His Private Nurse Read Online Free

Pam was there when I arrived. Pretty odd, since she lives farther from your place than I do.” He eyed Royce and added, “She said something about being at a restaurant on the south side of town. I asked her twice which one, but she never did say.”
    Royce kept his expression carefully impassive. “Tammy knows I’m going to be okay, doesn’t she?”
    â€œYeah, the doctors told us so before Pamela sent her and Cory back to her house with that nanny she hired, but Pam stayed here until you were out of surgery and came around in ICU.”
    I’ll bet she did, Royce thought cryptically, recalling the moment he’d opened his eyes in ICU to find three disembodied heads bending over him. He hadn’t known to whom they belonged or where he was, but when he’d been asked to cough, he’d done so. He’d grunted answers to questions he couldn’t remember now, but he clearly recollected when one unfamiliar voice had said, “You took a bad fall, Mr. Lawler. Do you remember anything about it?”
    He’d known even then what he had to say, and if asked today, he would say the same thing. “No.”
    â€œHuh?” The tall, lanky attorney with the dark-brown hair and eyes looked at Royce as if wondering whether or not he should call the nurse. He and Royce had been friends since high school, despite having attended different colleges. He was the one person in Royce’s life with whom Royce could be completely honest—until now.
    Royce cleared his throat. “I mean, um, no doubt she was hoping I’d broken my neck.”
    â€œShe did ask what provisions you’d made in your will for her and the children,” Dale said wryly.
    Royce sighed, guessing, “And she was some ticked off when you told her that as my ex-wife, emphasis on the ex, she was not entitled to be provided for.”
    Dale chuckled. “She really went ballistic when I informed her that Mark Cherry and I are to be coexecutors of the trust you’ve established for the kids. Come to think of it, your parents weren’t best pleased, either.”
    â€œYou mean they were here?” Royce asked dryly.
    Dale’s face went carefully blank. “Yeah, sure, till we knew you were going to be okay.”
    â€œMeaning they didn’t stick around to be sure I came out of surgery all right,” Royce surmised correctly.
    It was nothing more than he’d expected. He’d been at odds with his parents for as long as he could remember. Even as a kid he’d felt that he must’ve been switched at birth. He just didn’t seem to have anything in common with his socially prominent, appearance-driven parents. They’d never forgiven him for preferring to work with his hands rather than a calculator, and when his younger brother had eagerly embraced the family banking business, Royce’s fate as “the disappointment” had been sealed.
    Dale, bless him, quickly changed the subject. “I want to ask for a postponement of the custody hearing. You’re in no shape to take on two kids by yourself now, anyway, and you know perfectly well that our position’s been iffy from the start.”
    Royce nodded in reluctant agreement and rubbed his left hand over his face. His shoulder ached, his head felt heavy, and his leg throbbed above the knee. Shifting in a futile effort to find a more comfortable position on the narrow, lumpy mattress, he said what they both knew. “We’re no closer to proving she’s a threat to the children than we were when we started.”
    â€œShe’s crazy smart, that woman,” Dale said with a sigh. “She’s been real careful to make her threats in private to no one but you. The only thing we’ve ever had in our favor is the fact that she’s a proven adulteress.”
    â€œWhich means nothing when it comes to custody issues,” Royce said.
    â€œListen,” Dale said, shifting his chair