Blind Promises

by Diana Palmer

  “No, that’s the strange thing. No headaches, no blurring, no nothing. But he won’t talk about that.”

  Dana sighed. “No, I don’t suppose he likes remembering it.”

  “Why don’t you come down for the weekend?” Lorraine asked.

  Dana felt her pulse go sky high. “I don’t think—”

  “That’s right, dear, don’t think. Just come. You might consider going to see Dr. Shane while you’re about it—and mention that you’re going to be nursing Gannon and ask about procedure.”

  Dana gasped. “That would be highly unethical…” she began.

  “Of course it would,” Lorraine agreed. “But it would get the truth out of him. I’ll take full responsibility. I’ve got to know, Dana, I’ve got to!”

  She paused, hanging on to the receiver as if it were a lifejacket. “Well…” she began, her heart racing.

  “Be daring,” Lorraine taunted. “Don’t you want to know what he’s hiding? Dana, he loves you!”

  Her eyes closed at the sound of those words. He loves you. Heaven knew, she loved him—desperately! God forgive me, she murmured silently.

  “I’ll be there in the morning, after I get through at Dr. Shane’s. Could you…sort of call him and pave the way?”

  Lorraine laughed softly. “My dear, I’d be delighted. I won’t tell Gannon, but I’ll make sure he doesn’t leave the house. Have a safe trip, darling.”

  “See you soon,” she replied, and hung up. She was doing the right thing. But if Gannon was hiding something, she had to know what it was. She couldn’t let him throw away their happiness without a sound reason. And nothing would be sound enough if it kept her from him—not now, when she knew how horrible life was going to be without him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dana had anticipated some problems getting days off to go to the coast, but Mrs. Pibbs waved her off with a rare smile.

  “The hospital will run as usual without you, Nurse,” she said smoothly.

  “How can I thank you…?” Dana began.

  “Be happy,” came the reply, sincerely. “Let me know how things work out.”

  Dana frowned slightly. “Have you been talking to Mrs. van der Vere by any chance?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Now, why in the world should you think that?” Mrs. Pibbs asked tartly. “Run along and catch your bus, Dana, I’m a busy woman. Have a nice time.”

  “Thank you,” Dana murmured, pausing at the door. “Are you sure…?”

  “I’m sure. Goodbye, have a good trip.”

  She was suspicious about that pleasant grin, but she waved and closed the door behind her.

  The hospital was crowded when she reached the coast, and she had to wait an hour before she was allowed in to see Dr. Shane.

  He looked harassed and not a little irritable, but he waved her into a chair and sat down heavily.

  “At last,” he muttered, “a chance to breathe. I understand from Lorraine that you’re back to nurse Gannon? God knows why, nothing’s going to change regardless of your nursing skill, but who am I to argue with him? I never get anywhere at all.”

  Dana almost grinned but caught herself in time. She folded her hands in the lap of her green shift with its pale green belt, feeling the nails bite into her palms.

  “Exactly what is his situation, Dr. Shane?” she asked with forced calm.

  He pursed his lips, studying her under a frown. “Lorraine assured me that you were here with Gannon’s permission,” he observed. “You do realize that if that weren’t the case, I’d be breaching his confidence and my oath as well?”

  She swallowed. “Yes, sir,” she said. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell the truth, to be honest, but something kept her quiet and still.

  He shrugged. “Very well, I’ll have to take Lorraine’s word for it. I wasn’t even aware that he’d told her. But then, he’s a strange man at times.” He pulled a file toward him and opened it. “You know that the shrapnel is inoperable?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, which was the truth. She sat stiffly, waiting.

  “Well, nothing’s changed there. The fall was a stroke of good luck, because it dislodged the shrapnel and relieved the pressure, returning his vision. However,” he said, leaning back in the chair solemnly, to pin her with his eyes, “he has no guarantee that the same thing won’t happen again and leave him blind.”

  Her heart stopped—stopped and then ran away. “He could become blind again?” she echoed numbly.

  “Of course. There are new advances, you know. Every day we learn more and can do more. But for the present he has to go on living with that sword hanging over him.”

  “If the shrapnel shifts again,” she said slowly, “it could do more than blind him, couldn’t it?”

  He lifted his hands. “As a nurse, you know as well as I do that anything lodged in the brain is a potential time bomb. But there’s nothing medical science can do about it at the present time. I wish that weren’t the case. But I’m afraid it is.”

  “And naturally,” she continued, in what seemed a terribly slow voice, “he wouldn’t want to ask anyone to share that risk with him.”

  “Marriage, you mean,” he nodded. He sighed. “He said almost that same thing himself. I told him he was being absurd, but he wouldn’t listen. Good heavens, Nurse, I could step off a curb and kill myself tomorrow, and there’s nothing lodged in my brain!”

  She managed a wan smile. “How very odd that he wanted to keep it to himself.”

  “Not odd at all. It’s like him.” He closed the file. “Well, that’s all I can tell you, unless you want me to read you the medical terminology. He shouldn’t participate in any daredevil antics, of course, and things like diving and violent sports are out. Otherwise he can lead a fairly normal life.”

  “A sneeze could dislodge it, couldn’t it?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes. Few people outside the medical profession realize how violent a sneeze is.” He watched her pale face with interest. “The best thing is not to dwell on it and not to let him dwell on it. There’s a man in Vienna working on innovations in brain surgery right now; I expect a breakthrough any day. When it comes—and notice I said when, not if—I’ll get in touch with Gannon.”

  She smiled weakly. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “Does Gannon know you’re here?” he asked kindly.

  “If I were here under false pretenses, would I answer that?” she asked, standing.

  “No. So I’d better not ask.” He took her hand. “Blast him out of his prison, girl. No man has the right to sacrifice himself on a gamble. That piece of shrapnel could stay where it is until he’s a hundred and ten years old, for all you or I know.”

  She nodded. “Now all I have to do is convince him of that.” Her eyes darkened. “If I don’t murder him first,” she added coldly.

  He chuckled softly. “Let me know how things work out. I love happy endings.”

  “His may not be so happy,” she muttered, gathering speed as she walked out the door, thanking him again before she went stalking down the hall.

  She took a cab to the beach house, fuming. He was going to spend the rest of his life living alone because of something that might happen. He was going to make her, and himself, miserable and shut her out of his life and deny her even the choice of staying or going. The more she thought about it, the madder she got. By the time she paid the cab and walked to the front door of the beach house, her face was hot with temper.

  Lorraine answered it, and her thin face lit up. She grabbed Dana like a long-lost daughter. “Oh, I was so afraid you’d change your mind, back out. I’m just beside myself that you came anyway!”

  “I’m glad too,” she replied, hugging Lorraine back. “Dr. Shane told me everything. It’s the shrapnel. He could become blind again.”

  The older woman closed her eyes with a sigh. “So that’s it. It explains so much.”

  “Yes, it does. But it doesn’t justify sending me away if he really does care,” she added,
frowning, because she wasn’t sure that he did. She couldn’t be.

  “If you’ll take an old woman’s word,” Lorraine said softly, “I think he does. Very much.”

  Dana sighed, afraid now, because the anger was wearing off and leaving desperation in its place. She could have misread the entire situation. It might be Layn he was sparing, not Dana.

  “Why don’t you walk down to the beach and find him?” Lorraine suggested, her eyes kind. “I think you’ll be able to tell one way or another the minute he sees you. What he feels will be in his face, because he isn’t expecting you and he won’t be prepared.”

  Dana’s heart leaped. “He’s on the beach?”

  Lorraine nodded. “About halfway down, sitting on a log, glowering at the ocean. Go on. Be daring. What have you got to lose?”

  There was the question. She had nothing to lose, because without Gannon there was nothing she minded losing. She pulled her shoulders back and laid her purse down on the hall table.

  “Wish me luck, will you?” she asked the older woman. “I think I may need it.”

  “All the luck in the world, my dear.” Lorraine gave her a push. “Go on. You’ll never know until you face him.”

  “I may see you again very soon.”

  “If you don’t, I won’t wait lunch,” came the dry reply.

  Dana walked through the house and down the back steps with her heart hammering wildly at her throat. She paused at the top of the staircase that led down to the beach, and looked down until her eyes found Gannon.

  His back was to her. He was wearing white slacks and a blue and white patterned tropical shirt, and his head was bowed in the sunlight. He looked so alone, so bitterly alone, that she felt like crying. That gave her the courage she needed to go down the steps and walk along the beach toward him. Her heart was hammering wildly at her throat like a trapped bird trying to be free, while the waves crashed onto the beach and the sun burned down on the white sand.

  Dana’s footsteps were muffled by the sound of the surf as she approached the big blond man sitting on the log. Her breath seemed to catch in her throat. Would he be glad to see her? Or would he just be shocked and annoyed?

  She paused just behind him. Her hand lifted and then fell. “Gannon?” she called softly.

  His head jerked up. When he saw her, he seemed to go rigid all over. His eyes took her in from head to toe and back again, noting the emerald-green dress, her face in its frame of pale, loosened hair, her wide, searching eyes.

  “Dana?” he whispered, standing.

  “Yes,” she said simply. Her own eyes were busy reconciling the man she saw with her memory of him. He looked thinner somehow, worn, but the sight of him fed her poor, starved eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I, uh, I came to see Lorraine,” she hedged, words failing her.

  His chest rose and fell heavily. “Was that the only reason?”

  Her lower lip trembled and she caught it between her teeth. “No,” she replied with a shaky smile. “I…came to see you too.”

  “You look very thin,” he said in a tight voice, studying her slenderness again. “Is that new?”

  “The dress? No, it’s an old one.”

  “The thinness, not the dress,” he said harshly. “Why should I care about what you wear?”

  “Why should you care about me, period?” she burst out, anger coming to her rescue. “Not a single phone call, not a card…I could have died and you wouldn’t have known or cared!”

  “That’s a lie,” he shot back, his face pale. “I kept up with you through Mrs. Pibbs. I knew how you were, at least. You couldn’t even be bothered to write to Lorraine, could you?”

  “Why should I, when you sent me away?” she tossed back, hurting all the way to her bones. “You sent me away!”

  “I had to,” he ground out, his face contorting as he saw the hurt in her eyes. “You don’t understand.”

  “Yes, I do,” she cried angrily. “You sent me away because of the shrapnel!”

  He looked every year of his age. His powerful frame seemed to shudder. “Who told you?” he asked in a deadly quiet tone.

  “I won’t tell you,” she returned. “But it’s true, isn’t it? You could go blind again.”

  His eyes closed on a weary sigh. “Yes,” he said heavily. “I could go blind again.”

  She moved closer, looking up at him with soft, probing eyes. “I have to know,” she said quietly. “I haven’t much pride left—or much sense. I have to be told. Was it because of Layn that you wanted me to break the engagement, Gannon? Was it because of my scar…?”

  He whispered something rough under his breath and his hands shot out. With an expression of pure anguish he dragged her against his big body and bent to her mouth.

  “Don’t talk,” he said unsteadily, brushing his lips slowly, tremblingly, over hers. “Don’t talk. Kiss me. Let me show you how it’s been without you, Dana!”

  She bent under the rough crush of his ardor, feeling the hurt and the heartache and the loneliness all wrapped up in his slow, fierce kisses. She clung to him with tears draining from her eyes, loving the touch of him, the feel and smell and taste of him, as the world seemed to turn to gold all around them, binding them together with skeins of pure love.

  “I missed you,” he whispered brokenly, wrapping her up in his big arms to rock her slowly against him. “I’ve been half a man since the day I sent you away. But I couldn’t let you stay, knowing what I did. I only wanted what was best for you.”

  She hit his broad chest with a small, furious fist. “You stupid man,” she whimpered, burying her face against him. “As if I cared about being protected. I’m a nurse, not an hysterical woman. And I love you quite desperately, in case you haven’t noticed. You wouldn’t even let me have a choice!”

  “How could I, knowing what the choice would be?” he ground out, holding her even closer. “Dana, you’re so young, with your whole life ahead of you.”

  “What kind of life am I expected to have, for heaven’s sake, without you?” she asked in anguish, lifting her red eyes to his. “Don’t you even know that I only go through the motions of living without you? There’ll never be anyone else, not as long as I live. So please tell me how to look forward to a lifetime of loneliness and grief—because I’ll mourn you every day I live from now on!”

  He tried to speak and made a helpless motion with his shoulders before he dragged her close again and bent his head over hers.

  “I could die,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she managed on a sob. “So could I. A tree could fall on me while I was walking back to the house. Do you think life comes with a written guarantee?”

  “I could be paralyzed.”

  “Then I’d sit with you,” she whispered, lifting her head to study him with love pouring from her face. “I’d sit by your bedside and hold your hand and read to you. And I’d love you so much….”

  The tears burst from his eyes and ran unashamedly down his cheeks as she spoke, and she reached up and tenderly touched each of them, brushing them back from his hard cheeks.

  “I love you,” she repeated softly, blinking away her own tears. “If we got married, I could give you children. And then, even if something dreadful did happen, we’d have all those happy years behind us. We’d have the comfort of our family around us. We’d have each other and the memory of loving.”

  He bent and kissed her eyes softly, slowly. “I love you,” he whispered, shaken. “So much that I’d willingly give up my life for you. But what am I offering you except the possibility of a living nightmare?”

  “If you won’t marry me,” she said after a minute, “I’ll live with you anyway. I’ll move in and sleep in your arms and shame you for not making an honest woman of me.” She drew back and looked up into his darkening eyes. “I’ll follow you around like a puppy from now on, and you won’t be able to look behind you without seeing me. I’ll crawl on my knees if I have to, but I won’t leave yo
u now. Not until I die.”

  “Dana, for the love of—”

  “It is for love,” she whispered softly, smiling. “Because all I know of love I learned from you.”

  His eyes closed. “Don’t make it any harder for me,” he pleaded.

  “But I will,” she replied, snuggling closer, feeling safe and secure for the first time in weeks. “You’ve given me back my family. Because I loved you, I was able to forgive them and love them again. I’m part of a family again, all because of you.”

  “I don’t want you hurt,” he whispered.

  “Then don’t send me away,” she whispered back. She drew his face down to hers. “Because I’ll never be hurt again if I can stay where you are.”

  “It’s insane,” he ground out against her warm, soft mouth.

  She smiled. “Yes,” she murmured. “Sweet insanity. Kiss me. Then I’ll propose to you again and go and ask your mother for your hand in marriage….”

  He burst out laughing in spite of himself. “Dana, you crazy woman…!”

  “Be crazy with me,” she tempted. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him again. And then she felt his arms contract, and he was kissing her. It was a long time before they could find words again.

  “This isn’t solving anything,” he said finally, dragging himself away from her. “Here, sit down and let’s try to talk reasonably.”

  She joined him on the log, sitting close, companionably, while he took a deep breath and sat, just looking at her.

  “You look so different,” he murmured.

  “From my photograph, you mean?” she replied with an impish smile.

  He shifted and looked uncomfortable for a minute. “Who told you? Lorraine?”

  “Don’t blame her,” she pleaded. “I was clutching at straws. I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”

  He shook his head. “That was beyond me. I’ve sat here day after day, remembering the sound and smell of you.” His eyes searched her quiet face and he smiled. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen since I regained my sight.”

  She blushed and lowered her eyes. “I’m very glad you think so.” She glanced up again, warily. “Gannon, the scar…”