Reunited in Walnut River

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “No problem. Consider it an early wedding gift.”

  Peter gave a distracted smile and showed him out. As Richard walked through the hospital and to his car he was still stunned by the revelation—and even more stunned by the baffling mix of emotions churning through him toward Anna.

  He definitely still had feelings for her. Why else would he be consumed with this warmth and sympathy and something else, something soft and fragile that scared the hell out of him?

  * * *

  Anna was finally back in her rented duplex, wearing her most comfortable jeans and a T-shirt, barefoot, with Lilli curled at her feet, chewing her favorite squeaky toy.

  Unfortunately, instead of relaxing, she was getting berated by her boss.

  Alfred Daly was hundreds of miles away in Manhattan, probably gazing out the vast window of his office at the peons below who walked the city streets. But despite the distance between them, the man still had the power to make her feel as if she had shrunk several inches since the moment the phone call began.

  “Tell me, when are you presenting your report to the hospital board of directors?”

  She knew he knew such a significant detail, probably right down to the second, but she played along with him.

  “Wednesday at five. They’re expected to vote Thursday and give their final recommendation to the mayor and city council later that day.”

  “And you still believe the vote is too close to call?”

  “The board is evenly split, as it has been since we first presented our offer. I believe we’re making some progress, though. I think at least one or two of the maybe’s have moved toward our camp.”

  Not without a great deal of wheeling and dealing on her part, but she left that unspoken.

  “I certainly hope so. That’s why you’re there, Miss Wilder.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He didn’t mention the threat that had been hanging over her head since the day he had ordered her to come to Walnut River and make the merger happen, though it was uppermost in her mind.

  If she failed—if the merger vote did not go their way—Anna knew she would be scrambling to find a new job. Not the end of the world, maybe, but she would find it devastating to start over elsewhere. She had worked too hard at NHC to see it all trickle away because of her stubborn, idealistic family members and their behind-the-scenes opposition.

  By the time Daly finished his diatribe fifteen minutes later, Anna realized she had downed half a roll of Tums.

  “I want that report no later than noon tomorrow. It’s too important to send via e-mail so I want you to upload it directly onto my private server,” he snapped.

  He gave her a password and username, then hung up with one more dire warning about what would happen if she failed to close the deal.

  No pressure, Al. Geez.

  Anna hung up the phone and gazed into space, feeling as if she stood at the foot of Mount Everest.

  She was on her own here and had been charged with achieving the impossible. Worse, she had just been forcefully reminded that her career hung in the balance if she failed.

  Alfred Daly had begun to take the Walnut River General merger personally. She wasn’t sure why it was so important to him but she sensed he would not take defeat well. He wanted this hospital and was pulling out all the stops to make it happen.

  Suddenly, the doorbell rang, and Lilli bounded to the door, yipping away and jerking Anna from her grim contemplation of an unemployment line in her immediate future. She was not at all in the mood for unexpected company.

  After twenty minutes on the phone with her boss, what she really needed was a stiff drink and a long soak in the tub.

  Or perhaps both.

  The doorbell rang again and Anna jerked the door open, ready to blast away, but the words died in her throat.

  Of all the entire population of Walnut River, the last two people she would have expected to find standing on her doorstep on a Friday night were her brother Peter and his fiancée, especially after her altercation with him earlier.

  Her day only needed this to go from lousy, straight past miserable, into sheer purgatory.

  “Peter…Bethany…What brings you here?”

  She could barely even look at her brother. All she could think about was her own immature reaction to him earlier. All her plans to be cool and in control around her family had dissolved with a few harsh words from him. Instead of showing off her logic and business acumen, she had ended up running away like a twelve-year-old girl escaping to the bathroom during gym class to hide her tears.

  She wanted to come up with some glib comment, something cool and nonchalant, but the impulse died when she saw his solemn expression.

  She instantly forgot about their altercation. “Peter! What is it? What’s wrong? Has something happened to David or Ella?”

  Peter shook his head. “No. Nothing like that.”

  “What is it, then?”

  For the first time in her memory he appeared to be at a loss for words as he gazed at her mutely.

  “May we come in?” Bethany finally asked.

  “Oh. Of course. Come in.” She held the door open and they walked inside.

  Lilli sniffed their ankles for a moment then returned to her chew toy.

  “What a darling dog,” Bethany said with a smile, and Anna decided she had been right to instinctively like her brother’s fiancée. She seemed to have a definite knack for putting people at ease in difficult circumstances.

  In fact, right now Anna was quite certain she liked Peter’s fiancée more than she liked her brother.

  “Come in. Sit down.”

  “I hope we weren’t disturbing you.”

  “No.”

  She didn’t think Peter would appreciate knowing that she had just finished talking to her boss at NHC so she decided to keep that particular bit of information to herself, especially in light of Peter’s obvious unease.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked, doing a mental inventory of the meager contents of her larder.

  “Nothing for me,” Bethany said.

  Peter sighed. “I could use a drink right now, but it’s probably better if I keep a clear head.”

  Anna narrowed her gaze at him. “All right, what’s going on, Peter? You’re freaking me out.”

  “I’m sorry. I just…Now that I’m here, I don’t know how to start.”

  “I’ve always found the beginning’s as good a place as any,” Anna answered.

  It was advice they’d all heard from their mother many times and Peter must have recognized one of Alice’s familiar axioms. He gave a fleeting smile and she was struck again by his resemblance to their father.

  “First of all, I owe you an apology.”

  She blinked, not at all used to seeing her self-assured oldest brother look so wary.

  “I was out of line today at the hospital. Richard Green ripped into me after you left for making things personal and he was exactly right. I said things I shouldn’t have today and I apologize. It’s just…a little hard for me to watch the little sister I love taking the other side on an issue I care so passionately about.”

  Warmth soaked through her and Anna didn’t know what stunned her more—that Peter said he loved her or that Richard would stand up to defend her.

  He had taken her brother to task? She would have liked to have seen it, even though she had a tough time believing it.

  “Your apology is not necessary, Peter, but thank you,” she said. “You came all the way over here just to tell me you were sorry?”

  “Not completely.”

  He glanced at Bethany and some unspoken signal passed between them, something private and personal that made Anna feel excluded—and envious. She didn’t miss the way Bethany slipped her hand in his, or the way Peter seemed to grow a little calmer at the gesture.

  “I have something for you,” her brother finally said. “Something I should have given you months ago.”

  He appeared to be empty-ha
nded and Anna gazed at him, baffled. “What is it?”

  Peter slid a hand to the inside pocket of his jacket and retrieved an envelope. “Um, Dad left you a letter. It came to me since I’m executor of his estate.”

  Instantly, joy and anger warred within her—joy that she might have one more message from the father she missed and anger at her brother’s high-handedness. “You’re just getting around to giving it to me? Dad’s been gone for six months!”

  “You make it sound so easy. I wish it were. Dad left it up to me whether to give it to you or not, which was a hell of a position to find myself in, especially when you were making yourself scarce.”

  He held the letter still and she had to fight the urge to snatch it out of his hand and order him out of her house.

  “You knew how to find me.”

  “I did. But you didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with us. You couldn’t leave fast enough after the funeral. You wouldn’t even let me give you a ride somewhere. And then we found out you were working for Northeastern HealthCare. You should have told us, Anna.”

  “Don’t make this about me and my choices, Peter. Yes, I should have told you about my job. I was wrong to keep it from the family. But that didn’t give you the right to withhold something like this from me.”

  “No. You’re right. I should have given the letter to you long ago. I should have driven to the city and tracked you down at your office if I had to, and I’m sorry I didn’t. But I’m here now. Do you want it or not?”

  “Peter.” Bethany said his name, only that, but it appeared to be enough to center him.

  He drew in a deep breath and dragged a hand through his hair in a gesture that again reminded her of their father.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “Here it is. Whatever you want to do. It’s out of my hands now.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Anna’s stomach suddenly clenched with nerves and she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to take the letter from Peter’s outstretched hand.

  What would her father have written in a letter that he couldn’t have told her to her face?

  Did she really want to know?

  The three of them froze in an awkward tableau and the moment dragged out, longer and longer. Finally she drew in a breath and took it from him, though she was still reluctant to open it.

  Her name was written on the front in her father’s sloping, elegant script. By the weight of the envelope, she guessed it was maybe two or three pages long. No more than that, but it felt oddly heavy, almost burdensome.

  She had the strangest premonition that once she read what her father had written in the letter, her life would never be the same. This was one of those before-and-after moments—everything after would be different than it was right at this instant.

  She had no idea why she was so certain—maybe the gravity in Peter’s eyes.

  “Do you know what it’s about?” she asked, though she thought she knew the answer.

  His mouth tightened and he nodded. “I haven’t read it but he included another letter to me explaining what was in it. I think it’s safe to say what he has to tell you is…unexpected.”

  She nodded but still couldn’t bring herself to open it.

  “We can wait while you read it,” Peter said after another moment. “You might have questions. Scratch that. You will have questions. I can’t answer many of them but I’ll do what I can.”

  Finally she knew she couldn’t sit much longer, putting off the inevitable. She carefully slid a finger under the flap of the sealed envelope and pulled out the sheets of paper.

  The lines of her father’s handwriting turned wobbly and blurred for a moment. She blinked quickly, horrified that she might cry in front of her brother.

  She thought she had come to terms with his death—and the distance between them the last few years. Though she did her best to contain it, a single tear slid past her defenses. She swiped at it, hoping Peter didn’t see. But to her surprise, a moment later, he sat next to her on the sofa and Bethany sat on her other side.

  “Take your time,” Bethany murmured, with a comforting arm around her shoulder. She didn’t know what might be in the letter but she was suddenly enormously grateful for their presence and the strength she drew from having them near.

  They had taken time from their wedding preparations to be here for her, she realized with some wonder.

  She drew in another shaky breath and smoothed a hand down the paper.

  “My dearest Anna,” her father’s letter began.

  I have written this letter in my head a hundred times over the years. A thousand. Each time, the words seem to tangle in my mind and eventually I stopped trying. This time I must press forward, no matter how difficult I find the task.

  I must first tell you how very proud I am of you for what you have done with your life. I may not have agreed with your decision to leave medical school—I still believe you would have made an excellent physician. You were always so compassionate and loving.

  But over the years I have come to accept that you had to chart your own destiny, and I will say now what I should have said eight years ago. I believe you made the right choice to leave medical school. Your heart was never in it, something I refused to see back then. One of my biggest regrets in life is that I was not the sort of father I should have been to you. I should have listened to your worries and fears instead of trying so hard to crowd you onto the path I wanted for you.

  I did try to be a good father to you. Perhaps I tried too hard. I wanted so much for you to feel you belonged. I know things were not always easy for you. I could see the lost look in your eyes when you would see one of your siblings on your mother’s lap or having a bedtime story with her and I always tried to rush in to fill the void.

  My dear, I ask you not to judge Alice too harshly. She was a wonderful woman who endured more than you can ever guess, more than any woman should. I always suspected she had guessed the truth about you, the truth I dared not tell her.

  She never said anything and I know she loved you in her way but surely you sensed she treated you differently than Peter or David or Ella.

  Neither of us ever spoke of it—afraid, I think, to upset the fragile peace we had achieved. But time is no longer my friend. When a man reaches a certain age, he must come face to face with his own mortality. I don’t want this secret to die with me.

  I only ask that as you read this, you do not judge me too harshly. Please remember how much I have always loved you.

  The truth is, I have lied to you for all these years about how you came to be part of our family. The story about finding you on the steps of the hospital is true. But missing in that tale are certain significant details.

  She paused to turn the page, still vaguely aware of Peter and Bethany on either side of her, bolstering her.

  I was the one who “found” you, yes, but only because that was the prearranged plan between me and your mother. Your birth mother.

  I’m sure it will shock you to find out I knew all along who she was. It wasn’t some unknown mystery woman who left you, but a nurse at Walnut River General. See, Anna, you are my daughter. Not only through adoption but in every other way.

  She inhaled sharply and lifted shocked eyes to Peter, who was watching her through her father’s solemn eyes. She jerked her gaze away from him and focused on the letter again.

  Please, I beg you again, don’t judge me too harshly. I had one moment of indiscretion during the depths of Alice’s depression, when she had retreated to a dark and terrible place. Monica, your birth mother, showed me great kindness and compassion and in a moment of weakness, I went against every standard I have ever believed in. She was not at fault, the blame was wholly mine. I cannot regret it. I know I should, but without that moment of weakness, I never would have had the great honor and privilege of being your father.

  Anna realized she was gripping the letter so hard she was afraid she would tear it. She forced her grasp to relax as she fought back tears. A
moment later, a handkerchief appeared in front of her and she took it from Peter but still didn’t allow the tears to fall.

  I’m sure you’re curious about your birth mother and why she would choose to give you up. She was a wonderful woman, kind and generous, but she wasn’t at all prepared to be a mother, especially not on her own. I know that leaving you with me was the hardest decision she ever made, but she knew that as a Wilder, you would have opportunities she couldn’t provide on her own.

  I’m sorry to say she is gone now. She died not long after your birth when the small plane she was flying in crashed, but I am certain her last thoughts were of you.

  Our actions were done out of love for you, Anna. Please don’t forget that. Even the deception I have maintained over the years was out of love and the enduring hope that you would find acceptance and stability in our family.

  I am sorry for the years of deception. I should have told you earlier, I see that now. I only pray that someday you will forgive me for the magnitude of the lie.

  I love you, my darling Anna. I have been proud to call you my own every moment of your life.

  Your devoted father

  James Wilder

  She finished the letter and sat stunned for a long moment, the pages dangling from her fingers.

  She didn’t know what to think, what to feel.

  She was not some anonymous orphan, as she had believed for so many years. She was James Wilder’s daughter, conceived during a brief affair with a nurse at the hospital.

  Her father’s daughter, in every possible way.

  She felt numb, dazed, and couldn’t seem to work her brain around the implications.

  “You…knew about this?” she finally said, her jaw so achy and tight the words were hard to get out.

  Peter nodded. “I told you, he left me a cover letter explaining everything. I’ve known for months, I just haven’t known how to tell you.”

  “How could he?”

  The words were wrenched from her and she didn’t know what she meant—her father’s infidelity in the first place or the years of deception upon deception from the man she had always considered the most scrupulously honest she had ever known.