by Sue MacKay
And he hoped this one last favor would put an ending to owing his father.
To have it brought up every time he saw him.
Then Henry could be free.
Can you ever really be free?
“I won’t be in the area long, and I have no plans for frolicking outside,” Henry grumbled. “I have work waiting for me in Los Angeles. I only came to deal with Dr. Brown and get the demolition back on schedule.”
His father’s driver, Mike, laughed, and Henry had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, which he ignored as he climbed into the back of his parents’ luxury sedan, thankful for the heated seats.
Henry wasn’t going to stay long. A week tops.
All he had to do was deal with Dr. Brown, listen to her issues and get everything back on track to build Aspen Grace Memorial into a cutting edge private medical facility. Then he could return to his beach house.
What’s waiting for you there?
He shook the thought away. He needed to focus on the task at hand.
AGMH was run-down.
It was overcrowded and didn’t serve the community. Tourists didn’t feel safe using the hospital. They didn’t like it.
The hospital board wasn’t planning on doing away with the hospital completely. The board was going to build something better in its place.
Something that would bring in lots of money.
Only Dr. Brown didn’t see it that way and she was protesting. Handing out flyers, stopping construction. Attending meetings at city hall to try to put a stop to it. It was slowing down the progress.
Henry really didn’t care one way or another.
His father did, though.
So that’s why he was here.
He owed his parents this. They had saved his life and reputation after Michelle died; however, after Henry dealt with this, he was done.
He’d sell his shares in the hospitals and cut ties with his parents.
He had spent far too many years trying to please them, hoping they’d love him, when it was clear they never would.
The only person who had ever loved him was Michelle and she was gone.
Henry sighed.
It was inevitable that his mother would soon come to see him, and no doubt she’d start harassing him about settling down and the family image. His parents hated his lifestyle of dating women in Los Angeles for short stints. It looked bad for their good family name.
The wholesome image his father promoted didn’t seem exactly truthful when there was an unsettled son dating all the wrong kind of women.
If only the general public knew his real father.
His father was not a good family man.
His father was a charlatan.
Of course, the one time he had been serious with someone she hadn’t come from the right family. She hadn’t been good enough.
She’d been good enough for him, though, and he smiled as he thought about her.
She’d been gone for eight years, but the hole in his heart remained.
Michelle had been the first person to get through the walls he’d built as a child to protect his heart. The first person to truly love him, and he had adored her.
He had imagined a life, marriage, children with her, and in one tragic instance it had all been snatched away. He would never go through that pain again.
And he was tired of his parents throwing what they thought of as respectable women at him. All he wanted was to be left alone.
Was that too much to ask?
So now he was in Aspen to deal with Dr. Kiera Brown so that his father didn’t have to, and with any luck this would be the end of it. The end of his father holding his indiscretions over his head.
Constantly reminding him how much he owed him.
How Henry wasn’t good enough.
This was the last thing he would do for his father.
Henry knew, in his father’s eyes, he’d never be that perfect son.
The one time he had come close to being that was Michelle. Only Michelle had thought he was worthy of love. Even that had gone spectacularly wrong when she had died following an accident. The only good thing in his life had been taken away eight years ago.
It still stung.
It still hurt after all this time.
Michelle had been his world. The only woman he had ever trusted. The only woman who hadn’t wanted anything from him in return for his love.
She had loved Henry for himself. When Henry had been with her, he had forgotten all those sad, lonely years as a child.
She had given him hope.
Michelle had been his everything. Michelle and medicine. They had never failed him.
Medicine had made him happy at one time. Just like it had made Michelle happy, too, but in a way, in the end, medicine had failed Michelle.
And now Henry was jaded with life, with work.
He’d lost passion for everything.
He just wanted to be back in California and be left alone.
That’s all he wanted.
He scowled the closer they got to town. The traffic was backed up and the mountains surrounding the town were covered with skiers.
It was the height of the tourist season.
This wasn’t the time of year he liked being in Aspen. He had a condo here he rarely visited. He’d come back maybe three times since he bought it, and that was in the summer. He often thought he should sell it, but he was glad he had it now. Hotels would be booked solid, they would be crowded and noisy, and there was no way he was staying at his parents’ place.
He had enough bad memories of that house.
Is there any time of year you like to be in Colorado?
Michelle had loved Colorado. Though he hadn’t understood why, if it had made her happy he would have stayed.
He’d met Michelle in Denver.
Why do you want to settle down in Colorado? he’d asked her. Los Angeles is more exciting!
You’re from Colorado, she’d teased.
Exactly. He had smiled and kissed her. Take it from me. There’s nothing great about living in the mountains.
I love the mountains. I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. I’m used to life elevated. Her blue eyes had sparkled. Don’t you think this would be a great place to raise a family?
One day, he’d grumbled.
Exactly. She had wrapped her arms around him. We’ll both have thriving practices. We could stay here. I know you hate living in the shadow of your parents, but I love Colorado. We can live in Denver and take our kids skiing in Aspen, we’ll stay at your parents’ ski lodge and in the summer we can go back to Salt Lake City to see my family or even drive up to Yellowstone.
He’d groaned. I forgot you’re an outdoorsy person.
And you love me for it.
Michelle had been right. He had loved her for it. And it hurt his heart, even eight years later, when he thought of her. When he let those thoughts creep through into his mind. Of the life they could’ve had together. Maybe he would’ve liked Colorado more, Aspen more, if he had been with her.
If they’d had the family they planned on.
That had all been taken away from him.
Snatched cruelly.
He’d been back, but rarely.
And it was because he had let those thoughts creep into his head that he was so angry that he had been forced to come here and deal with this. At least he was almost free of his parents.
Mike turned down a street.
“Where are we going?” Henry asked.
“To the construction site,” Mike responded.
“I was supposed to head to the hospital. That’s where I was going to have my meeting with the heads of the departments and Dr. Brown.”
“Dr. Brown is not at the hospital. I called ahead, Dr. Baker. She’
s at the construction site and she’s protesting.”
“She’s protesting?”
Mike nodded. “I figured you wanted to speak with her first. In fact, I have instructions from your father to put an end to any kind of demonstration at the construction site. He doesn’t want the police involved.”
“Of course not,” Henry grumbled to himself under his breath.
His father wouldn’t want there to be a scene. His father abhorred the press unless it was good publicity.
A doctor campaigning at a new hospital site was not good publicity.
Of course, neither were his countless dates with Los Angeles glitterati. Even though none of those dates were ever serious. The women wanted something from him and he from them. His father hated the tabloid shots of Henry. And just thinking of that, he smiled briefly to himself.
Mike pulled in close to the work site, boarded up for the winter but ready for construction in the spring. Henry was expecting to see more people with Dr. Brown because he knew there were others who didn’t want AGMH to shut down. He was bracing himself for the worst and was taken aback when he didn’t see a horde of protestors.
It was just one lone woman, bundled up against the cold, holding a sign that had a picture of his father’s face with devil horns and dollar signs painted on it.
In glitter.
Portraying his father’s greed.
She wasn’t wrong. His father didn’t value much; nor did his mother, which was something he had learned as a child being raised by servants and sent away to boarding school.
Henry tried to wipe the smile off his face, but it was hard not to laugh. It was kind of absurd—and admirable. He looked up and saw in the rearview mirror that Mike’s eyes were twinkling with mirth, too.
“So this is Dr. Brown?” Henry asked.
“Yep.” Mike nodded.
“I won’t be long.” Henry opened the door and pulled his coat tight as a blast of cold wind blew down from the mountain against him.
He slammed the door and Dr. Brown paused, but didn’t drop her hold on the sign. The biting wind helped him to keep a straight face. So that was something.
“Dr. Brown?” he asked, stepping closer.
All he could see were two brilliant green eyes, staring back at him over a thick scarf that was wound around her face and under a knit beanie that was jammed on the top of her head.
“Yes?”
“I’m Dr. Baker. We were supposed to have a meeting at AGMH.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t need a meeting with the governor’s son on my day off. I have more important things to do.”
“What? Being the only one marching in the middle of a snowstorm campaigning against a new hospital?”
Those green eyes narrowed. “Exactly. Although, this is hardly a snowstorm.”
“You do know that I sit on the board of directors for AGMH. I am technically your boss.” He shivered against another blast of bitterly cold wind.
“Yes, but I’m not on call. I’m not on duty today, and the last time I checked it was my right to demonstrate wherever I want. So if you’ll excuse me...” She hoisted the sign up further and continued her march.
She wasn’t wrong, but he was annoyed just the same. This was not going to be easy.
“What’re you hoping to accomplish?” he shouted over the wind.
She turned and looked back at him. “Are you willing to discuss terms?”
No.
That wasn’t his position, but right now he wanted to get out of the cold and have a rational meeting. His father had made it clear he didn’t want attention drawn to this situation. That’s all he had to do. Get her to stop this, and he could go back to his life in Los Angeles.
What life?
“Sure,” Henry agreed, lying through his teeth.
There was nothing really to discuss. He was going to tell her to end her foolish protest or find somewhere else to work. It was as simple as that.
Dr. Brown lowered her sign. “Fine. I’ll go with you, and we can talk about this and see if we can come to some kind of resolution.”
“I’m giving you a drive?” he questioned as she marched past him toward the car.
“I walked here. My house isn’t far. We can go there if you’d like, but I figured you’d want to discuss things in the boardroom in the hospital. You know, exert power over your lackeys.”
What was her problem?
And now he understood why Mike was laughing and why his father was in such a tizzy and hadn’t wanted to deal with Dr. Brown himself.
Rock. Meet hard place.
“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “We’ll go to the hospital.”
She nodded. “You know, you really should be wearing a thicker coat. This is winter, after all.”
Henry clenched his fists.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be easy at all. He climbed into the back of the car while Mike helped Dr. Brown wrestle her sign into the trunk and then held the door open for her as she slid in.
She was still wearing her hat and scarf.
“You have the heat cranked in here,” she remarked.
“As you said. It’s winter.”
Dr. Brown pulled off her hat and a cascade of red hair tumbled out. He could hear the electric shock of static electricity, and some of her hair stood on end.
Then she unwound the scarf from around her face, and he was in absolute awe when he laid eyes on her.
Henry didn’t know quite what he’d been expecting, but he knew it hadn’t been someone so young. The Dr. Kiera Brown he’d been briefed on was not the person he thought she’d be.
He had expected a surgeon more around his father’s age, given her lists of accomplishments. Not this gorgeous, vibrant woman sitting in front of him.
Not someone so beautiful.
There was a zing of something, a spark that warmed his blood, even in the bitter cold. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time.
He’d been attracted to other women since Michelle, but it had been nothing like what he was feeling now. And that unnerved him.
“What?” she asked, noticing him staring at her.
“Your hair is standing on end.” Which wasn’t untrue. It was, and it was something he could focus on instead of her lips. Or instead of wondering how soft her hair was or how she tasted.
Pull yourself together.
She made a face and shrugged her shoulders. She pulled off her mitts and ran her slender fingers through her hair trying to tame it, but it just seemed to make it worse.
“So you’re the governor’s son,” she said, pulling back her hair and tying it.
“And you’re the thorn in my father’s side,” he remarked.
When Dr. Brown smiled, there was a glint of amusement in her eyes that Henry could only describe as mischievous. “I am, indeed.”
He was in trouble.
Big trouble.
* * *
Kiera had known that Governor Baker was sending in his son to deal with her today, and she didn’t care. That wasn’t going to stop her from her mission.
The board of directors and shareholders of Aspen Grace Memorial Hospital were threatening to tear it down and replace it with an elite facility that would cater only to the wealthy who came to ski and frolic in a winter playground, which was all very well, but what about the rest of the people in Aspen?
Those who lived here year-round.
Those who couldn’t afford the prices of the wealthy?
Lives were in jeopardy.
And she knew firsthand what a lack of medical care could do, especially when someone couldn’t afford it.
Her best friend, Mandy, the only family she had in the world, had been working for a nonprofit organization as a nurse. She didn’t have insurance, and when an accident left her paralyzed from
the waist down all she could afford was an HMO who had botched her surgery. Kiera swore then and there that she would help those who couldn’t afford proper medical care. Just like her late mother.
Her mother had been addicted to drugs and unable to get the help she needed, and Kiera didn’t really remember her. Just snippets.
The only thing she recalled vividly was fear.
Her father, unable to cope with his own addiction had tried to be there for her, but more often than not she had been alone.
Scared.
Hungry.
Until one day her father had abandoned her in a diner in Colorado Springs.
Kiera swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. She didn’t want to think about her parents.
Or her father.
Or the fact she hoped he’d come back one day.
It wasn’t logical.
What was logical was saving the hospital. She had to be strong. She couldn’t get emotional in front of the governor’s son.
She had to be strong. The clinic was all that mattered.
She might be a surgeon in the emergency department, but she gave as much spare time as she could to the free clinic that had started only because she had demanded it. She helped people like her parents and others that couldn’t afford health care.
That made her happy.
It kept her busy.
Now, because of greedy bureaucrats, everything was threatened.
Aspen Grace Memorial Hospital was in danger and she was the only person trying to save it. She wasn’t unfamiliar with fighting the good fight.
She’d done marches on Washington.
She’d stood up for the rights of people who were marginalized, as much as she could. And she’d taken a minor in social justice at college.
The biggest problem was getting more people on board with saving Aspen Grace Memorial, and it frustrated her. She didn’t have the best people skills, and she had a hard time trusting, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her.
The chief of surgery was on her side, to an extent, but she was the only one out there in her free time picketing, handing out flyers and attending planning meetings at city hall. Yesterday, she’d been down in the dumps thinking that it wasn’t working. Today she felt better now that she was sitting next to Governor Baker’s son.