Very Private Duty Read Online Free Page B

old, Grandpa.”
    Gus sucked his teeth. “I’m old and you know it. And what bothers me is that I’ve become an old fool. If I hadn’t interfered with you and Jeremy, I know the two of you would’ve married years ago. Andthere’s no doubt I would’ve had at least two or three great-grandchildren by now.”
    Tricia stared at the climbing roses on the trellis attached to the side of the house. The roses had been her grandmother’s pride and joy. “What’s done is done.”
    Gus stared at his granddaughter’s solemn expression. “You still love him, don’t you?”
    Turning her head, she looked directly at him. “Why would you ask me that?”
    “Because I need you to tell me the truth, Tricia. When you called your grandmamma and me to tell us you were marrying that lawyer fellow neither of us could believe it because you never mentioned his name whenever you called us. And when we came up to New York to meet him, the first thing Olga said to me was that you didn’t love him. That’s why we never told anyone at the farm that you’d married. Olga knew it wasn’t going to last. But what hurt most was that a stranger had to tell us that you’d had our great-granddaughter.”
    “I told you why I did not want to tell you. At that point in my life I wasn’t equipped to listen to you preach about how I’d become my mother. What you failed and still fail to see is that I am who I am. I may look like my mother, but that’s where the similarity ends. Yes, I had a baby, but I did not desert my daughter.
    “Even though I was a full-time student, I got a job, saved my money, passed all my courses and madearrangements for child care before Juliet was born. I managed to hold everything together until the accident. Then, I didn’t care whether I lived or died. I’d lost my baby, and then Grandmamma died two years later. I carried a lot of guilt, Grandpa, because I kept telling myself that if I’d come back to the farm when I realized I was pregnant, my baby wouldn’t have died.”
    Leaning back on the rocker, Gus sighed. “But you didn’t come back, because you didn’t want to hear me say ‘I told you so.”’
    “That wasn’t the only thing, Grandpa. I wanted to see if I could make it on my own,” she half lied. What she had not wanted to do was use her child as a pawn to get Jeremy to come back to her.
    Gus shook his head. “Olga, God rest her soul, always told me that I was better with horses than human beings.”
    Tricia smiled. “That’s because horses don’t talk back.”
    “Amen, grandbaby girl.” He waved a gnarled hand. “Don’t you think it’s time you get back to your young man?”
    “He’s my patient, Grandpa, not my young man.” She stood up. “Did you eat lunch?” Even though her grandfather had retired at seventy-five he continued to live on the horse farm and rent the bungalow. The cost of meals was included in his monthly rental.
    Gus patted his flat belly over a pair of well-washed denim overalls. “I ate a big breakfast.”
    Leaning over, she kissed his cheek. “Don’t forget to eat dinner.”
    “I won’t.” He waved his hand again. “Go on!”
     
    Tricia drove the short distance back to Jeremy’s house. She was surprised to find Sheldon instead of Ryan sitting in the club chair. He stood up.
    “I told Ryan I’d sit with him until you got back.”
    “I’ll take over now.”
    “Ryan also told me that you haven’t eaten, so I’ll have your lunch delivered.”
    “Thank you.”
    Sheldon walked out, and Tricia sat down on the chair he’d vacated, watching the man she had fallen in love with so many years ago sleep.

Two
    J eremy woke up, his glazed gaze fixed on the ceiling. “Jump! Jump now, dammit!”
    Tricia sat up in a jerky motion like a marionette on a string, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. She shot up from the chair and raced over to the bed. Jeremy’s right arm flailed wildly, his elbow striking her shoulder and knocking her backward. Recovering