Kitabı oku: «The Wilders», sayfa 5

Chapter Seven

Working triage in the E.R. had honed Peter’s reflexes. Instinct just took over.

Holding on to the banister, he sailed down the steps and grabbed Bethany’s arm just before her body came in ungraceful contact with the icy ground.

With her feet sliding in one direction and her body being jerked in another, Bethany overcompensated. In an effort to regain her balance, she threw her weight forward.

The next second, instead of keeping her steady, Peter found himself going down. He landed flat on his back. Since he was still holding on to her arm, he wound up pulling her down as well.

Right on top of him.

The air knocked out of her, she stared down at his face, stunned. He thought she’d indignantly scramble to her feet—or try to. Instead, she started to laugh. Her laugh, low, melodic and sensual, was highly infectious, not to mention that he could actually feel her laughing.

Picturing how absurd this had to look to anyone passing by—mercifully, there was no one—Peter started laughing, too. He laughed so hard, he became practically helpless and moisture began forming in the corners of his eyes.

Moving with the rhythm of laughter, their bodies rubbed lightly against each other.

Slowly, the laughter died away.

Caught between amusement and concern, Bethany struggled to regulate her breathing. “I don’t think that this is what you had in mind.”

Looking up at her, Peter found himself fighting an urge that hadn’t come over him in a very long time. So long that he could barely remember the last time. The pace he’d kept up these past ten years had left very little time for him to even attempt to nurture a private life. Even if that was partly by choice.

Right at this moment, with her breath drifting down along his face and their bodies pressed together, he was acutely aware of what had been missing from his life. What was missing.

So aware that he wasn’t conscious of anything but the tightening of his groin, the long, warm tongues of desire traveling through his body, heating it.

Making him yearn.

The look in her eyes told him he wasn’t alone here. For whatever reasons, Bethany was experiencing the very same thing. The same attraction, the same electricity.

He wasn’t a reckless man by nature. Acting on impulse was something other men did, not him.

Until now.

In one unguarded moment, Peter reached up and framed her face with his gloved hands. He brought her face down to his.

If having her body on top of his had set off a series of sharp, demanding electric shocks, kissing Bethany multiplied the sensations tenfold. She tasted of fresh strawberries and spring, both equally far removed from the moment.

He lost himself in the sensation.

For one brief shining second, he wasn’t Dr. Peter Wilder, highly respected internist, keeper of his father’s flame. He was just Peter, a flesh-and-blood man who longed for companionship, for someone to be there for him at the end of the day, for someone with whom he could share his thoughts, his plans. His love.

He remembered other dreams he’d once had.

Her head was spinning so badly Bethany thought maybe she’d hit it when Peter had accidentally pulled her down. But she’d landed on top of him and, though his body felt solid and hard, she knew for a fact that her head hadn’t made contact with him.

Her pulse accelerating, she could almost feel her blood, exhilarated, surging through her veins.

Bethany deepened the kiss.

The second their bodies had come in contact, it’d felt as if something had just come undone within her.

But if she didn’t draw back, if she let him continue even for another moment, Bethany was sincerely afraid of what that might do to her resolve, to the walls she’d been building up around herself for longer then she could remember. She only knew that they had been forged to keep the hurt back. If she let no one in, then she would never be hurt, it was as simple as that. She’d be invulnerable, the way she wanted to be.

She wasn’t invulnerable now, she realized. She was shaking. Inside and out. Any second now, it was going to occur to him that the cold weather had nothing to do with her reaction.

Her mind scattered in all directions, searching for something plausible to say in order to throw his attention off.

“So.” The single word swooped out of her mouth on a breath that was all but spent the moment she drew her head back. And then she smiled down at him. “About that takeover.”

She felt the laughter rumble in his chest before it burst from his lips. The up-and-down movement was soothing and erotic at the same time. So he did have a sense of humor, she thought, relieved. Thank God for small favors.

“One takeover is about all I can handle right now,” he told her amicably. It was obvious that he wasn’t talking about NHC—he was referring to what had just happened between them.

Confusion, enhanced by nerves, echoed in her head. The only thing she was certain of was that she wanted to kiss him again. She was even more certain that she shouldn’t.

Placing his hands on her arms, Peter gently moved her back so he could sit up. When he did, he drew in a long, deep breath, then exhaled. Slanting a look at her, he apologized. It seemed like the thing to do.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Are you?” Was he sorry that he’d kissed her? The second she thought that, she felt this odd pin-pricking sensation around her heart. What was that? Rather than deliberate over it, she struggled to block it.

Peter’s eyes held hers. “The fall,” he clarified.

Her breath had stopped in her throat and she had to force it back out again, had to consciously make herself breathe.

“And the kiss?” she asked softly.

Peter slowly moved his head from side to side. “I’m not sorry about that.”

She looked at him for a long moment. He wasn’t lying, she realized. An unexpected wave of happiness suddenly drenched her.

“I’m not, either,” she confided. And then she smiled at him, really smiled. “Finally, something we can agree on.” Was it her imagination, or had his smile just deepened?

“I have something else we can agree on,” Peter told her.

A leeriness slipped in again. She reminded herself that this was the man who opposed her ideas, whom she had to win over. She knew he was no pushover.

“Oh?”

He nodded. “That we should get up before someone comes by and sees us.”

A wave of regret came and went. She couldn’t begin to understand it. “Right.”

Bethany was about to spring to her feet, but he was faster. Standing up, Peter extended his hand to her. She looked at it, then raised her eyes to his face.

“Isn’t this what got us in trouble in the first place?” she reminded him.

He continued holding his hand out. “Lightning rarely strikes in the same place twice.”

She had a wealth of extraneous knowledge in her head, retaining everything she’d ever read, even in passing. “That’s a fallacy, you know. Lightning’s been known to strike twice in the same place. Sometimes even three times.”

“I said ‘rarely,’” Peter pointed out, trying to keep a straight face, “not ‘never.’”

“Good enough.” Wrapping her long, slender fingers around his hand, Bethany held on tightly as she rose unsteadily to her feet. Once up, she took a step and felt her feet begin to slide dangerously beneath her. Instantly her hand tightened on his. She wasn’t pleased about coming off like some damsel in need of rescuing. “This is what I get for not wearing my boots,” she murmured under her breath.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he offered. “I’m not in any hurry.” For once, he added silently.

She had an independent streak that was a mile wide and she considered it one of her chief sources of pride. It almost made her turn him down. But she also possessed more than her share of common sense and, in this case, common sense trumped independence.

So Bethany murmured, “Thank you,” and then tried to make light of the situation by adding, “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

He looked at her and she could all but feel his eyes delving into her. He was probably wondering what she was talking about, she thought. And then he surprised her by commenting, “Streetcar Named Desire. You’re a lot younger than Blanche DuBois.”

She nodded, impressed. “You’re familiar with the play?”

The corners of his mouth curved in amusement. “We’re not entirely backward here. Town’s got a library with books on the shelves and everything.”

She hadn’t meant to insult him, or be patronizing. It was just that she wasn’t accustomed to people who were versed in the arts. Her world had always revolved around business and she’d naturally assumed that his did the same around medicine.

A pink hue overtook her cheeks as Bethany pointed out her vehicle. “The car’s right over there.”

He gave her his arm to hang on to. They proceeded carefully. His shoes were rubber soled and he was far more sure-footed than she was, but he took small steps to match her pace. The snow crunched beneath their feet as they went.

“Is it true?” he asked, breaking the silence just as they reached her sedan.

She wasn’t sure what he was asking about. “That it’s my car?”

They’d reached their intended destination, but he was in no hurry to reclaim his arm. He rather liked the way she held on to it. “That you’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

Maybe that had been giving too much of herself away, even though it had sounded like a flippant remark. “Well, I’ve moved around a bit, so most of the people I interact with are strangers.”

Which brought up another question in his mind. “Why did you move around so much? Army brat?”

The question made her laugh. Her father in a uniform, now there was an image. “Hardly. Both my parents made their mark in the corporate world.” Nannies had raised her and her older sister because her parents put in ten-, twelve-hour days, seduced by the promise of success, then working even harder once it came. “For the most part, I lived in New York until I went away to college.”

“And afterward?”

“Afterward, I moved around.”

“Which brings us back to why?” He looked into her eyes. “Unless you think it’s none of my business.”

It wasn’t, but she answered him anyway. “I was looking for the right fit,” she replied, and then asked a question of her own. “Is this part of some psychological workup, Dr. Wilder?”

He shook his head. “Not my department.” And then he looked down into her eyes. “We’ve kissed in the snow, Bethany. I think we can dispense with the formalities, don’t you?”

She shrugged, looking away. The parking lot had thinned out a great deal. What was left had a layer of snow on it. “I guess maybe we can. Does this mean you’re going to use my first name when you growl at me at the next meeting?”

“I didn’t growl,” he protested. “I just raised my voice a little.”

She smirked at him.

Peter blew out a breath. She was right, he’d let his anger get the better of him. “If I growled, I apologize. For the sound, not the sentiment,” he emphasized, wanting to be honest with her.

Bethany inclined her head. They’d made a little progress, she supposed. “Fair enough. Does this mean that you’re willing to listen to the positive side of NHC taking over the hospital?”

She asked the question with a smile that he found very difficult to resist. He supposed that he could listen. That didn’t mean she could convince him, because some things were written in stone. But to refuse to listen made him out to be irrationally stubborn and he didn’t want her thinking of him that way. Not after what had just happened between them.

“I might be willing to listen,” he allowed, enunciating each word.

“But?” she pressed, sensing that the word was hovering about, waiting to emerge from his lips.

“No ‘but,’” he assured her. “Just a condition.”

“A condition,” she echoed. “What condition?”

She was looking at him warily. It amused him. No one had ever thought of him as someone to be wary of. “If you let me buy you a cup of coffee, I let you talk.”

He expected her to be relieved, and perhaps a little embarrassed for being so suspicious. She appeared to be neither.

“Is this going to be like the last time you bought me coffee? You walked out on me in mid-sentence,” she reminded him when he looked at her quizzically.

“No, it won’t,” he said with a warm smile. “This isn’t going to be like the last time. You can finish your sentence and I’ll finish my coffee.” He turned to his right. “There’s a coffee shop two blocks down. It’s open late. Is that out of your way?”

“No, it’s not.”

Maybe he wasn’t quite the stick-in-the-mud she had thought he was. Lord knows he didn’t kiss like a stick-in-the-mud. He kissed like a man who knew his way around women. But then, she didn’t have much experience in that area.

Bethany smiled up at him and nodded. “Okay, you’re on.” She glanced over toward his car. “I can drive,” she suggested. “Since your car looks like it’s gone into hibernation for the winter.”

“No, I think I should dig it out.” The sooner he got it running again, the better. “Don’t go anywhere,” he cautioned.

“And miss the chance of engaging in another argument with the chief of staff?” she teased. “I think not.”

He stopped. “Temporary chief of staff,” he reminded her.

“You could be chief permanently if you wanted the position.”

She said it with such certainty, he almost believed that she meant it. He wanted to set her straight before things got too complicated. Peter shook his head. “I don’t want it.”

Bethany stared at him. He wasn’t being modest, she realized—he was serious. He didn’t want to be chief. She couldn’t understand that. Couldn’t understand not wanting to advance, not being driven to strive ever further. She couldn’t understand a man who wasn’t goal oriented, who didn’t want to climb to the top of the mountain just to claim it. Her whole life had been filled with personal challenges, with pushing herself to the next goal, the next finish line. It was all she’d ever known.

“Why not?” she asked, mystified.

The answer was simple. “Because I’m busy enough. Because being chief of staff or chairman of the board of directors or holding down any official position that has to do with the hospital, takes time away from doing what I was meant to do, what I love doing. I love being a doctor. I love helping people.”

“You could help them more in a position of power,” Bethany insisted. “You could dictate policy if you were the chairman.”

He decided that she must have known far more influential chairmen than the one who ran the hospital’s board. “No, I couldn’t. I could make suggestions and have them up for a vote, during which time I would spend my time arguing with a bright up-and-coming Princeton MBA graduate.”

She smiled. “And this is different from the present situation how?”

He grinned. “Well, right now I have more time to devote to my patients than I would if I were tangled up in all the paperwork and demands on my time that either position ultimately requires.”

Peter saw her nod her head, whether in agreement or because she was just giving up, he didn’t know. But for now, it was enough.

He turned away from her and began to walk to his vehicle. The dark blue sedan was half-submerged in snow, just as she had pointed out. Mentally, he crossed his fingers and hoped the engine would start once he turned the key in the ignition.

“Peter!” she called to him. As he turned around, he heard her yell, “Think fast!”

He didn’t think fast enough.

A snowball came flying at him, hitting him in the face. He heard her laughing gleefully. Without pausing, he squatted down and scooped up a handful of snow, packing it quickly with the expertise he’d acquired living in Massachusetts and growing up with three siblings.

He let it loose, getting her on the chin.

Bethany shrieked with laughter as snow found its way under her coat, drizzling down along her throat.

“Oh God, that’s cold,” she cried, shivering as she brushed away the snow.

He was already prepared to fire off another salvo, but he stopped, his arm raised behind his head. “Give up?” he challenged.

It went against her grain to give up, even when it came to something as simple as a snowball fight. But she had a feeling that pitted against him in this sort of contest, she’d lose. It was better to do it now—before she got any colder—than later.

“For now,” she conceded.

There was something in her tone alerting him that this really wasn’t over. Dropping the snowball to the ground, he brushed the remnants of the snow off his overcoat.

“Does that mean I should be on my guard?”

Her eyes reflected her amusement and what he could only describe as a delighted wickedness.

“Maybe,” she laughed. “Consider yourself warned, Dr. Wilder.”

“Peter,” he corrected.

“Peter,” she echoed.

“I will,” he responded. “But that warning works both ways,” he added.

It gave her pause.

Without quite turning his back on her, Peter hurriedly brushed off some of the snow that had settled on top of the hood of his car before getting in. He turned the key in the ignition. The car made a futile-sounding noise, as if it were coughing, then suddenly fell stone-cold silent.

He tried again. This time there wasn’t even a hint of a sound.

On his third try, the car cautiously came to life. Relieved, he let the engine run for a couple of minutes, wanting the vehicle to warm up before he took it out of park.

Waiting, he got out for a moment and called to her. “Want me to lead the way?”

“I know where it is,” she assured him. “I’ll lead the way.”

With that, she got into her car. After a couple of false starts, it came to life and she peeled out of the parking lot. Snow flew away from both sides of her vehicle as the tires made their way through the lot.

“Of course you will,” Peter murmured under his breath. He got back in behind the wheel. Closing his door, he threw the car into Drive and took off after her.

The woman drove like she kissed, he thought. Fast and hard.

Peter pressed down hard on the accelerator. He was determined to keep up.

Chapter Eight

Peter arrived in the parking lot some five minutes after Bethany did. He’d been harnessed by such little things as obedience to speed limits and not flying through yellow lights that were turning red. Because of the hour and the weather, the tiny lot was all but empty.

Peter parked his car beside hers. When he got out, so did she. She looked rather satisfied with herself, he thought. “This wasn’t a race, you know.”

She had the good grace to look somewhat contrite. “Sorry, I’m always in a hurry to get where I’m going.”

“I noticed that.” She appeared set to dash up the two steps leading to the coffee shop door. “Hold it.”

She looked at him, puzzled. Was there a lecture in the wings? “What?”

“You have snow in your hair.” He brushed it aside with his fingertips. “Makes you look like an ice princess.” The moment he said the words, he saw her eyes cloud. “What?” he wanted to know. “What did I say?”

“Nothing.” Bethany turned away and walked up to the entrance. The snow on the shop’s roof made it look almost quaint.

Moving ahead of her, Peter opened the door and held it. The warm air within the shop instantly brushed over her face, making the cold a thing of the past. She took a breath.

Silly to act that way, she upbraided herself. It had been years since she’d heard the taunting term applied to her and she knew that Wilder didn’t mean it in the same way. Just an unfortunate choice of words, that’s all, she thought.

The shop was empty except for one person sitting alone at a table near the front counter. About to walk over to a table, Peter curbed his impulse. Instead, he let Bethany choose one, sensing that she’d prefer it that way.

“You don’t want to talk about it,” he guessed.

Stopping by a table in the middle of the shop, she unbuttoned her coat and draped it over the back of the chair before sitting down. “No.”

Peter followed suit, sliding into his chair after leaving his overcoat on the back. The waitress came over, an old-fashioned order pad in her hand. He found that oddly reassuring, given that orders were now electronically taken and submitted in some of the more upscale restaurants in Walnut River.

He waited until the young woman retreated before leaning across the table and responding to Bethany’s answer. “Fair enough. I won’t push.”

She knew what he was saying. That he respected her desire not to discuss the matter while she’d continued to push for a lengthy discussion of the blessings involved in Northeastern Healthcare’s possible takeover.

Well, he was wrong here, too, she thought. “Apples and oranges, Peter. One subject’s personal, the other is very, very public.”

“Patient care should be personal.” His voice was mild, his feeling wasn’t.

In a perfect world, he’d be right, she thought. But the world was far from perfect. They had to do the best they could and make use of every opportunity that came up. And being taken under NHC’s wing was a genuine opportunity.

“It’s a noble sentiment,” she allowed. “But it really is no longer possible.”

He nodded at the waitress as the woman returned with two cups of coffee and the Danish he’d convinced Bethany to split between them.

“Well, it isn’t if we all just give up and focus on a paycheck,” he said, once the waitress had left their table again.

Bethany gave him the benefit of the doubt, since he seemed to be so impassioned about the subject. Maybe the man was too close to see the big picture. “Medicine is specialized now.”

That would presuppose that what NHC offered was special and, as far as he was concerned, the HMO route detracted from medicine, it didn’t add to it.

Raising his cup to his lips, he took a swallow and let the black, bitter brew wind through his system. “Working for an HMO is too compartmentalized. I don’t treat a left pinkie or a right toe, I treat—”

She sighed wearily. “The whole patient, yes, I know. So you said. But in the time you’ve spent with that one whole patient, you could have helped three.”

She was still thinking assembly line. That didn’t work in this case. People brought nuances, shades of gray, individuality, to the table. They weren’t all the same. “Or missed important symptoms for all three because I was moving so fast.”

She stirred in cream and raised her eyes to his. “No, you wouldn’t.”

All right, he’d bite, Peter thought. “And why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you’re good,” she said simply. “You’re experienced.”

Gotcha. The woman had just made his argument for him, Peter thought. “I got that experience one patient at a time.”

They were going around in circles. “In your grandfather’s day, doctors could do that—make house calls, be devoted to their patients like he was—”

“You’ve been looking into my background?” he interrupted, surprised. He hadn’t mentioned that his grandfather had been a doctor.

When it became clear that he was going to be a stumbling block, she’d made it her mission to learn as much as she could about Peter Wilder. She liked to know what she was dealing with. With the possible exception of when he’d just kissed her, she really didn’t like surprises. “I like being thorough—”

He was quick to feed her words back to her. “So do I, that’s my point.”

He was fast when he wanted to be, she’d give him that, Bethany thought. But she was just as sharp, if not sharper. “And my point is that medicine has made an awful lot of wonderful strides and breakthroughs in the last couple of decades, things your grandfather wouldn’t have dreamed of.”

He broke off a piece of the Danish. Glazed sugar drizzled down from his fingers just before he popped the piece into his mouth. It didn’t take a clairvoyant to see where she was going with this. “And you’re saying these breakthroughs wouldn’t have been possible without the backing of conglomerates like NHC.”

He noticed that there was a small, triumphant toss of her head accompanying the single enthusiastic word. “Exactly.” Before he could respond, she held up her hand, stopping what she knew was going to be an onslaught of information.

“I’m not saying that medicine was in the Dark Ages before managed care came along, but you have to admit that progress has definitely sped up since it came on the scene. By operating efficiently, HMOs like NHC can fund research projects, secure the latest equipment for their clinics and hospitals—”

Peter cut in, feeling that he knew a little more about that situation than she did, no matter what she professed to the contrary. “Equipment that a physician has to plead with the powers that be to use because usage is so expensive,” he reminded her.

She looked down at the pastry in her fingers, uncomfortable with the fact he’d just tossed at her. She couldn’t, in good conscience, tell him he was wrong. “Sometimes,” she conceded.

“A lot of times,” Peter countered. Placing his hand on hers, he claimed another small piece of the pastry.

Bethany drew back her hand self-consciously. “Look, I—”

He’d had enough of this confounding dance during work hours. Right now, all he wanted was to share a cup of coffee and a few unnecessary calories with a woman who, heaven help him, stirred him in a way he hadn’t been stirred in a very long time.

“Bethany,” he began quietly, his eyes pinning hers, “why don’t we just call a truce for now and enjoy our coffee?”

Why did that make her more nervous than discussing the takeover? She tried to bank down the odd flutter in her stomach. “And talk about what? The weather?”

He laughed in response and looked out the window that faced the parking lot. It had started snowing again. “Beats being out in it.”

She followed his gaze and groaned. She could feel her feet getting cold already. “Well, we’ll have to be soon enough.”

But right now, they were warm and dry. “Do you always take the pessimistic view of everything?”

“It’s not pessimistic,” she informed him, her chin raising defensively. “It’s realistic.”

She was an overachiever, he thought. An overachiever used to being in charge. But somewhere along the line, the woman had obviously forgotten the reason she was trying so hard. She’d gotten caught up in the race and forgotten the reason.

He studied her thoughtfully, peering at her over his coffee cup. “I bet you got straight A’s in school.”

Where had that come from? “Not that it has anything to do with anything, but yes, I did.”

It had a lot to do with things, Peter thought. It told him the kind of person she was. Determined. Relentless. And probably very hard on herself if she fell short.

“Your parents must have been really proud.”

She made a small, disparaging sound. “If they were, they never let on.” She saw the interest that instantly entered his eyes and silently chastised herself. What was she thinking, letting that slip out?

“They were too busy to notice?” he asked.

She bristled at the sympathy she heard in his voice. God, but she didn’t want any pity from him. She’d done just fine. Successful people didn’t need pity.

“They had—have,” she corrected herself, “important positions. There was a lot of demand on their time,” she explained. She was making excuses for her parents, she realized. The words felt awkward in her mouth. “They were trying to give my sister and me a quality life.”

Peter read between the lines. It wasn’t that uncommon a story. “And they wound up skimping on the quantity, didn’t they?” he guessed.

He saw her squaring her shoulders and wondered if she was conscious of the action. Was she gearing up for a fight?

“We had the best education, a beautiful penthouse apartment, everything we could ask for,” she said proudly.

“Bedtime stories?”

Her mind came to a skidding halt. She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “What?”

“Bedtime stories,” he repeated, breaking off yet another piece from the swiftly dwindling pastry. The portion that was left was small. He pushed the plate toward her. “Did your parents read you and your sister bedtime stories?”

“No.” They were rarely home when she and her sister were young. “I didn’t need bedtime stories,” she informed him, then finished the last of the Danish.

“Every child needs that,” he said with gentle authority.

She sighed. He was making her feel as if she had been denied something important. She didn’t like being made to feel that way. “Is that what you want to do, Peter?” she asked sarcastically. “Read your patients bedtime stories?”

He smiled and shook his head. “No, I can bond without that.” Taking a napkin, he wiped his fingers carefully as he regarded her with interest. “Do you see her often?”

She needed a map to keep track of this conversation. “Who?”

“Your sister.”

“Belinda? No,” she replied, “not often.” Bethany could see that Wilder was going to push this. She nipped it in the bud. “She’s living in London, has been for three years.” She shrugged slightly. “Some fantastic job for an international banking firm.” And their parents were proud of her, she added silently. Belinda had been the older one, the one who did things first. Anything Bethany achieved had to be bigger and better or it wouldn’t be noticed.

But she’d made her peace with that, she insisted silently. Right?

“So your sister has an MBA, too.”

“From Yale,” she told him. That trumped hers from Princeton. The thought always rose in her mind when she told anyone about her sister. Needing to take out her frustrations on someone, she glared at Peter. “You make it sound as if getting an MBA is like coming down with some kind of a disease.”