The Texan′s Business Proposition
The Texan's Business Proposition
Peggy Moreland
It was an assignment she couldn't refuse. Ultracapable assistant Sally Gregg had to take care of her boss for one week. No phones. No computers. No stress. Not an easy task considering Vince Donnelly was a workaholic a tyrant she had little use for outside the office.Then the business tycoon decided seducing his secretary would be the ultimate way to pass the time….
The Texan’s Business Proposition
Peggy Moreland
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Justin and Cassie
The best things in life are worth waiting on…
and y’all waited long enough! May love, happiness
and friendship accompany you throughout your lives.
Contents
Prologue (#ub2af8fbd-fe75-5977-a7fd-67fe64c6807c)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Coming Next Month
Prologue
“In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.”
—José Narosky
September 9, 1971
Preacher lay on his cot, his hands folded behind his head, staring at the shadowed canvas roof overhead. Though it was well past midnight and he was exhausted from a day spent on patrol, sleep evaded him.
From the far distance came the muffled rumble of bombs exploding. Closer was the not-so-muffled sound of snoring.
He shot a frown at the cot next to his and considered giving it a swift kick and telling his bunkmate to turn over…but decided against it. Just because he couldn’t sleep didn’t mean Fast Eddie had to join in his misery.
Fast Eddie. He snorted a laugh at the irony of the nickname. There was nothing fast about Eddie. He talked slow, walked slow. But the nickname assigned him during boot camp had stuck, the same as Preacher’s. Preacher’s real name was Vincent Donnelly, but it had been so long since he’d been called by his given name, he doubted he would respond if he were to hear it now.
The tag wasn’t one he would’ve chosen for himself, but he’d take it any day of the week over “Coward”, which is what some of the guys called him behind his back. He didn’t like the name or what it signified. He wasn’t a coward. He just had a hard time wrapping his mind around killing another human being.
Giving up on sleeping, he rolled from his cot and to his feet, hoping a walk might silence the chatter in his head. Once outside, he paused to look around. At the far end of the camp’s perimeter fencing he saw a shadowed form in the bunker and headed that way, thinking he’d shoot the breeze for a while with whoever was pulling guard duty. As he neared the bunker, he heard the metallic click of a safety being released and called quickly, “It’s me. Preacher.”
He heard another click, indicating the safety was shoved back into place, and released a nervous breath.
“Figured it was you, Preacher.”
Recognizing the deep voice as that of Pops, their team leader, he crossed to the bunker and settled down alongside his friend.
“Quiet night?” he asked.
Pops nodded, his gaze on the tall grasses that spread from the western corner of their camp. “Heard something a while ago. Thought we might have some company, but haven’t seen or heard anything since.”
“Could’ve been an animal. We spotted some wild dogs this afternoon on our way back to camp.”
“Maybe.”
Hearing the doubt in Pops’s voice, Preacher glanced his way. “You think somebody’s out there?”
Pops lifted a shoulder but kept his gaze on the grass beyond the fence. “Safer to think there is than get caught unprepared.”
Preached nodded gravely.
They sat a long moment in silence before Pops slanted a look Preacher’s way. “Still having trouble sleeping?”
Embarrassed by what some might consider a weakness, Preacher ducked his head. “Yeah. Can’t seem to stop the chattering in my head.”
“Chattering?”
“You know. Like two sides of my brain are carrying on a conversation.”
“Have you tried telling them to shut up?”
Chuckling, Preacher shook his head. “Haven’t tried that one yet.”
“Do what I do,” Pops suggested. “When I lay down at night, I close my eyes and picture home, my wife curled up beside me in bed. Relaxes my mind, my soul.”
“Wouldn’t work for me. When I think about home, it just adds more worries to the chatter already going on in my head. Things like is Karen managing okay without me? Has Vince cut his first tooth?”
Pops shifted his rifle to his left hand and slung an arm around Preacher’s shoulders. “You worry too much, Preacher. You’ve got to learn to let some of that go. Have faith that your boy will survive cutting his first tooth the same as you and every other kid in the world has. And trust your wife to handle things while you’re gone. She’s capable isn’t she?”
“You bet she is. Karen might look fragile, but she’s tough. And Vince…well, he’s pretty tough, too.” He glanced Pops’s way. “Did I tell you he’s started climbing out of his crib? Karen told me about it in her last letter.”
Pops withdrew his arm. “Next thing you know, he’ll be driving a car.”
Preacher held up a hand. “Please. Don’t be putting those kinds of images in my mind. I can find enough to worry about as it is.”
Chuckling, Pops pushed to his feet and stretched. “I need to take a leak. Mind standing guard for me?”
Preacher took the rifle Pops offered him. “Might as well. Can’t sleep, anyway.”
After Pops left to relieve himself, Preacher settled the rifle over the edge of the bunker and began slowly sweeping his gaze along the shadowed sea of swaying grass before him, while keeping his ear tuned to pick up the slightest sound. He’d made one full sweep and started a second when he heard a muffled sound behind him. He leaped to his feet, bringing the rifle up into position, its butt braced against his shoulder. With the nose of the barrel pointed in the direction the noise had come, he waited, listening.
After what seemed like an eternity, a twig snapped, the sound like a crack of thunder in the silence. Telling himself that it was probably just Pops returning, Preacher eased forward, moving stealthily in the direction the sound had come. He wanted badly to call out to Pops, verify that he was the one who had made the noise, but training and field experience had taught him the danger of revealing his position to a possible enemy.
A cold sweat beaded his forehead and upper lip, ran in a narrow rivulet down his spine. He paused a moment to drag his arm across his face to clear the moisture from his eyes, then moved on. When he reached the latrine, he flattened his back against the bamboo fence that surrounded it and waited, listening, his rifle held tight against his chest. Ten seconds. Twenty. Sweat dripped from his face, soaked the back of his undershirt. Thirty. Forty.
Keeping his movements slow and easy, he leaned to peer around the opening into the latrine. Ice filled his veins at the scene before him. Pops lay sprawled on the ground, still as death, while a Vietcong, dressed in the standard black pajamas the enemy wore, straddled him. The Vietcong lifted a hand high, and moonlight bounced off the blade of the knife he clutched.
Preacher opened his mouth to yell at the man to stop, to let Pops go. But no sound came out. Frozen by fear, he watched in what seemed like slow motion, as the hand started down, the tip of the blade aimed at Pops’ chest. The chatter started in his head again, one of the voices his own, the other that of the rancher who had bought him and his buddies a drink in the Texas bar, prior to them beginning the first leg of their journey for Vietnam.
“You boys scared?” the rancher asked bluntly.
“Yes, sir,” Preacher admitted. “I’ve never shot a man before. Not sure I can.”
The smile the rancher offered Preacher was filled with understanding, his wink that of a father reassuring his son. “Oh, I ’ magine you’ll find it easy enough, once those Vietcong start shooting at you.”
But the rancher was wrong, Preacher thought as he watched the blade slowly arc down, drawing nearer and nearer Pops’s chest. Pops, the man who had trained Preacher, stood by him, defended him when the other’s had called him a coward, was about to die, and Preacher couldn’t pull the trigger to save him.
He can’t die, Preacher thought desperately. Not here, not like this. He had a wife waiting for him at home, a baby on the way.
Setting his jaw, he yanked the rifle to his shoulder and looked down the barrel, fixing the Vietcong’s head between the cross-hairs. But as much as he wanted to save Pops’ life, he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger.
Anger built inside him, a red-hot inferno that fired his blood, roared in his ears. Taking the stock of the rifle in one hand and the barrel in the other, he opened his mouth and charged. The feral sound that spewed from deep inside him ripped through the night air like a machete. Before the Vietcong had time to react, Preacher dropped the rifle over his head and jerked it back against his throat.
The Vietcong flew backward, losing his grip on the knife. The weapon hit the ground less than a foot from Preacher’s boot and he kicked it out of reach. Before the man could scramble up, Preacher swung the rifle up to his shoulder and aimed it at the Vietcong’s face. He saw the hate in the man’s eyes…but not a trace of fear.
Behind him Pops moaned, stirred. Preacher started to glance back, wanting to make sure that Pops was all right, but as he did the Vietcong slid a hand beneath his shirt.
Fearing the man had a weapon concealed beneath the black tunic, Preacher stabbed the nose of his rifle against the Vietcong’s chest. “Don’t move!”
His lip curled in a sneer, the Vietcong ignored Preacher’s order. Preacher saw the butt of a handgun appear a split second before its nose was pointed at him.
The blast that followed was deafening, echoing around and around the fenced area. Preacher stumbled back a step, his gaze frozen on the Vietcong’s face. He saw the surprise that lit the man’s eyes, watched as the life slowly faded from them. He glanced down at the man’s chest where blood oozed from a gaping hole and gulped back the nausea that rose to his throat.
He heard a shout from outside the fenced latrine and knew the shot had raised an alarm in camp. The pounding of feet that followed assured him the soldiers were up and assuming their positions.
A hand lit on his shoulder, squeezed. He knew without looking it was Pops.
“You okay?” Pops asked.
Preacher swallowed hard, nodded. “Yeah. You?”
“Knot on my head is all, thanks to you. A second more and he would have slit my throat.”
Fast Eddie appeared in the opening to the latrine, half-dressed, his feet bare. “Y’all okay?”
Pops nodded, then gestured toward the Vietcong sprawled on the ground. “Enemy penetrated our perimeter. Order a full sweep of camp to make sure he was alone, then check on the guards on duty. I’ll get a detail together to take care of the body when I’m done here.”
Fast Eddie looked from the dead Vietcong to the rifle that Preacher held, and his eyes shot wide. “You made the kill, Preacher?”
Preacher opened his mouth, then closed it and dropped his chin.
“You have your orders, soldier,” Pops said tersely.
Fast Eddie snapped to attention. “Yes, sir.” He took one last look at Preacher, then turned and jogged away.
Preacher squeezed his eyes shut, but the image of the man lying at his feet with his life’s blood pouring from his chest remained fixed on the back of his lids. He’d killed one man to save the life of another. What gave him the right to decide who lived and who died? He wasn’t God.
As if reading Preacher’s mind, Pops tightened his grip on Preacher’s shoulder. “Don’t go beating yourself up over this. When he put on the uniform, that soldier knew he was laying his life on the line, the same as you and I did the day we put on ours.”
Preacher dragged an arm across his eyes. “Doesn’t make it right.”
“Wars are fought with only one rule in play. Kill or be killed.”
Preacher set his jaw, his anger returning. “I hate this damn war. Hate what it does to people, the suffering it’s caused, the lives it’s taken.”
Pops tightened his arm around Preacher and turned him away from the sight of the dead Vietcong. “This war’s no different from any of those fought before it. It’ll be the same for those yet to be fought.”
Preacher jerked to stop, dragging Pops to a halt, as well. “How do you deal with it?” he cried in frustration. “How can you sleep at night, knowing people are dying all around you?”
“It’s like I said before. I close my eyes and picture home. My wife, my son. It’s them I’m fighting for, their safety, their freedom.”
“And what happens when it’s over? When you go home? Will you just forget everything you’ve seen, what you’ve done? Erase it all from your mind like it never happened?”
Pops shook his head sadly. “I don’t know, Preacher. Right now all I can do is focus on making it home. The rest I’ll worry about once I’m there.”
He took the rifle Preacher still held. “You’re a good man, Preacher. Of all the soldiers I’ve served with, you’re the only one I can say with confidence will leave this godforsaken war with the same principles and standards he arrived with.”
Preacher shook his head. “I don’t feel like the same man. I feel…I don’t know, scarred somehow.”
Pops nodded grimly. “I read a quote somewhere. Can’t remember who said it, but it went something like this. ‘In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.’ At the time I remember thinking the guy who said it must have been crazy. Now I think I understand what he meant.”
“Yeah,” Preacher said. “Me, too.”
Squinting his eyes against the darkness, Pops looked off into the distance a long moment. “Preacher, I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but the soldiers who make it home are going to be burdened with a greater responsibility than the ones they’ve shouldered here.”
Preacher looked at him in confusion. “How’s that?”
His smile sad, Pops patted him on the back. “Focus on making it home, Preacher. When you get there, you’ll know what I mean.” Turning, he walked away. “You’ll know, Preacher,” he called over his shoulder. “You, of all people, will know.”
One
Now, this is the life, Sally Gregg thought to herself. Swaying palm trees, a private pool, a house with every amenity known to man.
She tipped her sunglasses down and craned her neck to peer at the structure behind her. Not just a house, she corrected. It was a friggin’ mansion. Nestled in Houston’s prestigious River Oaks subdivision and situated on two lush acres, the house rivaled its neighbors in both design and size.
Too bad the interior doesn’t reflect the traditional style of the exterior, she thought with regret. She supposed the ultramodern design suited her boss, but the mix of chrome and black lacquer didn’t do a thing for her.
Thankfully her boss had limited the changes he’d made after purchasing the house to the inside and had left the exterior and landscaping alone. As a result, the backyard was an oasis, as soothing to the soul as it was to the eye. A clever blend of French doors and floor-to-ceiling windows offered spectacular views of the pool and landscaped lawn beyond from inside the house.
Sure beats the heck out of the view of the parking lot from my apartment window, she thought with more than a little envy. With a sigh, she pushed her sunglasses back into place and settled on the lounge chair again.
But she’d have a house someday, she promised herself. Maybe not as large and grand as her boss’s and definitely not one with a River Oaks address, but she’d have a home.
The only thing that kept her from having one now was money. Thanks to the generous salary her employer paid her and her own prudent lifestyle, she was steadily chipping away at that particular roadblock. Having learned frugality the hard way—by necessity—she knew how to stretch a dollar until it all but screamed for mercy. As a result she was close to becoming debt free, while still managing to squirrel away money toward a down payment.
Which she’d already have, if not for Brad.
She scowled at the reminder of her ex. She never should have given him the money, she thought bitterly. She, better than anyone, knew he’d never pay it back. Brad was, and always had been, fast with a promise and slow on delivery.
It was bad enough that she’d wasted four years of her life with a man who didn’t care for her, but then he’d decided to prolong her misery by showing up unannounced on her doorstep every time he needed money. For some stupid reason, he’d gotten it in his head that she owed him, which was insane, considering she had been the sole breadwinner throughout their marriage. Now she was forced to constantly move, in order to escape his mental abuse and the demands he made on her. As a result of the forced nomadic lifestyle, she had few possessions and even fewer friends.
She stubbornly pushed the thoughts of her ex from her mind. She wasn’t letting Brad, or anything, for that matter, spoil her stay in paradise. And house-sitting for Vince Donnelly was exactly that. Paradise.
She shivered deliciously, thinking the stars definitely had been shining on her the day she’d snagged the job as Vince’s executive secretary. Besides house-sitting for him when he was out of town—a perk she hadn’t expected when she’d accepted the job—she received an above-average salary and more benefits than any of the other positions she’d applied for after moving to Houston. Granted, Vince wasn’t the easiest man to work with. He was obsessive, demanding and micromanaged all of his employees. But he was also successful and drop-dead gorgeous.
Not that his looks had factored into her accepting the job as his secretary, she thought judiciously. Money was her motivator.
She remembered the shock she’d experienced when she’d walked into his office for her job interview and gotten her first look at the owner and founder of Donnelly Consulting. Based on the size and value of the company, she’d expected an older man. One with at least a spattering of gray at his temples.
What she’d found was a thirty-six-year-old hunk with the disposition of a grizzly bear.
With a shake of her head, she sat up and reached for the bottle of sunscreen, squirted a blob on her palm. Thirty minutes, she promised herself as she smoothed the cream over her arms, chest and legs, then she’d go inside and tackle the tasks her boss had e-mailed her overnight.
Grimacing, she mentally added workaholic to her boss’s faults. The man was relentless. In the four months she’d worked for him, she’d never known him to take so much as a day off, which was a shame, since his business trips took him all over the world.
With a rueful shake of her head, she lay back and closed her eyes again. If she were required to take business trips all over the world, she’d darn well stay over a day or two and see the sights. Tokyo. Paris. Venice.
She smiled dreamily, easily able to imagine herself floating on a gondola along the canals of Venice.
“Sally!”
She shot up from the chair, to find her boss standing in the open French door.
“Vince,” she said dully. Remembering how she was dressed, she snatched up a towel and whipped it around her. “What are you doing home? You aren’t supposed to be back until Monday.”
“Cut the trip short. Wasn’t feeling good.”
She peered at him more closely and had to admit he did look kind of sick. His face was pale, his shoulders stooped, his clothing rumpled. “Did you pick up a bug or something?”
Shaking his head, he rubbed a hand across his chest. “Heartburn. Something I ate must not have agreed with me.”
She started toward him, praying whatever he had wasn’t contagious. “When did you get sick?”
“Hit me last night. Caught a red-eye home.” He braced a hand against the doorjamb as if needing its support as he turned inside the house. “Did you update the spreadsheets on the Holmes deal?”
She rolled her eyes, but dutifully followed him inside. “No.”
He shot her a frown over his shoulder. “Didn’t you get my e-mail?”
“Yes. This morning. I planned to do it this afternoon.”
“I need that report now.”
Before she could remind him it was Saturday and technically her day off, he clamped a hand over the back of a chair and bent double with a groan.
“Vince?” When he didn’t reply, she moved around him to peer at his face and saw that his skin had turned a deathly gray and his breathing was labored. “Vince? Are you okay?”
He pressed a hand against his chest. “Can’t breathe,” he choked out.
She bolted for the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “Stay right there. I’ll get you a glass of water.”
A step short of reaching her destination, she heard a loud crash behind her. Quickly reversing her direction, she raced back and found Vince sprawled on the floor and the stainless-steel end table that usually stood beside the chair on its side less than a foot from his head. She burned a full twenty seconds wringing her hands, trying to think what to do, then noticed his cell phone clipped at his waist. Snatching it from its holder, she punched in 911.
“911 operator. What is your emergency?”
She pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. “I’m not sure. I’m at my boss’s house. He said he wasn’t feeling well. I went to get him a glass a water. He must’ve fainted or something because now he’s lying on the floor.”
“Is he conscious?”
She shifted her gaze to Vince’s closed eyes and gulped. “No.”
“Your name?”
She frowned in confusion. “What?”
“Your name.”
“Sally Gregg. Please,” she begged. “Send an ambulance. I don’t know what to do.”
“Your relationship to the victim?”
“What difference does that make?” she cried. “The man needs help!”
“Try to remain calm, ma’am.”
She drew in a deep breath and slowly released it, telling herself that losing her cool wasn’t going to help things. “We’re not related. He’s my boss.”
“The victim’s name?”
“Vince Donnelly.”
“Address?”
She rattled off Vince’s address.
“Phone number?”
“For God’s sake!” she snapped. “I don’t want you to call me, I want an ambulance! He could be dying!”
“Ma’am, I understand your concern, but I’m required to collect this information.”
“It’s 555-423-6597,” she said in a rush. “I’ll leave the front door open.”
Before the operator could ask her any more ridiculous questions, she threw down the phone and ran to unlock the front door, then raced back and dropped to a knee beside Vince.
“Vince? Vince, can you hear me?”
She held her breath, watching his face for a reaction and bit back a moan when not so much as an eyelash fluttered. “Vince, please,” she begged. “Hold on. An ambulance is on the way.”
There was a rap on the door.
“Houston Fire Department! Is there an emergency?”
Sally jumped to her feet. “In here!”
A man appeared, followed on his heels by a second man carrying a bag.
The first to arrive moved to stand with Sally, while the other dropped down beside Vince and began pulling equipment from his bag.
“What happened?” the man beside Sally asked.
She wrung her hands. “I don’t know. He just returned from a trip. Said he wasn’t feeling well. I went to get him a glass of water. He must have fainted, because I heard this loud crash. I ran back and found him lying on the floor.”
“He’s breathing,” the second fireman reported.
A third man appeared and dropped down at Vince’s head to support his neck while the second fireman fastened what looked like a thick, padded belt around it.
“What’s he doing?” Sally asked in concern.
“Applying a C-collar,” the man at her side explained. “In the event he injured his neck when he fell, the collar will prevent further damage.”
Gulping, Sally watched as the men continued to work, one attaching a heart monitor to Vince’s chest, the other wrapping a blood pressure cuff around his arm.
“EMS!”
Sally snapped up her head to see two more uniformed men rushing into the house, carrying a stretcher.
The man beside her quickly shifted his attention to the EMS team and reported, “Male, midthirties, possible cardiac arrest. Witness reports he passed out and hit his head on the table. We’re holding C-spine, have applied oxygen via nonrebreather at fifteen liters per minute. Blood pressure 178/96, pulse is 102 respirations at 24 rapid.”
Wide-eyed, Sally scooted out of the way and watched while the EMS team positioned a backboard beside Vince. On the count of three, the fireman rolled Vince to his side, and the EMS team slid the backboard into position. After lowering Vince to the backboard, they cinched straps around him to secure him. On the count of three again, the men lifted him onto the stretcher.
“You’ll need to meet the ambulance at the hospital,” the fireman told Sally, as the other men gathered their equipment, preparing to leave.
Sally took a step back. “Oh, I’m not family,” she said. “I’m just his secretary.”
The fireman gave her a slow look up and down and Sally cringed, knowing what he must think. A woman at her boss’ house on the weekend wearing a towel wrapped around her? No, this didn’t look good, at all.
The EMS team started toward the front door with Vince. The fireman placed a hand in the middle of Sally’s back, urging her to follow.
He stopped on the porch. “Can you notify his family?”
“The only relative I know of is his mother, and she’s confined to a nursing home.”
“Then you’ll need to go to the hospital.”
“But I’m not family,” she said again.
“Admittance is going to need whatever information you have to offer.”
Leaving Sally on the porch, the fireman went to help the others load Vince into the back of the ambulance. One of the EMS team hopped into the back with Vince, while the other ran to climb behind the wheel of the vehicle. With lights flashing and siren screaming, the ambulance took off down the circle drive and bounced onto the street.
As Sally watched the vehicle disappear from sight, she sent up a silent prayer for Vince, then whispered another for her own forgiveness.
She might’ve prayed for Vince, but it was really her own welfare she was worried about.
If anything happened to her boss, she knew she’d be out of a job.
Sally spent the next eight hours in the hospital’s emergency room. Upon her arrival, she’d provided the desk clerk with what information she could about Vince, which proved enough to allow them to locate his records, as well as his doctor. Technically, she could have left then, and with a clear conscious. But some weird sense of duty made her stay. Since she knew of no family or friends of Vince’s to call to sit in her stead, she felt obligated to remain and await news of his condition.
During her long vigil, she read every magazine in the waiting room, drank four cups of coffee, made numerous trips to the restroom, one to the snack machine, and all without receiving any word on Vince’s condition. Fearing the worst, she gathered her courage and approached the reception desk. The staff had changed at three o’clock, and a different woman now sat behind the desk, having replaced the clerk Sally had spoken to previously.
“Excuse me,” she said, in order to get the clerk’s attention. “Is there any word on Vince Donnelly?”
“Are you family?”
She shook her head. “His secretary.”
“The doctor’s still with Mr. Donnelly. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Sally murmured her thanks and returned to her seat. Desperate for something to help pass the time, she picked up a tattered paperback novel someone had left behind and began to read. As luck would have it, it was a mystery, her favorite genre, and two pages into the book, she was totally engrossed by the story.
“Are you Sally?”
She snapped up her head to find a doctor standing in front of her. Gulping, she set the book aside and slowly rose. “Y-yes. I’m Sally.”
“I’m Dr. O’Connor, Vince’s physician.” He gestured toward a door. “If you’ll come with me.”
Sally followed him through the door and down a short hall.
Unsure what to expect, she asked uneasily, “He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?”
“That depends on Vince.”
Considering that a nonanswer, she followed the doctor into one of the curtained-off examining rooms, where Vince lay, his eyes closed, his hands folded over the hospital gown that covered his chest. An IV tube ran from the back of one hand to a bottle hanging from a hook at the head of the bed. A white plastic bracelet circled his left wrist. She stared hard at his hands and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest beneath them.
She sent up a silent prayer of thanks that he was still alive and her job hopefully secure, then whispered to the doctor, “Why hasn’t he regained consciousness?”
“He did. His current state is drug induced.”
At her questioning look, he went on to explain, “Vince doesn’t make a very good patient. He regained consciousness shortly after arriving and pitched a fit when he realized where he was. I sedated him to calm him down.”
Sally nodded, easily able to imagine the kind of ruckus her boss had kicked up. “Do you know what happened to him?”
“Before, during or after his fall?”
She shrugged. “All of it, I guess.”
“He suffered a mild heart attack. The dizziness he experienced during the attack probably caused the fall. Unfortunately, on the way down he cracked his head on something and—”
“The end table,” Sally interjected. “When I found him, the end table was lying next to him.”
“Ah,” the doctor said, nodding. “Stainless steel, as I recall. That explains the bump on the back of his head.” He chuckled softly. “Too bad it didn’t knock any sense into that thick skull of his.”
Sally looked at the doctor curiously, surprised that he was familiar with Vince’s home, as well as her boss’s stubborn streak. “Do you know Vince?”
“Since we were kids.” He glanced over at Vince and gave his head a rueful shake. “The most stubborn person I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.”
Sally would have laughed at the doctor’s assessment of her boss, but she was too worried about her job to find anything amusing. “How long will he have to stay in the hospital?”
“I’d like to keep him a week, at the very least.”
“Like hell you will.”
Sally and the doctor both glanced over to find Vince awake and struggling to sit up.
The doctor quickly placed a hand against Vince’s chest. “Unless you want me to put another knot on your head, I’d advise you to stay put.”
Obviously too weak to put up much of a fight, Vince sank back against the pillow and squeezed his forehead between his fingers. “What’d you give me? I feel like I’ve been on a three-day drunk.”
“It was a cocktail, all right, but not the kind you might expect.”
Judging by Vince’s weakened state, Sally had to believe whatever the doctor had given him was strong.
“I’m getting out of here.”
The doctor looked down his nose at Vince. “You’ll leave when I say you can.”
Vince dropped his hand to scowl. “Don’t be a jerk, Pat. You know I hate hospitals. Cut me loose so I can go home.”
“You’re in no condition to take care of yourself.”
“I’ll be fine as soon as the drugs wear off.”
“You had a heart attack,” the doctor reminded him. “Which is exactly what I’ve been telling you was going to happen if you didn’t cut back on your workload and get rid of some of the stress in your life.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my heart,” Vince grumbled.
“No, there’s not,” the doctor agreed. “Not this time, at least. The tests we ran indicated no damage was done to your heart. But you did suffer a concussion when you fell, which requires round-the-clock monitoring. Last I heard, you lived alone.”
Vince glanced at Sally. She backed up a step, fearing she knew what he was going to suggest.
“Sally will take care of me.”
She groaned inwardly.
The doctor turned to peer at her. “I thought the clerk said you were his secretary?”
“She is,” Vince replied for her, then gave Sally a warning look. “And she can earn her salary at my house as easily as she can at my office.”
The doctor kept his gaze fixed on Sally. “Would you seriously be willing to stay with this lug for a week?”
Sally stole a glance at Vince. The message in his eyes was clear: if she liked her job, she’d do as he said.
Turning back to the doctor, she forced a smile. “If that’s what Vince wants.”
“You’ll be doing more than monitoring his sleep,” the doctor warned her. “I’ve been telling him for years to slow down. This week he’s going to do just that. No work. Period. And under no circumstances is he to leave the house. I want him resting, and when he’s not resting, I want him relaxing and that means no phone calls and no e-mail. In fact, no contact with the outside world whatsoever. I don’t want anything even remotely related to business anywhere near him. Got it?”
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“And work on improving his nutrition. His eating habits are worse than a nine-year-old’s.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll see that he eats properly balanced meals. What about his physical activity? Should I monitor that, too?”
The doctor glanced at Vince, then shook his head. “No. In fact, it would probably do him some good, considering he spends most of his time sitting on an airplane or behind a desk.”
“I’m sure I can think of something to keep him active.”
The doctor studied her a long moment as if judging her ability to carry out his orders. “All right,” he finally agreed, and headed out. “I’ll write up instructions and sign his release.”
As Sally watched the doctor disappear from sight, the enormity of the task she’d taken on sunk in. Panicking, she whipped her head around to level Vince with a threatening look. “Don’t you move so much as a muscle. I’ll be right back.”
Flinging back the curtain, she ran after the doctor. “Dr. O’Connor! Wait!”
He glanced over his shoulder, then stopped and turned, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Changed your mind already?”
She dragged in a breath, choosing her words carefully, knowing she might very well be putting her job on the line. “I’m a secretary, not a nurse. I’m not sure I’m qualified to take care of someone who’s had a heart attack. What if he should…” She swallowed hard, unable to voice her fears.
Chuckling, he shook his head. “Don’t worry. Vince isn’t going to die.” He lifted a brow and added, “Though you might consider killing him before the week’s over.”
“But he had a heart attack,” she said in frustration. “I’d think he’d need to stay in the hospital for at least a couple of days.”
“Under normal circumstances, I’d keep him overnight.” He shrugged. “But his attack was mild. More a warning, really. What he needs is rest and lots of it. Keeping him in the hospital, in Vince’s case, would actually do him more harm than good.”
Sally gave him a dubious look.
Chuckling, the doctor gave her shoulder a reassuring pat. “Trust me. He really is better off at home.”
And home is exactly where Sally took Vince.
Thanks to another shot of Dr. O’Connor’s wonder drug prior to leaving the hospital, he slept throughout the ride. Sally was grateful for the reprieve. It gave her time to get a grip on her anger with her boss for putting her in such an awkward position.
Heck, she didn’t want to spend the week at his house! Not with him in residence. He was hard enough to get along with when he was well. She couldn’t imagine what a forced convalescence would do to his already disagreeable personality.
She shot a scowl at the passenger seat where Vince slept, his head tipped back, his jaw slack, his lips parted. Spoiled brat, she thought resentfully. Using her job to coerce her into agreeing to act as his nursemaid. And if he thought he’d found himself a way to avoid following his doctor’s orders, he had a new think coming. She intended to see that he followed them to the letter. Before the week was over, he’d be begging Dr. O’Connor to admit him to the hospital.
She parked her car close to the front door and rounded the vehicle to help her patient out.
“Vince?” She gave his arm a none-too-gentle poke. “We’re home.”
He roused slightly. “Home?”
His slurred speech let her know the shot was still working.
“Yes, home.” She took his arm and gave it a tug. “Come on. I’ll help you inside.”
It seemed to take him forever to unfold his long legs from the interior of her compact car. Her one regret was that he was too sedated to be aware of his surroundings. He’d really hate knowing he’d ridden in a six-year-old economy car, when he was accustomed to tooling around in a sporty and luxurious Lexus SC.
Pleased that she’d reduced her boss to slumming, she helped him to his feet. When he staggered a step, she quickly moved beneath his arm and locked an arm around his waist.
“Don’t you dare fall,” she warned. “If you do, I’m leaving you where you land.”
He looked down at her, his mouth slanted in a lopsided grin. “Ah, come on, Sal. You wouldn’t leave me out here all by myself.”
“Don’t bet on it,” she muttered. Taking a firmer grip on his waist, she urged him into motion. “Now walk.”
She halted him at the door, pressed her thumb against the security monitor, marveling anew at the high-tech system, while waiting for it to recognize her print. When the green light beamed, she shoved open the door and maneuvered him over the threshold.
He veered in the direction of his home office.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, and bulldozed him down the long hall that led to the master bedroom. Once inside, she pointed him toward the king size bed and gave him a shove. He fell like a ton of bricks across its top. She quickly flipped back the covers, pulled off his shoes and socks. She frowned at his shirt and slacks, thinking he’d rest more comfortably without them.
“So, suffer,” she grumbled. Cupping her hands at his heels, she lifted his legs and swung them onto the bed. Winded by the effort, she gave herself a moment to catch her breath, then reached to pull the covers over him.
She started to turn away, then stopped and leaned to place her face within inches of his. “Sleep well, Vince,” she whispered evilly. “When you wake up, you’re going to find yourself in hell.”
Two
While Vince slept, Sally got busy. Determined to see that her boss followed the doctor’s orders, she gathered every phone in the house, including his cell, and locked them, along with his laptop, in the trunk of her car. Using her own laptop to communicate with, she connected to the Internet site of the cable company that provided both his television and Internet service and had them temporarily disconnected—an easy feat, since her duties as his secretary gave her access to all his accounts and passwords. Next she visited the sites of the local newspaper and United States Postal Service and put a hold on his subscription and mail for the week.
Satisfied she’d done all she could to sever his ability to communicate with the outside world, she moved on to the kitchen. Since she frequently house-sat for Vince, she was fully aware of his fondness for junk food and wasted no time stuffing his nutrition-empty stash into garbage bags and hauling it all out to the street for the garbage collector to pick up. Thankfully she always brought her own groceries when she was required to stay at his house, and only hoped she had enough food left to feed them both, until she could make arrangements with the supermarket to have more delivered.
Having made the first step toward improving his nutrition, she focused her attention on possible means of escape, should he try to make a run for it. She collected his vehicle keys, as well as the spares he kept in the mud room, and locked them in the glove box of her car. She considered sneaking into his room and confiscating all his shoes, but opted to forgo that drastic measure until he proved himself a flight risk.
Flight risk? She smothered a laugh. She was definitely going to have to cut back on the number of Law & Order episodes she watched.
Taking her cell phone in hand again, she dialed Vince’s land phone and cell phone numbers and had his calls forwarded to her cell. As a last precaution, she muted the ring on her phone and hid it in her makeup bag in the guest room. Sure that she’d done all that was humanly possible to ensure Vince followed his doctor’s orders, she collapsed on the sofa, exhausted.
She’d barely closed her eyes, when she heard, “Sally!”
Groaning, she peeled herself from the couch and to her feet. It appeared the bear had awakened from his drug-induced nap.
“Coming,” she called wearily. When she reached his room, she found him sitting on the side of his bed, his clothes rumpled, his feet bare, his hair sticking up every which way. All-in-all, he looked like hell, which pleased her enormously.
She pasted on a cheerful smile. “Feeling better?”
He lifted his head to scowl at her. “Where the hell is my cell phone?”
To place herself out of harm’s way, she picked up his shoes and socks and carried them to his closet, which was as large as her entire apartment. “Gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
She slipped his shoes into an empty cubby and dropped his socks into the hamper. “Dr. O’Connor said you were to have no contact with the outside world.”
“Screw what Pat said. I want my phone.”
She opened her hands. “Sorry. Just following the doctor’s orders.”
He burned her with a look. “My doctor doesn’t pay your salary. I do.”
“I’m aware of that. But remember, this was your idea. You told Dr. O’Connor I could earn my salary at your house as easily as I could at your office. With the change in location, my duties changed, as well. For the time being I’m your caretaker, not your secretary, and I take my responsibilities very seriously.”
“I don’t need taking care of. What I need is my phone.”
“Sorry. It’s inaccessible for the week.”
He leaped to his feet, his face flushed with anger. The quick movement must have made him light-headed, because the color drained from his face and he began to sway.
Fearing he was having another attack, Sally ran to grab his arm and urged him back to the edge of the bed. “Are you okay?”
“Moved too fast, is all.”
She pressed a hand to her heart, then dropped it to fist at her side. “You really shouldn’t upset yourself like that. You just had a heart attack. Do you want to bring on another?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he grumbled.
She folded her arms across her chest and looked down her nose at him. “Oh, really? I could have sworn that Dr. O’Connor said you’d had a heart attack.”
“That’s how Pat earns his big fees. Makes up all kinds of ailments so his patients have to keep coming back to him.”
Sally shook her head sadly. “You are so in denial.”
He looked up to glare at her. “If I say there’s nothing wrong with me, nothing is.”
She turned away with a shrug. “Then there’s no need for me to stay. I’ll just give Dr. O’Connor a call and tell him I’m going home.”
She made it as far as the door before he stopped her.
“Wait.”
She turned and lifted a brow in question.
“Don’t call Pat. He’ll come over.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Damn right it is! He’ll just drag me back to the hospital.”
She wrinkled her nose in sympathy. “Probably.”
Grimacing, he dragged a hand over his hair, then dropped it with a sigh to grip the edge of the bed. “I guess you’d better stay.”
“I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “My purpose in being here is to see that you follow your doctor’s orders. If you aren’t willing to cooperate, you really should be in the hospital where someone can look after you.”
He paled at the mere suggestion. “I can’t go back. I’ll go crazy, if I do.”
What little bit of patience she had for him snapped. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Vince. Don’t be such a baby. There’s nothing wrong with hospitals.”
“Spend a month in one and try telling me that again.”
Something in his voice told her he was speaking from experience. “You spent a month in a hospital?”
“Yeah. When I was a kid.”
Curious to learn more, she crossed to the bed and sat down beside him. “Were you sick?”
He gave her a bland look. “No. I was on vacation.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay. Stupid question. So what was wrong with you?”
“Spinal meningitis. Spent a week at home in bed before the doctor admitted me. Another two weeks after he released me.”
She stared, unable to imagine the severity of an illness that would require a child to remain bedridden for almost two months. “How old were you?”
“Nine. Missed two months of school. Had to drop out of the summer baseball program.”
“Wow. That must have been tough.”
“It sucked big-time.”
“Were you left with any lasting effects?”
“Yeah,” he said dryly. “I hate hospitals.”
She hid a smile. “Yeah. I got that.” She rose. “I’ll bet you’re hungry. When did you last eat?”
“I don’t know. Sometime yesterday, I guess.”
“I’ll see what I can whip up.”
He stood, too, though more slowly. “Have I got time to shower?”
She eyed him doubtfully. “Are you sure you’re steady enough?”
“Positive.”
She hesitated a moment longer, then turned away, deciding the alternative—bathing him herself—wasn’t something she was willing to do.
“Fifteen minutes,” she called to him.
After showering, Vince felt somewhat better and definitely more alert. He pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt, keeping his movements slow to avoid another dizzy spell. Not that he was sick, he assured himself. He was healthy as a horse. He’d simply experienced a little…blip in his system. Nothing to be alarmed about, and certainly nothing that required hospitalization. He’d kick back for the remainder of the weekend, watch a little TV. By Monday he’d be as good as new and ready to get back to work.
Having resolved his health issues in his mind—and mentally conceded to a twenty-four-hour vacation to appease his doctor—he headed for the kitchen where he found Sally chopping vegetables at the island, dressed in, of all things, a bikini. He squeezed his eyes shut, sure that his mind was playing tricks on him, but when he opened them, her breasts were still pushing at the tiny electric-blue triangles that covered them. Beads of perspiration dotted the valley between her breasts. His mouth suddenly dry, he wet his lips and would swear he tasted salt and coconuts.
“Vince?”
He snapped his gaze to hers. He swallowed hard, then stole a quick look to confirm what she was wearing, and found the bikini was gone, replaced by shorts and a top. Wondering if the bump on his head had done more damage than he first thought, he asked hesitantly, “Did you change clothes?”
She looked at him curiously. “Well, yeah. While you were in the shower. Is that a problem?”
He gulped again, not wanting to ask but needing to know. “Do you own a blue bikini?”
Her eyes narrowed to slits.
He held up a hand. “Just answer the question. Do you own a blue bikini?”
“You know very well I do, since I was wearing it this morning when you arrived home.”
He sagged his shoulders in relief. Thank God. He wasn’t going crazy. A little addled maybe, but he wasn’t delusional.
She slammed the knife to the counter. “Would you mind telling me what this is all about?”
“I…I was testing to see if the fall had affected my memory.”
Though he could tell she didn’t buy his story, thankfully she didn’t question him further and began to chop again.
“I thought we’d eat on the patio,” she said. “It’s nice out.”
He glanced at the wall of doors that opened to the patio and saw that she’d already set the table outside. A candle flickered in a lantern on its center. Although he preferred to eat his meals in front of the television, he decided it best to be agreeable—for the time being, anyway. “Whatever.”
“What do you want to drink?”
“Beer,” he said, and headed for the refrigerator to get it himself.
She put out a hand to stop him. “No alcoholic beverages.”
“Why not?”
She tapped a finger against her head. “Concussion, remember? No alcohol for at least forty-eight hours.”
He hitched his hands on his hips. “Says who?”
She pointed at a sheaf of papers lying on the corner of the island. “Doctor’s orders.”
He opened his mouth to tell her what she could do with his doctor’s orders, then clamped it shut.
“Doctor’s orders, my ass,” he muttered under his breath, as he headed outside. Okay, so he’d play their little game for a while, but then he was done. First thing Monday morning it was business as usual for Vince Donnelly.
“Here you go,” Sally said and slid a plate in front of him.
He looked down at the mountain of greens, then up at her. “What’s this?”
She sat opposite him and draped her napkin over her lap. “Baby spinach, broccoli florets, julienne red peppers with some grilled salmon tossed in. The dressing is my own concoction. Balsamic vinegar, virgin olive oil and a few spices.”
He shoved the plate away. “I hate salad.”
With a shrug, she popped a forkful of greens into her mouth. “That’s too bad, because that’s all there is to eat.”
Setting his jaw, he scraped back his chair and headed for the kitchen. He opened the pantry, the refrigerator, the freezer then stomped back to the door. “What the hell happened to all my food?”
She dabbed her mouth. “I threw it away.”
“You what?”
“My instructions included seeing that you ate nutritional meals.” She smiled and lifted her fork. “You really should try this. It’s pretty darn tasty, even if I do say so myself.”
Vince dropped his head back, in a silent plea for mercy. A weekend, he reminded himself. Less, since technically the weekend was half-over. His stomach chose that moment to growl, reminding him how long it had been since he’d eaten.
Scowling, he stomped back to the table and snatched his plate in front of him again. With his nose curled in disgust, he stabbed a spinach leaf and poked it into his mouth, chewed. His taste buds exploded, registering the tart, smoky flavor of the balsamic vinegar and the unfamiliar spices in the dressing. He forced himself to swallow, then waited, half expecting the food to come right back up. When it didn’t, he scooped up another bite, shoveled it into his mouth.
“Listen to that.”
He glanced up to find Sally staring off into the distance, her lips curved in a soft smile. He looked around. “What? I don’t hear anything.”
She patted the air to silence him. “Just listen.”
He scooped up more salad and listened while he chewed. “I still don’t hear anything.”
“Probably because you’re accustomed to hearing it. Water tumbling over stone, the rustle of wind through the trees. Nature’s own symphony.”
He cocked his head and listened a moment, then resumed eating. “If you say so.”
“Some people find the sounds of nature relaxing. In fact, there’s an entire section dedicated to it in music stores.”
He glanced up to see if she was pulling his leg. “Seriously?”
Hiding a smile, she sipped her water. “Obviously you’ve never had a massage.”
“What does a massage have to do with anything?”
“Sounds from nature are a staple at spas. Masseuses play them in the background when giving massages.”
With a shrug he attacked his salad again. “Learn something new every day.”
“What kind of music do you listen to?”
He considered a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t.”
“Don’t you ever turn the radio on in your car?”
“Yeah, to the stock report.”
“You really should try tuning to a music station.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing it’s soothing.”
He snorted a laugh. “You must like that longhair stuff.”
“Sometimes. Depends on my mood or the situation. I prefer rock when I’m cleaning house. Keeps me moving.”
“I’ll suggest that to my housekeeper.”
“How’s your head?”
He reached for the bottle of water she’d set by his plate. “Fine.”
“No headache?”
“Nope.”
“How’s your vision?”
“Twenty-twenty.”
She rolled her eyes. “I meant, is it blurry?”
He blinked hard and opened his eyes wide, as if to test them. “Nope,” he reported. “Clear as a bell.”
“Would you like some more salad?”
He looked down and was surprised to see that he’d eaten every bite. He handed her his plate. “Why not?”
She set aside her napkin and rose.
“And put some more of that salmon on it,” he called after her. “That stuff’s not half-bad.”
When she returned, she set the plate in front of him, then opened her hand. Vince eyed the pill nesting on her palm. “What’s that?”
She took his hand and dumped the tablet on his palm. “Beats me. All I know is you’re to take one every night. Doctor’s orders.”
“You know, I’m a little sick of hearing that phrase.”
She shrugged and sat opposite him again. “You’re probably going to be sicker of hearing it by the end of the week.”
Scowling, he popped the pill in his mouth, chased it down with water. He shuddered at the bitter aftertaste it left in his mouth. “Satisfied?”
She smiled. “For now.”
By the time Vince finished his second helping of salad, his eyelids were heavy, his movements sluggish. Sally truly didn’t know what was in the pill she’d given him, but whatever it was, it obviously had the same sedative effect as the shots his doctor had given him at the hospital.
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Peggy Moreland
It was an assignment she couldn't refuse. Ultracapable assistant Sally Gregg had to take care of her boss for one week. No phones. No computers. No stress. Not an easy task considering Vince Donnelly was a workaholic a tyrant she had little use for outside the office.Then the business tycoon decided seducing his secretary would be the ultimate way to pass the time….
The Texan’s Business Proposition
Peggy Moreland
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Justin and Cassie
The best things in life are worth waiting on…
and y’all waited long enough! May love, happiness
and friendship accompany you throughout your lives.
Contents
Prologue (#ub2af8fbd-fe75-5977-a7fd-67fe64c6807c)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Coming Next Month
Prologue
“In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.”
—José Narosky
September 9, 1971
Preacher lay on his cot, his hands folded behind his head, staring at the shadowed canvas roof overhead. Though it was well past midnight and he was exhausted from a day spent on patrol, sleep evaded him.
From the far distance came the muffled rumble of bombs exploding. Closer was the not-so-muffled sound of snoring.
He shot a frown at the cot next to his and considered giving it a swift kick and telling his bunkmate to turn over…but decided against it. Just because he couldn’t sleep didn’t mean Fast Eddie had to join in his misery.
Fast Eddie. He snorted a laugh at the irony of the nickname. There was nothing fast about Eddie. He talked slow, walked slow. But the nickname assigned him during boot camp had stuck, the same as Preacher’s. Preacher’s real name was Vincent Donnelly, but it had been so long since he’d been called by his given name, he doubted he would respond if he were to hear it now.
The tag wasn’t one he would’ve chosen for himself, but he’d take it any day of the week over “Coward”, which is what some of the guys called him behind his back. He didn’t like the name or what it signified. He wasn’t a coward. He just had a hard time wrapping his mind around killing another human being.
Giving up on sleeping, he rolled from his cot and to his feet, hoping a walk might silence the chatter in his head. Once outside, he paused to look around. At the far end of the camp’s perimeter fencing he saw a shadowed form in the bunker and headed that way, thinking he’d shoot the breeze for a while with whoever was pulling guard duty. As he neared the bunker, he heard the metallic click of a safety being released and called quickly, “It’s me. Preacher.”
He heard another click, indicating the safety was shoved back into place, and released a nervous breath.
“Figured it was you, Preacher.”
Recognizing the deep voice as that of Pops, their team leader, he crossed to the bunker and settled down alongside his friend.
“Quiet night?” he asked.
Pops nodded, his gaze on the tall grasses that spread from the western corner of their camp. “Heard something a while ago. Thought we might have some company, but haven’t seen or heard anything since.”
“Could’ve been an animal. We spotted some wild dogs this afternoon on our way back to camp.”
“Maybe.”
Hearing the doubt in Pops’s voice, Preacher glanced his way. “You think somebody’s out there?”
Pops lifted a shoulder but kept his gaze on the grass beyond the fence. “Safer to think there is than get caught unprepared.”
Preached nodded gravely.
They sat a long moment in silence before Pops slanted a look Preacher’s way. “Still having trouble sleeping?”
Embarrassed by what some might consider a weakness, Preacher ducked his head. “Yeah. Can’t seem to stop the chattering in my head.”
“Chattering?”
“You know. Like two sides of my brain are carrying on a conversation.”
“Have you tried telling them to shut up?”
Chuckling, Preacher shook his head. “Haven’t tried that one yet.”
“Do what I do,” Pops suggested. “When I lay down at night, I close my eyes and picture home, my wife curled up beside me in bed. Relaxes my mind, my soul.”
“Wouldn’t work for me. When I think about home, it just adds more worries to the chatter already going on in my head. Things like is Karen managing okay without me? Has Vince cut his first tooth?”
Pops shifted his rifle to his left hand and slung an arm around Preacher’s shoulders. “You worry too much, Preacher. You’ve got to learn to let some of that go. Have faith that your boy will survive cutting his first tooth the same as you and every other kid in the world has. And trust your wife to handle things while you’re gone. She’s capable isn’t she?”
“You bet she is. Karen might look fragile, but she’s tough. And Vince…well, he’s pretty tough, too.” He glanced Pops’s way. “Did I tell you he’s started climbing out of his crib? Karen told me about it in her last letter.”
Pops withdrew his arm. “Next thing you know, he’ll be driving a car.”
Preacher held up a hand. “Please. Don’t be putting those kinds of images in my mind. I can find enough to worry about as it is.”
Chuckling, Pops pushed to his feet and stretched. “I need to take a leak. Mind standing guard for me?”
Preacher took the rifle Pops offered him. “Might as well. Can’t sleep, anyway.”
After Pops left to relieve himself, Preacher settled the rifle over the edge of the bunker and began slowly sweeping his gaze along the shadowed sea of swaying grass before him, while keeping his ear tuned to pick up the slightest sound. He’d made one full sweep and started a second when he heard a muffled sound behind him. He leaped to his feet, bringing the rifle up into position, its butt braced against his shoulder. With the nose of the barrel pointed in the direction the noise had come, he waited, listening.
After what seemed like an eternity, a twig snapped, the sound like a crack of thunder in the silence. Telling himself that it was probably just Pops returning, Preacher eased forward, moving stealthily in the direction the sound had come. He wanted badly to call out to Pops, verify that he was the one who had made the noise, but training and field experience had taught him the danger of revealing his position to a possible enemy.
A cold sweat beaded his forehead and upper lip, ran in a narrow rivulet down his spine. He paused a moment to drag his arm across his face to clear the moisture from his eyes, then moved on. When he reached the latrine, he flattened his back against the bamboo fence that surrounded it and waited, listening, his rifle held tight against his chest. Ten seconds. Twenty. Sweat dripped from his face, soaked the back of his undershirt. Thirty. Forty.
Keeping his movements slow and easy, he leaned to peer around the opening into the latrine. Ice filled his veins at the scene before him. Pops lay sprawled on the ground, still as death, while a Vietcong, dressed in the standard black pajamas the enemy wore, straddled him. The Vietcong lifted a hand high, and moonlight bounced off the blade of the knife he clutched.
Preacher opened his mouth to yell at the man to stop, to let Pops go. But no sound came out. Frozen by fear, he watched in what seemed like slow motion, as the hand started down, the tip of the blade aimed at Pops’ chest. The chatter started in his head again, one of the voices his own, the other that of the rancher who had bought him and his buddies a drink in the Texas bar, prior to them beginning the first leg of their journey for Vietnam.
“You boys scared?” the rancher asked bluntly.
“Yes, sir,” Preacher admitted. “I’ve never shot a man before. Not sure I can.”
The smile the rancher offered Preacher was filled with understanding, his wink that of a father reassuring his son. “Oh, I ’ magine you’ll find it easy enough, once those Vietcong start shooting at you.”
But the rancher was wrong, Preacher thought as he watched the blade slowly arc down, drawing nearer and nearer Pops’s chest. Pops, the man who had trained Preacher, stood by him, defended him when the other’s had called him a coward, was about to die, and Preacher couldn’t pull the trigger to save him.
He can’t die, Preacher thought desperately. Not here, not like this. He had a wife waiting for him at home, a baby on the way.
Setting his jaw, he yanked the rifle to his shoulder and looked down the barrel, fixing the Vietcong’s head between the cross-hairs. But as much as he wanted to save Pops’ life, he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger.
Anger built inside him, a red-hot inferno that fired his blood, roared in his ears. Taking the stock of the rifle in one hand and the barrel in the other, he opened his mouth and charged. The feral sound that spewed from deep inside him ripped through the night air like a machete. Before the Vietcong had time to react, Preacher dropped the rifle over his head and jerked it back against his throat.
The Vietcong flew backward, losing his grip on the knife. The weapon hit the ground less than a foot from Preacher’s boot and he kicked it out of reach. Before the man could scramble up, Preacher swung the rifle up to his shoulder and aimed it at the Vietcong’s face. He saw the hate in the man’s eyes…but not a trace of fear.
Behind him Pops moaned, stirred. Preacher started to glance back, wanting to make sure that Pops was all right, but as he did the Vietcong slid a hand beneath his shirt.
Fearing the man had a weapon concealed beneath the black tunic, Preacher stabbed the nose of his rifle against the Vietcong’s chest. “Don’t move!”
His lip curled in a sneer, the Vietcong ignored Preacher’s order. Preacher saw the butt of a handgun appear a split second before its nose was pointed at him.
The blast that followed was deafening, echoing around and around the fenced area. Preacher stumbled back a step, his gaze frozen on the Vietcong’s face. He saw the surprise that lit the man’s eyes, watched as the life slowly faded from them. He glanced down at the man’s chest where blood oozed from a gaping hole and gulped back the nausea that rose to his throat.
He heard a shout from outside the fenced latrine and knew the shot had raised an alarm in camp. The pounding of feet that followed assured him the soldiers were up and assuming their positions.
A hand lit on his shoulder, squeezed. He knew without looking it was Pops.
“You okay?” Pops asked.
Preacher swallowed hard, nodded. “Yeah. You?”
“Knot on my head is all, thanks to you. A second more and he would have slit my throat.”
Fast Eddie appeared in the opening to the latrine, half-dressed, his feet bare. “Y’all okay?”
Pops nodded, then gestured toward the Vietcong sprawled on the ground. “Enemy penetrated our perimeter. Order a full sweep of camp to make sure he was alone, then check on the guards on duty. I’ll get a detail together to take care of the body when I’m done here.”
Fast Eddie looked from the dead Vietcong to the rifle that Preacher held, and his eyes shot wide. “You made the kill, Preacher?”
Preacher opened his mouth, then closed it and dropped his chin.
“You have your orders, soldier,” Pops said tersely.
Fast Eddie snapped to attention. “Yes, sir.” He took one last look at Preacher, then turned and jogged away.
Preacher squeezed his eyes shut, but the image of the man lying at his feet with his life’s blood pouring from his chest remained fixed on the back of his lids. He’d killed one man to save the life of another. What gave him the right to decide who lived and who died? He wasn’t God.
As if reading Preacher’s mind, Pops tightened his grip on Preacher’s shoulder. “Don’t go beating yourself up over this. When he put on the uniform, that soldier knew he was laying his life on the line, the same as you and I did the day we put on ours.”
Preacher dragged an arm across his eyes. “Doesn’t make it right.”
“Wars are fought with only one rule in play. Kill or be killed.”
Preacher set his jaw, his anger returning. “I hate this damn war. Hate what it does to people, the suffering it’s caused, the lives it’s taken.”
Pops tightened his arm around Preacher and turned him away from the sight of the dead Vietcong. “This war’s no different from any of those fought before it. It’ll be the same for those yet to be fought.”
Preacher jerked to stop, dragging Pops to a halt, as well. “How do you deal with it?” he cried in frustration. “How can you sleep at night, knowing people are dying all around you?”
“It’s like I said before. I close my eyes and picture home. My wife, my son. It’s them I’m fighting for, their safety, their freedom.”
“And what happens when it’s over? When you go home? Will you just forget everything you’ve seen, what you’ve done? Erase it all from your mind like it never happened?”
Pops shook his head sadly. “I don’t know, Preacher. Right now all I can do is focus on making it home. The rest I’ll worry about once I’m there.”
He took the rifle Preacher still held. “You’re a good man, Preacher. Of all the soldiers I’ve served with, you’re the only one I can say with confidence will leave this godforsaken war with the same principles and standards he arrived with.”
Preacher shook his head. “I don’t feel like the same man. I feel…I don’t know, scarred somehow.”
Pops nodded grimly. “I read a quote somewhere. Can’t remember who said it, but it went something like this. ‘In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.’ At the time I remember thinking the guy who said it must have been crazy. Now I think I understand what he meant.”
“Yeah,” Preacher said. “Me, too.”
Squinting his eyes against the darkness, Pops looked off into the distance a long moment. “Preacher, I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but the soldiers who make it home are going to be burdened with a greater responsibility than the ones they’ve shouldered here.”
Preacher looked at him in confusion. “How’s that?”
His smile sad, Pops patted him on the back. “Focus on making it home, Preacher. When you get there, you’ll know what I mean.” Turning, he walked away. “You’ll know, Preacher,” he called over his shoulder. “You, of all people, will know.”
One
Now, this is the life, Sally Gregg thought to herself. Swaying palm trees, a private pool, a house with every amenity known to man.
She tipped her sunglasses down and craned her neck to peer at the structure behind her. Not just a house, she corrected. It was a friggin’ mansion. Nestled in Houston’s prestigious River Oaks subdivision and situated on two lush acres, the house rivaled its neighbors in both design and size.
Too bad the interior doesn’t reflect the traditional style of the exterior, she thought with regret. She supposed the ultramodern design suited her boss, but the mix of chrome and black lacquer didn’t do a thing for her.
Thankfully her boss had limited the changes he’d made after purchasing the house to the inside and had left the exterior and landscaping alone. As a result, the backyard was an oasis, as soothing to the soul as it was to the eye. A clever blend of French doors and floor-to-ceiling windows offered spectacular views of the pool and landscaped lawn beyond from inside the house.
Sure beats the heck out of the view of the parking lot from my apartment window, she thought with more than a little envy. With a sigh, she pushed her sunglasses back into place and settled on the lounge chair again.
But she’d have a house someday, she promised herself. Maybe not as large and grand as her boss’s and definitely not one with a River Oaks address, but she’d have a home.
The only thing that kept her from having one now was money. Thanks to the generous salary her employer paid her and her own prudent lifestyle, she was steadily chipping away at that particular roadblock. Having learned frugality the hard way—by necessity—she knew how to stretch a dollar until it all but screamed for mercy. As a result she was close to becoming debt free, while still managing to squirrel away money toward a down payment.
Which she’d already have, if not for Brad.
She scowled at the reminder of her ex. She never should have given him the money, she thought bitterly. She, better than anyone, knew he’d never pay it back. Brad was, and always had been, fast with a promise and slow on delivery.
It was bad enough that she’d wasted four years of her life with a man who didn’t care for her, but then he’d decided to prolong her misery by showing up unannounced on her doorstep every time he needed money. For some stupid reason, he’d gotten it in his head that she owed him, which was insane, considering she had been the sole breadwinner throughout their marriage. Now she was forced to constantly move, in order to escape his mental abuse and the demands he made on her. As a result of the forced nomadic lifestyle, she had few possessions and even fewer friends.
She stubbornly pushed the thoughts of her ex from her mind. She wasn’t letting Brad, or anything, for that matter, spoil her stay in paradise. And house-sitting for Vince Donnelly was exactly that. Paradise.
She shivered deliciously, thinking the stars definitely had been shining on her the day she’d snagged the job as Vince’s executive secretary. Besides house-sitting for him when he was out of town—a perk she hadn’t expected when she’d accepted the job—she received an above-average salary and more benefits than any of the other positions she’d applied for after moving to Houston. Granted, Vince wasn’t the easiest man to work with. He was obsessive, demanding and micromanaged all of his employees. But he was also successful and drop-dead gorgeous.
Not that his looks had factored into her accepting the job as his secretary, she thought judiciously. Money was her motivator.
She remembered the shock she’d experienced when she’d walked into his office for her job interview and gotten her first look at the owner and founder of Donnelly Consulting. Based on the size and value of the company, she’d expected an older man. One with at least a spattering of gray at his temples.
What she’d found was a thirty-six-year-old hunk with the disposition of a grizzly bear.
With a shake of her head, she sat up and reached for the bottle of sunscreen, squirted a blob on her palm. Thirty minutes, she promised herself as she smoothed the cream over her arms, chest and legs, then she’d go inside and tackle the tasks her boss had e-mailed her overnight.
Grimacing, she mentally added workaholic to her boss’s faults. The man was relentless. In the four months she’d worked for him, she’d never known him to take so much as a day off, which was a shame, since his business trips took him all over the world.
With a rueful shake of her head, she lay back and closed her eyes again. If she were required to take business trips all over the world, she’d darn well stay over a day or two and see the sights. Tokyo. Paris. Venice.
She smiled dreamily, easily able to imagine herself floating on a gondola along the canals of Venice.
“Sally!”
She shot up from the chair, to find her boss standing in the open French door.
“Vince,” she said dully. Remembering how she was dressed, she snatched up a towel and whipped it around her. “What are you doing home? You aren’t supposed to be back until Monday.”
“Cut the trip short. Wasn’t feeling good.”
She peered at him more closely and had to admit he did look kind of sick. His face was pale, his shoulders stooped, his clothing rumpled. “Did you pick up a bug or something?”
Shaking his head, he rubbed a hand across his chest. “Heartburn. Something I ate must not have agreed with me.”
She started toward him, praying whatever he had wasn’t contagious. “When did you get sick?”
“Hit me last night. Caught a red-eye home.” He braced a hand against the doorjamb as if needing its support as he turned inside the house. “Did you update the spreadsheets on the Holmes deal?”
She rolled her eyes, but dutifully followed him inside. “No.”
He shot her a frown over his shoulder. “Didn’t you get my e-mail?”
“Yes. This morning. I planned to do it this afternoon.”
“I need that report now.”
Before she could remind him it was Saturday and technically her day off, he clamped a hand over the back of a chair and bent double with a groan.
“Vince?” When he didn’t reply, she moved around him to peer at his face and saw that his skin had turned a deathly gray and his breathing was labored. “Vince? Are you okay?”
He pressed a hand against his chest. “Can’t breathe,” he choked out.
She bolted for the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “Stay right there. I’ll get you a glass of water.”
A step short of reaching her destination, she heard a loud crash behind her. Quickly reversing her direction, she raced back and found Vince sprawled on the floor and the stainless-steel end table that usually stood beside the chair on its side less than a foot from his head. She burned a full twenty seconds wringing her hands, trying to think what to do, then noticed his cell phone clipped at his waist. Snatching it from its holder, she punched in 911.
“911 operator. What is your emergency?”
She pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. “I’m not sure. I’m at my boss’s house. He said he wasn’t feeling well. I went to get him a glass a water. He must’ve fainted or something because now he’s lying on the floor.”
“Is he conscious?”
She shifted her gaze to Vince’s closed eyes and gulped. “No.”
“Your name?”
She frowned in confusion. “What?”
“Your name.”
“Sally Gregg. Please,” she begged. “Send an ambulance. I don’t know what to do.”
“Your relationship to the victim?”
“What difference does that make?” she cried. “The man needs help!”
“Try to remain calm, ma’am.”
She drew in a deep breath and slowly released it, telling herself that losing her cool wasn’t going to help things. “We’re not related. He’s my boss.”
“The victim’s name?”
“Vince Donnelly.”
“Address?”
She rattled off Vince’s address.
“Phone number?”
“For God’s sake!” she snapped. “I don’t want you to call me, I want an ambulance! He could be dying!”
“Ma’am, I understand your concern, but I’m required to collect this information.”
“It’s 555-423-6597,” she said in a rush. “I’ll leave the front door open.”
Before the operator could ask her any more ridiculous questions, she threw down the phone and ran to unlock the front door, then raced back and dropped to a knee beside Vince.
“Vince? Vince, can you hear me?”
She held her breath, watching his face for a reaction and bit back a moan when not so much as an eyelash fluttered. “Vince, please,” she begged. “Hold on. An ambulance is on the way.”
There was a rap on the door.
“Houston Fire Department! Is there an emergency?”
Sally jumped to her feet. “In here!”
A man appeared, followed on his heels by a second man carrying a bag.
The first to arrive moved to stand with Sally, while the other dropped down beside Vince and began pulling equipment from his bag.
“What happened?” the man beside Sally asked.
She wrung her hands. “I don’t know. He just returned from a trip. Said he wasn’t feeling well. I went to get him a glass of water. He must have fainted, because I heard this loud crash. I ran back and found him lying on the floor.”
“He’s breathing,” the second fireman reported.
A third man appeared and dropped down at Vince’s head to support his neck while the second fireman fastened what looked like a thick, padded belt around it.
“What’s he doing?” Sally asked in concern.
“Applying a C-collar,” the man at her side explained. “In the event he injured his neck when he fell, the collar will prevent further damage.”
Gulping, Sally watched as the men continued to work, one attaching a heart monitor to Vince’s chest, the other wrapping a blood pressure cuff around his arm.
“EMS!”
Sally snapped up her head to see two more uniformed men rushing into the house, carrying a stretcher.
The man beside her quickly shifted his attention to the EMS team and reported, “Male, midthirties, possible cardiac arrest. Witness reports he passed out and hit his head on the table. We’re holding C-spine, have applied oxygen via nonrebreather at fifteen liters per minute. Blood pressure 178/96, pulse is 102 respirations at 24 rapid.”
Wide-eyed, Sally scooted out of the way and watched while the EMS team positioned a backboard beside Vince. On the count of three, the fireman rolled Vince to his side, and the EMS team slid the backboard into position. After lowering Vince to the backboard, they cinched straps around him to secure him. On the count of three again, the men lifted him onto the stretcher.
“You’ll need to meet the ambulance at the hospital,” the fireman told Sally, as the other men gathered their equipment, preparing to leave.
Sally took a step back. “Oh, I’m not family,” she said. “I’m just his secretary.”
The fireman gave her a slow look up and down and Sally cringed, knowing what he must think. A woman at her boss’ house on the weekend wearing a towel wrapped around her? No, this didn’t look good, at all.
The EMS team started toward the front door with Vince. The fireman placed a hand in the middle of Sally’s back, urging her to follow.
He stopped on the porch. “Can you notify his family?”
“The only relative I know of is his mother, and she’s confined to a nursing home.”
“Then you’ll need to go to the hospital.”
“But I’m not family,” she said again.
“Admittance is going to need whatever information you have to offer.”
Leaving Sally on the porch, the fireman went to help the others load Vince into the back of the ambulance. One of the EMS team hopped into the back with Vince, while the other ran to climb behind the wheel of the vehicle. With lights flashing and siren screaming, the ambulance took off down the circle drive and bounced onto the street.
As Sally watched the vehicle disappear from sight, she sent up a silent prayer for Vince, then whispered another for her own forgiveness.
She might’ve prayed for Vince, but it was really her own welfare she was worried about.
If anything happened to her boss, she knew she’d be out of a job.
Sally spent the next eight hours in the hospital’s emergency room. Upon her arrival, she’d provided the desk clerk with what information she could about Vince, which proved enough to allow them to locate his records, as well as his doctor. Technically, she could have left then, and with a clear conscious. But some weird sense of duty made her stay. Since she knew of no family or friends of Vince’s to call to sit in her stead, she felt obligated to remain and await news of his condition.
During her long vigil, she read every magazine in the waiting room, drank four cups of coffee, made numerous trips to the restroom, one to the snack machine, and all without receiving any word on Vince’s condition. Fearing the worst, she gathered her courage and approached the reception desk. The staff had changed at three o’clock, and a different woman now sat behind the desk, having replaced the clerk Sally had spoken to previously.
“Excuse me,” she said, in order to get the clerk’s attention. “Is there any word on Vince Donnelly?”
“Are you family?”
She shook her head. “His secretary.”
“The doctor’s still with Mr. Donnelly. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Sally murmured her thanks and returned to her seat. Desperate for something to help pass the time, she picked up a tattered paperback novel someone had left behind and began to read. As luck would have it, it was a mystery, her favorite genre, and two pages into the book, she was totally engrossed by the story.
“Are you Sally?”
She snapped up her head to find a doctor standing in front of her. Gulping, she set the book aside and slowly rose. “Y-yes. I’m Sally.”
“I’m Dr. O’Connor, Vince’s physician.” He gestured toward a door. “If you’ll come with me.”
Sally followed him through the door and down a short hall.
Unsure what to expect, she asked uneasily, “He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?”
“That depends on Vince.”
Considering that a nonanswer, she followed the doctor into one of the curtained-off examining rooms, where Vince lay, his eyes closed, his hands folded over the hospital gown that covered his chest. An IV tube ran from the back of one hand to a bottle hanging from a hook at the head of the bed. A white plastic bracelet circled his left wrist. She stared hard at his hands and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest beneath them.
She sent up a silent prayer of thanks that he was still alive and her job hopefully secure, then whispered to the doctor, “Why hasn’t he regained consciousness?”
“He did. His current state is drug induced.”
At her questioning look, he went on to explain, “Vince doesn’t make a very good patient. He regained consciousness shortly after arriving and pitched a fit when he realized where he was. I sedated him to calm him down.”
Sally nodded, easily able to imagine the kind of ruckus her boss had kicked up. “Do you know what happened to him?”
“Before, during or after his fall?”
She shrugged. “All of it, I guess.”
“He suffered a mild heart attack. The dizziness he experienced during the attack probably caused the fall. Unfortunately, on the way down he cracked his head on something and—”
“The end table,” Sally interjected. “When I found him, the end table was lying next to him.”
“Ah,” the doctor said, nodding. “Stainless steel, as I recall. That explains the bump on the back of his head.” He chuckled softly. “Too bad it didn’t knock any sense into that thick skull of his.”
Sally looked at the doctor curiously, surprised that he was familiar with Vince’s home, as well as her boss’s stubborn streak. “Do you know Vince?”
“Since we were kids.” He glanced over at Vince and gave his head a rueful shake. “The most stubborn person I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.”
Sally would have laughed at the doctor’s assessment of her boss, but she was too worried about her job to find anything amusing. “How long will he have to stay in the hospital?”
“I’d like to keep him a week, at the very least.”
“Like hell you will.”
Sally and the doctor both glanced over to find Vince awake and struggling to sit up.
The doctor quickly placed a hand against Vince’s chest. “Unless you want me to put another knot on your head, I’d advise you to stay put.”
Obviously too weak to put up much of a fight, Vince sank back against the pillow and squeezed his forehead between his fingers. “What’d you give me? I feel like I’ve been on a three-day drunk.”
“It was a cocktail, all right, but not the kind you might expect.”
Judging by Vince’s weakened state, Sally had to believe whatever the doctor had given him was strong.
“I’m getting out of here.”
The doctor looked down his nose at Vince. “You’ll leave when I say you can.”
Vince dropped his hand to scowl. “Don’t be a jerk, Pat. You know I hate hospitals. Cut me loose so I can go home.”
“You’re in no condition to take care of yourself.”
“I’ll be fine as soon as the drugs wear off.”
“You had a heart attack,” the doctor reminded him. “Which is exactly what I’ve been telling you was going to happen if you didn’t cut back on your workload and get rid of some of the stress in your life.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my heart,” Vince grumbled.
“No, there’s not,” the doctor agreed. “Not this time, at least. The tests we ran indicated no damage was done to your heart. But you did suffer a concussion when you fell, which requires round-the-clock monitoring. Last I heard, you lived alone.”
Vince glanced at Sally. She backed up a step, fearing she knew what he was going to suggest.
“Sally will take care of me.”
She groaned inwardly.
The doctor turned to peer at her. “I thought the clerk said you were his secretary?”
“She is,” Vince replied for her, then gave Sally a warning look. “And she can earn her salary at my house as easily as she can at my office.”
The doctor kept his gaze fixed on Sally. “Would you seriously be willing to stay with this lug for a week?”
Sally stole a glance at Vince. The message in his eyes was clear: if she liked her job, she’d do as he said.
Turning back to the doctor, she forced a smile. “If that’s what Vince wants.”
“You’ll be doing more than monitoring his sleep,” the doctor warned her. “I’ve been telling him for years to slow down. This week he’s going to do just that. No work. Period. And under no circumstances is he to leave the house. I want him resting, and when he’s not resting, I want him relaxing and that means no phone calls and no e-mail. In fact, no contact with the outside world whatsoever. I don’t want anything even remotely related to business anywhere near him. Got it?”
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“And work on improving his nutrition. His eating habits are worse than a nine-year-old’s.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll see that he eats properly balanced meals. What about his physical activity? Should I monitor that, too?”
The doctor glanced at Vince, then shook his head. “No. In fact, it would probably do him some good, considering he spends most of his time sitting on an airplane or behind a desk.”
“I’m sure I can think of something to keep him active.”
The doctor studied her a long moment as if judging her ability to carry out his orders. “All right,” he finally agreed, and headed out. “I’ll write up instructions and sign his release.”
As Sally watched the doctor disappear from sight, the enormity of the task she’d taken on sunk in. Panicking, she whipped her head around to level Vince with a threatening look. “Don’t you move so much as a muscle. I’ll be right back.”
Flinging back the curtain, she ran after the doctor. “Dr. O’Connor! Wait!”
He glanced over his shoulder, then stopped and turned, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Changed your mind already?”
She dragged in a breath, choosing her words carefully, knowing she might very well be putting her job on the line. “I’m a secretary, not a nurse. I’m not sure I’m qualified to take care of someone who’s had a heart attack. What if he should…” She swallowed hard, unable to voice her fears.
Chuckling, he shook his head. “Don’t worry. Vince isn’t going to die.” He lifted a brow and added, “Though you might consider killing him before the week’s over.”
“But he had a heart attack,” she said in frustration. “I’d think he’d need to stay in the hospital for at least a couple of days.”
“Under normal circumstances, I’d keep him overnight.” He shrugged. “But his attack was mild. More a warning, really. What he needs is rest and lots of it. Keeping him in the hospital, in Vince’s case, would actually do him more harm than good.”
Sally gave him a dubious look.
Chuckling, the doctor gave her shoulder a reassuring pat. “Trust me. He really is better off at home.”
And home is exactly where Sally took Vince.
Thanks to another shot of Dr. O’Connor’s wonder drug prior to leaving the hospital, he slept throughout the ride. Sally was grateful for the reprieve. It gave her time to get a grip on her anger with her boss for putting her in such an awkward position.
Heck, she didn’t want to spend the week at his house! Not with him in residence. He was hard enough to get along with when he was well. She couldn’t imagine what a forced convalescence would do to his already disagreeable personality.
She shot a scowl at the passenger seat where Vince slept, his head tipped back, his jaw slack, his lips parted. Spoiled brat, she thought resentfully. Using her job to coerce her into agreeing to act as his nursemaid. And if he thought he’d found himself a way to avoid following his doctor’s orders, he had a new think coming. She intended to see that he followed them to the letter. Before the week was over, he’d be begging Dr. O’Connor to admit him to the hospital.
She parked her car close to the front door and rounded the vehicle to help her patient out.
“Vince?” She gave his arm a none-too-gentle poke. “We’re home.”
He roused slightly. “Home?”
His slurred speech let her know the shot was still working.
“Yes, home.” She took his arm and gave it a tug. “Come on. I’ll help you inside.”
It seemed to take him forever to unfold his long legs from the interior of her compact car. Her one regret was that he was too sedated to be aware of his surroundings. He’d really hate knowing he’d ridden in a six-year-old economy car, when he was accustomed to tooling around in a sporty and luxurious Lexus SC.
Pleased that she’d reduced her boss to slumming, she helped him to his feet. When he staggered a step, she quickly moved beneath his arm and locked an arm around his waist.
“Don’t you dare fall,” she warned. “If you do, I’m leaving you where you land.”
He looked down at her, his mouth slanted in a lopsided grin. “Ah, come on, Sal. You wouldn’t leave me out here all by myself.”
“Don’t bet on it,” she muttered. Taking a firmer grip on his waist, she urged him into motion. “Now walk.”
She halted him at the door, pressed her thumb against the security monitor, marveling anew at the high-tech system, while waiting for it to recognize her print. When the green light beamed, she shoved open the door and maneuvered him over the threshold.
He veered in the direction of his home office.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, and bulldozed him down the long hall that led to the master bedroom. Once inside, she pointed him toward the king size bed and gave him a shove. He fell like a ton of bricks across its top. She quickly flipped back the covers, pulled off his shoes and socks. She frowned at his shirt and slacks, thinking he’d rest more comfortably without them.
“So, suffer,” she grumbled. Cupping her hands at his heels, she lifted his legs and swung them onto the bed. Winded by the effort, she gave herself a moment to catch her breath, then reached to pull the covers over him.
She started to turn away, then stopped and leaned to place her face within inches of his. “Sleep well, Vince,” she whispered evilly. “When you wake up, you’re going to find yourself in hell.”
Two
While Vince slept, Sally got busy. Determined to see that her boss followed the doctor’s orders, she gathered every phone in the house, including his cell, and locked them, along with his laptop, in the trunk of her car. Using her own laptop to communicate with, she connected to the Internet site of the cable company that provided both his television and Internet service and had them temporarily disconnected—an easy feat, since her duties as his secretary gave her access to all his accounts and passwords. Next she visited the sites of the local newspaper and United States Postal Service and put a hold on his subscription and mail for the week.
Satisfied she’d done all she could to sever his ability to communicate with the outside world, she moved on to the kitchen. Since she frequently house-sat for Vince, she was fully aware of his fondness for junk food and wasted no time stuffing his nutrition-empty stash into garbage bags and hauling it all out to the street for the garbage collector to pick up. Thankfully she always brought her own groceries when she was required to stay at his house, and only hoped she had enough food left to feed them both, until she could make arrangements with the supermarket to have more delivered.
Having made the first step toward improving his nutrition, she focused her attention on possible means of escape, should he try to make a run for it. She collected his vehicle keys, as well as the spares he kept in the mud room, and locked them in the glove box of her car. She considered sneaking into his room and confiscating all his shoes, but opted to forgo that drastic measure until he proved himself a flight risk.
Flight risk? She smothered a laugh. She was definitely going to have to cut back on the number of Law & Order episodes she watched.
Taking her cell phone in hand again, she dialed Vince’s land phone and cell phone numbers and had his calls forwarded to her cell. As a last precaution, she muted the ring on her phone and hid it in her makeup bag in the guest room. Sure that she’d done all that was humanly possible to ensure Vince followed his doctor’s orders, she collapsed on the sofa, exhausted.
She’d barely closed her eyes, when she heard, “Sally!”
Groaning, she peeled herself from the couch and to her feet. It appeared the bear had awakened from his drug-induced nap.
“Coming,” she called wearily. When she reached his room, she found him sitting on the side of his bed, his clothes rumpled, his feet bare, his hair sticking up every which way. All-in-all, he looked like hell, which pleased her enormously.
She pasted on a cheerful smile. “Feeling better?”
He lifted his head to scowl at her. “Where the hell is my cell phone?”
To place herself out of harm’s way, she picked up his shoes and socks and carried them to his closet, which was as large as her entire apartment. “Gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
She slipped his shoes into an empty cubby and dropped his socks into the hamper. “Dr. O’Connor said you were to have no contact with the outside world.”
“Screw what Pat said. I want my phone.”
She opened her hands. “Sorry. Just following the doctor’s orders.”
He burned her with a look. “My doctor doesn’t pay your salary. I do.”
“I’m aware of that. But remember, this was your idea. You told Dr. O’Connor I could earn my salary at your house as easily as I could at your office. With the change in location, my duties changed, as well. For the time being I’m your caretaker, not your secretary, and I take my responsibilities very seriously.”
“I don’t need taking care of. What I need is my phone.”
“Sorry. It’s inaccessible for the week.”
He leaped to his feet, his face flushed with anger. The quick movement must have made him light-headed, because the color drained from his face and he began to sway.
Fearing he was having another attack, Sally ran to grab his arm and urged him back to the edge of the bed. “Are you okay?”
“Moved too fast, is all.”
She pressed a hand to her heart, then dropped it to fist at her side. “You really shouldn’t upset yourself like that. You just had a heart attack. Do you want to bring on another?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he grumbled.
She folded her arms across her chest and looked down her nose at him. “Oh, really? I could have sworn that Dr. O’Connor said you’d had a heart attack.”
“That’s how Pat earns his big fees. Makes up all kinds of ailments so his patients have to keep coming back to him.”
Sally shook her head sadly. “You are so in denial.”
He looked up to glare at her. “If I say there’s nothing wrong with me, nothing is.”
She turned away with a shrug. “Then there’s no need for me to stay. I’ll just give Dr. O’Connor a call and tell him I’m going home.”
She made it as far as the door before he stopped her.
“Wait.”
She turned and lifted a brow in question.
“Don’t call Pat. He’ll come over.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Damn right it is! He’ll just drag me back to the hospital.”
She wrinkled her nose in sympathy. “Probably.”
Grimacing, he dragged a hand over his hair, then dropped it with a sigh to grip the edge of the bed. “I guess you’d better stay.”
“I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “My purpose in being here is to see that you follow your doctor’s orders. If you aren’t willing to cooperate, you really should be in the hospital where someone can look after you.”
He paled at the mere suggestion. “I can’t go back. I’ll go crazy, if I do.”
What little bit of patience she had for him snapped. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Vince. Don’t be such a baby. There’s nothing wrong with hospitals.”
“Spend a month in one and try telling me that again.”
Something in his voice told her he was speaking from experience. “You spent a month in a hospital?”
“Yeah. When I was a kid.”
Curious to learn more, she crossed to the bed and sat down beside him. “Were you sick?”
He gave her a bland look. “No. I was on vacation.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay. Stupid question. So what was wrong with you?”
“Spinal meningitis. Spent a week at home in bed before the doctor admitted me. Another two weeks after he released me.”
She stared, unable to imagine the severity of an illness that would require a child to remain bedridden for almost two months. “How old were you?”
“Nine. Missed two months of school. Had to drop out of the summer baseball program.”
“Wow. That must have been tough.”
“It sucked big-time.”
“Were you left with any lasting effects?”
“Yeah,” he said dryly. “I hate hospitals.”
She hid a smile. “Yeah. I got that.” She rose. “I’ll bet you’re hungry. When did you last eat?”
“I don’t know. Sometime yesterday, I guess.”
“I’ll see what I can whip up.”
He stood, too, though more slowly. “Have I got time to shower?”
She eyed him doubtfully. “Are you sure you’re steady enough?”
“Positive.”
She hesitated a moment longer, then turned away, deciding the alternative—bathing him herself—wasn’t something she was willing to do.
“Fifteen minutes,” she called to him.
After showering, Vince felt somewhat better and definitely more alert. He pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt, keeping his movements slow to avoid another dizzy spell. Not that he was sick, he assured himself. He was healthy as a horse. He’d simply experienced a little…blip in his system. Nothing to be alarmed about, and certainly nothing that required hospitalization. He’d kick back for the remainder of the weekend, watch a little TV. By Monday he’d be as good as new and ready to get back to work.
Having resolved his health issues in his mind—and mentally conceded to a twenty-four-hour vacation to appease his doctor—he headed for the kitchen where he found Sally chopping vegetables at the island, dressed in, of all things, a bikini. He squeezed his eyes shut, sure that his mind was playing tricks on him, but when he opened them, her breasts were still pushing at the tiny electric-blue triangles that covered them. Beads of perspiration dotted the valley between her breasts. His mouth suddenly dry, he wet his lips and would swear he tasted salt and coconuts.
“Vince?”
He snapped his gaze to hers. He swallowed hard, then stole a quick look to confirm what she was wearing, and found the bikini was gone, replaced by shorts and a top. Wondering if the bump on his head had done more damage than he first thought, he asked hesitantly, “Did you change clothes?”
She looked at him curiously. “Well, yeah. While you were in the shower. Is that a problem?”
He gulped again, not wanting to ask but needing to know. “Do you own a blue bikini?”
Her eyes narrowed to slits.
He held up a hand. “Just answer the question. Do you own a blue bikini?”
“You know very well I do, since I was wearing it this morning when you arrived home.”
He sagged his shoulders in relief. Thank God. He wasn’t going crazy. A little addled maybe, but he wasn’t delusional.
She slammed the knife to the counter. “Would you mind telling me what this is all about?”
“I…I was testing to see if the fall had affected my memory.”
Though he could tell she didn’t buy his story, thankfully she didn’t question him further and began to chop again.
“I thought we’d eat on the patio,” she said. “It’s nice out.”
He glanced at the wall of doors that opened to the patio and saw that she’d already set the table outside. A candle flickered in a lantern on its center. Although he preferred to eat his meals in front of the television, he decided it best to be agreeable—for the time being, anyway. “Whatever.”
“What do you want to drink?”
“Beer,” he said, and headed for the refrigerator to get it himself.
She put out a hand to stop him. “No alcoholic beverages.”
“Why not?”
She tapped a finger against her head. “Concussion, remember? No alcohol for at least forty-eight hours.”
He hitched his hands on his hips. “Says who?”
She pointed at a sheaf of papers lying on the corner of the island. “Doctor’s orders.”
He opened his mouth to tell her what she could do with his doctor’s orders, then clamped it shut.
“Doctor’s orders, my ass,” he muttered under his breath, as he headed outside. Okay, so he’d play their little game for a while, but then he was done. First thing Monday morning it was business as usual for Vince Donnelly.
“Here you go,” Sally said and slid a plate in front of him.
He looked down at the mountain of greens, then up at her. “What’s this?”
She sat opposite him and draped her napkin over her lap. “Baby spinach, broccoli florets, julienne red peppers with some grilled salmon tossed in. The dressing is my own concoction. Balsamic vinegar, virgin olive oil and a few spices.”
He shoved the plate away. “I hate salad.”
With a shrug, she popped a forkful of greens into her mouth. “That’s too bad, because that’s all there is to eat.”
Setting his jaw, he scraped back his chair and headed for the kitchen. He opened the pantry, the refrigerator, the freezer then stomped back to the door. “What the hell happened to all my food?”
She dabbed her mouth. “I threw it away.”
“You what?”
“My instructions included seeing that you ate nutritional meals.” She smiled and lifted her fork. “You really should try this. It’s pretty darn tasty, even if I do say so myself.”
Vince dropped his head back, in a silent plea for mercy. A weekend, he reminded himself. Less, since technically the weekend was half-over. His stomach chose that moment to growl, reminding him how long it had been since he’d eaten.
Scowling, he stomped back to the table and snatched his plate in front of him again. With his nose curled in disgust, he stabbed a spinach leaf and poked it into his mouth, chewed. His taste buds exploded, registering the tart, smoky flavor of the balsamic vinegar and the unfamiliar spices in the dressing. He forced himself to swallow, then waited, half expecting the food to come right back up. When it didn’t, he scooped up another bite, shoveled it into his mouth.
“Listen to that.”
He glanced up to find Sally staring off into the distance, her lips curved in a soft smile. He looked around. “What? I don’t hear anything.”
She patted the air to silence him. “Just listen.”
He scooped up more salad and listened while he chewed. “I still don’t hear anything.”
“Probably because you’re accustomed to hearing it. Water tumbling over stone, the rustle of wind through the trees. Nature’s own symphony.”
He cocked his head and listened a moment, then resumed eating. “If you say so.”
“Some people find the sounds of nature relaxing. In fact, there’s an entire section dedicated to it in music stores.”
He glanced up to see if she was pulling his leg. “Seriously?”
Hiding a smile, she sipped her water. “Obviously you’ve never had a massage.”
“What does a massage have to do with anything?”
“Sounds from nature are a staple at spas. Masseuses play them in the background when giving massages.”
With a shrug he attacked his salad again. “Learn something new every day.”
“What kind of music do you listen to?”
He considered a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t.”
“Don’t you ever turn the radio on in your car?”
“Yeah, to the stock report.”
“You really should try tuning to a music station.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing it’s soothing.”
He snorted a laugh. “You must like that longhair stuff.”
“Sometimes. Depends on my mood or the situation. I prefer rock when I’m cleaning house. Keeps me moving.”
“I’ll suggest that to my housekeeper.”
“How’s your head?”
He reached for the bottle of water she’d set by his plate. “Fine.”
“No headache?”
“Nope.”
“How’s your vision?”
“Twenty-twenty.”
She rolled her eyes. “I meant, is it blurry?”
He blinked hard and opened his eyes wide, as if to test them. “Nope,” he reported. “Clear as a bell.”
“Would you like some more salad?”
He looked down and was surprised to see that he’d eaten every bite. He handed her his plate. “Why not?”
She set aside her napkin and rose.
“And put some more of that salmon on it,” he called after her. “That stuff’s not half-bad.”
When she returned, she set the plate in front of him, then opened her hand. Vince eyed the pill nesting on her palm. “What’s that?”
She took his hand and dumped the tablet on his palm. “Beats me. All I know is you’re to take one every night. Doctor’s orders.”
“You know, I’m a little sick of hearing that phrase.”
She shrugged and sat opposite him again. “You’re probably going to be sicker of hearing it by the end of the week.”
Scowling, he popped the pill in his mouth, chased it down with water. He shuddered at the bitter aftertaste it left in his mouth. “Satisfied?”
She smiled. “For now.”
By the time Vince finished his second helping of salad, his eyelids were heavy, his movements sluggish. Sally truly didn’t know what was in the pill she’d given him, but whatever it was, it obviously had the same sedative effect as the shots his doctor had given him at the hospital.
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Peggy Moreland
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: It was an assignment she couldn′t refuse. Ultracapable assistant Sally Gregg had to take care of her boss for one week. No phones. No computers. No stress. Not an easy task considering Vince Donnelly was a workaholic a tyrant she had little use for outside the office.Then the business tycoon decided seducing his secretary would be the ultimate way to pass the time….