Fall in love with Diana Palmer’s fan-favorite story, BLIND PROMISES!

Dana Steele’s new patient, Gannon van der Vere, is a tough customer. He had run off his last four nurses, but Dana’s determined she won’t be the next on that list. A powerful entrepreneur until a devastating accident left his future in doubt, Gannon raged at all who approached him. Dana hoped to light a candle in his darkness—and to escape from the shadows in her own past. But when she fell in love with her curmudgeonly employer, Dana’s challenge was no longer strictly professional. Could Dana and Gannon heal to find a true happily-ever-after?

Praise for the reigning queen of romance DIANA PALMER

“Palmer’s talent for character development and ability to fuse heartwarming romance with nail-biting suspense shines in Outsider.” —Booklist

“A gentle escape mixed with real-life menace for fans of Palmer’s more than 100 novels.”

—Publishers Weekly on Night Fever

“The ever-popular and prolific Palmer has penned another sure hit.”

—Booklist on Before Sunrise

“Nobody does it better.”

—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard

“Palmer knows how to make the sparks fly…heartwarming.”

—Publishers Weekly on Renegade

“Readers who enjoy stories by authors who know how to pack an emotional wallop will add Palmer to their list.”

—Booklist on Renegade

Blind Promises
Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

It is such a pleasure to see this book back in print again. I wrote it under yet another pen name—Katy Currie—when I started out in romance fiction, and it has been out of print for many years. It is very special to me because I was going through some painful experiences in my own life at the time, primarily the death of my mother. The book was a way for me to deal with her loss, and subsequent painful events in my life.

I know from my reader mail that many of you turn to fiction to escape from painful realities, to find something to take you away from the pain, even for an hour or so. It may surprise you to learn that writers also escape into novels for the same reason. It is yet another bond between reader and writer, this need for a breathing space that makes us stronger and helps us to deal with the problems at hand.

One of the most comforting passages in the Bible is, to me, “…and this, too, shall pass away.” Even the most painful things do, you know, and God is always there to catch us if we fall.

God bless all of you. Thank you for letting me share my own dreams with you.

Love,

Diana Palmer

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Copy

Praise

Title Page

Author Note

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Copyright

Chapter One

Dana came to with Mrs. Pibbs standing over her, taking her pulse. For just a moment she was back in her student nurse’s class six years earlier, watching Mrs. Pibbs give pointers on nursing procedure. But when she felt the stabs of pain in her head and the bruises on her slender body, she realized that she wasn’t in class. She was a patient in Ashton General Hospital.

Her face felt tight when she tried to speak, and her head throbbed abominably. “Mother…?” she managed weakly.

Mrs. Pibbs sighed, laying the long-fingered young hand down on the crisp white sheet. “I’m sorry, my dear,” she said gently.

Tears ran down the Nordic face, misting the soft brown eyes in their frame of tousled platinum-blond hair. She’d known before she asked the question. Her last memory was of her mother’s unnatural position in the metallic tangle of the front seat. But she’d hoped…

“Your father is here,” Mrs. Pibbs said.

Dana’s hurt eyes flashed. “No,” she said stiffly.

The older woman looked shocked. “You don’t want to see Mr. Steele?”

Dana’s eyes closed. After what her mother had confessed just before the wreck, she never wanted to see him again. “I don’t feel up to it,” she said tightly.

“You aren’t critically injured, Nurse,” Mrs. Pibbs reminded her in that tutor voice. “Just some bruises and a few deep lacerations; not even a broken bone. We’re observing you because of a concussion and shock more than for any great injury.”

“I know. Please, Mrs. Pibbs, I’m so tired,” she pleaded.

The plump woman’s hard face melted a little at the look. For all her facade of stone, she was a marshmallow inside. “All right,” she agreed finally. “I’ll tell him you aren’t up to it. Shall I ask him anything?”

Dana blinked her eyes. “The funeral arrangements…. Is my Aunt Helen taking care of those, or must I…?”

“Your aunt and I spoke briefly this morning. Everything is being taken care of,” came the quiet reply. “It’s to be tomorrow. Your aunt will be by later to explain.”

Dana nodded, closing her eyes wearily. It seemed like a nightmare. If only she could wake up!

“I’ll tell Mr. Steele you’re indisposed,” Mrs. Pibbs added formally, and left Dana alone.

Dana turned her face to the wall. She couldn’t bear even the sight of her father, the sound of his name. Poor little Mandy, poor little Mandy, who hadn’t the weapons to survive all alone after twenty-five years of being provided for. It was inevitable that she’d break eventually. For the first few weeks after the divorce was final, Dana had been on the lookout for it to happen. But it hadn’t, not even when Jack Steele announced his marriage to one of the women he worked with, a blond, motherly woman whom Dana had only seen once.

Mandy had held on, working at a florist’s shop, doing well, apparently happy and with everything to live for. Until Jack had been married three months. And then, last night, Mandy had called Dana, crying hysterically, and begged for a talk.

Dana had gone, as she always went when Mandy called, and found her mother drinking heavily.

“Let’s go out to supper,” Mandy had begged, her pale brown eyes watery with hot tears, her wrinkled face showing its age. “I can’t bear being alone anymore. Let’s go out to supper and talk. I thought you might want to come back home and live with me again.”

Dana had been as floored by the state her mother was in as she was by the request. She didn’t want to live at home again; she wanted her independence. But there had to be some kind way to tell Mandy that, and she was searching for it when they went out to the car.

“I’ll drive,” Mandy had insisted. “I’m fine, dear, really I am. Just a couple of martinis, you know, nothing heavy. Get in, get in.”

At that point Dana should have insisted on driving, but she’d been upset by her mother’s sudden request that she move back in and she’d climbed obediently into the front seat.

“It will be lovely having you home again,” Mandy cooed as she drove them toward a nearby restaurant.

“But, Mother—” Dana began.

“Your father said you wouldn’t, but I knew he was lying,” Mandy had continued, unabashed. Tears had suddenly sprung from her eyes, and her hands on the wheel had trembled. “He said you were glad we’d divorced, so you could spend more time with him without…without having to see me at the same time. He said you hated me.”

Dana remembered catching her breath and staring blankly at her mother. “I didn’t!” she burst out. “I never said such a thing!”

The thin old mouth began to tremble. “He made me go along with the divorce, you know. He made me….”

“Dad?” she’d queried, shocked. It hardly sounded like him, but Mandy wouldn’t lie to her, surely.

“There have been other women since we married, Dana,” she’d continued hotly. “He only married me because you were on the way. And he tried to get rid of you as soon as he found out…”

Dana had been devastated. She opened her mouth to speak, but her mother wouldn’t let her get a word in.

“I called you tonight because I’d decided that…that I was going to kill myself.” Mandy had laughed hysterically, and her hands on the wheel had jerked; the car had accelerated. “But then I got to thinking that I needn’t do that—I needn’t be alone. You could come home and stay with me. You don’t need to stay in that apartment alone.”

“But I’m not alone, I have a roommate,” Dana had tried to reason with her.

“We’ll have such fun,” Mandy continued wildly. She turned her head to look at Dana. “He never wanted you, but I did. You were my baby, my little girl….”

“Mama, look out!” Dana had seen the truck, but Mandy hadn’t. Before she could get her fogged mind to function, the truck was on top of them. Then there was only the sound of crunching metal, splintering glass….

Dana felt hot tears run down her cheeks. She wept bitterly. Not only had she lost her mother, but now she understood why there had been arguments all the time, why her parents had been so hostile toward each other. It even explained why her father hadn’t come near her since the divorce. He’d only married Mandy because he’d had to. He hadn’t wanted Dana, not ever. No wonder he had always been away from home. No wonder he’d never tried to build any kind of relationship with his daughter. He’d hated her because she’d forced him to marry a woman he didn’t love—had never loved.

Suddenly Mrs. Pibbs walked into the room, and Dana dabbed at the tears with a corner of the sheet.

“Your father’s gone,” she told the young nurse, wincing at the deep lacerations on the once spotless complexion. There would be scars, although Mrs. Pibbs had determined that she wasn’t going to tell Dana about that just yet; Dana had had quite enough for one day.

Dana licked her dry lips. “Thank you, Mrs. Pibbs.”

“Headache?”

She managed a wan smile. “A really murderous one. Could I have something, do you think?”

“As soon as Dr. Willis makes his rounds.” She checked her wristwatch. “And that will be in a very few minutes.”

Dana became aware of the discomfort in her face and felt the bandages on one cheek. She started. “My face…!”

“You should heal very well,” Mrs. Pibbs said firmly. “It was inevitable, with all that broken glass. It isn’t so bad, my dear. You’re alive. You’re very lucky that you were wearing your seat belt.”

Dana’s lower lip trembled. “Mrs. Pibbs, my mother…Was it quick?”

The older woman sighed. “It was instantaneous, the ambulance attendants told us. Now, you rest. Don’t dwell on it, just rest. The memory will fade, the cuts will fade. It only needs time.” Her eyes were sad for a moment. “Dana, I lost my mother when I was fifteen. I remember very well how it hurt. I still miss her, but grief does pass. It has to.”

“If only I’d insisted on driving…!” Dana burst out, the tears returning. “It’s all my fault!”

“No, my dear, it isn’t. The truck that hit your mother’s car ran a stop sign. Even if you had been driving, it would have been unavoidable.” She moved forward and uncharacteristically brushed the wild blond hair away from Dana’s bruised face. “The driver of the truck was only scratched. Isn’t it the way of things?” she added with a sad smile.

Dana bit her lip. “Yes,” she murmured.

“Jenny said she’d see you later, by the way,” the older nurse added. “And Miss Ena asked about you.”

Dana couldn’t repress a tiny smile, even through her grief. Miss Ena had undergone a gall bladder operation days before, and was the bane of the nursing staff. But strangely, she’d taken a liking to Dana and would do anything the young nurse asked.

“Tell her, please, that I’ll be back on duty Friday night,” Dana said gently. “If that’s all right with you.”

“That depends on how well you are by then,” was the stern reply. “We’ll wait to see about the funeral until Dr. Willis has seen you. You have to be prepared: he may very well refuse to let you go.”

Dana’s eyes blurred again with hot tears. “But I must!”

“You must get well,” Mrs. Pibbs replied. “I’ll see you later, Nurse. I’m very busy, but I wanted to check on you. Dr. Willis will be around shortly.” She paused at the door, her eyes frankly concerned as she watched the blond head settle back on the pillow. Something was wrong there, very wrong. Dana’s father had said as much when he was told that she refused to see him. But he wasn’t going to insist, he told Mrs. Pibbs. Dana would work it out herself.

But would she? Mrs. Pibbs wondered.

Dr. Willis stopped by thirty minutes later, and Dana was shuttled off shortly afterward to X-ray. For the rest of the day, tests were run and results were correlated, and by night the tearful young nurse was given the verdict.

“No funeral,” Dr. Willis said with faint apology as he made his night rounds. “I’m sorry, Dana, but a concussion isn’t something you play around with. Your head took a brutal knock: I can’t risk letting you up so soon.”

“Then can they postpone the funeral…?” Dana asked hopefully.

He shook his head. “Your aunt is in no condition to put it off,” he said bluntly. And he should know: her Aunt Helen was his patient too. “Mandy was her only living relative, except for you. She’s pretty devastated. No, Dana, the sooner it’s over, the better.”

“But I want to go,” Dana wailed bitterly.

“I know that. And I understand why,” he said gently. “But you know that the body is only the shell. The substance, the spark, that was her soul is already with God. It would be like looking at an empty glass.”

The words were oddly comforting and they made sense. But they didn’t ease the hurt.

Dr. Willis took her pulse and examined her eyes. “Shall I call Dick and have him come by and talk to you?” he asked when he finished, naming her minister.

She nodded. “Yes, please. It would be…a great help right now. Aunt Helen—is she coming to see me?”

He shook his head. “Not tonight. I’ve had to sedate her. The shock, for both of you, has been bad. Where’s Jack? I’d have thought he’d be with you.”

“My father has a family to think about,” she said bitterly.

He stared at her. “You’re his family too.”

“Tell him,” she said curtly, staring back. “Because he hasn’t even phoned me since the divorce. Since I left home. Since I went into nurse’s training! Never!”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t.” She looked down at the white hospital sheet. “I’m very sorry, Dr. Willis; I know you’re only trying to help. But this is something I have to work out by myself.”

He nodded. “If I can help, I will. I’ve known your family for a long time.”

She smiled at him. “Yes. Thank you.”

“We’ll keep you for two or three days, depending on how you progress,” he said gently. “I wish I could give you something for the grief. But only God can do that.”

* * *

Aunt Helen came by the next morning, dressed in a wildly expensive blue suit with a peekaboo hat and looking as neat as a pin. She looked a lot like Mandy, but she was taller and thinner. And much more emotional.

“Oh, darling,” she wailed, throwing herself on Dana in a haze of expensive perfume and a chiffon scarf. “Oh, darling, how horrible for us both. Poor Mandy!”

Dana, just beginning to get herself back together, lost control again and wept. “I know,” she whispered. “Aunt Helen, she was so unhappy, so miserable.”

“I know. I told her she never should have married that man. I warned her, but she wouldn’t listen!” Aunt Helen drew away with a tearful sigh. Her brown eyes were wet with tears. “I knew the minute she told me about the divorce that she wouldn’t be with us much longer. She wasn’t strong enough to live alone, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Dana groaned. She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “It all happened so quickly; she was drinking….”

“They told me everything. But, darling, why did you let her drive? Didn’t you realize what might happen?”

Dana felt her face stiffen. “Yes, but…”

“Of all the stupid things to do, and you might have just taken the keys from her in the first place.” The brown eyes so like her mother’s were accusing. “Why in the world did you let her drive, Dana?”

Dana couldn’t even manage a reply. She reached blindly for the buzzer and pushed it. A minute later, a nurse came to the door.

“Will you show my aunt the way out, please, Nurse?” Dana asked tightly, not looking at Aunt Helen, who was obviously shocked.

The nurse knew what was going on from one look at her patient’s drawn face.

“I’m sorry, but Miss Steele can’t be upset; she has a concussion,” the nurse said firmly. “Will you come with me, please?”

As if she’d just realized what she was saying, Helen’s face was suddenly white and repentant. “Darling, I’m sorry….”

But Dana closed her eyes and wouldn’t look or listen. The nightmare wasn’t ever going to end, it seemed, and she wondered vaguely if everyone blamed her for her mother’s death. She turned her face into the pillows and cried like a child.

Her minister visited that night, after the funeral was over, and Dana poured out her heart to him.

“And it’s my fault; even Aunt Helen said it’s my fault,” she confessed.

“It’s no one’s fault, Dana,” he said, smiling quietly. A gentle man, he made her feel at once comforted and secure. “When a life is taken, it’s only because God has decided that He has more need of that life than those attached to it here on earth. People don’t die for no reason, Dana, or because it’s anyone’s fault. God decided the moment of death, not any one of us.”

“But everyone thinks it’s my fault. I should have stopped her—I should have tried!”

“And if you had, there would have been something else,” he said quietly. “I strongly believe that things happen as God means them to.”

“I can’t see anything,” she confessed wearily, “except that my mother is gone, and now I have no one. Even Aunt Helen hates me.”

“Your aunt was literally in tears over what she said to you this morning,” he corrected. “She wanted to come back and apologize, but she was afraid you wouldn’t let her into the room. She was upset; you know how Helen is.”

“What am I going to do?” Dana asked him, dabbing at fresh tears.

“You’re going to go on with your life,” he said simply. “That life belongs to God, you know. Your profession is one of service. Isn’t that the best way to spend your grief, by lessening the pain for others?”

She felt warm inside at the thought, because nursing was so much more to her than a profession. It was a way of life: healing the sick, helping the injured, comforting the bereaved. Yes, she thought, and smiled. Yes, that was how she’d cope.

But it was easier said than done, unfortunately. In the days and weeks that followed, forgetting was impossible.

After the first week, time seemed to fly. Dana made the rounds on her ward, pausing to see Miss Ena, who was being difficult again. The thin old lady had demanded her injection a full hour early, but Dana only smiled and fluffed up the pillows with her usual efficiency.

“Now, Miss Ena,” she said with a quiet smile, “you know I’m not going to ignore Dr. Sanders’s order, and you shouldn’t ask me to. Suppose I have one of the volunteers come and read to you until it’s time. Would that help?”

Miss Ena’s sour face brightened just a little. “Well, I suppose it would,” she said reluctantly. She shifted her thin body against the pillows with a sigh. “Yes,” she said in a softer tone. “Thank you, it would help.”

“I know hospitals are hard on people who are used to gardening and walking the woods and pruning shrubbery,” Dana confessed, laying a hand on the thin shoulder. “But in a very little while, you’ll be back on your feet and doing what you please. Just keep that in mind. Believe me, it will help the time pass much more quickly.”

Miss Ena smiled faintly. “I’m not used to being laid up,” she confessed. “I don’t mean to be disagreeable. It’s only that I hate feeling helpless.”

“I know,” Dana said quietly. “No one likes it.” She fluffed the pillows again. “How about some television now? There’s a special country music awards program on,” she added, knowing the elderly woman’s fondness for that kind of music.

The old woman’s face brightened. “That would be nice,” she said after a minute.

Dana flicked on the switch and adjusted the channel, hiding a smile from Miss Ena.

* * *

Several weeks later Dana was called into Mrs. Pibbs’s office, and Dana knew without asking what the reason was.

“I’d like to forget this, Nurse,” she said, lifting the letter of resignation that Dana had placed on her desk early that morning as she came on duty. “Nursing has been your life. Surely you don’t mean to throw away all those years of training?”

Dana’s eyes were troubled. “I need time,” she said quietly. “Time to get over Mother’s death, time to sort out my priorities, to get myself back together again. I…I can’t bear familiar surroundings right now.”

Mrs. Pibbs leaned back with a sigh. “I understand.” She pursed her lips and frowned. “If it’s a change of scene that you need, I may have a suggestion for you. A friend of mine is looking for a private-duty nurse for her son. He lives in some god-forsaken place near the Atlantic Coast. He’s blind.”

“I hadn’t thought about doing private duty,” Dana murmured.

“You will have to support yourself,” Mrs. Pibbs reminded her. “Although the salary will be good, I must warn you that it won’t be all tranquility. I understand that Lorraine’s son has a black temper. He was an executive, you know, very high-powered, and an athlete to boot. He’s been relegated to the position of a figurehead with his electronics company.”

“The blindness, is it permanent?”

“I don’t know. Lorraine is rather desperate, however,” she added with a tiny smile. “He’s not an easy man to nurse.”

Mrs. Pibbs had made it into a challenge, and right now Dana needed that.

“Perhaps,” she murmured, “it would be just what I need.”

Mrs. Pibbs nodded smugly. “It might be just what Gannon needs too.”

Dana looked up. “Is that his name?”

“Yes. Gannon van der Vere. He’s Dutch.”

Immediately Dana pictured a small man with a mustache, very blond, as memory formed the one Dutchman she’d ever had any contact with—Mr. van Ryker, who’d once been a patient at the hospital. She smiled, softening already. Perhaps he could teach her Dutch while she helped him adjust to his blindness. And in helping him, perhaps she could forget her own anguish.

That night she was combing her long platinum-blond hair when Jenny came whirling in, hairpins flying as she rushed to get out of her nurse’s uniform and into a dress.

“Not going out tonight?” Jenny asked from the bathroom.

“Nowhere to go,” Dana replied, smiling into the mirror. “I’m having a quiet night.”

“You always have quiet nights. Why don’t you come out with Gerald and me?”

“No, thanks, I’d rather catch up on my sleep. I’ve been called out on cases twice in the past three days. How did that little girl do—the one with pneumonia that Dr. Hames admitted?”

“She’s responding. I think she’ll do.” Jenny came back out in a green-and-white-striped dress with matching green pumps. “Say, what’s the rumor about you quitting?” she asked. Jenny had never been one to listen to gossip without going to the object of it to get at the truth. It was the thing about her that Dana admired most.

“It’s true,” she said reluctantly, because she liked her roommate and would miss her. “I’m waiting to hear about a job Mrs. Pibbs knows of, but I have officially resigned as of next Monday.”

“Oh, Dana,” Jenny moaned.

“I’ll write,” she promised. “And so will you. It won’t be forever.”

“It’s your mother’s death, isn’t it?” Jenny asked softly. “Yes, I imagine it’s rough to be where you’re constantly reminded of her. And with the situation between you and your family…”

Dana’s eyes clouded. She turned away. “I’ll be fine,” she managed. “Have a good time tonight,” she added on a bright note.

Jenny sighed as she picked up her purse. “Can I smuggle you something when I come in? A filet mignon, a silk dressing gown, a Rolls, a man…?”

Dana laughed. “How about two hours’ extra sleep to put in my pocket for when old Dr. Grimms calls me down to help him dress a stab wound and tells me his entire medical background before he sends me away?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Jenny promised. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

Chapter Two

Mrs. Pibbs was waiting for Dana in her office the next morning after she’d listened to the report and was on her way to catch up on some paperwork.

“I’ve just talked to Lorraine,” Mrs. Pibbs said with a faint smile. “She’s delighted that you’re going to come.”

“I’m so glad,” Dana replied. “Has she told Mr. van der Vere?”

“Only that a nurse is expected, I understand,” the older woman replied. “It’s better not to give the enemy too much information about troop movements.”

Dana blinked. That old Army nurse’s background popped up every so often in Mrs. Pibbs, and she tried not to giggle when it did. Surely that was a strange choice of words for a new patient. And what a very strange way to describe her impending arrival at the van der Vere home.

“Troop movements?” she asked.

“Just an expression,” Mrs. Pibbs said uncomfortably. “Get on with your duties, Nurse.”

Dana stared after her. A pity she didn’t have time to think about that unusual description, but the doctors were due to make rounds shortly and there wasn’t a minute to spare.

The week went by quickly, and before she knew it, the stitches were out of her face and she was on her way to Savannah by bus. She liked to travel cross country, preferring the sightseeing that way to airplane flights, during which she could see little more than clouds. It was early spring and the landscape was just beginning to turn green across the flat land, and she could still gaze at the architecture in each small town the bus went through. It was one of her hobbies, and she never tired of it.

The styles ranged from Greek revival to Victorian to Gothic and even Williamsburg. There were split-levels, ranch-style homes, modern, ultramodern, and apartment houses. Each design seemed to have its own personality, and Dana couldn’t help but wonder about the people who lived in the houses they passed—what their lives were like.

Halfway across the state, she finally succumbed to drowsiness and fell asleep in her seat by the window. The driver was announcing Savannah when she woke up.

She took a cab out to the van der Vere summer house. The driver followed the directions Mrs. Pibbs had given Dana, and Dana’s eyes took in the jagged boulders of a new development along the beach until they drove farther and turned into a driveway lined with palms and shade trees and what looked like flowering shrubs; it was the season for them to bloom.

The house was fairly large, built of gray stone and overlooking the Atlantic, so ethereal that it might have been an illusion. Dana loved it at first sight. It’s beautiful, she thought, with flowers blooming all around it and the greenery profuse.

She paid the driver and went up the cobblestone path to the door, pausing before she rang the doorbell. Well, she told herself, it was now or never. Self-consciously she tugged a lock of her loosened hair over her cheek to help conceal the scar. Bangs already hid the one on her forehead. But the worst scars were those inside, out of sight….

The door opened and a small dark woman with green eyes stood smiling at her.

“You’re Dana Steele?” she asked softly. “Come in, do. I’m Lorraine van der Vere; I’m so glad to meet you. Was it a long trip—were you comfortable?” she added in a rush, moving aside to let the taller woman inside.

Dana compared her own gray suit with the woman’s obviously expensive emerald pantsuit and felt shabby by comparison. It was the best she had, of course, but hardly couture. If what Mrs. van der Vere was wearing was any indication, the family was quite wealthy.

“I brought my uniform, of course,” Dana said quickly. “I don’t want you to think…”

“Don’t be silly, my dear,” Lorraine said kindly. “Would you like to go upstairs and freshen up before I, uh, introduce you to my son?”

Dana was about to reply when there was a crash and a thud, followed by muffled words in a deep, harsh voice. Probably a servant had dropped something in the kitchen, Dana thought, but Mrs. van der Vere looked suddenly uncomfortable.

“Here, I’ll show you to your room,” she said quickly, guiding Dana to the staircase with its mahogany banister and woodwork. “Come with me, dear.”

As if I had any choice, Dana thought with muzzled amusement. Mrs. van der Vere acted as if she were running from wolves.

The room she was given was done in shades of beige and brown, with creamy curtains and a soft quilted coverlet in a “chocolate and spice” pattern. The carpet was thick, and Dana wanted to kick off her shoes and walk through it barefoot. She took her time getting into her spotless, starched uniform. She’d wanted to put her hair up, to look more professional, but she couldn’t cope with the pity in Mrs. van der Vere’s eyes if those scars were allowed to show. She left off her makeup—after all, her poor patient couldn’t see her anyway—adjusted her cap and went downstairs.

Mrs. van der Vere came out of the living room, hands outstretched. “My, don’t you look professional,” she said. “We’ll have to spend some time together, my dear, once you’ve gotten into the routine and adjusted to Gannon.” She looked briefly uncomfortable and bit her dainty lower lip. “Dana, if I may call you Dana, you…won’t…that is, you’re used to difficult patients, aren’t you?” she asked finally.

Dana smiled. “Yes, Mrs. van der Vere…”

“Call me Lorraine, dear. We’re going to be allies, you know.”

“Lorraine,” she corrected. “I was a floor nurse at Ashton General, you know. I think I can cope with Mr. van der Vere.”

“Most people do, until they’ve met him” was the worried reply, accompanied by a wan smile. “Well—” she straightened “—shall we get it over with?”

Dana followed behind her, half puzzled. Surely the little Dutchman couldn’t be that much of a horror. She wondered if he’d have an accent. His mother didn’t seem to….

Lorraine knocked tentatively at the door of the room next to the living room.

“Gannon?” she called hesitantly.

“Well, come in or go away! Do you need an engraved invitation?” came a deep, lightly accented voice from behind the huge mahogany door.

Lorraine opened the door and stood aside to let Dana enter the room first.

“Here’s your new nurse, darling: Miss Dana Steele. Dana, this is my stepson, Gannon.”

Dana barely heard her. She was trying to adjust to the fact that the small, mustached Dutchman she had been told was to be her patient was actually the man she saw in front of her.

“Well?” the huge man at the desk asked harshly, his unseeing gray eyes staring straight ahead. “Is she mute, Mother? Or just weighing the advantages of silence?”

Dana found her voice and moved forward, her footsteps alerting the tall blond man to her approach. He stood up, towering over her, his shaggy mane of hair falling roguishly over his broad forehead.

“How do you do, Mr. van der Vere?” Dana asked with more confidence than she felt.

“I’m blind—how do you think I do, Miss Steele?” he demanded harshly, his deep voice cold and cutting, his unseeing wintery eyes glaring at her. “I trip over the furniture, I turn over glasses, and I hate being led around like a child! Did my stepmother tell you that you’re the fifth?” he added with a bitter laugh.

“Fifth what?” she asked, holding on to her nerve.

“Nurse, of course,” he replied impatiently. “I’ve gone through that many in a month. How long do you expect to last?”

“As long as I need to, Mr. van der Vere,” she replied calmly.

He cocked his head, as if straining to hear her. “Not afraid of me, miss?” he prodded.

She shifted her shoulders. “Actually, sir, I’m quite fond of wild animals,” she said with a straight face, while Lorraine gaped at her.

A faint movement in the broad face caught her attention. “Are you presuming to call me a wild animal?” he retorted.

“Oh, no, sir,” Dana assured him. “I wouldn’t flatter you on such short acquaintance.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Nervy, aren’t you?” he murmured. “You’ll need that nerve if you stay here long.” He turned away and found the corner of the desk, easing himself back into his chair.

“Well, I’ll leave you two to…get acquainted,” Lorraine said, seizing her opportunity. She backed out the door with an apologetic smile at Dana, and closed it behind her.

“Would you like to get acquainted with me, Miss Nurse?” Gannon van der Vere asked arrogantly.

“Oh, definitely sir. I do consider it an advantage to get to know the enemy.”

He chuckled. “Is that how you see me?”

“That’s obviously how you want to be seen,” she told him. “You don’t like being nursed, do you? You’d much rather sit behind that great desk and brood about being blind.”

The smile faded and his gray eyes glittered sightlessly toward the source of her voice. “I beg your pardon?”

“Have you been out of this house since the accident?” she asked. “Have you bothered to learn braille, or to walk with a cane? Have you seen about getting a Seeing Eye dog?”

“I don’t need crutches!” he shot back. “I’m a man, not a child. I won’t be fussed over!”

“But you must see that the only recourse you’ve given your stepmother is to find help for you…” she said, attempting reason “…if you won’t even make the effort to help yourself.”

He lifted his nose in what Dana immediately recognized as the prelude to an outburst of pure venom.

“Perhaps I would if I could be left alone long enough,” he replied in a voice so cold it dripped icicles. “I’ve been ‘helped’ out of my mind. The last nurse my stepmother brought here had the audacity to suggest that I might benefit from a psychiatrist. She left in the middle of the night.”

“I can see you now, flinging her out the front steps in her bedclothes,” Dana retorted, unperturbed.

“Impertinent little creature, aren’t you?” he growled.

“If you treat your employees this way, Mr. van der Vere, I’m amazed that you still have any,” she said calmly. “Now, what would you like for dinner and I’ll show you how to start feeding yourself. I assume you don’t like being spoon-fed…?”

He muttered something harsh and banged his fist down on the desk. “I’m not hungry!”

“In that case I’ll tell the cook not to bother preparing anything for you,” she said cheerfully. “When you need me, do call.”

She started out the door, trying not to hear what he was saying to her back.

“Sticks and stones, Mr. van der Vere,” she reminded him sweetly as she opened the door.

He growled something in another language and followed it with a slam of something on the big wooden desk. Dana smiled secretly as she closed the door behind her. Challenge, was that what had been said about this job? It would certainly be that, she affirmed silently.

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