His Private Nurse (11 page)

“No!” Merrily exclaimed, dropping down to her knees
in front of him. “No, he's not,” she reiterated more calmly. “Your daddy fell down some stairs and broke a bone in his leg and another one in his arm, but the doctor has fixed them, and soon they'll be all healed. He'll be good as new, able to take care of you again and play with you and go places.” She sank into a sitting position, cupped his precious face in her hands and smiled, promising, “He's going to be just fine. You're all going to be just fine.”

“No,” Tammy refuted dully, her voice little more than a whisper. “No, we won't.”

Dismayed, Merrily stared up at the girl, uncertain what to do or say next, but then Cory crawled into her lap and opened the book. Merrily blinked at this oddly normal thing, but he was a little boy, after all, and little boys, indeed, most children, liked to be read to. Reaching up, she snagged Tammy's hand and pulled her, unresisting, down beside them.

“It may not seem like it now,” she said in as normal a tone as she could manage, “but I promise you that everything's going to work out.” With that she opened the book and began to read aloud, ignoring the chaos around them.

They had finished the book and moved into Cory's room to choose another when Dale appeared in the doorway. He gave Merrily a direct look clearly stating that he'd seen the disarray in Tammy's room and was as troubled by it as she, but then he smiled benignly and addressed the children in a calm, measured voice.

“I'd like you to come with me, kids. Say thank you to Nurse Gage.”

Tammy, who had plopped down on the foot of Cory's bed only a moment earlier, reluctantly flung herself back up onto her feet and trudged to the door. Cory just smiled
and turned away from the squat bookcase in front of which Merrily knelt. “Thank you,” he said shyly.

“You're welcome, Cory,” she replied, rising to her feet. “Maybe we can have another story sometime soon.”

Tammy looked over her shoulder, her face solemn, but Merrily thought she recognized a question in the way the girl dropped her chin. With a smile and a nod, Merrily hoped to convey that she would put the wrecked room to rights at the first opportunity. Apparently satisfied, Tammy allowed Dale to usher her and Cory from the room. Merrily hesitated a moment, then followed, her thoughts turning once more to Royce.

When she reached the den, Pamela was nowhere in sight, and Royce was embracing his son while perched as before on the arm of the recliner. “I'm so glad you came,” she heard him say. “In a few weeks, we'll go golfing. How would that be?”

Held against his father's chest, Cory nodded. “Yeah, we'll go golf the clown,” he said, “a-and I'll knock it right in his mouf.” For emphasis, he pointed into his own mouth.

Royce chuckled. “I'll just bet you putt that golf ball right into the clown's mouth.”

“Yeah, and ring the bell,” Cory added, warming to the subject, “'cause I'm a good golfer.”

“You sure are.”

“I get the wellow ball,” Cory declared, staking his claim early.

Royce grinned ear to ear. “You get the yellow,” he agreed, “and I get the blue, and Tammy gets the pink. How's that?”

“Yeah,” Cory said with a satisfied nod.

Royce smiled down into the boy's face and said with deep feeling, “I love you, son.”

Cory wrapped his arms around his father's neck and replied in kind. “I love you, Daddy.”

For a long moment Royce simply hugged Cory close. Then he set the child on his feet and turned his attention to Tammy, who had stared at the floor throughout his interaction with Cory. Royce inhaled through his nose and said gently, “Tammy, will you talk to me now?”

The girl blinked but said nothing, her chin set at a mulish angle. “I like your pants,” he went on, indicating the pink flowered leggings that she wore with orange sandals and top.

Tammy looked at Merrily then as if to say that it was hopeless, but she spoke not a word to her father. Merrily wanted desperately to reach out to them both, but she was acutely aware that she had no right to interfere. Seemingly of a like mind, Dale folded his arms and bowed his head. Royce lifted a hand entreatingly.

“Won't you at least give me a hug, honey? I've missed you so much.”

Tammy turned her head away. Royce sighed.

“I can't force you to talk to me,” he said with resignation, “but I know you hear me, Tammy, so listen carefully. Whatever you may think, I do love you.”

The girl wheeled suddenly and stalked toward the door. “I love you, Tammy,” Royce called after her, “and I always will. Nothing can change that. Do you understand? I'll always love you, no matter what.”

The girl halted, and when she glanced up, Merrily saw that tears stood in her eyes. She didn't turn around, and for whatever reason clearly didn't mean her father to hear the words she whispered brokenly, but Merrily heard. “I love you, too, Daddy.” Then Tammy ran from the room.

Royce bit his lips and put his head back. It was all
Merrily could do not to go to him then, but she swallowed her own tears and stayed put a moment longer.

Dale cleared his throat, stepped forward and laid a hand on Cory's back, saying, “Time to go, pard. Your mother's waiting in the car.”

“'Bye, Daddy.”

Royce gulped and bent down to kiss the boy. “'Bye, son. Come back soon, okay? And be nice to your sister. She's having a hard time just now.”

“'Kay.”

Royce patted the boy's head and sent him off with a smile. As Cory walked by her, Merrily waved at the boy and received a jaunty wave in return. Dale looked at her and then glanced back at Royce, who had looked away as if unable to bear watching his son's departure.

“We'll see ourselves out,” Dale said softly.

Merrily nodded and stayed where she was until their footsteps receded into the distance. Only then did she walk over to Royce and put a hand on his shoulder. The gaze he turned on her was pure agony. When he reached out, she stepped into the crook of his arm.

“She hates me,” he said, his voice breaking. “That's Pamela's doing, making my daughter hate me.”

“She doesn't hate you,” Merrily told him calmly, stroking his hair. “For some reason she isn't able to say it to your face, but she said it so that I could hear her, and I've no doubt that she meant me to tell you as soon as she was gone.”

“Tell me what?”

“‘I love you, too, Daddy.' Those were her exact words. She looked at me and she whispered those words just before she ran out of the room.”

Royce stared up at her for a long moment, then a trem
ulous smile tilted his mouth. “It's a start,” he said hopefully.

Merrily smiled to comfort him, but she finally understood what he was up against. It was a nightmare. His little girl, though tortured by the need to do so, felt unable to tell her father that she loved him because her mother wouldn't like it. How desperately that child must need her mother's approval, and how unlikely she was ever to receive it! Still, she had found a way to communicate her feelings to Royce. Perhaps Tammy was more like him than Pamela, after all. Perhaps that was their best hope. But it wouldn't be easy for a child so torn, and Royce had to know it.

Merrily slipped her arms about his shoulders. Tears welled up in his bright blue eyes, and he turned his face against her chest and simply wept, his shoulders shaking. It was precisely then that she knew without any doubt how much she loved him. She'd have given anything, her very last breath and all those between then and now, to spare him this pain, this worry for his children. After a moment he pulled himself together, sniffed back the rest of his tears and wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“How can I help them,” he asked raggedly, “when I can't even help myself? My poor Tammy is so torn. Cory can't possibly understand what's going on. And Pamela couldn't care less how difficult it is for them so long as it hurts me.”

Merrily had a hard time fathoming such twisted animosity, but she accepted the existence of it. Just the fact that Pamela had allowed her daughter to know that she would be pleased by the death of her father told Merrily how distorted Pamela's emotions were, but it also said something more, something truly frightening.

“She pushed you, didn't she?”

Royce's head whipped around, a look of dismay on his face. “Why would you ask me that now?”

“Something Tammy said.”

“
What
did Tammy say?” he demanded, his voice taking on a hard edge.

Merrily answered bluntly. “She said that her mother would be happy if you died.” He didn't even blink at that, so Merrily pressed a little harder. “Tammy saw it, didn't she? She saw her mother push you down the stairs.”

“Tammy wouldn't have told you that,” he insisted.

“But it's true, isn't it?”

“I'm not going to discuss this.” Royce bent to pick up the nearest crutch.

“What I don't understand,” Merrily went on doggedly, “is why you don't use this to get them away from her. That's what you want, isn't it, to get your children away from your ex-wife?”

“You're right on both counts,” Royce said cryptically, using the one crutch to drag the other closer. “I want my children safely away from Pamela, and you don't understand.”

“So explain it to me,” she pleaded urgently. “Surely if you told the authorities what happened—”

“Leave it alone, Merrily!” he snapped. “I have my reasons, and they're none of your business.”

Merrily caught her breath. That was putting it pretty baldly. Her concern was unwanted. Biting her lip, she pressed her hands together before managing softly, “I see.”

Royce's face contorted with regret. “I'm sorry.”

“I understand.”

“No, you don't,” he said impatiently.

She abruptly shifted gears. “You're right. I don't understand, but that doesn't matter.”

“Merrily, it's just that I can't… There's so much at stake.”

She couldn't stand there and listen anymore. The shock of her own vulnerability left her momentarily powerless against it. “If you'll excuse me,” she said stiffly, backing away, “I have something to do.”

He bowed his head. She turned, walking away without a backward glance. Quickly she made her way to Tammy's room, intending to clean up before Royce could see the havoc his daughter's emotional outburst had wrought. Instead, she put her back to the door and gulped deep breaths, trying to talk sense to herself.

Well, what had she expected? That he was coming to care for her? Hadn't he tried to warn her that a man with so many problems could not spare the emotional energy to fall in love? She would be foolish in the extreme to think otherwise. Still, she couldn't help what she felt. She loved Royce Lawler and wanted to help him. If she could have, she'd fold him and his children into a warm embrace and magically make it all better. She'd shake Pamela until the marbles all lined up correctly inside her head, until the woman could see what harm she was doing to those she should most want to protect.

At that moment Merrily would have given anything to fix what was broken in that family. In the end, however, all she could do was pick up the evidence of Tammy's distress. She began to methodically reverse the physical damage that Tammy had done to her room, painfully aware that it was the only service she was allowed to perform for this man she had come to love.

S
he refilled his coffee cup without being asked, then retreated behind the kitchen counter. Sometimes it was as if she read his mind, knowing what he wanted or needed almost the moment he became aware of it himself and often even before. He wished that she knew what he was thinking and feeling now; it would be so much easier than having to speak of it. Yet, he owed her the words—and more.

He had seen the ruined poster she had stuffed into the kitchen trash can the evening before and the freshly pressed curtains that now hung in his daughter's room. He knew what Tammy had done and that Merrily had tried to spare him that knowledge. She was the most loving, giving person he had ever met, his Nurse Gage, and he had hurt her with words of careless desperation. The least he could give her now was as much of the truth as possible.

She had been more or less silent since the previous afternoon, speaking only when it was required of her in that gentle, even tone that had so comforted him early in his convalescence. He recognized the pained empathy in it now, as if she actually took on the hurts of her patients. It shamed him in ways. How long had it been since he'd felt empathy for someone else's troubles? When was the last time he'd been able to look beyond his own concerns and distress?

Picking up his fork, he made another attempt at the scrambled eggs. He was getting pretty good with his left hand. By the time the doctor removed the cast on his right, he was going to be nearly ambidextrous. After forcing down a few more bites, he placed the fork on the edge of the plate and sat back, coffee cup in hand. As expected, Merrily arrived moments later to take away the plate. Quickly he set down his cup and placed his hand over her wrist, stalling her.

“Can we talk, please?”

She slid free of him, tucking her hands behind her back defensively. For a moment he thought she would refuse, but then she nodded and pulled out a chair. After carefully positioning herself on the seat, she folded her hands in her lap, tucked her feet up under the chair and said, “Go ahead.”

“I'm sorry about yesterday.”

“No need to apologize. It was out of your control.”

“I mean about what I said to you, or rather, the way I said it.”

She looked away from him. “Ah. Don't trouble yourself about it. I understand.” She could not, of course, understand, and he could only do so much to help her, but what he could do, he would.

“Pamela's narcissism makes it difficult, if not impos
sible, for those around her to carry on with anything resembling a normal life. She needs to be adored. That was my job, to adore her, no matter what she did or what she said. If she spent every cent we had on something frivolous and impulsive, I was to go on adoring her, even if the bills went unpaid. And when the collectors began calling, I was never, ever to blame her and to somehow make them go away without spending more time at work. She needs what she needs, after all, and her needs are all that should matter.”

“Not very realistic,” Merrily agreed, “but you really don't have to explain all this to me. I saw for myself yesterday how she is.”

“Oh, she was on good behavior yesterday. Trust me. What Tammy did, tearing up her room like that, it's the kind of thing her mother has always done.”

Merrily dropped her gaze. “I hoped you wouldn't know what Tammy had done. I don't think it was meant to hurt you. My sense is that it was a product of her frustration.”

He leaned forward and slipped his left hand into the cradle of Merrily's clasped ones. “You were trying to protect me,” he said. “I appreciate that, but honestly, angel, I expected something like that, given all that Tammy's going through right now. That's what her mother's taught her, after all, if only by example. It's nothing for Pamela to destroy things, precious things. She once burned the kids' baby books because I refused to buy her a sable coat.”

Merrily looked up at that, obviously aghast. “Not the ones that record all those important little milestones.”

He squeezed her hands. “Baby photos and all.”

“How could she?”

He smiled wanly. “I'd managed to borrow the money to start my business. I saw that as something I was doing
for us. She saw only that she wasn't getting any of the money for her needs, so she demanded the coat. When I refused to buy it, she destroyed something that she knew I prized highly, and in her mind it was completely justified.”

“That's so sick.”

He nodded. “Yes, that's exactly what it is. I tried everything with her, Merrily. Nothing seemed to make any difference. We'd see marriage counselors, and Pam would weep and confess that she hated me at times because I couldn't love her like she needed to be loved. Sometimes the counselor would try to help me prove my love, but that never worked because Pamela's need is irrational. Others saw how disturbed she is and tried to address that, but Pam would claim they were unfair and mean and refuse to continue the counseling. Her coping mechanisms were always unhealthy. She took pills, went off on grand vacations and shopping jags, created one dramatic scene after another, destroyed whole rooms. But the worst was when she started hitting me.”

“Oh, Royce.”

“I didn't dare hit her back. Dale warned me early on that the courts are naturally biased in favor of women when it comes to domestic violence and that she could use any physical move I made against her, even if it was defensive, to have me arrested. You can't know what it's like for a man to show up at work with a split lip or a black eye courtesy of his wife. I used to lie about having accidents, even getting into brawls.”

Alarm sparked in Merrily's soft green eyes. She grasped his hand in both of hers. “Royce, you must realize how dangerous she is.”

“Yes, I know, but try proving it in court.”

Merrily bit her lip, and he could almost see the wheels
of her mind turning. “Surely Tammy could tell them how her mother behaves.”

Royce took his hand away and squared his shoulders. “I will not ask my children to testify against their mother, especially not Tammy. You have no idea how hard that child has worked to please her mother, how desperate she is for some little show of love and acceptance from Pamela.”

“But her mother isn't worthy of that kind of effort.”

“I know that, but I hope you don't expect me to tell that to my daughter.”

“Someone has to.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Oh, really? Are you going to be the one to tell Tammy that her mother is a lunatic who doesn't deserve her love? Maybe you can find the words to convince her that she can't fix her mom, that she shouldn't love her own mother. God knows I've tried. But I've also been in Tammy's place, striving every waking moment to please parents who can't be pleased.”

Merrily closed her eyes and shook her head. “You're right. It wouldn't be fair to Tammy.”

Royce sighed. “At least my folks didn't intentionally set out to hurt me. They're just misguided enough to think that never being pleased is how you make high achievers of your children. Pamela, on the other hand, is vicious. I'm convinced she would destroy our daughter and son just to hurt me if it wouldn't also deprive her of her two greatest weapons against me.”

Merrily exhaled strongly. “You must be terrified that they're with her.”

“Every moment. I'd never have filed for divorce if I hadn't believed the courts would give me full custody, but Pam can seem perfectly normal—downright charming, in fact, when she wants—and I unfortunately drew a
judge extremely biased in favor of women. It didn't matter that Pamela was the one caught in adultery, a fact the kids don't know, by the way, because they're too young to understand what that means to a marriage.”

“Of course,” Merrily murmured, “and if you told them, you could easily be made to appear the villain.”

His shoulders slumped with the weight of his helplessness. “Pamela's managed to do that, anyway. The worst of what transpired between us went on behind closed doors. I tried to protect the kids from as much of it as I could. So it came down to my word against hers in court.”

“And she was more convincing.”

He nodded morosely and admitted, “When it counted most, I was the one to lose my cool while she calmly lied, batted her pretty eyelashes, and walked away with my kids.”

Merrily covered his hand with her own. “I'm so sorry.”

“Thanks, but you couldn't be as sorry as I am. That's why my whole life to this point has been about getting my children away from her.”

“But, Royce, if she pushed you,” Merrily began urgently.

He cut her off. “She didn't.”

Merrily's eyes widened, and in them he saw her struggle to reconcile this assertion with everything else she knew. “You're protecting her for Tammy's sake.”

“No. She didn't push me.”

“Then what happened? You just fell?”

He looked her straight in the eyes. “It doesn't matter how it happened. What matters is that Tammy saved my life, and she feels guilty for that because she knows that her mother would prefer to see me dead. Pamela truly believes that I deserve to die because I couldn't make her
happy. In her mind it was my fault that she was forced to look to another man for what she needed. Therefore, I had no right to divorce her, not pay her bills, not let her take out her frustrations on me. She's painted me as the villain of the piece, and though Cory's still too young to really get it, Tammy does, and you can see what it's doing to her.”

Merrily's face twisted in sympathy. “That poor child.”

“The worst part is that I don't know how to help her,” he admitted. “I don't want to play her mother's game, blaming Pamela for everything, detailing faults and betrayals those kids are too young to hear about. Worst of all, I can't seem to love my daughter enough to make up for her mother's lack of love.”

“What are you going to do?”

He shrugged. “Wait for Pamela to destroy herself, expose her twisted hatred to someone in authority. It's the only way I can see, and it
has
started. Her nanny
did
testify for us, which is how we got the kids here this time.”

“But it wasn't enough to get you custody.”

He shook his head. “I'm realistic, Merrily. I have to be. It could take years. Or it might never happen, because Pamela's smart enough not to make the same mistake twice. She knows just how far she can go and how best to take advantage of a situation. That's how she managed to keep the kids away from me for so long. She's been telling everyone that it's just too traumatic for the kids to see me like this, and my insisting that they visit makes me look like the insensitive one.”

“It's so unfair,” Merrily whispered.

“Yes, it is,” he agreed sadly, “but now you must realize why I can't bring anyone else into this crazy equation. Anyone I care about is another way she can get at
me.” He lifted his right hand. “That's why you have to go as soon as this cast comes off and I can better fend for myself.”

Merrily lifted her chin pugnaciously. “Isn't that my decision to make?”

“No. And if it was I still wouldn't let you make it, because I do care, Merrily, and that's dangerous for both of us.”

She regarded him solemnly for a long time. Then she simply got up and carried his plate back to the kitchen. He watched her scrape the leftovers into the disposal, rinse the plate and bend to place it in the dishwasher rack, then fill the teapot and set it on the burner. She went to the pantry and returned with the now familiar packet of herbal tea.

“I think I need a cup of something relaxing,” she said, tearing open the packet. “Want some?”

Royce smiled to himself, and if he hadn't been in love with her before, he tumbled headlong into it in that moment. What other woman could make him actually want her damned herbal teas?

“Yes. Thank you,” he said, meaning it with all his heart.

Glancing at the perfectly good cup of coffee going cold at his elbow, he vowed silently that she would never know how deeply and wildly he did care, for if she ever divined his true feelings she would never go because Merrily Gage was the kind of loving, protective, loyal woman who would always stand by her man. He suspected that not being that man could well be the greatest tragedy of his personal life.

 

Merrily lifted her head from the pillow at the
bong
of the doorbell. Who on earth would be stopping by at this
hour? She'd settled down to watch the ten-o'clock news in her room after Royce had decided to make an early night of it. Worry and nervousness had drained him, and she suspected that he had slept no better the previous night than she had. Raw emotions that neither felt able to discuss had shimmered and flashed between them all day, electrifying every touch and loading every word with hidden meaning. Hoping that he slept soundly enough not to be disturbed by the bell, she slipped from the bed and grabbed her robe off the chair on her way to the door.

The bell bonged repeatedly as she hurried through the house, tossing the robe on as she went. When she jerked open the front door, her jaw dropped. Jody, Kyle and Lane stared back at her.

“What on earth?”

Ever the big brother, Jody stepped over the threshold first. “Get your things,” he ordered. “We're getting you out of here.”

“What?” The absurdity of his statement hit Merrily only after Jody strode past her, exposing the scorch mark in the perfect shape of a clothes iron on the back of his sport shirt. She clamped her lips tight, but that only turned the giggles to unattractive snorts. Jody wheeled around.

“It's nothing to laugh about.”

“Yeah,” Lane said, swaggering through the door, “I ditched the guys to come along and rescue you, and you stand there sniggering. What's up with that?”

“R-rescue?” Merrily spluttered.