“Tricia?”
She smiled. Why did he always make her name sound like a caress? “Yes, Jeremy.”
“Thank you.”
It was the second time he’d thanked her. “You’re welcome.”
Waiting until she heard the soft snores indicating Jeremy had gone back to sleep, Tricia slipped off the bed. It’s not going to work. The five words slapped at her. How was she going to share a bedroom, touch her first lover’s body and not lose it? She’d had fourteen years to tell herself that she hated Jeremy for deserting her, but just coming face-to-face with him had made a liar of her.
She’d done the very thing her grandfather had warned her against. She had given Jeremy her heart, her innocence and her love, for eternity.
Making her way over to the daybed, she lay down, resting her head on folded arms. Now she knew why Sheldon wanted a private-duty nurse for Jeremy. They did not want him alone during his flashback episodes. The expression on his face had been one of pure terror, and again she wondered if he had been held prisoner or tortured during his captivity.
The attending doctor at the military hospital had written referrals for Jeremy to see an orthopedist and a psychiatrist, and there was no doubt his body would heal before his mind did.
She remembered what Sheldon had said about Jeremy responding positively to treatment if he was in familiar surroundings. A knowing smile crinkled her eyes. She and Jeremy could not turn back the clock, but she could attempt to recapture some of the magic from their childhood.
Jeremy woke up for the first time, since he’d regained consciousness in the Washington, D.C., hospital, without the blinding pain in his head. He’d lost track of time but knew he was home when he heard the soothing strains of violins playing Mozart’s “Serenade in G Major.” It had been a long time since he’d heard that selection.
Lifting his head off the pillows cradling his shoulders, he sniffed the air and smiled. He could smell brewing coffee. What he’d liked most about his South American missions had been the coffee. Colombian and Brazilian coffees were some of the best blends in the world. However, he couldn’t lie in bed savoring the smell of coffee or listening to music, because he had to use the bathroom. There was one problem: he couldn’t get out of the bed without help.
“Hello,” he called out.
Seconds later Tricia appeared. She looked different from before. She’d exchanged her blouse and slacks for a sunny-yellow sundress with a squared neckline that skimmed her lush body. Other than her short hair, it had been the changes to her body that had caught his immediate attention. When he’d left Tricia, her body hadn’t claimed the womanly curves she now flaunted shamelessly. The pressure in the lower portion of his body increased, and Jeremy knew it had nothing to do with his need to relieve himself.
“Hi.”
She flashed a shy smile, her expression reminiscent of one she’d offered him what now seemed so long ago. “Good morning, Jeremy.” She looked at her watch. “It’s six-twenty.”
He scratched his cheek with his right hand at the same time his stomach grumbled. He had been asleep for more than fifteen hours. “I need to use the bathroom.”
Nodding, Tricia picked up a pair of crutches. She moved over to the bed, lowered a side rail and handed him the crutches. He took them with his uninjured hand while she gently swung his legs over the side of the mattress.
“Put your left arm around my neck and pull yourself up with your right hand, using the crutches for support.”
He completed the task without difficulty, but had to anchor the thumb and forefinger of his left hand over the rubber-covered handgrip. It would be some time before he’d be able to make a fist with that hand.
“Steady, hotshot,” Tricia cautioned softly.
Jeremy took several halting steps before he regained his balance. “I’ve got it.”
She looked up at him, her dark gaze fusing with his. “Do you need me to help you?”
His gaze grew wider as he took in everything about her in one sweeping glance. They had lost so much. It had taken them a long time to reunite, but now they were different people. It was as if they’d become polite strangers.
“No, thank you. I believe I have everything under control.”
Lowering her gaze, she nodded. “Call me when you’re finished.” He nodded and hobbled slowly to the bathroom.
Tricia stripped the bed and remade it with clean linens while she waited for Jeremy to call her. She’d gotten up earlier that morning and had taken a tour of his home. It was an exact replica of the one where he’d grown up, except on a smaller scale. The three-bedroom house was constructed with enough room for a family of four to live comfortably without bumping into one another. She’d stood in the middle of the master bedroom suite, wondering if she had come back once her pregnancy was confirmed whether she would have slept beside Jeremy in the king-size wrought-iron bed or sat in the sitting room nursing their daughter.
She’d dismissed those thoughts as soon as they’d entered her head because she could not afford to think of what would’ve been. And the reality of the present was that she would give Jeremy the next four weeks of her life. No more than that.
The last disc on the CD player ended, filling the space with silence. She glanced at her watch. Jeremy had been in the bathroom for more than a quarter of an hour.
Tricia made her way to the bathroom and knocked on the door. “Jeremy?”
“Come in.” His voice was muffled.
She pushed open the door and found him sitting on a stool in front of a generous serpentine-marble washbasin, peering into a marble-rimmed oval mirror anchored to a length of wall mirrors. The mirrors made the space appear twice its size. His jaw was covered with shaving cream as he attempted to shave himself with his right hand. The day before he hadn’t wanted to get out of bed, and now he was attempting to groom himself.
Closing the distance between them, she took the razor from his grasp. “Why didn’t you call me?”
Jeremy’s head came up, and he saw the frown marring Tricia’s smooth forehead. “I wanted to see if I could shave myself. I did manage to brush my teeth.”
“Brushing your teeth is safer than shaving. What if you’d cut yourself?”
He lifted a thick, curving black eyebrow. “If I cut my throat, then that would let you off the hook.”
Her frown deepened. “What are you talking about?”
“I’d bleed to death, then you wouldn’t have to take care of me.”
Her fingers tightened on the handle of the razor. “Did I say I didn’t want to take care of you?”
“I know you don’t want to be here with me. You’re only doing it because my father asked you.”
Tricia crossed her arms under her breasts. “Let’s clear the air about something. I’m here because you’re my patient, so don’t read more into our association than that.”
He angled his head, studying her gaze for a hint of guile. “Okay, Tricia, if that’s what you want.”
“It is,” she said quickly.
Shifting, she stood directly in front of him. Cradling his chin in her hand, she lifted his face. Dots of blood showed through the layer of cream. “You’ve already cut yourself.” Turning on the hot water faucet, she rinsed the blade, then began scraping away the wiry black whiskers. His face was leaner, cheekbones more pronounced. He’d lost weight.
Jeremy was hard-pressed not to laugh. Tricia’s breasts were level with his gaze. Mesmerized, he watched the gentle swell of dark brown flesh rise and fall above the revealing décolletage.
“Did you bring any uniforms with you?”
Her hand halted under his chin. “No. Why?”
A knowing smile crinkled the network of lines around his eyes—lines that were the result of squinting in the tropical sun. “I’m getting quite an eyeful of certain part of your anatomy with you in that dress.”
Her gaze lowered as heat suffused her cheeks. She moved the blade closer to his brown throat. “Don’t you know it’s ris
ky to mess with a woman who’s holding a sharp razor at your throat?”
His eyes darkened until they appeared as black as his pupils. “No more risky than my falling in love with you fourteen years ago.”
Her hand trembled slightly. “No, Jeremy,” she whispered.
Vertical lines appeared between his eyes. “No! No what?”
“Let’s not talk about the past.”
Reaching up, he wrested the razor from her fingers. “Yes, Tricia, let’s talk about it. Let’s clear the air so we can move on.”
She flinched at the tone of his voice. “I’ve moved on.”
“Well, I haven’t.”
“Whose problem is that?”
“It’s our problem, Tricia.” His voice was noticeably softer. “Every time I came back I’d ask your grandfather how you were doing, and he always had a pat answer. ‘Tricia’s doing well,’ or ‘she loves living in New York.’ You loved New York so well that you moved to Baltimore?”
She nodded. “I moved to Baltimore after my divorce.”
He went completely still. Her grandfather never mentioned her marrying. His chest rose and fell as his pulse raced uncontrollably. “You were married?”
“Yes.”
Jeremy sucked in a lungful of breath, held it as long as he could before letting it out, feeling himself relaxing, albeit slowly. When he’d least expected it, memories of what they’d shared crept under the barrier he’d erected to keep other women out of his life and his bed. Each nameless face had become Tricia’s. Their voices her voice. After a while he gave up altogether and succumbed to prolonged periods of celibacy.
“How long were you married?”
Tricia retrieved the razor and resumed the task of scraping away the coarse black whiskers from his chin and jaw. “Not long.” Her voice was as neutral as her touch.
“How long is not long?”
Smoothly they’d slipped back into the comfortable familiarity of confiding in each other, because they’d been friends longer than they’d been lovers.
“It was over before we celebrated our first anniversary.”
“What happened?”
“We were not compatible.”
“Didn’t you know that before you married him?” She nodded. “Why did you marry him, anyway?”
“I was very vulnerable at the time.”
“Which meant he took advantage of you.”
She shook her head. “No, Jeremy, he did not take advantage of me. I knew what I was doing. It was a period in my life when I did not want to be alone.” She put the razor in the basin.
Reaching for a damp towel on the nearby countertop, Jeremy wiped away dots of shaving cream. “Why didn’t you come back to live with your grandfather if you didn’t want to be alone?”
Tricia took the towel from his loose grip and dabbed at the nicks. “I couldn’t come back—at least not to stay.”
He curved his right arm around her waist, pulling her closer. For several moments they fed on each other, offering strength and comfort. Resting her chin on the top of his head, Tricia closed her eyes. It was so easy to slip back in time—a time when they could talk about any and everything, a time when they weren’t afraid to tell the other their most heart-felt secrets and a time when they were young, fearless and hopelessly in love with life and each other.
“What about now, Tricia? Are you ready to stay?”
She curbed an urge to kiss his hair as she’d once done. The man embracing her may sound the same, but she knew he was not the same. The short spiky black hair and pierced earlobes belonged to a stranger, someone she recognized but no longer knew.
“No,” she said after a pregnant pause.
“Why not?”
“Because I have a life in Baltimore.”
He raised his head and his gray gaze searched her face, looking for a remnant of the girl he had grown up with—the one who’d captured his heart with her vulnerability, the one he’d protected from the other children who repeated gossip they’d heard from their parents about her mother.
He flashed a wry smile. “Is there someone waiting for you in Baltimore?”
Tricia thought of one of the doctors in the group where she worked. She and Wade had dated casually over the past two months, although he’d expressed a desire for it to become more than casual.
Easing out of his loose embrace, Tricia shook her head. “No,” she answered truthfully.
“Then there is a distinct possibility that you could come back to Blackstone Farms to work?”
“And do what?”
“Blackstone Farms Day School will officially operate as a private school this September. Kelly has interviewed and hired teachers for prekindergarten through sixth grade. All of the farm children will attend the school along with additional children from several neighboring farms. I believe there is still an opening for a school nurse.”
A lump settled in Tricia’s throat, making swallowing difficult. What Jeremy was offering was a perfect solution for her. She could be close to her grandfather and still pursue her career. It had taken Gus more than a decade to apologize in his own way without actually saying he was sorry, but he finally had.
If her grandfather hadn’t interfered, she would’ve married Jeremy and Gus would have had a beautiful great-grandchild to spoil or bounce on his knee. But Tricia was a realist and she knew she could not go back in time to right past wrongs. She’d made a new life for herself and there was no place in her life for Jeremy. She could not trust him not to desert her again.
If she had to take care of her grandfather, once he was no longer able to care for himself, then she would take him to Baltimore with her. The row house she’d purchased in the fashionable suburban community had three bedrooms—more than enough room for her and Gus.
“I’m certain becoming a school nurse would be a new and wonderful experience for me, but I like where I live and I love what I do.”
Angling his head again, Jeremy stared up at her through half-closed eyes. She liked where she lived and loved her career, while he felt as if he were swimming through a haze of doubt and uncertainty. His injuries and the possibility that he might never be medically cleared to participate in future undercover missions made Jeremy consider his future.
He had wasted too many years running away when he should’ve stayed and confronted Tricia about Russell Smith. He’d realized that the afternoon he lay in bed in a Richmond hotel, staring at the clock, aware that she was on a jet flying to New York.
He had come back over the years to see his father, brother, nephew and sister-in-law, but he also had come back to see Tricia—to ask her why.
“Are you ready for your shower?”
Tricia’s soft voice broke into his thoughts. “I will be, after you answer one question for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Why did you ever sleep with Russell Smith?”
Chapter Three
Tricia blinked once, as if coming out of a trance, not certain whether she had heard Jeremy correctly. Had he asked her if she had slept with Russell Smith? It had been years since she had given the man a passing thought, and that was to tell her grandfather she did not want Russell’s graduation gift. She’d told Gus to return it sight unseen.
“Do you actually expect me to answer that?” she retorted with cold sarcasm.
Jeremy nodded. “I’d like you to.”
She stared wordlessly at him for several seconds. “This is not about what you’d like, Jeremy.” Tricia was surprised her voice was so calm when her heart was pounding an erratic rhythm. “If you’d asked me that question fourteen years ago I would’ve given you an answer. But there has been too much time between us. I’ve changed, while it’s apparent you haven’t. I’m your nurse, not your girlfriend. As long as you remember that, we will get along famously.”
Jeremy’s luminous eyes widened as he glared at her. “You weren’t my girlfriend, Tricia. You were my fiancée. I’d offered to give you a ring, but it was you who wanted to
wait until after we’d graduated from college. If you had been wearing my ring, then that would’ve kept the other boys from following you around.”
“The only one who followed me was you, Jeremy. And it wasn’t until I stood still long enough that you caught me.”
His black lashes concealed his gaze from hers as he stared at the thick plaster cast protecting his shattered ankle. “Did you regret it?”
“No.” His head came up and she met his direct stare. “I didn’t regret it, because at that time I was ready to give up my virginity. And, why not to the boss’s son?”
If Tricia had sought to wound Jeremy as much as he had her, then she knew she succeeded when she saw his expression. His black eyebrows were drawn together in an agonized expression.
Jeremy swallowed back curses—raw, ugly, violent, crude ones he hadn’t spewed in years—curses that used to bring tears to his mother’s eyes and a threat to wash his mouth out with soap. He had continued to swear until her threats became a reality. Despite detesting the taste of lye soap he had still cursed, but tried never to do it in her presence.
Tricia did not have to tell him if she’d slept with Russell, because her response validated Russell’s claim: She doesn’t mind sharing her goodies with the hired help as long as she can hold on to the boss’s son.
He wasn’t angry with Tricia but himself, because he had opened a wound he had permitted to heal, a wound with a noticeable scar. Now he was bleeding again. No, he told himself. What he’d had with Tricia was over, never to be resurrected.
With his jaw clenched, he captured and held Tricia’s dark, slanting eyes. “You’re right about our roles as nurse and patient. I’ll make certain never to forget that as long as you’re here. Now, if you don’t mind I’m ready to take my shower.”
The short, curling hair on the nape of Tricia’s neck stood up. It wasn’t what Jeremy had said but how he’d said it that held a silken thread of warning.
Nodding, she relieved him of the T-shirt. Her mouth went dry as she stared at a broad chest covered with thick black hair. Jeremy’s upper body was magnificent: defined pectorals, massive biceps and flat abs. Despite his broken ankle, he was in peak condition.
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