She might be persona non grata around the hospital right now, but she couldn’t quite believe anyone would physically assault her to keep NHC at bay.
Still, she couldn’t deny she found great comfort from Richard’s calm presence as they headed for the elevator. She always had, she remembered now. He had been a source of strength and comfort through high school and college—the one she always turned to for advice, for counsel, for encouragement.
And more.
She pushed the memories away, refusing to dwell on them. She couldn’t think about them right now, when he was only a few feet away looking blond and dangerously gorgeous.
They paused at the elevator to wait for a car and stood in silence, watching the numbers rise. She was just about to ask him about his other clients when she heard a commotion down the hall.
“Hold the elevator. The trauma lift isn’t working.”
Anna sucked in her breath as the familiar voice rang through the hallway. Her insides knotted with dread but she had no choice but to turn her head.
She wasn’t at all surprised to see her sister working an oxygen pump as a team of medical personnel pushed a gurney down the hall. Anna had a quick impression that the patient was a middle-aged woman with her face covered in blood.
Ella faltered for just a moment when she saw Anna but she didn’t break her stride. “Have the ER hold trauma room one,” she told a nurse running beside them. “And alert the surgical team that we’ve got a femoral compound fracture and possible head trauma.”
She snapped out other commands firmly in a crisp, focused tone that reminded Anna painfully of their father, leaving no doubt exactly who was in charge of the situation.
She had never seen her sister in a professional capacity, Anna realized, as a mixture of pride and awe washed through her.
She always knew Ella would kick butt as a doctor. Seeing her in action was all the confirmation she needed. Ella was cool, composed and completely in control—all the things Anna couldn’t quite manage during her single year of med school.
Anna and Richard stepped aside to allow the team access to the elevator. Just before the doors slid closed, Anna’s gaze met her sister’s for only a millisecond.
Everything on the periphery seemed to fade, and for a moment Anna was ten years old again, snuggling in her sleeping bag in a tent in their big backyard next to her sister and best friend while the stars popped out, sharing secrets and popcorn and dreams.
Oh, Ella. I miss you so much, she wanted to whisper, but she could never say the words tangled in her throat, and in an instant, the doors closed and the moment was gone.
She fought back tears, praying her emotions wouldn’t betray her in front of Richard.
“Wow,” he said after a moment. “Hurricane Ella, as usual.”
“Right.” She didn’t trust herself to say more than that as a thousand different regrets pinched at her.
Their rift was largely her fault, one that had been widening for eight years since she left Walnut River, and it had become an unbreachable chasm these days.
If she had told Ella and their brothers about her job with NHC, her involvement in the merger might not have come as such a shock to the other Wilders. Instead, for two long years she had chosen the coward’s way, avoiding their questions when they asked about her work, offering them half-truths and evasions.
She had suspected exactly how they would react. She supposed that was the reason she had deceived them for so long.
“Not a good time for sisterly conversation, obviously.”
She wrenched her mind away from her guilt to Richard, who was watching her with entirely too much perception in his blue eyes.
She forced a smile past her aching heart. “Ella runs a mile a minute. She always has. When we were kids, she was always on the go. You remember what she was like.”
“I do. There was never a quiet moment with the two Wilder girls around.”
She forced another smile, though she had a feeling it was probably as transparent as it felt. She could only hope he didn’t see the hurt washing through her in fierce waves.
“You never asked your question,” he said.
She blinked at him. “Sorry. What question was that?”
“I don’t know. You said you wanted to ask me something and then we were sidetracked.”
She frowned, replaying their conversation of the past few minutes in her mind. Suddenly she remembered the direction of her thoughts and she could feel herself flush.
If not for the encounter with Ella, she might have made some laughing remark and changed the subject. But her emotions were too raw for equivocation and for some strange reason she decided to be blunt.
“I did ask you, but you didn’t give me a straight answer. I’m just wondering if it’s business or personal.”
“What?”
“The…hostility. Coolness, antipathy, whatever you want to call it. I’m just wondering if you’re angry because I work for NHC or if there’s something else behind it.”
A strange light flickered in his eyes for just an instant before his handsome features became a mask once more. He opened his mouth but before he could say anything, the elevator arrived.
Only after they stepped inside and he pushed the button to return to the main floor did he turn to answer her.
“I suppose a little of both,” he said. “We were friends. You said it yourself. And for one night, we were far more than that. I guess I’m trying to figure out how a woman I considered a friend could turn her back on her family and this town.”
I didn’t, she wanted to cry. But she was already so tired of defending herself and her choices to everyone in Walnut River. Didn’t anyone think it was possible—just maybe—that she might have the community’s best interests at heart?
Richard certainly didn’t. She could see the censure in his eyes. She couldn’t argue with him. That was the hell of it. He had the right to his opinions and she suspected nothing she said would convince him her motives were anything other than crass profit.
The elevator arrived at the main floor and the doors sprang open. He walked with her through the lobby, past the censorious eyes and out of the hospital.
She wanted to thank him for providing a buffer, but she couldn’t figure out just how to put the words together.
“I’m parked over there,” he pointed.
“Oh. I’m on the other side. I guess I’ll see you around, then.”
“Probably not. I was only filling in temporarily today in the meeting. My partner is usually the one at our firm who represents the hospital. He should be back on the job tomorrow.”
She should be relieved, she told herself. The prospect of spending more time with this prickly, distant Richard who had once been so very dear to her was not appealing.
“Well, in that case, it was…good to see you today.”
“Right,” he answered.
She walked to her car, wondering why she felt worse leaving the hospital than she had going in.
CHAPTER THREE
Twenty minutes later, Anna walked into her duplex apartment and was instantly assaulted by a miniature dynamo.
Her dark mood instantly lifted as if dozens of sunbeams had followed her home.
“There’s my Lilli-girl.”
Her tiny dog gave one short yip of greeting then did a standing leap on all four legs, jumping almost to Anna’s knees. She laughed at the dog’s antics and bent to scoop Lilli into her arms, all five pounds of her.
“Did you have a good day, sweetheart? I hope those two big monsters didn’t run you ragged.”
Lilli—short for Lilliputian—yipped again and wriggled in her arms maneuvering so she could lick eagerly at Anna’s chin with her tiny sandpaper tongue.
Anna smiled and cuddled the dog closer. What a blessing this duplex had turned out to be, one of the few bright spots in her life since she had been ordered by the NHC CEO, Alfred Daly to come home to Walnut River to wrap up the hospital merger.
&n
bsp; She hadn’t been able to find a single hotel in town that would allow pets, but then she’d stumbled on this furnished place near the river that would allow a temporary lease for the short time she expected to be in Walnut River.
The duplex itself wasn’t anything fancy, just bare bones lodging with little personality or style. But it had a good-sized backyard for Lilli to play in, and the landlady had two gentle yellow labradors who already adored her little Chihuahua-pug mix and kept her company all day.
Yeah, Anna was paying an arm and a leg above her per diem for the few weeks she expected to be here. But she figured it was worth it if she didn’t have to kennel Lilli during her time in Walnut River or confuse her with a temporary placement with one of her friends or coworkers back in Manhattan.
She adored the dog and had from the moment she heard her tiny whimpering squeaks from a Dumpster near her subway stop in the financial district. Anna had been on her way back uptown on a cold dank January evening after working late and only heard the puppy by a fluke when she had paused for a moment to fix a broken heel on her shoe.
Another night, she might have been in too big a rush to investigate the sound. But that night, something had sparked her curiosity and she had dug through the Dumpster until she found Lilli, bedraggled, flea-infested, half-starved. The tiny puppy had looked at her with pleading dark eyes and Anna had been lost.
That had been six months before, just after her father died. She freely admitted that while dog ownership had been an adjustment, especially with her hectic schedule and the added complications of city life, she had never once regretted her decision to rescue the puppy. Lilli had brought boundless happiness into her world.
Not that her life hadn’t been fulfilling before, she reminded herself. She had carved out a comfortable life for herself in New York. She enjoyed her job and found it challenging and interesting. She had good friends in the city, she volunteered at an after-school mentoring program, she enjoyed a full and active social life.
Still, somewhere deep in her heart, she sometimes yearned for the comfortable pace and quiet serenity of Walnut River and she couldn’t deny that she missed her family, especially Ella.
She remembered the heated anger that had flashed in her sister’s eyes earlier at the hospital and hugged Lilli a little closer to her. She had ruined her chance for any kind of reconciliation with her family by deceiving them for two years.
Understanding and accepting her own culpability in the situation somehow didn’t make it any easier to endure.
She sighed. “I need a good ride to clear my head. What do you say, Lilli-girl?”
The dog gave a yip of approval and Anna smiled and set her down, then hurried into her temporary bedroom. The dog followed on her heels, then danced around the room impatiently as Anna changed from her business suit to lycra bike shorts and a matching shirt. The transformation only took a few moments, with a few more needed to change her work chignon to a more practical ponytail.
A short time later, they set off with Lilli in her safety harness, watching the world pass from her perch inside a custom-made basket on the front of Anna’s racing bike.
Almost instantly, Anna felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. Even in the city, this was her escape, riding along her favorite trails in Central Park, exploring new neighborhoods, darting around taxis and buses.
Rediscovering the streets of her hometown had been a particular pleasure these past few days, and she could feel herself relax as the bike’s tires hummed along the asphalt.
Early summer had to be her favorite time of year, she decided, when the world was green and lovely. As she rode down one street and then another, she savored the smells and sights, so different from her life the past eight years in Manhattan.
The evening air was thick with the sweet smell of flowers, of meat grilling on a barbecue somewhere, of freshly mowed lawns.
She pushed herself hard, making a wide circuit around the edge of town before circling back. By the time she cut through the park near her duplex, she felt much more centered and better equipped to tackle the mounds of paperwork still awaiting her attention that evening.
The trail through the park took her past a baseball diamond where a game was underway. Because it seemed like such a perfect ending to her ride, a great way to celebrate a June evening, she paused to watch for a moment in the dying rays of the sun.
The players were young. She had never been very good at gauging children’s ages but since many of them still had their baby fat and seemed more interested in jabbering to each other than paying attention to the game, she would have guessed them at five or so.
She smiled, watching one eager batter swing at the ball on the tee a half-dozen times before he finally connected. The ball sailed into right field, just past a player who ran after it on stubby little legs.
“Run for it, bud. You can catch it. That’s the way.”
Anna jerked her head around at the voice ringing from the stands and stood frozen with dismay.
When Richard claimed another commitment, she had assumed he meant a date. Instead, he sat in the bleachers looking gorgeous and casual in jeans and a golf shirt, cheering on the towheaded little outfielder she assumed was his son.
For just an instant, she was tempted to ride away quickly so he didn’t think she was stalking him or something, but Lilli chose that inopportune moment to yip from her perch in the basket.
Drawn to the sound, Richard turned his head and she saw his eyes widen with surprise as he recognized her.
For one breathless instant, she thought she saw something else flicker there, something hot. But it was gone so quickly she was certain she must have imagined it.
She raised a hand in greeting and then—mostly because she didn’t know what else to do amid the awkwardness of the chance encounter—she climbed from her bicycle, propped it against the metal bleachers then scooped Lilli out of the basket before joining him in the stands.
“That must be Ethan out there,” she said.
“It is. We’re up one run with one out and just need to hold them through this inning and it will be all over.”
He turned his attention back to the game in time to cheer as the next player at bat hit the ball straight at the shortstop, who tossed it to first base. The fielder on first base looked astonished that he actually caught the ball in time to pick off the runner.
“I have to admit, I’m a little surprised to see you here,” Richard said after a moment when the crowd’s wild cheers subsided. “I wouldn’t have expected a T-ball game to be quite up your alley.”
Anna gave a rueful smile. “I only stopped on a whim. We live just a block away from here and have ridden through the park several times. This is the first game I’ve stopped at.”
“We?”
She held up Lilli and Richard raised one of his elegant eyebrows. “Is that a dog or a rat with a bad case of indigestion?”
She made a face. “Hey, watch it. This is the queen of my heart. Lilli, this is Richard Green. Say hi.”
The dog deigned to lift her paw but Richard only blinked.
“You’re kidding.”
Anna shook her head, hiding a smile. “I’m afraid not. She’ll be offended if you don’t shake.”
With a sigh, he reached out a hand to take the dog’s tiny paw in his, which was all the encouragement Lilli needed to decide he was her new best friend. She wriggled with delight and gazed at him out of adoring eyes.
This wasn’t the first time Anna had noticed her dog had a weakness for handsome men.
“So you said the center fielder is your son?”
Richard nodded. “He’s the one picking dandelions,” he said wryly.
Anna laughed. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I see three kids picking dandelions out there.”
He smiled and she wondered how she could possibly have forgotten the devastating impact of his smile. “Mine’s the one in the middle.”
As if on cue, the center fielder began to wave vigoro
usly. “Hi, Daddy! Can you see me?”
Richard nodded. “I see you, buddy,” he called out. “Watch the ball, okay?”
Ethan beamed at his father and obeyed, turning his attention back to the game just in time as a pop fly headed straight for him.
“Right there!” Richard exclaimed. “You can do it!”
Ethan held his glove out so far from his face it seemed to dangle from his wrist but the ball somehow miraculously landed right in the sweet spot with a solid thud.
Caught up in the moment, Anna jumped to her feet cheering with delight, along with Richard and the rest of the onlookers on their side of the bleachers.
“That’s the game,” the umpire called. “Final score, sixteen to fifteen.”
Anna held tight to Lilli as the little dog picked up on the excitement of the crowd, yipped with glee and vibrated in her arms, desperate to be part of the action.
“Great game,” she said after a moment. “Be sure to tell Ethan congratulations for me.”
“I’ll do that. Or it looks like you can tell him that yourself. Here he comes.”
An instant later, a small figure rushed toward them, his features bright with excitement as he launched himself at his father.
“Did you see that, Dad? I caught the ball right in my glove! Right in my glove! I won the game! Did you see?”
Richard hugged his son with enthusiasm. “Nice work! I’m so proud of you, bud. You’re getting better every game.”
“I know. I am.” He said it with such blatant confidence that Anna couldn’t help but smile.
Lilli, never one to sit quietly when hugs were being exchanged and someone else was getting attention she thought rightfully belonged to her, gave another of her love-me yips and the boy quickly turned toward her.
“Wow! Is that your dog?” he exclaimed to Anna, the baseball game apparently forgotten.
Anna set Lilli down, careful to hold on to the retractable leash while Lilli trotted eagerly to the boy. He instantly scooped her into his arms and giggled with delight when the dog licked the little-boy sweat from his cheek.
Reunited in Walnut River Page 3