A Knight for Nurse Hart Read Online Free Page A

nevertheless a shaft of guilt stabbed deep. He’d promised to help out more, but hadn’t made the time to come over as often as he should have. “I said I’d take you and I will. But, Dad, you have to try taking it easyfor a while. Every time I stop by I find you doing something new. Trying to clean out the gutters on that rickety old ladder was what caused your fall in the first place.”
    â€œWell, someone had to do it.”
    This time Caleb counted to twenty. “You never asked me to help you with the gutters,” he reminded his father, striving for a calm tone. “And if you’d have waited, I could have done the job when I came over to mow your lawn on the weekend.”
    His father ignored him, gingerly rising to his feet, leaning heavily on the back of the kitchen chair to keep the pressure off his sore ankle. Grizzly came over to stand beside him, as if he could somehow assist. “I’m going to need those crutches to get outside.”
    Arguing with his father was about as effective as herding cats. His father simply ignored the things he didn’t want to deal with. “Sit down. I’ll get them.” Caleb strode back through the house, muttering under his breath, “Stubborn man.”
    He grabbed the crutches out of the back of the car and slammed the door with more force than was necessary. He and his father had always been at odds and the passing of the years hadn’t changed their relationship much. Caleb’s mother had taken off, abandoning him at the tender age of five. One would think that fact alone would have brought him and his dad closer together. But his father hadn’t waited very long before bringing home future stepmothers in an attempt to replace his first wife. At first the relationships had been short-lived, but then he’d ended up marrying a few.
    None of them stayed very long, of course. They left,just like his mother, for a variety of reasons. Because they realized being a vet didn’t bring in a boat-load of money, especially when you were already paying alimony for a previous marriage. Or they found someone else. Or simply got bored with playing step-mom to someone else’s kid.
    Whatever the reason, the women his father picked didn’t stick around. Carmen was the one who’d stayed the longest, almost three years, but in the end she’d left, too.
    Yeah, his father could really pick them.
    â€œHere are the crutches,” he said as he entered the kitchen. “Now, be patient for a minute so I can measure them. They have to fit your frame.”
    For once his father listened. After he’d adjusted the crutches to his father’s height, the older man took them and leaned on them gratefully. “Thanks,” he said gruffly.
    â€œYou’re welcome.” Caleb watched his father walk slowly across the room, making sure he could safely use them. Grizz got in the way once, but then quickly learned to avoid them. Crutches weren’t as easy to use as people thought, and Caleb worried about his father’s upper-arm strength. But his father was still in decent shape, and seemed to manage them well enough. Reluctantly satisfied, he followed his father outside, giving Grizz one last pat on the head.
    The shelter was only ten miles away. Neither one of them was inclined to break the silence as Caleb navigated the city streets.
    He pulled up in front of the building and shut the car. “I’ll come inside with you,” he offered.
    â€œSure.” His father’s mood had brightened the closerthey’d gotten to the shelter, and Caleb quickly figured out the elder man needed this volunteer work more than he’d realized.
    More guilt, he thought with a slight grimace. He held the front door of the building open, waiting for his father to cross the threshold on his crutches before following him in.
    â€œDr. Frank! What happened?”
    Caleb froze when he saw Raine rushing toward his