Rich, Rugged...Ruthless Read online

  A moment passed before he snapped himself back. “I came here because of my work.”

  “Yes, but—” She paused, took in the view beyond the bay window. “Look at this scenery. You could have lived anywhere, but you chose to live on a hill that gave an eagle’s view of the country.” She stalled until he shifted toward the window, then persisted to keep the conversation going. “This is so beautiful,” she said. “I think this is why you’re really here. Who wouldn’t love this.” Sam waited only a second. It didn’t matter to her that he hadn’t responded. She wasn’t giving up. “I noticed a piano in the other room.”

  “If you can play, go ahead.” Cautiously he drank his coffee. “And before you ask, I’ll tell you that I don’t know if I play.”

  “I can’t, though I always wanted to play a musical instrument. But as a child, my mother never had the money, and as an adult, I never seemed to have the time. I bet you play.”

  He finished off the last of the food on the plate in front of him. “Why?”

  “Because you’re not the type of man to have something just for the sake of appearance. You’re too practical.” With a look she interpreted as deciphering, he leaned back in his chair. “What?” she asked, feeling as if she were under a microscope.

  “Nothing.” Amazing, Max mused. He didn’t know a thing about himself, and she’d come up with that. Was her analysis of him accurate? Damn, why was he believing what some stranger said to him?

  “This was really rather pleasant, wasn’t it?”

  He saw such delight in her expression. Staring into eyes that were sparkling with a smile, he felt something slow and warming travel through him. “Don’t let it go to your head,” he quipped.

  She laughed. “I’m sure you won’t let me.”

  Alone, later, Max climbed the steps and went into the bathroom adjacent to the master suite. Having shed his shirt and pants, he eyed the tub in the corner. It was big enough for four, as was the walk-in shower.

  During dinner, she’d mentioned his taking a shower and said something about a plastic covering for the heavy cast on his arm. In the hospital, he’d put up with sponge baths by women old enough to be his grandmother.

  He’d realized then, when he’d felt no self-consciousness, that he was comfortable being naked in front of a woman. But he couldn’t recollect past love interests. It seemed a shame to have no memory of them.

  Not that he’d felt even a twinge of desire around the sourpuss named Nurse Schmidt who had wheeled him to the hospital shower. In fact, she or someone else wheeled him everywhere even though nothing had been wrong with his legs.

  He’d admit that bathing wasn’t easy with only one arm, but he’d mastered a workable technique—except for his back. The chirpy Ms. Carter would get that job.

  For his own peace of mind, he decided to limit how much she helped him. That was best since he thought too much about her as it was. More than once, hadn’t he noticed how well she moved? All through dinner he’d been unable to get the image of her dancing out of his head, the sway of her hips, the subtle bounce of her breasts.

  At the knock on the door, he turned on the taps to adjust the water. If he kept thinking the same way, he would need a cold shower. “Come in.”

  “Do you want to shower tonight or…?”

  He heard her steps slow on the tiled floor. He didn’t need to answer her. He dropped his briefs and stood with his bare back to her.

  “You need a plastic wrap on your cast.”

  Max pivoted back at the same moment that she crossed to him. Briefly her eyes strayed to his bare chest, then swept up to squarely meet his stare. He figured she noticed plenty. So had he. With her close now, he couldn’t ignore her scent. A fantasy danced in his head of her naked, wet, in the shower with him, all that red hair curling even more in the dampness.

  As she stretched around him to turn off the water and connect a hoselike spray attachment to the shower head, he held still. He was far from calm and cool. It occurred to him that if he leaned an inch or two closer to her she wouldn’t need to guess what he was thinking; his body would give away his thoughts.

  With a step back, Sam held out the plastic covering she’d brought in with her. Seconds later, she’d wrapped the plastic around the cast. “Spray first.”

  Cursing, Max moved around her and into the shower stall. She was killing his ego, he decided. He wasn’t certain what he was looking for. Anything except what he viewed as her blasé attitude.

  He’d learned something else about himself. When naked with a woman, he preferred to be the one in control. He sat on the stool she’d positioned in the shower and sprayed water over his body and down his back.

  Tension lasted only another second. Inch by inch, his body began to relax as she rubbed a soft, sudsy cloth in slow circles along his wet shoulders. She had great hands. Soft but strong. And gentle fingers. They kneaded his shoulders through the soapy washcloth. One by one, the muscles in his back loosened beneath her gentle manipulations.

  Relaxed, he closed his eyes, and his head fell back. Water dripped from it. He felt her hands in his hair, massaging.

  “Mr. Montgomery?”

  He could barely think, much less talk. Mentally he laughed as his mind registered what she’d said. He was naked, and she was calling him “mister.”

  “Do you want me to wash your legs and feet?”

  To have her hands on him any longer might be disastrous. “No.” He shook his head for good measure. “Go.”

  “I’ll be in the other room if you need me.”

  Max didn’t respond, couldn’t. The moment she stepped away, he pushed to a stand. She’d left the shower door open and he looked out, saw her drape an oversize towel on top of the nearby black wicker hamper.

  As the bathroom door closed behind her, he collapsed against the cool tile. Damn. She definitely wasn’t on the same plane as the granite-faced, old biddy Nurse Schmidt.

  Three

  A good night’s sleep helped. Max felt better than he had in a week though the cast on his arm meant no on-the-belly sleeping. And despite what he might not remember, he sensed he would feel most comfortable that way.

  Yawning, he inched his way out of bed, then walked to the double closet. When he heard the knock on the bedroom door, he considered not answering, but he figured Samantha would just walk right in. “Come in.”

  Ms. Sunshine breezed in wearing a bright yellow Henley shirt that hung to the edge of her hips. On the right side of the three-button neckline was finger-size stitching of Sylvester the Cat. Snug jeans and snow-white sneakers completed the less than nurselike ensemble. “I brought you a glass of O.J. and coffee as long as I was coming up.”

  Even more than before, he’d prefer that she’d leave. She’d been on his mind before he’d fallen asleep. She’d been on his mind first thing this morning. He didn’t care for the feelings she’d stirred within him yesterday when the zipper had stuck, and then during the shower. And he didn’t need a nurse, especially her, hovering around him. “When are you going?”

  She set down the tray, then over her shoulder, she flashed him one of her hundred-watt smiles. “I’m wearing my garlic necklace today to ward off evil spirits, so nothing you do will frighten me off.”

  “You’re a real kick, Carter.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Again the big smile. “Thank you. Have you decided on clothes for today?”

  He pegged her as stubborn not dense. “Just got here.”

  She came up behind him at the closet. “Expensive threads. As a banker, it makes sense you’d have so many suits,” she said as she pushed at hangers and scrutinized each suit.

  Max was still taking all of them in. There was a closetful of sedate gray and dark-colored suits, starched dress shirts, an abundance of ties. All of them were conservative in color, too. More than half a dozen dress shoes were lined up in a row. Someone had polished them to a gleaming shine.

  “We know one thing. You’re a clotheshorse. You’ve
got enough suits to outfit an army. Black, gray, pin-stripes. Ah, what color is this? Olive, maybe,” she said, examining the sleeve of the jacket.

  He had to admit there was more than he’d expected.

  “But what about casual knock-around-and-watch-television type clothes?” She came around him to his left. “There we are,” she said with satisfaction. “More jeans. Worn-looking ones. And hiking boots. You like to hike.”

  Did he?

  “I found a man’s rain slicker in a downstairs closet off the kitchen. Bet you like to fish in the rain. So what looks comfortable to you, or do you want to stay in those?” she said with a gesture toward the gray sweatpants he’d worn to bed.

  “I’ll get dressed.” He scanned the clothes, touched the collar of a shirt.

  “What are you doing?”

  He answered because he sensed she’d keep at him until he did. “Checking the label to learn my size.”

  A look flashed into her eyes, one of sympathy. He didn’t want it or anything else from her. Looking away, he fingered the sleeve of a faded blue plaid shirt.

  “I’d say that’s a good shirt. Pick your most unfavorite shirt. I might have to open up the seam just above the cuff to get it over the cast.”

  Max kept his fingers on the blue one.

  He decided she was a touch loony. The shirt looked faded and old to him.

  “If I were you, I’d choose a different one,” she said.

  Max considered arguing, but decided it took too much effort and snagged a newer-looking shirt from a hanger. “Does this one get your approval?” Now that she’d backed away, he no longer pulled in her scent with each breath he took and could think more clearly.

  Giving the shirt a long, steady look, she shrugged. “Who knows for sure?”

  “Then why not the blue one?”

  “It’s old looking.”

  “Ready to be thrown out,” Max said.

  “More likely it’s your favorite, one you kept around long past its time. Wouldn’t you hate to get your memory back and learn you ruined your favorite shirt?”

  As she took off, Max stared after her. He might be losing it. She was actually beginning to make sense to him.

  Alone, he tugged down first one side of his sweatpants, then the other. Determined, he contorted to get briefs on. Every act required an enormous amount of energy.

  Sitting on the edge of the mattress, the jeans pooled on the floor by his bare feet, he took a breather. He remembered how eager he’d been to get out of the hospital, so sure he would need no one hanging around. Standing, he worked the denim up, and with disgust, he stared down at the metal buttons on the fly. He’d been wrong. He needed someone.

  In response to the sound of footsteps, he looked up. With her return, a nervous edge rippled through him again. As he sat, she dropped to her knees in front of him to slip on first one sock and then the other. He hated this, hated the idea of leaning on anyone for anything, being needy.

  And he wasn’t fond of the feelings she sparked within him. While she tied his sneakers, sunlight danced across the top of her hair. Golden strands mingled with the red. He wanted to reach out, touch her hair, feel the silkiness between his fingers.

  “Okay. If you stand, I’ll button your jeans.”

  How nonchalant she sounded. Damn it, it wasn’t fair. He was dying inside, heat humming through him, and there she was, looking cool and unaffected.

  With each button she touched, with each brush of her fingers, his body tensed. A second, then two passed of too much sensation swamping him. Feeling as if he were being punched hard in the midsection, he kept a firm control on himself. But what about tomorrow morning? Or the next? This wasn’t going to work. He needed Nurse Schmidt, the crab of Whitehorn Memorial’s Medical/Surgical Unit.

  “I’ll make breakfast now.” She stepped back, never looking at him. “Would you like to have it on the patio?”

  He recalled that beyond the patio was a well-manicured lawn and a flower garden bright with color, mostly pinks and white and yellow. “What’s for breakfast?”

  “I make a mean omelet.” Sam waited for a response. Instead he offered his back to her. Maybe that was best.

  She left and hurried toward the kitchen. Like last night, this morning with him had tested her. Try as she might to remain unaffected by closeness with him, she was not made of stone.

  An underlying current, that intangible thing—chemistry or whatever—existed between them. Seeing him half naked again reminded her of those moments before his shower when he’d bared all. She’d admired the play of muscles in his broad back, and the taut backside. In fact, it was the best-looking tush she’d ever seen. It surprised her that he was a physically tough-looking man with broad shoulders and strong arms. He should have been soft, sitting behind a desk all the time, but he had a hard, muscled body.

  Before she’d slipped the plastic protection over his cast, she’d noticed—how could she not?—the well-formed muscles in his arms and chest, the flat rippled midsection, and more.

  As a professional, she never forgot the advice an older nurse had given her—to not become emotionally involved with a patient. Sometimes Sam didn’t follow the advice, but she’d never had this particular problem before. Caring for her patients was one thing. Lusting for one of them was quite another.

  Perhaps this was her own fault. She’d been without a man in her life for so long, naturally he’d tempt her. After all, hadn’t he been unofficially declared Whitehorn’s best-looking male by a majority of the town’s females? So of course, he tripped her heart a little. But what she needed was a vacation, not him in her life. Maybe a summer fling somewhere exotic like Cancun, anywhere but Whitehorn.

  Determined to think about anything else, she puttered around the kitchen, first setting the table on the patio, then gathering everything for an omelet. With the bread in the toaster slots, the eggs whisked and ready to slide into the pan, she poured herself a cup of coffee.

  For too many years she’d watched her mother, who was always looking for “Mr. Right,” turn to putty around any attractive man who flashed her a smile. Sam, on the other hand, was selective, preferring no man in her life instead of just anyone.

  With her coffee cup in hand, she strolled into the sunroom and perched on the navy-and-burgundy-colored cushion of the window seat. If it hadn’t been for her job and Max Montgomery’s accident, she and Max would have never met, never been together now. She belonged to a world where people worked to meet bills. For leisure, she enjoyed a night at the movies or bowling or dinner at Sallie’s BBQ in Big Timber, things that wouldn’t break her budget. His world—well, this was it—crystal, antiques, expensive paintings.

  Upstairs, Max drank the juice she’d brought him then, cradling the coffee cup in his hand, strolled toward a bookcase. For the life of him he couldn’t remember reading any of these books.

  On the wall behind the headboard was an abstract in various hues of blues and deep purple and splashes of black. Had he chosen it or was it another touch of an interior decorator?

  In passing, he flicked on the CD player to hear what music he’d chosen. The classical piece lulled and pleased him, but again sparked no memory.

  His stomach knotted as he wrestled with a renewed sense of panic. What if he never mentally returned to the life he’d known? Who would he be? Could he go back to the bank? Could he resume relationships with family and friends even though no one’s face was familiar?

  Hell. He had to stop this. In an agitated move, he set the empty coffee cup on the tray and headed for the stairs. Eventually he would remember everything. The doctor had told him that the amnesia was temporary. Sometimes the mind needed a vacation when it was troubled too much. But what, he wondered, was bothering him?

  In the hall, he slowed his stride and opened the door to the guest room Samantha had chosen. In one night she’d made herself at home. On the bedside table was an opened book. Bottles of brownish-red nail polish occupied a spot beside a hairbrush and a blow d
ryer, and nearby was a portable CD player. He couldn’t help smiling. Though a suitcase full of clothes remained unpacked, she’d picked some yellow and white flowers from the garden and had found a vase.

  He took only a few steps inside. She had a right to her privacy, but curious about the book she’d been reading, he ambled closer to read the title. It was an old best-seller written by an ex-president. An interesting choice.

  Turning to leave, he spotted a lacy chemise in a deep plum-color dangling out of the suitcase. A wispy piece of nothing made to send some poor sap crazy. Like him, he mused.

  The image of that purple number stuck in his mind as he descended the stairs. He’d thought she’d be hustling around the kitchen. Instead he found her sitting on a cushioned window seat in the sunroom, sipping coffee. She looked ethereal, the crown of her red hair catching the light, a long shadow slanting across her face. It was, he realized, the first time he’d seen her so still.

  He knew he hadn’t moved. He’d barely breathed while staring at her. But as if he’d said something, she slowly angled a look his way. And she smiled. “I’ll get your breakfast.”

  Max wanted to protest, to tell her not to move, but she whisked past him and toward the kitchen. He followed, reached it in time to watch her pour whipped eggs into a frying pan.

  “I found a package of raspberries in the freezer.” She stretched behind her to switch off the radio. “One of your cooks must have been a fruit lover and did a lot of freezing.”

  “Helga.” Just like that, the woman’s name had popped into his head. Max grabbed a kitchen chair, swung it around and straddled it. “Weird,” he muttered with a shake of his head. “I can’t remember people I’ve known all my life, but I remember her.”

  “What about her?”

  “She stood eye-to-eye with me and could have been a linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks.” He scowled at the trivial information that filtered through while memories of his family eluded him.

  Sam had watched his eyes glaze. “Do you remember more?”