and said bluntly, “You have been here long enough. He needs to eat, take his medicine and rest.”

Dale’s thin brows arched. With an amused glance at Royce he stood and threw his shoulders back, emphasizing his height. Executing a smart salute, he winked at the diminutive Nurse Gage. “Aye, aye, sarge.”

She barely spared him a glance as she elbowed him aside, lowered the bedside rail and rolled the table into place, positioning it over Royce’s lap. Royce chuckled. “Thanks for coming by, Dale.”

Defeated, Dale started toward the door, saying cheerily, “I’ll be back this evening.”

“See you then.”

Nurse Gage bent to depress the button that lifted the head of the bed. When his body was adequately contorted, semi-sitting with leg suspended and right arm propped on a stack of pillows, she shook out a thin paper napkin and tucked it into the too-high neck of his hated hospital gown. “Now, then,” she said briskly, “let’s get you fed.”

She lifted the domed cover off his plate, revealing grayish meat and limp, overdone vegetables. Taking knife and fork in hand, she began cutting up the meat. He wondered, with some amusement, right up to the moment she placed the fork in his left hand, if she was actually going to feed him.

Ping, ping, ping, ping.

Glancing at the alarm board, Merrily shrugged into the roomy lab coat she preferred to wear over her simple scrubs. Room 18, Royce Lawler. Lydia Joiner, the charge nurse, groaned.

“Not again.”

“What’s wrong?” Merrily asked, checking her voluminous pockets.

“Eighteen’s on a rampage,” Lydia said, rising from the desk. “Found out he’s got to have surgery again on that leg, and he’s taking it out on the whole nursing staff.”

“I’ll go,” Merrily said, aware that she didn’t have to, since she was early for her shift.

Lydia inclined her head appreciatively. “Thanks, kid.”

Kid. Always the kid. Lydia was no more than three years her senior, but due to her appearance, Merrily was “the kid.” Sighing with resignation, Merrily moved toward Royce’s room. The alarm board ping-ping-pinged again as she pushed through the heavy door.

“Thank God!” Royce Lawler exclaimed, tossing the bell remote into his lap. “It’s about time somebody with some sense showed up around here. Where the hell have you been?”

Merrily tamped down a surge of gratification at his greeting. “I just came on shift.”

“They’ve moved the damned phone again. Every time they come, they shove that table aside and leave it that way, then I can’t reach the phone!”

Merrily pulled the table closer to the left side of the bed and shifted the telephone to the far right edge, within reach. “How’s that?”

He dropped his head back onto his pillow. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“The problem,” she explained, squeezing behind the table to check his IV output, “is that the IV poles are fixed to the head of your bed. I’ll see if I can’t get a rolling pole in here and place it in front of the table.”

“Why didn’t they do that to begin with?” he grumbled.

Merrily bit her lip to quell a smile. “Because you are not ambulatory,” she explained patiently.

“And I’m not likely to be anytime soon,” he complained. “They’re going to put a metal rod in my leg. I won’t even be able to go through the metal detector at the airport!”

She laughed. She just couldn’t help it. He glared at her, but then the furrow in his brow eased and his mouth curved into a wry smile.

“Okay, okay. So it’s not that bad. And don’t you dare say that I did it to myself. My mother has already pointed that fact out to me—not that I wasn’t already aware of it.”

“I understand,” she said. “When did they remove the fingertip monitor?”

“They didn’t. I did,” he declared flatly.

“I see.” She checked his pulse with her fingers. He lay still and quiet as she counted the beats and marked time on her wristwatch. As she retrieved his chart to make the proper notation on it, he lifted his head from the pillow to watch.

“You aren’t going to scold me?”

She didn’t look up from the chart. “Would it help?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. But after a moment he asked bluntly, “How old are you?”

The clipboard bearing his chart fell to her side. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you have to be older than you look.”

She squared her shoulders beneath the crisp white lab coat, trying to conceal how sensitive the subject was. “I’m twenty-six.”

“Holy cow! I’d have guessed eighteen, twenty, younger before I got to know you.”

Chagrined, Merrily snapped, “What makes you think you know me?”

He shrugged his left shoulder and fell back on the pillow. “I know you’re the only one around here with an ounce of compassion. First they tell me to rest, then they keep me up all night with tests. What kind of sense does that make?”

“Fiscal,” Merrily answered succinctly. “The hospital labs are so busy with outpatient procedures during the day that they have little choice but to conduct inpatient tests at night. Hospitalized patients, after all, aren’t going anywhere.”

“Tell me about it,” he mumbled. Then suddenly he announced, “I’m hungry.”

Merrily folded her arms. She’d noticed the “no intake” sign on his doorside clip. “What time is your surgery scheduled for?”

He looked at the ceiling. “Three.”

“Tell me what you want for dinner, and I’ll make sure it’s here when you get back.” She didn’t have to tell him that it was the best she could do.

Sighing richly he seemed to consider, then his eyes narrowed and he said, “Pizza with chicken and shrimp, pesto sauce, black olives, pineapple and mozzarella.” He lifted his head to see how she’d taken that.

Smiling because she knew he thought he’d stumped her, she said, “Number six, Riccotini’s. There’s one around the corner. I’m having the salmon and sun-dried tomatoes myself.”

“Number nine,” he said, tussling with a grin.

“Anything else I can get you? Orange iced tea, maybe?”

“Mmm. About a gallon ought to do it.”

“A number six with a large orange iced tea.”

“And turtle cheesecake.”

“And turtle cheesecake,” she echoed. Chuckling, she headed for the door.

“Wait.” He waved her back toward the bed and indicated the bedside table with a nod of his head. “In the drawer.”

She opened the drawer to find his wallet. “Oh, don’t worry about that.” Ignoring that, he groped the drawer blindly with his left hand until he found the wallet. Flipping it open, he laid it in his lap and extracted a twenty-dollar bill.

“Dinner’s on me,” he said, thrusting the money toward her.

“Oh, no, that’s all right. I was planning on going out, anyway.”

A grin spread across his face. “So? What’s your name? Given name, I mean.”

“Merrily.”

The grin spread wider. “Well, Merrily, I insist on buying your dinner, since you volunteered to pick up mine. No arguments, now. It’s the least I can do.”

Suddenly he stuffed the bill into the breast pocket of her lab coat. Electricity flashed through her, so strong that she stumbled backward a step—and into the corner of the bedside table, rocking it enough to send the telephone sliding toward the floor. She grabbed for it at the same time he did, and while they managed to keep the phone from falling, their arms became entwined. Her gaze collided with his and stuck.

For a moment the world and everything in it stopped. The second hand on the clock of time froze as they stared into each other’s eyes. Then, slowly, he blinked and carefully extracted his arm from the loop of hers. Sinking back onto the pillow, he cleared his throat. Merrily settled the phone.

“What, uh, what time do you think I might get to enjoy that dinner?” he asked, his voice thick.

She tried to keep her tone level, normal. “Best guess, around eight.”

He grimaced and covered his eyes with his hand. “I trust you’ll still be on duty then.”

“Until ten,” she confirmed.

He said, “Good.”

Good. She tried very hard not to let that please her in any personal fashion.

“I’ll, um, be in later to perform the preop.”

He let his hand fall to his side. “Sure. Better you than Nurse Disjointer.”

Merrily ducked her head to hide her smile as she fled the room.

Katherine Lawler lifted her patrician chin and sniffed, silver hair swinging against her nape. “All I said is that it’s a pity he can’t sue himself.”

“That’s what’s wrong with this country!” Marvin, her husband and Royce’s father, proclaimed. “Everyone’s sue happy. Let the blasted insurance pay for it. That’s what it’s for. Not that it isn’t his own fault. He built the damned stairs.”

Royce groaned, wondering desperately where Merrily was with that pizza. He hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of her since he’d returned to his room nearly an hour ago. The piteous sound elicited not a glimmer from his parents.

“You sued your own partners,” Katherine pointed out.

“That was different! I had to get an accurate accounting, didn’t I?”

“You already had an accurate accounting.”

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