Read Online Patient Nurse by Diana Palmer - Free Book Online Page B

she never fought face-to-face. She was given to pouting and self-inflicted illnesses to gain sympathy. And she would never have soiled her hands with a wet kitten… His own thoughts shocked him. How could he be so disloyal to the only woman he’d ever loved?
    â€œGood night,” he said tersely. He went out the door and paused just for an instant. “Lock this behind me.”
    She glared at his retreating back. She slammed the door and then locked it. She leaned against the wall, barely able to get her breath. Her knees were weak. Why had he come to see her? Was it really a guilty conscience that had prompted his visit? She couldn’t imagine what would have brought him to her door. He hated her so much that she’d never expected him to come to her home. He never had before.
    Â 
    On his way home again, Ramon was wondering about his motives, too. He kept seeing the spartan way she lived, the lack of frills, the frugal furnishings. She was obviously living on her salary, without any help at all from her aunt and uncle. Was that by choice, or did they simply ignore her now that Isadora was gone? He couldn’t forget that they’d blamed her as much as he had for his wife’s fatal illness.
    He worried the question so much that the next time he saw the Kensingtons, at a business dinner, he asked them point-blank about the way Noreen lived.
    â€œShe earns a good living,” Mary Kensington said haughtily. “Besides, we don’t owe Noreen a thing. She’s responsible for Isadora’s death. How can you care how she lives?”
    â€œShe had a stray kitten in the apartment.”
    Mary waved a hand. “Noreen and those filthy animals! She was forever bringing things home to us. I can’t even remember how many trips we made to the local veterinarian.”
    â€œShe was always too softhearted,” Hal Kensington agreed. “She got that from my brother,” he reminisced sadly. “He was softhearted, too.”
    Ramon’s dark eyes narrowed. “Then why wouldsuch a softhearted woman deliberately leave a sick cousin to die?”
    They both looked stunned.
    â€œYou hadn’t thought about that, had you?” he asked them quietly. “Now ask yourselves one more question. Is Noreen, a qualified nurse, callous enough to let any human being die, much less one she cared about?”
    The couple only looked back at him, without speaking. Two years after the fact, they were finally able to think rationally. Perhaps just after Isadora’s death, they hadn’t really thought at all.
    â€œHave you seen her lately?” he asked them.
    â€œWe invited her over for coffee the week before my husband’s birthday,” Mary admitted. “People were beginning to talk… Why?” she asked abruptly.
    â€œI think she’s ill,” Ramon said. “Her color is bad, and she seems to become breathless at the least exertion. Do you know if she has a family physician?”
    â€œShe hasn’t lived at home for a long time,” Mary said, “so we don’t know much about her private life.”
    â€œHas she ever had a complete physical?”
    They both looked blank. “Well, she was always so healthy, there never seemed any need to go to the bother,” Mary replied, sounding almost defensive.
    He didn’t question them further. But he wondered, and that prompted him to go to a friend in the insurance office at the hospital and ask if a complete physical had been required of Noreen when she was accepted by the hospital’s nursing department.
    â€œWell, yes, she was supposed to,” the officer agreed, “but I don’t see it here.” He frowned over the computer screen. “Maybe it’s somewhere else…”
    â€œNever mind,” he said, giving up. “I don’t suppose there was anything there.”
    â€œIf there was, the new laws wouldn’t permit us to exclude her on the basis of