Very Private Duty (2 page)

Present Day

E
yes wide, her heart pumping rapidly and knees buckling slightly, Tricia Parker stared at the man sprawled on the Blackstones’ leather sofa.

She could barely recognize Jeremy with all those bruises on his forehead, cheek and jaw. There was also a slight swelling over his right eye. Dressed in a white T-shirt and shorts, he was unshaved, his short black hair spiked, his left leg covered with a plaster cast from toe to knee, and the third and fourth fingers of his left hand were taped to a splint.

Only her nurses’ training prevented Tricia from losing her composure when she saw the man to whom
she had given her heart as an awestruck teenager. Each time she returned to Blackstone Farms a small part of her wanted to catch a glimpse of Sheldon Blackstone’s youngest son, but it was as if their paths were destined not to cross again—until now.

“What happened to him?” Her voice was low, raspy, as if she had been screaming for hours.

Sheldon’s light-gray eyes were fixed on Jeremy, who hadn’t stirred since being placed on the sofa. “He had an accident—on the job,” he added after a slight pause.

Tricia knew “on the job” for Jeremy was as a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration. He had graduated Stanford and instead of returning to Blackstone Farms he joined the U.S. Marine Corps. A month after he completed his military obligation he applied to the DEA as a special agent. She moved closer and placed a hand over his forehead. It was cool to the touch.

“How long has he been like this?”

“He was sedated before he was flown in from D.C.,” Ryan Blackstone, Jeremy’s older brother and the horse farm’s resident veterinarian, said.

She withdrew her hand. “I’m talking about his injuries.”

“Tomorrow will be two weeks,” Sheldon said behind her. “He’s going to need round-the-clock nursing care.”

Tricia turned and stared at the imposing-looking owner of the most profitable African-American horse
farm in the history of Virginia’s horseracing. The years had been kind to Jeremy’s father. Tall and solidly built, the middle-aged widower still had a full head of raven-black hair with a feathering of gray at the temples. He had extraordinary eyes: shimmering light gray in a golden-brown face.

“You want me to take care of him.” Her question was a statement.

Sheldon inclined his head. “Yes.”

“But, I’m only going to be here for a month.” She had just begun her four-week vacation leave from her job as a registered nurse with a group of Baltimore pediatricians. “Don’t you think it would be better to hire a permanent private-duty nurse?”

“I would if you weren’t here. I’m certain Jeremy will respond much better to treatment with familiar faces around him. That’s why I decided to bring him back to the farm.”

A warning voice whispered in her head not to become involved with Jeremy again; however, she ignored it when she closed her eyes for several seconds. She wanted to decline Sheldon’s request but couldn’t. She had grown up on the farm, and tradition was that everyone looked after one another. Her gaze lingered on Sheldon before it shifted to Ryan.

“Okay.”

Both men sighed.

Ryan closed the distance between them, cupped her elbow and led her into the dining room. His dark-gray eyes studied her intently. He was undeniably a Black
stone: height, complexion, raven hair, high cheekbones, aquiline nose and mouth. As the older brother, he’d had most of the girls who had grown up on the horse farm fantasizing about marrying him, but not Tricia. Four years her senior, Ryan was too old and much too serious. Her choice had been Jeremy. They were the same age, carefree and at times very reckless.

Jeremy had earned the reputation of driving too fast, swearing and fighting too much, and he had been the one who had introduced her to a passion she had not experienced since.

“What am I dealing with, Ryan?”

“Broken ankle, dislocated fingers and a concussion. His ankle is held together with screws.”

Tricia nodded. “Is there anything else I should know about your brother? Perhaps why he has been sedated, since it’s not for pain?”

A sheepish grin softened the lines of tension around Ryan’s mouth. “I could never fool you, Tricia. It’s as if you have a sixth sense when it comes to Jeremy. The two of you must be bound by an invisible force that keeps you connected even though you’ve been separated for so many years.”

A shiver snaked its way up her spine. There had been a time when she and Jeremy were able to complete each other’s sentences. “You’re wrong, Ryan,” she said softly. “If that had been the case, then I would’ve known that something had happened to him. What aren’t you telling me?”

“He has episodes—flashbacks of what happened to him and the other members of his team before he was rescued.”

Her large dark eyes widened with this disclosure. It was obvious Jeremy was experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome. “Was he tortured?”

Ryan shook his head. “I don’t know. He was debriefed, but as civilians we’re not privy to that information.”

“What are his meds?”

Ryan told her about the prescribed medication and dosage. “I’ll make certain to give you the hospital’s report. My brother is scheduled to see an orthopedist and a psychiatrist in a couple of days. I know this is your vacation, but I will make it up—”

“There’s nothing to make up for,” Tricia said, interrupting him. “Remember, I grew up here, and I’ve always thought of you and Jeremy as my brothers.”

Ryan smiled. He wanted to tell Tricia that
he
had always thought of her as a younger sister, but not Jeremy. There was something about the assistant trainer’s granddaughter that softened his brother, made him vulnerable. She would only stay a month, but perhaps it was long enough to help Jeremy adjust to coming home.

“He can’t stay on the sofa,” Tricia said. “He needs a bed and easy access to a bathroom.”

“We plan to move him into his house in a few minutes. Things will go easier for you if he’s under his own roof. A hospital bed has been set up in the
family room. There’s also a wheelchair, shower equipment and a pair of crutches. Sleeping arrangements will also be set up for you at his place, so I suggest you pick up what you’ll need and then come back to Jeremy’s place.”

Tricia nodded numbly as she walked out of the main house. Sheldon had houses built for his sons less than a quarter of a mile from the main house after they’d graduated from college.

Sleeping arrangements have been set up for you at Jeremy’s place.
Ryan’s words echoed over and over as she drove back to the two-bedroom bungalow where she’d grown up with her grandparents.

She’d returned to Blackstone Farms to spend a month with Gus Parker, never believing she would have to share a house with the man she’d fallen in love with and continued to love even though she’d married another.

It had taken Dwight Lansing less than a year of marriage to realize his love and passion would never be reciprocated. A week before he and Tricia would have celebrated their first wedding anniversary, their marriage was annulled. She’d given her husband her body but never her heart. That she had given to Jeremy Blackstone to hold on to for eternity.

Jeremy surfaced from a drug-induced haze for the first time in hours. Long, thick black lashes framing a pair of deep-set, dove-gray eyes fluttered as he attempted to focus on the face looming over him.

The pain in his leg was forgotten as he stared up at the girl he hadn’t seen in fourteen years. His eyes widened, moving slowly over her face and then lower. He stood corrected. Tricia Parker was not a girl, but a woman—all woman.

“Hi, Jeremy.”

Her voice was soft and husky, the way he remembered it after they’d finished making love. She had been the one to do the talking when he couldn’t, because making love had usually left him breathless and speechless.

The long, black curly hair that she’d worn in a braid was missing, in its place a short, cropped style that hugged her well-shaped head. Everything about her was ample: breasts, hips, round face, dark sparkling eyes and her mouth. Oh, how he’d loved kissing her mouth.

A white short-sleeved linen blouse and a pair of black slacks failed to camouflage or minimize her full figure. If her coloring had been a creamy magnolia instead of rich sable brown, she could have been the perfect model for baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens. Tricia was now the epitome of Rubenesque. It was as if she wore an invisible badge that silently announced: I Am Woman.

He closed his eyes, temporarily forgetting the deceitful woman hovering over him. “Where am I?”

“You’re home.”

“Home where?” He’d slurred the two words.

“In your house.”

His eyes darkened like storm clouds. He’d waited fourteen, long agonizing years to reunite with Tricia so he could confront her about her infidelity. And now that that had become a reality, he knew he couldn’t. Not when pain throbbed throughout his body.

“Get out of my house!”

Shaking her head, Tricia thrust her face close to his, feeling his moist breath sweep over her cheek. “I’m sorry, Jeremy, I can’t do that.”

Gray eyes glowing from his olive-brown face, like those of a savage predator, he bared his teeth. “I don’t want you here.”

Straightening, she rounded the bed, gently lifting his left foot to rest on two pillows. “It’s not what you want but what you need. I’m going to be around for the next month, so you’d better get used to seeing me.”

He went completely still. “A month?”

“Yes. I’m on vacation. Once it’s over, I’m going back to Baltimore.”

“I don’t know if I can tolerate seeing you for a month.”

“Stuff it, Jeremy,” she retorted. “It’s not as if I want to be bothered with you, either. But I promised your father that I’d look after you, and I’ll do that until another nurse replaces me.”

She neatly folded a lightweight blanket at the foot of the bed. What had been a family room was now a temporary bedroom. A tobacco-brown leather club chair with an ottoman was positioned several feet
from the bed. The chair matched the daybed in a spacious alcove, which was now her temporary sleeping space. Sheldon had chosen the room because of an adjoining full bathroom with a freestanding shower.

Jeremy stared at Tricia. She did not look any older than when he last saw her, but she had changed, and it wasn’t just her fuller figure or shorter hair. He’d lost count of the number of hours, days, months and years she’d continued to haunt him despite her duplicity. How could she profess to love him while she’d slept with another man at the same time? Had she told Russell Smith that she’d loved him, too?

“You didn’t finish medical school.” His question was a statement.

She straightened. “No, I didn’t.

“What happened?”

“Nothing happened. I decided I wasn’t cut out to be a doctor.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “So, you became a nurse instead.”

“Yes, Jeremy.”

“Any specialty?”

She nodded, saying, “Pediatrics.”

“You became a pediatric nurse instead of a pediatrician?”

Tricia wanted to scream at him that it had been his fault that she hadn’t realized her dream to become a doctor. What neither knew when she’d left the farm to enter college was that she hadn’t left alone. She
was seven weeks’ pregnant with Jeremy’s baby, despite being on the Pill.

She had dropped out of college, given birth to a little girl and then lost her three months later, after they were run down by a speeding car. Her daughter died instantly, but Tricia spent weeks in the hospital with internal injuries.

The intoxicated driver, a celebrated matrimonial attorney to the rich and famous had the clout and resources to delay the case for years. Against her attorney’s advice, Tricia settled out of court for less than she would’ve received if the case had gone to trial. At that time in her life she had been too depressed to relive the ordeal in a lengthy trial.

She did not blame the drunk driver for killing her baby. Tricia blamed Jeremy. And if he hadn’t deserted her she could’ve returned to the farm to live. He had deserted her and their infant daughter.

She married her attorney, but only after he insisted they sign a prenuptial agreement. Dwight Lansing claimed he wanted to marry her because he loved her and not for her money.

“And you became a DEA agent instead of coming back to run the horse farm,” she retorted sharply.

“We’re not talking about me, Tricia.”

“And I don’t intend to talk about
me,
Jeremy. For the next month you and I are patient and nurse and nothing else.”

Despite the pain in his head surpassing the one in
his leg, he affected a snappy salute with his uninjured hand. “Yes, ma’am!”

She managed to hide a smile as she made her way to the windows and closed the vertical blinds, shutting out some of the bright sunlight pouring into the room. “Someone will deliver lunch in a few minutes. After that I’m going to help you get out of bed, even if it’s just for half an hour.”

“I’m not ready to get out of bed.”