The Blackstone Legacy (15 page)

Jeremy gave Tricia a long, penetrating look. How had she known? He and the three surviving members from a DEA Black Op team of six had hidden out in a swamp in the Peruvian jungle for forty-eight hours before they were rescued. Not only had they lain in their own waste but they'd been bitten repeatedly by insects. His team leader had come down with a fever and died within an hour of being airlifted to safety.

He had no more fight left in him—at least not today. His head felt as if it was exploding. He wanted to tell Tricia that he knew how to use a pair of crutches and hobble, albeit slowly, to the bathroom, but decided not to antagonize her further.

“All right,” he said, deciding to concede. “You win, Tricia.” And she would remain the winner, but only until his pain eased. “I'll get out of bed.” Closing his eyes, he clenched his teeth.

“Are you in pain?”

He squinted. “My head.”

“I'll take your vitals, then I'll give you something to take the edge off.” Ryan had left a blood pressure kit and a digital thermometer for her use.

Jeremy suffered Tricia's gentle touch and the hauntingly familiar scent of her body as she took his temperature and blood pressure. She gave him a pill and a glass of water, watching closely as he placed it on his tongue. She recorded the readings on a pad and the time she had given him the painkiller.

“Drink all of the water.”

He complied, handing her the empty glass. Their gazes met and fused. “Thank you,” he mumbled reluctantly.

Her passive expression did not change. “You're welcome.”

She was there, and then she was gone, taking her warmth and scent with her. And it had been her smell that, years ago, had drawn Jeremy to Tricia. She always wore perfume when the other girls on the farm smelled of hay and horses.

Sighing heavily, he closed his eyes. His father and brother complained they did not see him enough. And whenever he did return home it was never for more than a few days. There had been a time when Blackstone Farms was his whole world but after joining the DEA, the war on drugs had become his life. He always came back to reconnect with his family, but refused to stay.

He lay in the dimly lit room listening to the sound
of his own heart beating. He hadn't realized he had fallen asleep until he felt the soft touch on his arm and a familiar voice calling his name.

“Wake up, Jeremy. It's time to eat.”

Seeing Tricia again, inhaling her familiar feminine scent reminded him of what he'd been denying for nearly half his life. He hadn't returned to Blackstone Farms after graduating from college because of the memories of a young woman to whom he had pledged his future. He had loved her unconditionally while she had deceived him with another man.

Whenever he visited the farm a part of him had hoped to see Tricia, but they never connected—until now. And whenever he asked her grandparents about her, their response was always, “She's doing just fine in the big city.”

He shifted on the bed, groaning softly as pain shot through his ankle. Compressing his lips, he managed to somehow find a more comfortable position as Tricia adjusted the bed's tray table.

The moment she uncovered a plate he closed his eyes. “I want some real food.”

She placed a cloth napkin over his chest. “This is real food.”

He opened his eyes, his expression thunderous. “Broth, applesauce and weak-ass tea!”

She picked up a soup spoon. “You've been on a light diet. It's going to take time before you'll be able
to tolerate solids.” He clamped his jaw tight once she put the spoon to his mouth. “Open!”

He shook his head, chiding himself for the action. Each time he moved, intense pain tightened like a vise on his head. “No,” he hissed between clenched teeth.

Tricia bit down on her lower lip in frustration and stared at the stubborn set of his jaw. Broken, battered and bruised he still had the power to make her heart race. “You're going to have to eat or you'll be too weak to get out of bed.”

He glared at her. “Get me some food, Tricia. Now!”

She glared back in what she knew would become a standoff, a battle of wills. “I'm certain I warned you about raising your voice to me. Eat the broth and applesauce and I'll call the dining hall to have them send something else.”

“What?”

“You can have either Jell-O or soft scrambled eggs.”

“How about steak and eggs?”

“Not yet, hotshot. Once you're up and moving around I'll put in an order for steak and eggs. And if you actually cooperate, then you can have pancakes.” Everyone at Blackstone Farms knew how much Jeremy loved the chef's pancakes. He opened his mouth and she fed him the soup.

“Is he giving you a hard time?” asked a familiar voice.

Tricia shifted slightly and stared over her shoulder at Ryan. He had entered the room without making a sound. “No.”

Jeremy swallowed the bland liquid. “She's giving me a hard time. This stuff is as bad as castor oil.”

Ryan pushed aside the ottoman as he sat on the roomy leather chair. He smiled and attractive lines fanned out around his eyes. He ran his left hand over his cropped hair, and a shaft of light coming through the blinds glinted off the band on his finger. He'd married the resident schoolteacher last summer, and now he and Kelly awaited the birth of their first child together. Ryan had a five-year-old son, Sean, from a prior marriage.

“It can't be that bad, little brother.”

Jeremy grimaced. “Worse.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows. “You better follow your nurse's orders and get your butt out of that bed as soon as possible.”

Jeremy swallowed two more spoonfuls. “Why?”

“Kelly woke up this morning with contractions. They're not that strong, about twenty minutes apart, but there's a good chance she'll have the baby either today or tomorrow, and I know when I bring your niece home you don't want her to see her uncle flat on his back.”

Jeremy managed a smile, but it looked more like
a grimace. “I thought Kelly wasn't due until the end of the month.” It was now the second week in July.

“She's farther along than was first predicted. Babies are smarter than we are. They know exactly when to make their grand entrance. Don't you agree, Tricia?”

She nodded. The words she wanted to say were locked in her constricted throat. She wanted to tell Ryan that she had given Sheldon Blackstone his first granddaughter. A little girl she'd named Juliet to honor the memory of Jeremy's mother Julia—a little girl who'd been undeniably a Blackstone.

Tricia wanted to run out of the room, leaving the brothers to discuss the upcoming birth of Kelly's daughter. She drew a deep breath, forbidding herself to cry. Not in front of Jeremy.

“Ryan, could you please finish feeding your brother? I'd like to look in on my grandfather for a few minutes.” She had to escape before she broke down.

She'd left Gus earlier that morning after Sheldon had come to the bungalow asking her help in caring for Jeremy. The look on the older man's face spoke volumes. It was fear. There was no doubt he was afraid she would become involved with Jeremy again; she wanted to reassure her grandfather that would not happen a second time.

Ryan stood up, exchanging seats with Tricia.
“Take your time with Gus. If I have to leave, then I'll call my father to come and sit.”

She took a quick glance at her patient. His chest rose and fell in a measured rhythm. He had fallen asleep. Her gaze softened as she studied his face in repose. Juliet had been a miniature, feminine version of her father.

A shudder shook her as the import of what had become a reality for three short months struck her. She and Jeremy had been parents of a little girl who had righted all of the wrongs—a baby she loved with all of her heart.

 

Tricia found Gus sitting on the porch, rocking in his favorite chair, eyes closed. She stood on the lower step and stared at her grandfather. Tall and slender, there wasn't an extra ounce of flesh on his spare frame and for the first time she saw him as an old man. He had celebrated his seventy-seventh birthday that spring. She mounted the steps slowly, and he opened his eyes to stare up at her.

“How is he?”

“
He
does have a name, Grandpa.”

“Okay. How is Jeremy?”

“He's going to live.” Smiling, she pulled over a rattan chair, facing her grandfather.

Gus returned her smile. The gesture took years off his face. “That's good.”

“Is it, Grandpa?”

His smile vanished. “I've always liked Jeremy.”

“You liked him, but not for me.”

“I was trying to protect you, Tricia.”

“Protect me from what or whom?” she asked, leaning forward on the cushioned seat.

“I just didn't want you to end up like your mother.”

Gus had attempted to protect Tricia, but she did end up like her mother. She'd gotten pregnant and had become a teenage mother. But unlike Patricia, she had not abandoned her baby.

“She could've aborted me, but she didn't.”

“I'm thankful she didn't, because who else would I have in my old age.”

“You're not 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. And there'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 made arrangements 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.

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 quickly, she lay over his chest, holding his arms at his sides.

“Jeremy, Jeremy,” she said, crooning his name over and over. “It's all right. You're safe, darling.” The endearment had slipped out unbidden.

He heard the voice, felt the comforting weight of
a soft body and inhaled the familiar feminine fragrance that made him think of other times in his life when two motherless youngsters found comfort in each other's embraces. The frightening images faded as quickly as they had come and Jeremy buried his face in the curly hair grazing his jaw.

“Tricia?”

“Go back to sleep.”

“I…I…love…” His words trailed off.

Tricia went completely still. Who was he talking about? Was there a woman who had captured Jeremy's heart the way she'd done? He had come back to Blackstone Farms, but did he have a fiancée somewhere who awaited his return?

Her fingertips massaged his temples in a circular motion. “It's all right, Jeremy. Everything's going to be all right.”

“You won't leave me?”

Tricia shook her head before she realized Jeremy couldn't see her. Why did he sound so helpless, vulnerable? “No, Jeremy, I won't leave you.”

“Please, get into bed with me.”

“I can't.”

“Why not? You used to sleep with me.”

“That was before and this is now. I'm your nurse and you're my patient.”

He gritted his teeth, slowly letting out his breath. He'd gripped her shoulder with his injured fingers. “Please stay with me until I go back to sleep.”

Sleeping with a patient was unprofessional and unethical. The difference in having Jeremy Blackstone as a patient was that at one time she
had
slept with him.

Easing out of his embrace, she lowered the railing and lay down on his right side. All the memories of her sharing a bed with him came rushing back as if it were yesterday instead of fourteen years before. She lay motionless as everything about her first lover enveloped her in a longing that she had forgotten.

“Tricia?”

She smiled. Why did he always make her name sound like a caress? “Yes, Jeremy.”

“Thank you.”

It was the second time he'd thanked her. “You're welcome.”

Waiting until she heard the soft snores indicating Jeremy had gone back to sleep, Tricia slipped off the bed.
It's not going to work.
The five words slapped at her. How was she going to share a bedroom, touch her first lover's body and not lose it? She'd had fourteen years to tell herself that she hated Jeremy for deserting her, but just coming face-to-face with him had made a liar of her.

She'd done the very thing her grandfather had warned her against. She had given Jeremy her heart, her innocence and her love, for eternity.

Making her way over to the daybed, she lay down, resting her head on folded arms. Now she knew why
Sheldon wanted a private-duty nurse for Jeremy. They did not want him alone during his flashback episodes. The expression on his face had been one of pure terror, and again she wondered if he had been held prisoner or tortured during his captivity.

The attending doctor at the military hospital had written referrals for Jeremy to see an orthopedist and a psychiatrist, and there was no doubt his body would heal before his mind did.

She remembered what Sheldon had said about Jeremy responding positively to treatment if he was in familiar surroundings. A knowing smile crinkled her eyes. She and Jeremy could not turn back the clock, but she could attempt to recapture some of the magic from their childhood.

 

Jeremy woke up for the first time, since he'd regained consciousness in the Washington, D.C., hospital, without the blinding pain in his head. He'd lost track of time but knew he was home when he heard the soothing strains of violins playing Mozart's “Serenade in G Major.” It had been a long time since he'd heard that selection.

Lifting his head off the pillows cradling his shoulders, he sniffed the air and smiled. He could smell brewing coffee. What he'd liked most about his South American missions had been the coffee. Colombian and Brazilian coffees were some of the best blends in the world. However, he couldn't lie in bed savoring
the smell of coffee or listening to music, because he had to use the bathroom. There was one problem: he couldn't get out of the bed without help.

“Hello,” he called out.

Seconds later Tricia appeared. She looked different from before. She'd exchanged her blouse and slacks for a sunny-yellow sundress with a squared neckline that skimmed her lush body. Other than her short hair, it had been the changes to her body that had caught his immediate attention. When he'd left Tricia, her body hadn't claimed the womanly curves she now flaunted shamelessly. The pressure in the lower portion of his body increased, and Jeremy knew it had nothing to do with his need to relieve himself.

“Hi.”

She flashed a shy smile, her expression reminiscent of one she'd offered him what now seemed so long ago. “Good morning, Jeremy.” She looked at her watch. “It's six-twenty.”

He scratched his cheek with his right hand at the same time his stomach grumbled. He had been asleep for more than fifteen hours. “I need to use the bathroom.”

Nodding, Tricia picked up a pair of crutches. She moved over to the bed, lowered a side rail and handed him the crutches. He took them with his uninjured hand while she gently swung his legs over the side of the mattress.

“Put your left arm around my neck and pull yourself up with your right hand, using the crutches for support.”

He completed the task without difficulty, but had to anchor the thumb and forefinger of his left hand over the rubber-covered handgrip. It would be some time before he'd be able to make a fist with that hand.

“Steady, hotshot,” Tricia cautioned softly.

Jeremy took several halting steps before he regained his balance. “I've got it.”

She looked up at him, her dark gaze fusing with his. “Do you need me to help you?”

His gaze grew wider as he took in everything about her in one sweeping glance. They had lost so much. It had taken them a long time to reunite, but now they were different people. It was as if they'd become polite strangers.

“No, thank you. I believe I have everything under control.”

Lowering her gaze, she nodded. “Call me when you're finished.” He nodded and hobbled slowly to the bathroom.

 

Tricia stripped the bed and remade it with clean linens while she waited for Jeremy to call her. She'd gotten up earlier that morning and had taken a tour of his home. It was an exact replica of the one where he'd grown up, except on a smaller scale. The three-bedroom house was constructed with enough
room for a family of four to live comfortably without bumping into one another. She'd stood in the middle of the master bedroom suite, wondering if she had come back once her pregnancy was confirmed whether she would have slept beside Jeremy in the king-size wrought-iron bed or sat in the sitting room nursing their daughter.

She'd dismissed those thoughts as soon as they'd entered her head because she could not afford to think of what would've been. And the reality of the present was that she would give Jeremy the next four weeks of her life. No more than that.

The last disc on the CD player ended, filling the space with silence. She glanced at her watch. Jeremy had been in the bathroom for more than a quarter of an hour.

Tricia made her way to the bathroom and knocked on the door. “Jeremy?”

“Come in.” His voice was muffled.

She pushed open the door and found him sitting on a stool in front of a generous serpentine-marble washbasin, peering into a marble-rimmed oval mirror anchored to a length of wall mirrors. The mirrors made the space appear twice its size. His jaw was covered with shaving cream as he attempted to shave himself with his right hand. The day before he hadn't wanted to get out of bed, and now he was attempting to groom himself.

Closing the distance between them, she took the razor from his grasp. “Why didn't you call me?”

Jeremy's head came up, and he saw the frown marring Tricia's smooth forehead. “I wanted to see if I could shave myself. I did manage to brush my teeth.”

“Brushing your teeth is safer than shaving. What if you'd cut yourself?”

He lifted a thick, curving black eyebrow. “If I cut my throat, then that would let you off the hook.”

Her frown deepened. “What are you talking about?”

“I'd bleed to death, then you wouldn't have to take care of me.”

Her fingers tightened on the handle of the razor. “Did I say I didn't want to take care of you?”

“I know you don't want to be here with me. You're only doing it because my father asked you.”

Tricia crossed her arms under her breasts. “Let's clear the air about something. I'm here because you're my patient, so don't read more into our association than that.”

He angled his head, studying her gaze for a hint of guile. “Okay, Tricia, if that's what you want.”

“It is,” she said quickly.

Shifting, she stood directly in front of him. Cradling his chin in her hand, she lifted his face. Dots of blood showed through the layer of cream. “You've already cut yourself.” Turning on the hot water faucet,
she rinsed the blade, then began scraping away the wiry black whiskers. His face was leaner, cheekbones more pronounced. He'd lost weight.

Jeremy was hard-pressed not to laugh. Tricia's breasts were level with his gaze. Mesmerized, he watched the gentle swell of dark brown flesh rise and fall above the revealing décolletage.

“Did you bring any uniforms with you?”

Her hand halted under his chin. “No. Why?”

A knowing smile crinkled the network of lines around his eyes—lines that were the result of squinting in the tropical sun. “I'm getting quite an eyeful of certain part of your anatomy with you in that dress.”

Her gaze lowered as heat suffused her cheeks. She moved the blade closer to his brown throat. “Don't you know it's risky to mess with a woman who's holding a sharp razor at your throat?”

His eyes darkened until they appeared as black as his pupils. “No more risky than my falling in love with you fourteen years ago.”

Her hand trembled slightly. “No, Jeremy,” she whispered.

Vertical lines appeared between his eyes. “No! No
what?
”

“Let's not talk about the past.”

Reaching up, he wrested the razor from her fingers. “Yes, Tricia, let's talk about it. Let's clear the air so we can move on.”

She flinched at the tone of his voice. “I've moved on.”

“Well, I haven't.”

“Whose problem is that?”

“It's our problem, Tricia.” His voice was noticeably softer. “Every time I came back I'd ask your grandfather how you were doing, and he always had a pat answer. ‘Tricia's doing well,' or ‘she loves living in New York.' You loved New York so well that you moved to Baltimore?”

She nodded. “I moved to Baltimore after my divorce.”

He went completely still. Her grandfather never mentioned her marrying. His chest rose and fell as his pulse raced uncontrollably. “You were married?”

“Yes.”

Jeremy sucked in a lungful of breath, held it as long as he could before letting it out, feeling himself relaxing, albeit slowly. When he'd least expected it, memories of what they'd shared crept under the barrier he'd erected to keep other women out of his life and his bed. Each nameless face had become Tricia's. Their voices her voice. After a while he gave up altogether and succumbed to prolonged periods of celibacy.

“How long were you married?”

Tricia retrieved the razor and resumed the task of scraping away the coarse black whiskers from his
chin and jaw. “Not long.” Her voice was as neutral as her touch.

“How long is not long?”

Smoothly they'd slipped back into the comfortable familiarity of confiding in each other, because they'd been friends longer than they'd been lovers.

“It was over before we celebrated our first anniversary.”

“What happened?”

“We were not compatible.”

“Didn't you know that before you married him?” She nodded. “Why did you marry him, anyway?”

“I was very vulnerable at the time.”

“Which meant he took advantage of you.”

She shook her head. “No, Jeremy, he did not take advantage of me. I knew what I was doing. It was a period in my life when I did not want to be alone.” She put the razor in the basin.

Reaching for a damp towel on the nearby countertop, Jeremy wiped away dots of shaving cream. “Why didn't you come back to live with your grandfather if you didn't want to be alone?”

Tricia took the towel from his loose grip and dabbed at the nicks. “I couldn't come back—at least not to stay.”

He curved his right arm around her waist, pulling her closer. For several moments they fed on each other, offering strength and comfort. Resting her chin on the top of his head, Tricia closed her eyes. It
was so easy to slip back in time—a time when they could talk about any and everything, a time when they weren't afraid to tell the other their most heart-felt secrets and a time when they were young, fearless and hopelessly in love with life and each other.

“What about now, Tricia? Are you ready to stay?”

She curbed an urge to kiss his hair as she'd once done. The man embracing her may sound the same, but she knew he was not the same. The short spiky black hair and pierced earlobes belonged to a stranger, someone she recognized but no longer knew.