“Excuse me,” Merrily said sweetly to his parents, wheeling the lap table into place. “These little rooms get awfully crowded. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind standing in the corner over there. Just in case. He’s a little awkward with one hand.”
It was all the excuse his parents needed to beat a hasty retreat. Royce could’ve kissed her. Again.
“We’ll let you enjoy your dinner in peace,” his father pronounced, lifting a hand toward his mother.
Katherine kissed the air next to Royce’s cheek and instructed in her long-suffering tone, “Try not to hurt yourself again.”
Then they both went out the door without so much as a glance for Merrily. Glad as he was to see them go, Royce frowned. The least they could have done was spare a word of thanks for the only person around here who actually made him feel better.
“Who do I speak to about getting you a raise?” he asked, closing his eyes in gratitude. “Your timing is perfect. I was contemplating a heart attack in order to get them out of here, but I’m not that good an actor.”
Merrily chortled and dug change from her shirt pocket, dropping it into the drawer of the bedside table. “The look on your face said it all. Who were they, anyway?”
“My parents.”
Her eyebrows shot up, slender, winged things with a hint of gold in their gentle brown coloring. “I guess I should have recognized them, their photos are in the paper so often.”
“Ah, you’ve made that connection, have you?”
“Who hasn’t? Listen, I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” he quipped wryly.
“I meant, I wouldn’t have chased them away if I’d realized they were your parents.”
“I use the term loosely,” he said. “They’re no fonder of me than I am of them. Don’t worry about it. You couldn’t chase them away with a pitchfork if they didn’t want to go. Now, where’s my pizza?”
She checked the first box, closed it again and set it aside. “Here it is.” She opened the box and arranged it on the adjustable table in front of him, then opened the sack. Plunking napkins down in front of him with one hand, she reached into the bag with the other and extracted a small cardboard triangle containing the cheesecake he’d been dreaming about since he’d first thought of it hours earlier. She set that aside and carefully lifted out first one and then another foam cup with plastic lids. Next she removed two straws, peeled one and pushed it into the hole in the top of the lid on one of the drinks. Sliding the large cup close to the pizza box, she picked up the other cup and reached for her own pizza. A moment ago he’d have given his house, his dream house, for a few minutes of solitary peace. Now the idea of eating alone, of being alone, seemed singularly unpalatable.
“You’re not going?” he said disapprovingly, catching her wrist in his one good hand. He realized as his fingers closed around her delicate, finely boned wrist that he wasn’t trying to detain her so much as he was looking for that jolt, that flash of carnal recognition that he’d felt before, when he’d stuffed the twenty-dollar bill into her pocket and discovered the unexpected bounty of her breast beneath the loose coat. It flashed through him, right up his arm to the center of his chest and straight down to his groin. It jolted the cup right out of her hand and sent it spilling across his clean, dry floor.
With a small cry, she leaped back, dismay shaping her pretty little mouth into a plump O. Royce craned his neck to glimpse the pale liquid spreading across the glossy tile, then he smiled at her, moved by a mischievous imp whose presence he hadn’t felt in far too long and said, “Be glad to share.”
But she just shook her head and ran out of the room. With a sigh Royce closed the lid on his pizza. Somehow it didn’t look nearly so inviting without Nurse Merrily Gage there to share it.
Chapter Three
“Lane, would it kill you to actually put your dirty clothes into the hamper?” Merrily asked, exasperated.
Her brother peered at her through the steam generated by the long, hot shower he’d gotten out of minutes before. “What difference does it make?”
Merrily stuffed the clothes into the hamper and straightened, brushing her ponytail off one shoulder. “It would save me the effort of picking them up.”
He shrugged and went back to combing his hair. “When you sort the laundry you’re gonna pile it on the bathroom floor, anyway.”
“That’s beside the point.”
Ignoring her, he tossed aside his comb and hitched up his jeans, admiring his bare chest in the mirror. “Hey, you ironed that red shirt of mine yet?”
“I haven’t had time.”
“Merrily, I’m going out tonight.”
“Wear another shirt.”
“I don’t wanna wear another shirt. That’s my chick-magnet shirt.”
“Then iron it yourself.”
“Yeah, right. You know I can’t iron.”
“Maybe it’s time you learned.”
He chucked her under the chin and grinned down into her upturned face. “Baby sister, that’s what you’re for.” Abruptly turning pitiful, he whined, “Come on, Merrily, I’ll ruin it if I try. You can whip it out in no time. Ple-e-ease.”
Merrily sighed. “Oh, all right, but from now on you put your dirty clothes in the hamper, agreed?”
Lane turned away. “Sure, sure. Make it quick, will you? The guys are picking me up in a few minutes.” He went out of the bathroom whistling.
Merrily bent and opened the cabinet beneath the sink. After extracting the steam iron as well as the cleanser for which she’d originally come into the room, Merrily straightened and looked around her. She’d spent the whole morning cleaning this one room, and now just look at it. Towels lay in a damp heap on the floor. One corner of the bath mat had been kicked up and left so that water pooled outside the shower. A wet washcloth that had been slung over the top of the shower dripped a trail down the pebbled glass wall. Why did she even bother? On every day off, she slaved to clean up this place, but not one of her brothers could be trusted to so much as straighten up after himself.
At twenty-eight, Lane ought to have been living on his own, possibly even married, but he wasn’t responsible enough for that. The older two were worse. Lane at least had a social life, if trolling the club scene with his equally immature friends could be called such. Kyle, at thirty, remained the next thing to a recluse. He considered himself superior to the others because he’d earned a master’s degree in English, but he hated his job as a high school teacher and had always been more comfortable with his books than people. Jody, on the other hand, had followed their father into the U.S. Postal Service, delivering mail. It was grueling work, but not grueling enough to have turned Jody into the old man he’d become at thirty-two. Since their parents had spent a large chunk of their retirement fund on a motor home and set off to see the country more than a year ago, Jody had virtually turned into their father, taking over the family home as if he owned it and attempting to order all their
