Frank scowled at the ringing phone. How the devil was any man with five interfering brothers and one doting sister supposed to get to know a woman? he wondered as the phone rang for the third time in the hour since he’d encouraged Jenny to tell him all about herself. It was not the first time in his adult life that he’d been faced with the dilemma. Which was probably why it had taken him five years to figure out that Megan was the wrong woman for him and another two months to let her down gently. She’d fit in so well with the entire family, he hadn’t noticed until too late that she didn’t suit him. He had no intention of making the same mistake again.
“Karyn,” he told his sister after listening to five minutes of household-repair questions, “I love you dearly, but why are you asking me how to fix the sink, when you have a perfectly good husband? Is Brad out?”
He glanced over and caught Jenny’s amused expression. Rather than seeming frustrated by the nonstop interruptions, she appeared relieved. In fact, she seemed to enjoy them. She tucked the receiver between his chin and his shoulder each time and eavesdropped blatantly.
“No, but my husband races sports cars and sells ritzy sedans,” Karyn retorted. “What makes you think he knows anything about sinks? Talk about sexist remarks.”
“Any man who can tear a carburetor apart and put it back together again in five minutes flat ought to be able to open a trap under the sink and clean out whatever’s stopping up the drain. For that matter, you ought to be able to do it yourself.”
Karyn sighed heavily. “With six brothers in the house, who needed to learn?”
“Now who’s being sexist?”
“Never mind. I’ll call the plumber.”
“Are you sure the sink’s actually clogged?” he inquired suspiciously.
“Well, of course it is. Why else would I call?”
“Maybe you just don’t want me to feel useless while I’m lying here in my hospital bed.”
“Frank Chambers, I am standing here in an inch of water and you’re accusing me of lying?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time, Toots. I love you for trying, though. See you tomorrow.”
He heard her indignant huff as he signaled to Jenny to put the phone back in its cradle. “I swear to you I didn’t ask you to stay just so you could answer the phone.”
“It’s okay. I love seeing you with your family. How many are there again? When they’re all here, it seems like dozens.”
“Five brothers. One sister. One brother-in-law. All trouble.”
She studied him thoughtfully, her green eyes intent. “Something tells me you don’t really mind,” she said after a thorough examination that nearly left him breathless, despite its innocence. Never before had he been with a woman who had the uncanny ability to see inside his soul.
“Am I that transparent?”
Apparently she detected the nervousness in his voice, because she laughed and reassured him. “No, it’s actually something you said the other day. You understood what I meant about making a difference, about being needed.”
“You get the same fix from your patients.”
“Absolutely.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
“Nope. I’m an only child. My parents live back East. I don’t see them that often.”
Frank couldn’t imagine what it was like for her being separated from the only family she had. For all his grumbling, he rarely went more than a day without dropping in to see his mother or one of the other members of the tight-knit Chambers clan. They all checked in daily by phone, just to touch base, exchange news or seek advice. To his occasional regret, the latter was growing increasingly rare.
“Don’t you miss your parents?” he asked Jenny.
“Yes, but we were never as close as your family is. We love each other, and they’re great people, but they raised me to be independent. When the time came, they nudged me out of the nest just like a mother bird does. None of us has ever looked back. Holidays generally give us enough time to catch up.”
The phone rang again. Frank glowered at it. “Tell ’em I’ve gone to Tahiti,” he suggested.
“You wish,” Jenny countered, answering it and then putting the receiver next to his ear.
“Well, well,” Jared said. “Look who’s answering your phone at seven o’clock at night. Does she get overtime for that?”
Frank scanned Jenny’s face to see if she’d overheard the teasing comment with its sly innuendo. She seemed awfully intent suddenly on settling just so in the chair by his bed. She smoothed her dress over her knees, crossed her legs, smoothed her dress again.
“She’s not a nurse, and cut the jokes,” he muttered to his irreverent brother. “Did you call for a reason?”
“I take it I’m interrupting something,” he said with delight. “Did you share a cozy dinner of Jell-O? Maybe some fruit cocktail?”
“You always were the perceptive one. Why aren’t you hanging up?”
“You’ve got me mixed up with Tim.” Jared went blithely on, refusing to take the hint. “Want to talk about what color you’d like me to paint your house? I thought I’d take a couple of days off work and work on it. We’ve been talking about it for a while now. I was thinking something cheery, maybe bright yellow.”
The thought horrified Frank sufficiently to draw his attention away from the fascinating way Jenny’s dress clung to her curves. He knew that Jared was perfectly capable of slapping on the most outrageous shade of paint he could find. The walls in his own apartment were the color of tangerines. The year before his bedroom had been neon green until his girlfriend rebelled. Frank did not want Jared near his house with a paintbrush unless he was on hand to watch every move and to inspect the bucket of paint.
“You paint my house yellow and it will seriously impair any plans you might have for a future family life,” he warned as emphatically and discreetly as he could. Jenny’s eyes danced with merriment.
“Okay, no yellow,” Jared said agreeably. “How about mauve? Maybe with green trim.”
Frank groaned. “And have the place look like a damned bouquet of violets? You’ve got to be kidding. Do we have to discuss this now?”
“Absolutely not. We don’t have to discuss it at all. I can choose.”
“Good God, no! How about white? Simple, straightforward, normal.”
“Boring,” Jared retorted succinctly.
Frank glanced at Jenny. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Blue,” she said without hesitation. “Why?”
“The lady says blue. Bring the paint chips by tomorrow and we’ll decide on the shade. Now go away.”
Jared chuckled. “Your seduction technique has taken a fascinating turn, big brother. I wonder how Ma’d feel if she knew you were painting your house to impress a woman. She’d probably start ordering wedding invitations. Should I pass on this startling development?”
“Go to hell.”
“Night, pal.”
This time Jenny was slow to hang up the phone. Her expression was a mix of curiosity and astonishment. “You’re going to paint your house blue on a whim?”
“Actually Jared’s going to paint it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“It needs to be painted. Blue’s as good a color as any,” he said, determinedly making light of his decision to pick a color that might please her. He wasn’t entirely sure himself why he’d done it. “With white trim. What do you think?”
“I think you’re nuts.”
“Don’t say that to Dr. Wilding. He’ll find some shrink and send him in for a consult.”
The night nurse poked her head in just then. “You want anything to help you sleep tonight?”
Frank shook his head. “Nope,” he said, glancing straight at Jenny. “Something tells me I’m going to have very pleasant dreams.”
He held her gaze until he could see the slow rise of heat that turned her cheeks a becoming shade of pink. For some reason he enjoyed the thought that he could fluster the usually unflappable therapist.
“Maybe I’d better get out of here and let you rest,” she said, clearly nervous at the intimate turn the conversation had taken.
Instinctively he reached for her hand, then realized he couldn’t grasp it in his gauze-covered mitts. He drew his hand back, but held her in place with the sheer force of his will. “Don’t go, please. It gets too damned lonely around here.”
She shook her head. “I can’t stay.”
“You have plans?”
“No, not exactly.”
She looked so miserable, he finally relented. “I’m sorry. It was selfish of me to ask. You probably can’t wait to shake this place at the end of the day.”
“It’s not that. It’s just that this…”
“This?”
“Being here with you, it’s not such a good idea. I should never have stayed.”
“Will it make the other patients jealous?” he teased.
Suddenly she looked angry. “Don’t act as if you don’t know what I mean,” she said, marching toward the door. He could read the conflicting emotions warring on her face as she cast one last helpless look at him and left.
“Sweet dreams,” he murmured.
Frank’s dreams, however, were anything but sweet. He awoke in the early hours of the morning to the slow return of sensation in his hands. At first there were just tiny pinpricks of feeling. In no time, though, his hands felt as if someone had stripped off the skin and dipped them in acid. The excruciating pain blocked out everything else.
In agony he fumbled for the call bell and tried to press it. The effort cost him all his reserves of energy, and he wasn’t even sure he’d succeeded in rousing anyone at the nurses’ station. As he waited, he sank back against the pillow and tried to fix a picture of Jenny in his mind. Her image brought him some small measure of comfort as he fought to hypnotize himself against the pain.
He couldn’t say that Dr. Wilding hadn’t warned him. He’d always held the mistaken notion that healing meant an end to pain. In the case of burns, however, he was just discovering that the healing of the nerve endings brought with it a nearly unbearable torture.
The door opened and one of the night nurses peeked in. “You okay?”
“I’ve had better nights,” he said, his teeth gritted together.
Her relaxed, middle-of-the-night composure was instantly transformed into alert briskness. “Pain,” she said at once. “I’ll be right back. There’s an order in your chart.”
The five minutes it took her to get the medication and bring it back were the longest of Frank’s life. Even the shot, with its promise of relief, brought no immediate change. Nor did the nurse’s soothing words. He tried to remember all those spills from his bike that he’d survived so stoically, but none had affected him like this. Nothing had ever hurt like this.
The door whispered open, but with his eyes clamped shut he couldn’t tell if someone had come in, or if the nurse had simply left. Suddenly the scent of spring flowers seemed to fill the room. Jenny!
He opened his eyes. “What are you doing here at this hour? It must be three or four in the morning.” He winced as his hands throbbed.
Still wearing the same bright silk dress she’d had on earlier, she came closer. With cool, soothing fingers, she caressed his brow. “It won’t be long now before the shot kicks in. Think about something quiet and peaceful.”
Her voice was low, hypnotic, but he fought the effect. He had to tell her…something. His aching hands kept interfering. He fought the pain as he tried to capture the elusive thought.
“You knew, didn’t you?” he said finally.
“Knew what?”
“That the pain might start tonight. That’s why you stayed.”
She didn’t bother denying it, just pressed a finger to his lips. “Quiet. Close your eyes.”
Frank didn’t want to close his eyes. He wanted to keep staring at the woman who cared so much that she’d spent the night at the hospital on the off chance she might be needed. Despite his efforts, though, the medication began to take hold and he found himself fading out. He fought for one last glimpse of Jenny, who’d drawn the chair close beside him and was gently rubbing his arm. Maybe his own weary eyes were playing tricks on him, but it seemed for just an instant that he could see tears shimmering on her lashes.
He reached out to her, found her hand and touched her gently. “Thank you.”
At last he was able to relax into the pain, rather than fight it. Finally, thankfully, the pain dimmed and he fell asleep. This time his dreams were sweet indeed.
* * *
Every therapy session over the next couple of days was torture for the both of them. It made the fire and those first days of exercise seem like child’s play. Though Frank was in agony, he was stubborn. His therapy sessions were scheduled right after the dressing changes when the medication was in full force, and he was determined not to miss one. Jenny was equally unrelenting. She pushed, and pushed some more. He had to admire her spunk, even as he sometimes cursed her dedication and his own weakness.
He couldn’t have pinpointed the precise moment when his feelings for Jenny began to change into something more than respect, when her magnificent, gentle spirit invaded his soul and made him whole again. Maybe it was when she was giving him hell. Maybe it was when she touched his bandaged hands with a gentleness that took his breath away. Maybe it was when he caught the glitter of tears in her eyes, when his pain was just this side of unbearable and neither of them backed away from it. Maybe it was simply when she sat by his bed and talked him through the endless nights. He didn’t know quite what to make of the new feelings, but they were there and growing hour by hour.
“Go home,” he said after the third night, when she’d stayed with him yet again. “You look lousy.”
“Flattery will win me over every time.” Her tone was light, but there was no mistaking the exhaustion in her eyes, the pallor of her skin. Even her bouncy red curls seemed limp.
“I’m not interested in flattering you. I’m interested in seeing you get some sleep. You can’t stay awake with me and then turn around and work all day.”
“I’m okay. I get home for an hour or so in the morning to take a shower and change. Then I sneak in naps in the staff lounge.”
“Well, that certainly eases my mind,” he said dryly. “Jenny, go home. If you don’t, I’ll skip therapy, my hands will heal like this and you’ll be to blame.”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she countered. “I’m not falling into that trap. I didn’t burn you and I’m not responsible for your recovery. My only obligation is to show you the way to get your strength and dexterity back. What you do with that information is up to you.”
“Tell me, does this treatment you’re obliged to provide include being mean and nasty?”
“When it’s called for.”
He grinned. “You think you’re pretty tough, don’t you?”
“Tough enough.”
“Oh, Jenny, I hope you never figure out what a marshmallow you really are.”
“A marshmallow?” she said indignantly. “You’re not in here wallowing in self-pity anymore, are you?”
“No.”
“And who badgered you out of it?”
“You did,” he said dutifully. “But, lady, you don’t know the meaning of badgering until you’ve seen what I’m capable of. Go home.”
Her chin rose a stubborn notch. “And if I don’t?”
“I have the name and number of the director of physical therapy right here.” He patted the pocket of the pajamas he’d had Jared bring him when he could stand the flapping, indecent hospital gown no longer.
Those impudent, saucer eyes of hers widened. “You wouldn’t dare,” she said.
He folded his arms across his chest and grinned. “Just try me.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“I prefer to think of it as tough love.”
At the mention of love, Jenny went absolutely still. Her previous serene eyes were filled with a riot of emotions. “You’re breaking that vow.”
“What vow? I don’t remember any vow. You must be hallucinating. Due to lack of sleep, no doubt.”
“In this very room. Two nights ago. You were muttering in your sleep.”
“Ahh,” he said knowingly. “So, now I’m the one who was asleep. You can’t hold me accountable for what I said then.”
She glared at him. “You woke up and said…something.”
“And what did you say to this incredible declaration of… something?”
“I told you that all patients feel that way.”
His gaze narrowed. “All patients? I am not just any old patient, Jennifer Michaels.”
She sighed heavily. “I didn’t mean it that way. Why are you doing this?You swore you’d drop this crazy idea that you…” She hesitated, stumbling over the obvious word. “That you like me.”
Frank did not recall a single word of the conversation she was describing, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. The words seemed to reflect all too clearly the thoughts that had been on his mind a lot the past few days.
“Like?” he repeated. “Now there’s a word without much oomph. No, Jenny Michaels, I can’t say I like you.” His low, suggestive tone left no doubt as to an alternative word choice.
“I’m leaving,” she said at once.
His grin broadened. “Now I know the trick,” he said smugly. “Mention love and you run like a scared rabbit.”
“Nobody in this room mentioned love,” she retorted. “And no one will, if they have a bit of sense.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Frank said as she stalked from the room.
But it was pretty damned hard not to fall in love with a woman with that much sheer audacity. He’d just have to keep his feelings to himself until it suited him—and her—to make them perfectly clear. While he was still in the hospital was not the time, but soon, though. Very soon.