trauma in his life at about the same time?”
“Not that I know of,” the smaller woman commented. “Of course, Gannon is a very private person.”
Dana nodded. “Does he go out at all?”
“Socially, you mean? No,” she said sadly. “He stays in the living room and harasses his vice-presidents over the phone.”
“His vice-presidents?”
“At the electronics firm he owns, my dear. They manufacture all sorts of communications equipment—interfaces for computers, buffers, monitors, that kind of thing.” She shrugged and smiled apologetically. “I don’t pretend to understand; it’s far too technical for me. But the company’s introduced some revolutionary new system components, and apparently my stepson is something of an electronics genius. I’m very proud of him. But I have to admit, I have no idea exactly what he does.”
“I don’t know anything about computers,” Dana murmured. She smiled secretly. “But if I asked, he might be tempted to educate me. It might even break the ice.”
“Be careful that you don’t fall in,” Lorraine cautioned. “Gannon doesn’t particularly like women right now. He was almost engaged when the accident happened. The woman walked out on him.” She grimaced. “Perhaps some of that was guilt. She was driving the speedboat, you see.”
Dana pondered that for the rest of the day. Poor lonely man: His life hadn’t been any picnic so far, either. She smiled, just thinking about the challenge Gannon was going to present.
After letting him simmer all day, Dana took Gannon’s dinner tray in herself.
He was sitting in a deep armchair by the open window that led onto the balcony. Outside, the waves were crashing slowly against the shore.
He lifted his shaggy blond head when he heard the door open and close. “Mother?” he called shortly.
“Hardly,” Dana replied. She put the tray on the big desk, watching him stiffen at the sound of her voice.
“You again? I thought you’d gone home, Nurse.”
“And leave you all alone, Mr. van der Vere?” she exclaimed. “How cowardly!”
He lifted his chin aggressively. “I don’t need another nurse. I don’t want another nurse. I just want to be left alone.”
“Loneliness—take it from me—is bad for the soul,” she said matter-of-factly. “It shrivels it up like a prune. Why don’t you walk along the beach and listen to the waves and the sea gulls? Are you afraid of sea gulls, Mr. van der Vere? Do you have a feather phobia or something?”
He was trying not to laugh, but he lost. It rolled out of him like deep thunder, but he quickly stifled it. “Impertinent Miss Steele,” he muttered. “Your name suits you. Are you cold and hard?”
“Pure marshmallow,” she corrected, removing the lids from the dinnerware. “Just take a whiff of this delicious food. Steak and mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade rolls and buttered asparagus.”
“All my favorites,” he murmured. “What did you do, bribe Mrs. Wells to fix it? She hates the smell of asparagus.”
“So she told me,” she said with a smile. “But it was her night off. I cooked it.”
“You cook?” he asked curtly.
“I used to live alone. I’d starve to death if I didn’t. Now, if you can’t manage by yourself, I’ll be glad to spoon-feed you….”
He said something unpleasant, but he got to his feet and stumbled toward the desk.
She walked around it and caught his hand. He tried to free himself but she held firm, determined not to let him dominate her.
“I’m offering to help you,” she said quietly, staring up at his scowling face. “That’s all. One human being to another. I’d do the same for man, woman, or child, and I think you would for me if our situations were reversed.”
He looked shocked for a minute, but he stopped struggling. He let her guide him to his chair behind the desk. But before he sat down, his big hands caught her thin shoulders for a minute and moved upward to her neck and her face and hair. He nodded then and let go of her to drop into the big chair, which barely contained him.
“I thought you’d be small,” he said after a minute, groping for the cup of hot black coffee she’d placed within his reach.
“In fact, I’m above average height,” she returned. The feel of his warm, strong hands had made her feel odd, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.
“Compared to me, miss, you’re small,” he said firmly. “What color is your hair, your eyes?”
“I have blond hair,” she said. “And brown eyes.”
“An unusual combination.” He picked up his fork and managed to turn over the coffee with one sudden movement. A torrent of words poured out of him.
“Stop that,” Dana said sharply. “I’ll walk right out the door if you continue to use such language around me.”
“I must remember to search my mind for better words if it will get you out of my hair,” he said with malicious enjoyment. “Are you such a prude, little Nurse?”
“No, sir, I am not,” she assured him. “But I was always told that a repertoire of rude language disguised a pitiful lack of vocabulary. And I believe it.”
He appeared to be taken aback by the comment. “I’m a man, Miss Steele, not a monk. The occasional word does slip out.”
“I’ve never understood why men consider it a mark of masculinity to use shocking language,” she replied. “I don’t consider it so. Not that, nor getting drunk, nor driving recklessly….”
“You should have joined a nunnery, miss,” he observed. “Because you are obviously not prepared to function in the real world.”
“I find the real world incredibly brutal, Mr. van der Vere,” she said quietly. “People slaughtering other people, abusing little children, finding new ways to kill, making heroes of villains, using sensationalism as a substitute for good drama in motion pictures…. Am I boring you? I don’t find cruelty in the least pleasurable. If that makes me unrealistic, then I suppose that I am one.”
“It amazes me that you can stand the company of poor weak mortals, Nurse, when you are so obviously superior to the rest of us,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
She felt the shock go all the way to her toes. “Superior?” she echoed.
“You do feel superior?” he mocked. “Have you never made a mistake, I wonder? Have you never been tempted by love or desire, greed or ambition?”
She flushed wildly and finished mopping up the coffee. “I’m hardly a beauty contest candidate,” she said curtly. “And even if I were, men frankly don’t interest me at all.”
He raised a curious eyebrow. “Venom from the little nun? Someone
