Rich, Rugged...Ruthless Read online

  Rachel spoke words that almost verified Sam’s thought. “Quite honestly, he’s not an easy man. He’s distant. Solitary.”

  Sam could have told her no explanation was necessary. She’d heard the talk about him. “What man is easy?”

  “Like I said, he’s not.” Affection blended with the amusement in Rachel’s tone. “But he’s a lovable pain.”

  Sam wished she could reassure her, could tell her that she understood men. Thanks to her mother, plenty of them had wandered through her life. One thing she’d learned early was that a man didn’t handle illness well. She had no doubt that Max Montgomery wouldn’t be any different.

  “His housekeeper quit the day before he had his accident, and…and the cook left a few weeks before that. I don’t know why. But that means you’d have to cook, too.” Rachel rushed the words. “I promise I’ll try to get someone hired as quickly as possible.” Momentarily distracted, Rachel’s gaze suddenly shifted toward a nearby booth, to the fortyish, rather slender woman with graying blond hair. “Hello, Kate.”

  Judge Kate Randall Walker smiled back. “Hi.”

  “Has father talked you into running on the ticket with him?”

  Faint lines crinkled at the corners of the judge’s eyes with her smile. “I’m not interested in a political career or being attorney general. How is your brother?”

  “He’s doing better.”

  “What he needs is a good woman to sweeten up his sour disposition. But what woman in town is bold enough to try?”

  Rachel may have laughed with her but, Samantha noted, the seriousness never disappeared from her eyes. “There you are, Samantha,” she said, resuming their conversation. “You’ve been warned about him. Do you want the job?”

  Sam wasn’t concerned. Her specialty was handling ornery patients. “I’ll take it.”

  Sam had planned to meet Max Montgomery before his discharge date, but the two times she’d stopped by his room, he’d been off somewhere for tests.

  So their first meeting came on the day he was to go home. While the doctor checked him out one last time, Sam waited at the nurses’ station with a wheelchair. When the doctor left the room, she wheeled the chair into it.

  It was one thing to see Max Montgomery from a distance—in the bank, he’d looked formidable in his gray banker’s suit—but up close, he tongue-tied her. Six-feet-plus, lean and muscular, he was drop-dead gorgeous with an aristocratic nose and high cheekbones. Quite simply, he had movie star good looks.

  Rachel was standing in front of a portable table near the bed, packing personal items into a bag. “Father should be here,” she said.

  Sitting on the bed, Max stared blankly out the window, toward the statue of Lewis and Clark outside the hospital entrance. A second passed before he rounded a look at his sister. “I might have lost my memory, but it doesn’t take much to get the picture. You’re about to make excuses for him, aren’t you? Did you always do that?”

  Sam thought she noted a flicker of hope enter Rachel’s eyes as she looked at her brother. As if she recognized his abrupt, no-nonsense attitude as a familiar one for Max, making him seem like the man she knew.

  “No, we never tried to fool each other about him.”

  “Then don’t start now.”

  Rachel visibly relaxed. “Okay.”

  Standing at the doorway, Sam cleared her throat to be noticed.

  “Hi.” Rachel smiled a greeting. “I’m glad you got here.”

  Sam pushed the wheelchair farther into the room. “I thought I’d come and take over.”

  “That would be great. I left Alyssa—”

  “Hold it.” A masculine voice demanded their attention. “Who are you?” His eyes snapped with annoyance at Sam. “And what did you mean by ‘take over’?”

  Sam geared up for his resistance and planted her feet. “I’m Samantha Carter. Rachel—”

  “What’s that for?” He jabbed a hand at the air in the direction of the wheelchair. “I don’t need it.”

  “Then we’ll be staying here,” Sam replied. “Because they’re not letting you escape until you climb into this.”

  He eyed her with a look meant to back her out the door. “What’s with the ‘we’?”

  Sam had hoped for a better beginning. “I’m your private nurse,” she said, negotiating the wheelchair closer to the bed.

  He shot a glance in Rachel’s direction. “Is that true?”

  “Max, you need someone to stay with you. And you don’t have the cook anymore or the housekeeper.”

  “Why don’t I?”

  Though Sam empathized with his confusion, she guessed any softness with him at this moment would be her downfall. “I’ve been told you annoyed the cook for the last time. And no one knows why the housekeeper left.”

  Rachel held her lips in a tight line, looking as if she was having trouble holding back a smile. “I’ll leave, and have the car brought around.”

  “I have mine here,” Sam told her. “It would be best if we take it.”

  “Okay. I’ll go to the desk and make sure he’s discharged.” She breezed out the door before anyone could respond.

  Though he glared, Max swung his legs over the side of the bed. Sam braked the chair and reached for his arm. “Let me help.”

  “I can do this myself.”

  She found herself pinned by steel-blue eyes. Unfriendly eyes.

  “I don’t need a nursemaid.”

  Patience had always been one of Sam’s best traits. “You’re not getting one.”

  “Good,” he snapped, and grasped the arm of the wheelchair.

  Sam admired his independence. He’d be a difficult patient, not because he didn’t have the courage required in therapy, but because he would battle her all the way.

  He slouched back in the chair, tiredness etching deeper lines in his face.

  Sam stared at the cast that ran across the top of his hand to his bicep. Usually, little notes of encouragement were scribbled on a cast, but not a pen had touched his. It was as immaculately white as when it was first applied.

  Giving him time to recover, she busied herself with the bag Rachel had packed. He’d proven what he wanted. Hopefully he would now accept her help.

  A strained quiet stretched between them on the ride in the elevator. When they reached the sidewalk in front of the hospital, Rachel left them, promising to call after dinner. Max remained silent, and Sam wondered how long it would continue.

  She opened the passenger door of her car. Recalling the BMW he’d tooled around town in, she guessed her five-year-old, four-wheel drive wouldn’t receive a passing grade with any Montgomery.

  Once he was settled on the passenger’s seat, she grabbed the seat belt clip and leaned across him to snap the buckle. She’d done the same action dozens of times with other patients, but somehow this was different. Max was…disturbing. With his face mere inches from hers, with the heat of his breath caressing her face, sensation sprinted through her.

  Do the job. Get done. Move away, her brain ordered even as her pulse scrambled. Her heart pounding harder, Sam fumbled with the belt buckle. It took two tries, and all the while his breath caressed her cheek.

  Daring a look at him, she watched his gaze idly roam over her face. Lined up, their lips were a mere hairbreadth apart. There was danger here, she recognized. Far more for her than him.

  “Are you done?” he asked.

  Too long. Too long she’d leaned across him, stayed close. Unwavering, his stare challenged every feminine instinct within her. But it was his mouth, the firm, sensual line of his lips, that played havoc with her woman’s sensibility. “Yes.” Backing out of the car, she shut his door and, moving quickly, rounded the front. She definitely needed to keep her mind on business.

  “Don’t I have a car?” he asked the moment she slid behind the steering wheel.

  Sam gave a grateful sigh that he was willing to treat those previous seconds as if they’d never happened. “You were in better shape than it was after t
he accident.” She switched on the ignition. The engine cranked and died. “You don’t remember the accident?” She knew differently. According to his hospital chart which she’d read earlier, the doctor had noted that the patient recalled the accident. He could also identify the composers of certain music, authors of books, sports teams, the names of planets. But not the names of family and friends. Sam turned the key again. This time the engine purred. With partial amnesia, patients often remembered some things and not others.

  “I remember the accident,” he finally answered.

  “What exactly do you remember?”

  Silence answered her. Obviously he’d exhausted his willingness to converse with her. Head turned away, he stared out the window. Sam left him alone and negotiated the Jeep onto the street. She had a tendency to talk too much sometimes, a habit she was aware some people might view as a fault.

  With the plopping of raindrops against the window, she started the windshield wipers. She’d have liked to turn on a CD, something bluesy, maybe the wailing sounds of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” but not knowing if Max hated blues, she mentally hummed the song.

  Before this job ended, she would learn his likes and dislikes. Being a private nurse meant getting as close to a patient as a family member or a spouse. “Let’s see. Your sister said to turn here.” She knew who owned the mansion on the hill. Everyone did. But to get to the private drive that led to his home, she’d needed directions from Rachel.

  As the rain slowed, Sam rolled down her window. She liked the smell of rain, the cool dampness that lingered in the air after it stopped. She wasn’t alone, it seemed.

  As they traveled the road to his private drive, they passed a neighbor’s property. Despite the drizzle, a couple had walked to their mailbox. For a while his neighbors would be her neighbors. Sam waved, planning to meet them later.

  No one waved back. Rather than unfriendly, Sam viewed their response as puzzled and wondered just how many of his neighbors Max Montgomery had offended.

  Perhaps plenty of them, she reasoned, based on the Keep Out and No Trespassing signs posted on the security gate at the entrance to his property. He was definitely big on privacy. “Is there a security code?”

  Slowly he angled a look at her. “Wasn’t that your business to find out?”

  With some effort, Sam delivered her sweetest smile. “Yes, it was.” This wasn’t pleasant or easy for him, she reminded herself. She’d been a nurse long enough to know that a patient’s crankiness directed at her was rarely personal. After braking, she shifted to park, then retrieved her cell phone from her shoulder bag. To her relief, Rachel answered immediately. “We’re at a loss,” Sam told her. “Neither of us knows the security code.” Still talking to Rachel, Sam left the car to punch in the code.

  A born optimist, she delivered a pep talk to herself before returning to the car. Once she and Max were settled in, everything would go more smoothly.

  That might not be true, she immediately realized when she returned to the car and her passenger finally spoke. “When we get to the house, take my bag in. Then leave.”

  Because he sounded as if he believed she’d do what he’d said, Sam insisted, “I’ll be staying.”

  His gaze sliced to her. He had devastating eyes—eyes that would cut people down with one look. “I don’t care that my—that Rachel hired you,” he said, seeming to have a problem calling her his sister. “I don’t want you.” He gave her that superior look she imagined he’d learned at an early age. “I’m firing you, Ms….”

  “Samantha—Sam Carter.” Sam pushed strands of damp hair out of her eyes. “Mr. Montgomery, let’s get something straight. I’m not your maid, I’m not your housekeeper and I am not your servant. I am your nurse.”

  “What if I don’t want you?”

  “That’s not an option.” Sam shrugged indifferently. “For a while you’re stuck with a nurse. For tonight, it’s me. If you want someone else, you’ll have to talk to your sister. But I don’t think that will do any good. Whether you like it or not, I can’t leave.”

  She also couldn’t take her eyes off the house. Nothing had prepared her for his home. She caught herself gaping as she stared at the view between the slow-swishing windshield wipers. He lived in a brick-and-terra-cotta Tudor-style mansion, grand and impressive, especially with the darkening sky above it and the lightning casting the outside in bizarre illumination.

  “Why won’t it do any good to talk to my sister?”

  It took a moment before Sam realized he’d returned to their previous conversation. “Because your reputation is well known,” she answered honestly. She’d gone into nursing because of a need to help others, because of a desire to comfort, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be tough if it was in her patient’s best interest. “It means no one else will work for you. I was Rachel’s last hope.”

  “Why you?”

  “That’s easy to answer.” Sam took a leveling breath. “I make it a point to take care of one grump a year. You’re it.” She cast a sidelong glance at Mr. Bank President to see how he handled that remark. There was the slightest curve at the edges of his lips, as if he might smile. Couldn’t be, she mused. Everyone knew Max Montgomery never smiled.

  Two

  She’d made him smile. That was something Max hadn’t felt like doing since he’d awakened at the hospital. She also irritated the hell out of him. And she was getting under his skin in another way.

  With her closeness during her efforts with the seat belt, a flowery fragrance had curled around him. He’d noticed the pulse at her throat quickening. Then the side of her breast had brushed his chest when she’d stretched across him.

  He’d been aware of her. Say it like it was, he told himself. His mind might be running on fewer cylinders, but his body had heated up just fine.

  Bringing himself back to his surroundings, he stared in disbelief at the house. His house. The rain stopped, giving him a clear view. “This is it?” It confirmed what he’d gathered during conversations with his family and from comments made by the hospital staff. He was rich.

  “Yes, this is your house.” Sam removed the ignition key, then opened her door and reached for his bag from the back seat. “Does it seem familiar?”

  Max shook his head.

  Nothing did. The bag contained his razor and shaving cream and toothbrush, and several magazines. Everything Rachel had brought him could have belonged to someone else. Nothing had triggered any memory. Not this house, either. His stomach clenched. What if everything inside looked strange and unfamiliar?

  He’d like to stay in the car, tell the cheerful redhead who now stood beside his door to drive him anywhere, to just get him away from the house. Instead, she opened the door for him and held out a hand. “I’ve been in museums that were smaller,” he said. He brushed away her hand, not wanting her help. But ignoring her was impossible.

  Trim, tall, probably nearing thirty, she possessed a knock-out figure, well-toned, with long legs. The whole package dazzled him, from the generous mouth to the laughing green eyes and the riot of red hair with its abundance of curls to her shoulders.

  Her face was the delicate, fine-boned one of a Celtic beauty, with a pert nose and a flawless, pale complexion. He couldn’t say he wouldn’t enjoy staring at that face or that body under different circumstances. But no matter what she looked like or how well she was put together, or how much she fired up the ache in his gut, he didn’t want her here, didn’t like what that bright smile of hers made him feel.

  “Do you remember going to a museum?” she asked.

  He considered not answering her. He supposed her job included daily reports on his memory to the doctor or to Ellis or to some shrink. But he nodded in response. “Yes. And a planetarium.” How old had he been when he was there? In the museum, had he been looking at the model train station with a child’s eyes or a man’s? Damn. Why were memories so elusive? He felt as if he was in limbo, not connected to anything, even himself.

  “Are you
remembering something else?”

  Enough questions. He maneuvered himself out of the car. She stood only inches from him now, and he saw the sprinkling of freckles on the bridge of her nose, neatly camouflaged by makeup. It would make more sense if he didn’t notice anything about her. “Who’s going to clean this?” he asked with a nod in the direction of the house.

  Briefly she made eye contact with him. Don’t suggest that I do it, her look silently conveyed. “Not me.” The house keys dangling from her fingers, she pivoted away and glided toward the front door.

  Max didn’t miss her smile. Not for the first time, he thought that smile might buckle a man’s knees. Trailing her to the door, he swept a slow, appraising look at the grounds. Well-kept, manicured. Obviously the handiwork of a diligent gardener. A flower garden of pink and white flowers lined the walkway. He counted eight huge trees in the front of the property, eyed the woods that backed the house.

  The house pleased him, he realized, though he thought the brass lion’s head door knocker was ostentatious. He assumed it was part of the package when he’d bought the house.

  Moving closer, he noticed that she’d frozen in the opened doorway. “What’s the problem?”

  “No problem. Look.” With a sweep of her arm, she directed his gaze to the wall of paintings that adorned the stairway wall. “Monet, Cezanne. Do you know if those are real?”

  Max remained behind her. More than the paintings grabbed his attention. Her knowledge surprised him. “I have no idea,” he said, wondering just how educated she was. The allure of her perfume enticing him again, he dodged contact and quickly brushed past her.

  With a lengthy look, he scanned his surroundings, assessed the grandfather clock, an antique-looking table. What was a genuine antique and what wasn’t? This was his home, he reminded himself, yet he felt no familiarity with it. Where was his room, his things? Panic threaded through him again. Instead of answers, questions flooded his mind. “Why exactly don’t I have a housekeeper?”