Patient Nurse (8 page)

The sound of plates on wood lifted his head. He looked down at the softness of Noreen's pretty breast where his mouth had pressed so hungrily, past the thin red scar down her breastbone and up the creamy expanse of skin to her wide, shocked eyes.

She caught at her gown, but his hand stayed it. He looked down at her breast again, fascinated by its firm, soft contours, the creamy blush of it in the stillness of the room.

“The cook's ready to put the food on the table, Doctor!” Miss Plimm called from a room away.

Ramon could hardly breathe normally. His eyes met Noreen's, steady and relentless as he saw and felt and heard her helpless response to him.

He looked down at her once more, his eyes hungry for her nudity. With a groan, he managed to cover her
and stand up, with his back to the bed and the door, apparently staring out the window while he fought the demons of desire that tore at his body. It had been years…

Footsteps came closer. “Doctor?” Miss Plimm called.

“I'll be right there,” he said curtly.

“Yes, sir. Can I bring you anything, Miss Kensington?”

“No, thank you,” Noreen managed to say calmly.

“Well, if you need anything, just you call!”

“Yes, Miss Plimm, thank you,” she replied.

Her body throbbed from head to toe. She couldn't even look at Ramon. She was ashamed of her helplessness, her impotence.

After a minute, he moved back to the bed, and the flash of desire in his eyes made her shiver.

She clutched the sheet close, in pain again from the movement of her body and showing it.

Without a word, he opened the bottle of pain capsules and, holding her hand palm up, shook two into it. He guided it to her lips and then held a glass of water to help her swallow it.

He put the glass away, pulling the cover back up to her waist. His dark, turbulent eyes met her embarrassed ones.

He brushed back a few wispy strands of her hair, his expression grim. His head bent and he brushed a kiss against her forehead.

She tried to speak, but his lean fingers over her mouth stilled the words.

“There are in life a few moments so beautiful,” he whispered, “that even words are a sort of profanity.”

She caught her breath at the look in his eyes, even though what he was saying didn't seem to make sense.

“Go to sleep,” he said gently.

Amazingly her eyes closed, still full of him, her body taut with unfamiliar needs and wants that she had no idea how to fulfill. The pain and shock and weariness slowly took their toll on her. Shortly thereafter, she fell into a deep and profound sleep.

 

She pretended stubbornly that nothing had happened. But Ramon knew everything he needed to know about her earlier behavior now. The old clothes, the camouflage—it wasn't because of some dreadful childhood experience, as he'd first suspected. It was to keep him from knowing how easily he affected her, how desperately vulnerable she was to him. The instant he touched her, her body belonged to him. Now he knew it. And she knew, too.

There was a sort of affectionate arrogance in the way he looked at her, as if he'd already possessed her, and knew every inch of her under her clothing. He wasn't blatant about it, but he knew. She became more uneasy as the days passed, afraid that he was going to do something about it. She was also having more discomfort than ever, soreness and pain in the breastbone, and she couldn't sleep without pain medication. It was a comfort to have Nurse Plimm nearby, not only because she knew what to do when Noreen was in pain, but also because she made a nice buffer between Noreen and Ramon. Despite his tenderness of recent days, Noreen didn't trust him an inch.

Certainly he was sorry that he'd misjudged her reason for leaving Isadora alone, but his grief at his
beloved wife's loss had been very real. And regardless of the contributing factors, Noreen's absence had been the ultimate cause of Isadora's death, even if she couldn't help doing it. Ramon had loved Isadora obsessively. That grief and anger wouldn't vanish in a haze just because Noreen had heart surgery. This was only the calm before the storm. When she was well again, she had little doubt that Ramon would return to his usual, vengeful self, and she wasn't giving him any openings. Weaknesses were dangerous. If she let him see how attracted she was to him, might he not use that attraction to his advantage to avenge the loss of Isadora?

These thoughts and fears led to a withdrawing of herself when Ramon was around, to a visible remoteness and formality. Ramon seemed to expect it. At least, he didn't try to circumvent it.

 

Meanwhile, Ramon worked himself to the point of exhaustion to keep the memories of Noreen in his arms at bay. She was weak and all too vulnerable in her present condition, and a guest in his house. He had no right whatsoever to take advantage of it.

The problem, he mused grimly, was that his feelings for her had been so forcefully repressed over the years that he had to fight now to keep them under control. Not until Noreen's sudden, shocking illness had he really faced what he felt. Even now, it was hard to admit it, if just in the privacy of his own thoughts.

It hadn't taken two months of marriage to Isadora to know that he'd made a mistake. But his honor and pride had forced him to make the best of a relationship sanctioned by the Church. Tradition had chained him to his vows. No one had ever known his true feel
ings, because he'd hidden them so well. He professed lifelong devotion to Isadora, showed the world a true love surpassing the most romantic expectations. But behind the smiles and lies was a cold, lifeless marriage between two totally unsuited people. Isadora's beauty had blinded him to her true nature, which was exactly the opposite of Noreen's.

He sipped coffee with a weariness that was unlike him during an all-too-brief break between surgeries, sitting in the hospital cafeteria. Isadora's death had made him realize how barren their marriage had been. His own guilt about leaving her so often alone had assumed massive proportions then, and it had been convenient to blame Noreen for deserting her cousin. His guilt had fed that blame. Noreen had paid a very high price for Isadora's death. Now it seemed so futile and heartless, to have heaped such cruelties on the head of a sick woman who could easily have died herself that very night.

The Kensingtons were obviously feeling some of the same guilt that he felt over Noreen. He'd had a call from her uncle at his office, which he had yet to return. Noreen hadn't professed any desire to see her aunt and uncle since she'd been released from the hospital, and their request to come and visit her had been turned down abruptly and without explanation. They, like Ramon, wanted to start again. Noreen very obviously didn't.

He finished his coffee and stretched. He wondered exactly how Noreen felt about her friend Brad, who felt comfortable bringing her flowers and sitting with her by the hour. He didn't like the man, and for no logical reason. To admit the cause was jealousy was more than he could bring himself to do.

With a long sigh, he glanced at his watch and grimaced. Back to work, he thought, and was grateful that he had something to occupy his mind. Lately his thoughts were poor companions indeed.

 

It was a surprise to find the Kensingtons waiting at his office when he finished at the hospital. They'd made an appointment, at that.

Noreen's uncle was the first to speak, after they were seated in Ramon's spartan but luxurious office.

“We want to know what we can do for her,” he told Ramon without preamble.

“Yes,” Mary added quietly. “There must be something—the hospital bill, therapy, her lost salary—”

“She won't talk to us,” her uncle continued, interrupting his wife in his haste to get the words out. “But we don't blame her for that, you know. We just want to help. We've been very much at fault,” he added uneasily.

“So have I,” Ramon replied grimly. “All of us so easily put the blame on her. She had a mild heart attack that night, or so her physician thinks,” he continued, having told them this before, but uncertain if they remembered. “He sedated her while she was still trying to make him understand about the condition Isadora was in.” He folded his hands on the desk and stared at its highly polished surface. “She feels guilty even about that, and none of us considered her own feelings in the matter. She cared about Isadora, too. She wasn't allowed to go to the funeral, to be part of the family—even to grieve.”

Mary bit her lower lip to stop the tears, and they were genuine ones. She'd loved her daughter so much
that she'd pushed her niece cruelly aside. It hadn't been easy to look back down the long years and see how all of them, especially Isadora, had made such good use of Noreen without caring about her own wishes or hopes. She'd been neglected shamefully, even her health.

“We didn't know she had a heart condition,” Mary murmured. “We never even bothered to make sure she had a physical before she started college.”

“We didn't care,” Hal said shortly, his face full of self-contempt. “We never cared. She bought me an eel skin wallet for my birthday this year, you remember, Ramon. It must have cost her a week's salary and I couldn't even resist making a joke of that.” He put his head in his hands with a weary sigh. “I feel sick. Just sick. You know, she accused us of coming to see her to stop people from gossiping, and I guess that's how she feels.” He looked up. “But it wasn't that. We were genuinely shocked and sorry about what happened to her. We want to see her. Can't you do something? Talk to her, plead our case? At least, we could help her financially if she needs it.”

Ramon stared at them for a moment. “Let me think about it for a few days,” he said solemnly. “I'll try to find a way. Hopefully, one for all of us.”

B
ut if thinking about a way to approach Noreen was easy, putting the thought into action wasn't. Since Ramon had kissed her, she'd withdrawn into a very thick shell. Miss Plimm noticed Noreen's sudden shyness and apprehension about Ramon, and she'd spoken to him one evening.

“At her age, despite the weakness and pain, she should be picking up better than this,” Nurse Plimm said bluntly. “She's very much on edge. I've noticed that it accelerates when you're around her.”

He sat down in his burgundy leather recliner and leaned back, weary from a long day at the operating table.

“I've noticed it, too,” he replied quietly, motioning her to a seat on the black leather couch across from him. “You're aware that Noreen and I have had our misun
derstandings over the years?” he asked with keen eyes on her face.

She folded her arms. “She said that.”

“It was mostly my fault, for accepting that she left my wife alone in a critical condition and permitted her to die.” He held up his hand when she started to speak. “Please, let me finish. I know now that Noreen was in no way to blame for what happened. I have been very much in the wrong, as have her aunt and uncle, and we acknowledge this. But Noreen has become so remote that we find it impossible to approach her.” He spread his hands. “We've reached an impasse. None of us knows what to do. I don't blame her for the way she feels, you understand. But we want to make our peace. And she won't let us.”

“She's still in a good deal of pain,” Nurse Plimm replied, “and you know, yourself, sir, that a period of confusion often follows such radical surgery.”

“I know it,” he agreed. “It's just that I've never experienced it on such a personal basis.”

“She needs time to adjust,” she continued. “That's all. Be patient.”

“That isn't one of my better qualities, I'm afraid, except in surgery,” he replied with a faint smile. “But I'll try.”

She got up from her chair. “And by the way, sir, I've told Mr. Donaldson not to bring any more flowers,” she added. “It isn't healthy, especially not just after surgery. He should know that.”

His eyes narrowed. “He's been back recently to see her?”

Now she really looked uncomfortable. “He comes
every other afternoon, sir,” she replied. “I thought you knew.”

He dismissed her and sat brooding, with eyes like black steel in a drawn face. No, he hadn't known about Brad's visits. It angered him that the man kept coming here. Noreen was his business now, not Donaldson's. Well, he'd arrange to be at home the next time Noreen's caller arrived, and he'd put the man straight about visiting!

It never once occurred to him that he was being unreasonable. Not until he opened the door to Donaldson the following Friday and told him that Noreen wasn't up to so many visits just yet.

“Why?” Donaldson asked shortly.

The older man just stared at him. He was actually speechless, because there wasn't really a good reason for his objection to Donaldson's visits.

“I'm careful not to tire her,” Donaldson continued, trying to placate Ramon, who looked formidable with his black eyes flashing. “I know how frail she is.”

Frail.
Yes, she was frail, Ramon thought, almost fragile. She'd been that way for a long time, but her independence and spirit had blinded him to it.

He leaned against the door frame wearily. “She's not healing as quickly as I expected her to,” he said after a minute. “She doesn't sleep at night, despite the pain medication, and she's constantly restless.”

Donaldson's chin lifted. “Perhaps it's the environment,” he said, and added, “not that you can help the way you feel, sir, I realize that. But even hidden hostility certainly doesn't help. She's tense all the time now.”

That was a blow, but Ramon had the grace to accept it without exploding. He'd been hostile to Noreen for
so long that everyone around him knew how he'd felt about her. Now, he'd installed her in his apartment and he expected her to warm to him immediately. In fact, he was resentful because she hadn't. He must have been out of his mind to expect so much, despite the fact that she'd melted in his arms. Even that might have seemed like a threat to her, an underhanded way to play on her vulnerability and hurt her. He wouldn't do that now, but she wouldn't know it. He was the biggest obstacle in her recovery. Amazing, he thought, that it had taken an outsider to point the fact out to him.

He stood aside. “Talk to her,” he said unexpectedly. “See if she'd rather go back to her apartment. Miss Plimm can go with her, and she'll have any other help she needs.”

“That's decent of you, sir,” Donaldson said, surprised.

Ramon's dark eyebrows arched expressively. “Have I shocked you, Donaldson?”

The younger man shifted nervously. “Everyone knows how much you dislike Noreen.”

He nodded toward Noreen's bedroom and went back to his study, closing the door quietly. But he was far too preoccupied to do any work.

 

Brad grinned around the door at Noreen, who brightened a little when she saw him.

“Down in the dumps again?” he teased, closing the door until it was barely cracked. His expression cleared at once. He sat down beside her on the bed. “Dr. Cortero just said that if you want to, you can go back to your apartment now. He'll send Miss Plimm with you, and you can have any help you need.”

Her breath escaped in a rush. It was a relief. Such
a relief. Being near Ramon was torture. “When?” she asked immediately.

“As soon as you like, I gather. He told me to mention it to you.” He touched her hair gently. “You don't like it here, do you?”

She shook her head, lowering her eyes to his chin. “He's been very kind,” she said, “but I'd like to be at home, with familiar things around me. I'm sure that I get in his way, even though he's careful not to let it show. He can't even have…people…in while I'm lying around.”

“People?”

She shrugged. “Women,” she murmured.

“That would be one for the books,” he replied. “Not even the notorious grapevine can find one single bit of gossip about him. He doesn't go out with anyone. I suppose he's still mourning his wife.”

“Yes,” she said, and the thought hurt. “He was obsessed with Isadora. They had to drag him away from the coffin at the graveside service.” She didn't like remembering that.

“He must have loved her very much.”

“More than his life. That's why he hates me so much. I suppose he's not as judgmental as he was, not since this happened to me. But the fact is, he left me in charge of her welfare and I let her die.” Her eyes were haunted as she looked up at him. “I loved her, too,” she said gruffly. “Even if none of them thought so. She could be kind, when she wanted to. She couldn't help the way she was. Everyone spoiled her because she was so pretty—even me.”

“Beauty is skin deep,” he said coolly. “It doesn't have
a thing to do with a person's character. I'd take you, any day, if I were free.”

She smiled gently. “Thanks.”

He patted her hand. “You never date, either,” he murmured. “Are you eating your heart out, figuratively speaking, for someone you can't have, too?”

She didn't want to answer that. She had to harden her resolve. Ramon was willing to let her leave, so apparently he was getting tired of her presence in the apartment. It must be torment to him, a constant reminder of Isadora. She refused to dwell on those kisses. Probably he'd been lonely so long that any female, in whatever condition, would have evoked the same response from him.

She lay back against the pillows. She'd have to let Miss Plimm come with her, and somehow she'd have to manage her salary. But she would.

“Ask him,” she said finally, “when I can leave.”

 

Ramon's face didn't betray a single trace of emotion when Brad put the question to him.

“I'll make the arrangements,” he said, showing Brad to the door. “I'll tell her. The sooner the better.”

Brad nodded. “Thanks. I really believe she'll get back on her feet sooner if she's in familiar surroundings. No matter how cushy someone else's place is, it's never home.”

“So I see.” Ramon closed the door behind Brad and hesitated before he went into Noreen's bedroom. She was sitting very stiffly against the pillows, her hands folded tightly in her lap. Miss Plimm had gone out to lunch and was taking a few hours off afterward to do her banking and shopping, since it was Friday.

“You can go in the morning if you like,” he told her without preamble. “I'll speak to Miss Plimm when she returns. There's just one thing,” he added, nodding toward the kitten curled up at her feet on the coverlet. “You can't take Mosquito with you.”

“I know that,” she said sadly. She'd grown attached to the tiny thing. But rules were rules, and she couldn't hide the cat if the owner and his wife were coming in and out of the apartment—which they would, being the kind of people who did whatever they could for the sick.

“I'll take good care of her,” Ramon added.

She nodded.

He made an irritated sound. “Look here, why don't you want to stay? You've got everything you need at hand. Donaldson visits all the time. Why are you so anxious to go home to that lonely apartment?”

She looked up at him with a drawn, weary face. “Because it's mine,” she said. “It's all I have.”

He felt that right down to his shoes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I live alone,” she said. “I like living alone. I'm uncomfortable around people.”

“Around me, you mean.”

Her jaw tautened. “Yes.”

He moved closer to the bed. His dark eyes probed her face. “I make you uncomfortable.”

Her eyes darted away. Her heart was racing wildly, betraying her excitement.

“Talk to me,” he said sharply.

Her hands gripped each other as if her life depended on it. She clenched her teeth. She wouldn't look at him at all.

He rammed his hands into his pockets to keep from
grabbing her. As always, she aroused fierce emotions in him. But now he was less armored against them than usual.

“It isn't that I don't appreciate all you've done for me,” she said after a minute. “I'm very grateful. You saved my life. You certainly didn't have to sacrifice your privacy on my behalf, as well.”

“My privacy, as you put it, is a very lonely one,” he said, surprising her into looking up at his lean, handsome face. “I don't entertain. I thought you knew.”

“But…you always used to,” she began.

“When Isadora was alive,” he agreed. He searched her drawn face quietly. “Isadora had parties. She couldn't live unless she was surrounded by people and music. I spent more and more time at my office, because I never had the solitude to review my medical journals or prepare papers here. She resented my work, almost from the beginning of our lives together. She wanted me to give it up, did you know?”

She shook her head. “It would have been a pity if you had,” she said. “You're the best in your field. Didn't she know how many lives you've saved?”

“She didn't care,” he said simply. “Isadora's only real interest was Isadora. That's what happens to many spoiled children. They grow up with no compassion for others, only concerned with their wants, their needs. Then they marry and have families and they aren't equipped to deal with the self-sacrifice. Eventually, they fall apart. Just as Isadora did.”

“She always seemed very happy,” she told him. “So did you.”

“Oh, one puts on a public face, so as not to admit one's failings,” he mused. “We were the picture of the
ideal happy couple, yes? And underneath was Isadora's jealousy and discontent, and growing dependence on alcohol and parties to get her through the long, lonely days and nights.”

He'd never spoken in such a way. She gaped at him, totally without the capacity to interrupt.

“It wasn't enough for her to love. She had to own. Possess. But she was cold inside. She had nothing to give except her beauty and the shallow affection behind it.” He sighed, staring at Noreen quietly. “In bed, she was the coldest human being I ever knew. She only wanted it over with, and she was obsessed with contraception.”

“But she said that you didn't want children,” she blurted out.

“I wanted them, all right.”

She knew what he meant, suddenly, instinctively. There was something in his passionate nature that adored children, wanted them, valued them. But she hadn't known, because Ramon had never spoken of these things to her before.

“I've gone hungry for a woman's passion,” he said gently. “I've been starved of it. That's why I lost control with you. The novelty of a woman's willing mouth and clinging arms was almost too much for me. I'd never known it, you see. Isadora wanted my fame and my wealth and my name. But she never wanted me.”

“She adored you,” she protested.

“She adored my money,” he said with a cynical laugh. “And what it could buy her. Do you know, she'd had a lover before me? And she didn't give him up, just because she was married. She had the same lover when she died. She wanted to go to Paris with me because she
knew he was going to be there. She warned me that if I made her stay at home, she'd do something to get even with me.” His eyes were full of bitterness as he spoke of it. “She did, too. She got even in the basest way she could. She died, and left me with the guilt of responsibility for it.”

“You blamed me,” she began.

“I blamed myself,” he said angrily. “I still do. Blaming you was the only way I could live with it, for a long time.” He searched her face with dark, solemn eyes. “As if you could let anyone or anything die,” he scoffed, “with that tenderness in you that makes me curse myself for all the harsh words and accusations I've thrown at you in the past.” He drew in a harsh breath. “You did nothing except show me what Isadora was. Worse, you showed me what she wasn't.”