His Private Nurse. Arlene James

she glimpsed a huge, jetted tub of hammered copper and an equally impressive shower built of curving glass block. To her right was an area of cabinetry with double sinks back to back, mirrors above each, a built-in dressing table with chair and lighted mirror, and a wall of cabinets containing a pair of doors above a set of wide, shallow drawers, the top one of which came to about her shoulders. Between the dressing table and drawers, the dressing room door stood open, revealing walls lined with more drawers and two closet doors. A bench sat in the middle of the floor. As she watched, Dale extracted a pair of shorts from an open drawer, which he then closed before walking into the closet.

      She had known, of course, that Royce Lawler was well out of her league. His family was among the most prominent in San Antonio, after all. This place proved that he was a man of rare good taste with the money to indulge himself in the very best. Obviously he would never be seriously interested in a completely average woman like her. As she opened the well-organized drawer and extracted the scissors, she told herself that knowing this fact liberated her from any foolish dreams. Now she could concentrate on her work and enjoy this rare moment of freedom from her family obligations in these surprisingly sumptuous surroundings.

      When Royce instructed Merrily to literally cut the jeans from his body, he did so because exhaustion and pain simply precluded that he get out of them the same way he’d gotten into them. She worked without comment, cutting through the heavy denim fabric while he sat passively and Dale turned down the bed after returning to the room with a pair of loose, gray knit shorts and his Texas orange bathrobe. He wore nothing beneath those jeans but skin and could only feel grateful when she finished her job and turned away, allowing Dale to help him out of the mutilated T-shirt. She returned a moment later to drape the robe over his shoulders. Then she wisely stayed behind him as he rose, allowing the ruined jeans to fall to the floor at his feet, or rather foot, as he couldn’t put the right one on the floor, let alone stand on it.