Reunited in Walnut River

by RaeAnne Thayne

  J.D. met his gaze with a meaningful look and despite his unease, Richard had to hide a smile. Just the afternoon before, he had lectured the administrator about that very point—to avoid giving any information to NHC they weren’t legally obligated to provide under the conditions the municipal council had set forth.

  There were three chairs across from J.D.’s desk. As Anna sat in the middle chair, Richard had no choice but to sit beside her, where he was unable to escape her scent, fresh and lovely and sensual, or the heat shimmering off her skin.

  “Anna, you’re the one with the questions,” J.D. said. “Where would you like to start?”

  She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Richard heard voices in the outer office through the open door.

  “Hey, Tina,” he heard someone greet J.D.’s assistant. “I just need to drop off some paperwork. I won’t disturb him for long.”

  Richard recognized the voice and saw by the way Anna’s features paled that she did as well. A moment later, her oldest brother stuck his head in the doorway.

  Dr. Peter Wilder always commanded attention wherever he went, with his dark hair and eyes, handsome features and the undeniable air of authority that seemed to emanate from him. He was very much like his father in that respect.

  His gaze sharpened to a laser point when he saw his sister and the room suddenly buzzed with tension.

  Richard wondered if Peter had seen the love that leapt into Anna’s blue eyes when she had first seen him, before she quickly veiled her expression into cool indifference.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” J.D. rose from his desk and gestured to the vacant chair. “No, it’s all right. We were just getting started. Why don’t you join us? Anna had some questions about our patient accounting. As the former chief of staff, you might have some insight into that.”

  Peter looked as if he would rather shove a scalpel down his throat, but after a long, painfully awkward moment, he complied.

  “You know I’m always happy to share my insight with NHC. Anything I can do to help,” he drawled, and Anna’s mouth tightened at his sarcasm.

  “And NHC certainly appreciates your cooperation, Peter,” she replied sweetly.

  J.D. moved to referee before Peter could voice the heated response brewing in his dark eyes.

  “So what are your questions?” he asked, interjecting.

  She sent another swift look at her brother then seemed to stiffen her shoulders, becoming brisk and focused.

  “My analysis of your records shows an unusually high percentage of patient accounts the hospital deems uncollectible compared to hospitals of similar size and community demographics. Can you explain a reason why that might be the case?”

  “I can.” Peter broke in before J.D. could answer—or before Richard could vet either man’s response.

  “We’re a local hospital that cares about the community. We refuse to turn anyone away and don’t give a damn whether our patients are in the highest tax bracket or not. Our mission is to save lives, not bilk people out of their life savings.”

  “But according to my analysis, the hospital is losing a hundred thousand dollars a month and most of that is in uncollectible patient accounts,” she pointed out. “How long do you think the taxpayers can continue to cover those losses?”

  “Some of us care more about our patients’ health than going after their wallets,” he snapped.

  “A noble sentiment, Peter. Exactly what I would have expected you to say. Just what Dad would have said.”

  Peter bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She sighed and seemed to have forgotten both J.D. and Richard were there. “Nothing. It’s all well and good to ride that high horse about focusing on patient care and battling back the evils of HMOs like some kind of league of superheroes with stethoscopes. But what’s the alternative, Peter? For the hospital to just keep going deeper and deeper in the hole? Budgets are tightening everywhere. The city council has to do something. What if they decide to close the hospital instead of continuing to try in vain to plug the endless revenue drain?”

  “So what you’re saying is our patients are screwed either way. Better to get substandard care than none at all.”

  Anna’s blue eyes flared. “NHC is not about substandard care! That’s a simplistic argument. Our ultimate goal for all our member hospitals is to find more efficient, cost-effective ways to provide the same level of patient care.”

  “You really buy that company line? I thought you were supposed to be some hotshot business genius. I would have thought you were smarter than that.”

  Anna paled a shade lighter and J.D. moved to intervene but she cut him off. “Why can’t you at least try to look at what NHC has to offer the hospital with a little rational objectivity?”

  “I know what NHC is offering,” her brother bit out. “Cut-rate services, increased patient load on physicians. Every day they play money games with people’s health care, with their very lives! I can’t believe you would pander to these bastards, Anna! What happened to your sense of decency?”

  “You’re as sanctimonious as ever. There’s absolutely no reasoning with you. Yet another way you’re just like Dad!”

  “Leave him out of this! What do you think Dad would say if he knew you were doing this? Working for the enemy? Doing everything you can to destroy his legacy?”

  Her mouth trembled just a bit before she firmly straightened it. While he had to admit he agreed with Peter, Richard still had to fight the urge to comfort her. A hand on her arm, a touch on her shoulder, whatever might ease the pain he couldn’t believe her brother missed.

  “I’m sure Dad would probably say the same thing you and David and Ella are saying about me. I’m a disgrace to the Wilder name. Isn’t that what you all think?”

  “Right now, hell, yes,” Peter said. “You’ve always had a chip on your shoulder but I never dreamed you’d take it this far, by trying to destroy something this family built nearly singlehandedly.”

  “Why don’t we get back to your question.” J.D. finally stepped in—about five minutes too late in Richard’s opinion—but Anna ignored him.

  “I imagine it’s a huge comfort to you all that I’m not really a Wilder, then.”

  Peter’s expression changed instantly and something very much like guilt flickered in his eyes.

  “You are,” he muttered.

  “I’m not, Peter. We both know it.” J.D. cleared his throat. “Can you show us the figures that concern you in your report?”

  She seemed to drag herself back to the meeting and Richard saw color soak her pale cheeks as she must have realized the detour the conversation had taken.

  She took a deep breath and turned back to gaze blankly at the pages in front of her for a moment before she collected herself and rose. “I…yes.” She looked flustered and Richard again fought the urge to rest a comforting hand on her arm.

  “You’ll see I’ve highlighted several pages in section eight of my report. I would appreciate if you and your legal counsel would formulate a response and get back to me.”

  “We can discuss it now. Richard’s here to make sure I don’t speak out of turn.”

  She twisted her mouth into a facsimile of a smile. “I don’t want to take any more of your time, especially since I just remembered I’ve got a conference call.”

  She glanced briefly at her brother. “You know. With those bastards I pander to. If you’ll all excuse me, gentlemen.”

  She picked up her briefcase and walked out of the office and Richard wondered if either of the other men saw the way her fingers trembled on the handle—or the determined lift of her chin as she left the office.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  After Anna left, the three men sat in silence for a long, awkward moment.

  J.D. was the first to break it. He gave Peter a long look. “Next time give me some warning when you’re going to beat up on your little sister and I’ll make sure I have someone from the E.R. standing by to mop u
p.”

  Peter shrugged. “Anna gives as good as she gets. She always has.”

  His nonchalance about the pain that had been radiating from Anna suddenly infuriated Richard. She was vulnerable in ways her family refused to see. She always had been.

  As hospital counsel, he knew he ought to stay out of the Wilder family squabbles. It was none of his business. But he cared about Anna—he always had—and he couldn’t quite force himself to stay quiet.

  “She’s only trying to do her job,” he finally said. “I know the fact that she has that job infuriates you but you didn’t have to make it personal, Peter. You did that, she didn’t.”

  Surprise flickered in Peter’s gaze at Richard’s defense of Anna, then quickly shifted to guilt. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

  “This whole takeover attempt would be much easier to fight if Northeastern HealthCare had sent someone else—anyone else—to do their dirty work,” he continued. “Anna’s presence makes everything feel personal, like the corporation is waging a war against the whole Wilder family, not just the hospital. I’m afraid I got a little carried away. I’m sorry.”

  “We’re not the ones you need to apologize to,” J.D. pointed out to his future brother-in-law quietly.

  Peter sighed. “I know. Things are just…complicated with Anna. They have been for a long time. But you’re right. She didn’t deserve that.”

  He stood and studied Richard with an odd look in his eyes. After a moment he seemed to come to some decision. “Rich, when you’re done here with J.D. would you mind stopping by my office for a moment? I need to talk to you about something.”

  Still annoyed with him for his casual oblivion when it came to his sister’s feelings—and even more annoyed with himself for caring so much about something that wasn’t any of his business—Richard wasn’t in the mood to be cooperative.

  “Sorry. I don’t do prenuptial contracts.”

  Peter gave a bark of surprised laughter. “That’s not what I needed. Just stop by if you have time.”

  * * *

  An hour later, his curiosity at fever pitch, Richard made his way through the hospital to Peter’s office.

  “He’s with a patient,” the receptionist told him. “Do you mind waiting for a few minutes?”

  He had a million things to do but was too curious to leave without some clue as to what Peter could possibly want with him.

  Only a few moments passed before Peter joined him. “Thanks for stopping in. I could use some advice.”

  “You do know I don’t handle malpractice cases, either, right?”

  Peter laughed. “Wrong again. What I really could use is a little insight from a friend.”

  Richard raised an eyebrow.

  “Specifically, I need advice from a friend of Anna’s,” Peter added, further confusing him.

  He shifted in his seat. “I haven’t seen Anna in years, until she came back to town a few weeks ago.”

  “Neither have I. Not really. But you were friends with her before she left town, right?”

  More than friends, but he wasn’t about to confide that little detail to her older brother. “Yes,” he said warily.

  “And Bethany said she saw the two of you together the other day and you still seemed…friendly.”

  He wracked his brain trying to remember his encounter with Anna the day she had been having lunch with Bethany. “Since she’s been back in Walnut River, I’ve had some interactions with her in an official capacity,” he finally said. Mostly official, anyway. “I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, but I can certainly try.”

  Peter blew out a breath. “If nothing else, I know I can at least trust you to keep what I’m about to tell you confidential.”

  “Of course. What’s this about, Peter?”

  Peter hesitated for a moment then reached to unlock a desk drawer. He pulled out a slim black folder, from which he extracted a legal-sized white envelope.

  “I have a letter to Anna from our father. I received it as executor of his will and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with it ever since.”

  Richard might not have seen Anna until recently, but just from their few interactions, he could tell she still grieved for James. He knew she regretted the stilted relationship and the unresolved business between them before his death.

  “Your father has been gone for six months. Why haven’t you given it to her before this?”

  “When would I have the chance? Anna has done her best to stay away from Walnut River and the family during that six months. Hell, she barely stayed long enough for the funeral. I didn’t receive the letter until after she left, and I was still trying to figure out what to do with it when we found out Anna was working for Northeastern HealthCare.”

  He said the last words like a bitter epithet. Richard remembered how Peter had goaded her earlier in J.D.’s office and the disdain he hadn’t bothered to conceal, and his temper heated up a notch.

  “What does it matter who she works for? If your father wanted her to read that letter, you have no right to keep it from her, either legally or morally.”

  “I wish it were that clear-cut. My father didn’t make it that easy on me. He left the decision completely up to me. In the cover letter he included with it, he said if I felt she was better off not knowing what it contains, I should burn the letter.”

  The heat of his temper cooled slightly at Peter’s obvious turmoil, though his curiosity ratcheted up another level. “But you haven’t burned it, even though Anna works for, in your words, the enemy.”

  “I haven’t burned it. No. Some part of me knows she needs to read it. I just…I don’t know how she’s going to react. I barely know her anymore, Richard. I wonder if I ever did.”

  Richard had wondered the same thing about his own relationship with Anna. But he was stunned to realize as he sat in her brother’s office that his feelings for her hadn’t died. They had only been lying dormant inside him, like spring crocuses, waiting for a chance to break free of the frozen ground.

  What the hell was he supposed to do with that? He didn’t want to care about her. What possible good would ever come of it, when he was certain she couldn’t wait to return to New York and the brilliant business career waiting for her there?

  “What’s in the letter?” he finally asked.

  Peter stared down at the envelope for a long moment and his reluctance was in direct contrast to the vocal, outspoken man who had taken on his sister earlier in J.D.’s office.

  “I need your vow of confidentiality first. No matter what, you cannot tell a soul.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll read you the cover letter. That explains everything.”

  * * *

  Five minutes later, Richard sat back in his chair, reeling from the information in the letter, from James Wilder’s confession that Anna was truly his daughter, conceived during a brief affair with a nurse years ago.

  “You have to tell her,” he said into the long silence. “You can’t keep this from her. She has a right to know.”

  “You know her, Richard, at least better than I do. How do you think she’ll react?”

  He thought of Anna and the vulnerability she worked so hard to conceal from the world. “I can’t answer that. Stunned, certainly. Overwhelmed. Perhaps angry. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Yes. It’s a shocker, all right. I’ve known for six months and I still can’t believe it.” Peter paused. “I know I probably sound like a cold-hearted bastard here but I have to consider the timing and the possible fallout. In light of the bid to take over the hospital and the vote next week, how do you think this information might impact Anna’s role in that bid?”

  “I have no idea!”

  “What’s your best guess? I see things happening one of two ways. Either she might lean more toward our side or, being Anna, she might be more determined than ever to win in some kind of twisted payback against our father for not telling her.”

  Richard thought of the w
oman he was coming to know—a woman who could read bedtime stories to a five-year-old with sweetness and affection and then turn shrewdly determined about her career.

  She was complex and intriguing, which was a big part of her appeal, he realized.

  “I honestly can’t answer that, Peter. Why would you think I would have any idea what Anna will do? I told you I barely know her.”

  “You’ve got an uncanny knack for gauging people’s behavior. I’ve seen you in action as you’ve helped Phil with hospital legal issues. I figured since you and Anna were friends before, you might have a guess.”

  “Our friendship was over a long time ago. We’re both different people now.”

  “But taking history into account and judging by what you’ve observed since she’s been back, what’s your gut telling you?”

  “I think none of that matters. It’s irrelevant. You need to tell her what’s in that letter, regardless of how it might impact the merger. This isn’t about the hospital. It’s a family matter.”

  Peter gazed at Richard for a moment then sighed. “I was afraid you would say something like that.”

  “She deserves to know, Peter. You know she does.”

  “You’re right. I need to tell her as soon as possible. I’ve put it off too long.”

  He sighed again, looking not at all thrilled by the prospect. “I don’t look forward to it. A hell of a mess my father left, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. He should have told her himself. This shouldn’t be your responsibility.”

  Peter’s laugh was gruff. “An understatement. He took the coward’s way out. The only time in his life, I think, that he didn’t step up and do what had to be done. I guess my biggest mistake the last six months has been following in his footsteps, at least where Anna is concerned. Thanks, Richard, for the time and for the advice. You have definitely helped put things in perspective for me.”