Then?
Then she’d deal with him again after a weekend of chores, sleep and gardening. Next week she was sure she wouldn’t react to him so strongly. Next week she’d figure out how to be diplomatic. Diplomacy was usually her middle name. She’d just have to figure out why Neil Kane got under her skin…and make sure he didn’t do it again.
Most of the houses in Isobel’s childhood neighborhood had been built in the 1950s. She’d been five when her family had moved into the house on Sycamore Street, her sister Debbie seven, their brother Jacob three. She remembered the day they’d moved in to the modest brick two-story with its flowerpots on either side of the steps and the glassed-in back porch where she and her brother and sister played whenever the weather permitted. The neighbor on the left, Mrs. Bass, had brought them chocolate-chip cookies. The neighbor in the small ranch house on the right, Mr. Hannicut, had given her dad a hand unloading box after box from the truck someone had loaned him.
Isobel had never expected she’d be living back here again after being on her own since college.
The detached garage, which sat at the end of their lot in the backyard, only housed one car—her father’s. Because of the shoulder surgery he’d had two weeks ago, he couldn’t drive now. He hated that fact and so did Isobel because it was making him grumpy. Lots of things about his recuperation were making him grumpy.
She parked in front of the house knowing that he’d had his physical therapy appointment today. One of his senior center buddies had taken him.
Although May in Massachusetts brought warmer days, the nights could still be cold. Without a coat to protect her, she quickly opened the front door and called over the chatter of the television, “I’m home.” She’d phoned him late this afternoon to see how his session had gone and to tell him she’d be late. He’d been monosyllabic, not a good indication that he’d be in a better mood tonight.
After a glance at Isobel, her father flipped off the TV. “It’s about time.”
He rubbed his hand over his shoulder as if it ached.
Isobel tried to put her fatigue aside and remind herself what her dad must be going through. “I’m sorry I’m so late. As I told you on the phone, I had a meeting.”
“You need a job that doesn’t run you ragged fifteen hours a day.” John Suarez lowered the leg lift on his recliner, pushed himself to the edge of the seat, then used his right arm to lever himself up.
He was a stocky man who stood about five-eight. At sixty-eight, his black curly hair had receded but was still thick. His eyes were the same dark brown as Isobel’s. She’d gotten her red-brown hair from her Irish mother.
The stab of memory urged Isobel’s gaze to the photos of her family on the mantel above the fireplace.
Her father must have noticed. “She’d want you to slow down, go out and meet a nice young man and have some kids.”
“As if wishing could make it so,” Isobel murmured, then smiled at her father. “I like my work. You know that. And if Mom wants me to get married, she’s just going to have to toss the right guy down here in front of my nose.”
“I still don’t understand why you broke up with Tim. He treated you nice. He owned his own business. Bicycle shops are really taking off these days. Sometimes I think you’re just too picky.”
Picky? She supposed that was one way of putting it. After her mother died, she’d moved back in with her father to ease his grief, to help with the chores, never intending to stay permanently in her childhood home. But her dad had begun having shoulder problems and was limited in what he could do for himself. Isobel had always liked cycling and she’d bought a new bike. The owner of a cycle shop, Tim, had asked her out and over the next year they’d gotten serious.
But Tim had never liked the fact that she lived with her dad. He’d insisted that if her father needed help, he should move into an assisted-living facility. Isobel had already lost one parent and she’d known how much the family home meant to her father. How could she suggest he leave when he still felt her mother’s presence here? In the end, her father had been the reason she and Tim had broken up. Family was important to her. She’d never ignore or abandon them and that’s what Tim had wanted her to do.
“Tim just wasn’t right for me, Dad.” She headed for the kitchen. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll have that roast beef and mashed potatoes from last night warmed up.”
“Cyrus and I finished the pie Mrs. Bass made, so there won’t be any dessert,” he called after her. “You really need to go to the store. We’re out of ice cream and orange juice, too.”
“I’ll shop first thing in the morning, then I want to get out into the garden.”
“If you plant flowers, they could still freeze overnight.”
“I’ll cover them.” She just needed to work her hands into the earth, feel the sun on her head, and forget about everything going on at the hospital…especially Neil Kane.
For the next fifteen minutes, Isobel tried to put a meal together. Unfortunately, she left the roast beef in the microwave too long and the edges turned into leather. The mashed potatoes weren’t quite hot enough. The frozen broccoli was perfect—except her dad didn’t like broccoli. It had been the only vegetable left in the freezer.
After he tried to cut a piece of meat with one hand, he grumbled, “Spaghetti would be easier for me than this. Now if I could saw it with both hands—”
Isobel felt tears burn in her eyes. “It was the best I could do for tonight. Sorry.” She really wanted to yell, “This isn’t the life I’d planned, either.”
So many thoughts clicked through her head, memories of the meals her mother had made that had always been perfect in her dad’s eyes, the family get-togethers around the table every Sunday. But with her mom’s death and her sister’s divorce, Sunday dinner had dwindled into now and then. Life had changed whether they’d wanted it to or not. But her dad, especially, didn’t like the changes.
“Maybe we should keep some frozen dinners in the freezer,” he suggested helpfully.
Frozen dinners. Her mom would turn over in her grave.
“No frozen dinners. At least not the ones bought in the store.” She turned to face her dad. “What I should do is spend all day Sunday cooking, make some casseroles that we could freeze and you could just take one out and put in the oven when I’m late.”
“Did you have plans for Sunday?”
She didn’t have specific plans for Sunday. She’d just been looking forward to a day off, a day of rest, a day to catch up with her sister and her niece and nephews, maybe go for a walk along the river now that the weather was turning nicer. Maybe go cycling again.
Instead of telling her dad about her hopes, she gave him a smile and answered, “No plans. I’ll fill the freezer so we don’t have to worry about meals for a couple of weeks.”
He gave her a sly smile. “When you go to the store tomorrow, don’t buy any more broccoli, okay?”
“No more broccoli,” she agreed and started loading the dishwasher, exhausted, eager to go to bed so that she could get up early tomorrow morning to get grocery shopping out of the way and spend a couple of hours in the garden before she did laundry and the other household chores.
Isobel basked in the sun’s warmth, digging her hands into the ground, making another hole for a Gerber daisy. It was the last of the six, a beautiful peachy-pink color she’d never seen before. She’d have to cover the flowers at night for a little while, but it would be worth the extra bother.
A shadow suddenly fell over her.
“Miss Suarez?”
She knew the voice without turning around to see who it belonged to, the voice she was so familiar with after just one meeting. She knew its timbre and depth and edge. It was Neil Kane’s voice.
In some ways she wished she could just disappear into a hole in the ground. She was wearing a crop-sleeved T-shirt that came to her waist and old jeans that were grubby at the knees and too tight across her rear. She had no doubt she’d brushed peat moss across her ch
eek and her hands were covered with dirt.
Sitting back on her haunches, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then looked over her shoulder.
“Mr. Kane. To what do I owe this pleasure on my weekend off? It’s supposed to be wild and fun and free.” She couldn’t help being a little bit sarcastic. He was making everyone’s lives at the hospital miserable. Did he have to chase them down at their homes, too?
“If you don’t want me here, I’ll leave.”
His sandy hair blew in the breeze. He was dressed in a tan-and-black striped Henley shirt and wore khakis. She spotted the sandy chest hair at the top button of his shirt. His three-quarter-length sleeves were snug enough that she noticed muscles underneath. His eyes were taking her in, not as if she were a grubby Little Orphan Annie, but as if she were Miss USA! Was there interest there? Couldn’t be. She felt mesmerized for a moment, hot and cold and just sort of mushy inside.
Feeling defenseless on the ground with him looking down on her, she put one hand on the grass to lever herself to her feet.
He offered her his hand. “Let me help.”
She would have snatched her hand away, but she probably would have tumbled back down to the ground in a very unladylike position.
His hand was large, his fingers enveloping and she felt like a tongue-tied naive teenager with a crush on a football player.
As soon as she was balanced on her feet, she pulled out of his grasp and saw his hand was now covered with dirt. “I’m so sorry.” She caught a towel from her gardening basket and handed it to him.
He just wiped his hands together. “I’m fine. But I can see I’m interrupting you. Can you take a break?”
Actually she was finished but she didn’t know if she wanted to tell him that. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you here?”
“I didn’t like the way our meeting ended. You were upset and I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I wasn’t upset,” she protested.
“Okay, not upset, angry. Everyone seems to be angry—if not downright hostile. We’re not going to get anywhere like that. I know I’m asking pointed questions, but I have to get to the bottom of the rumors and complaints. If there is insurance fraud, don’t you want to know? If you cooperate, wouldn’t that be better for both of us?”
“I am cooperating.”
The corners of his mouth definitely twitched up in a semblance of a smile. “If that was cooperation, I’d like to see resistance.”
She felt her face getting hot, and not from the midday sun. “I feel as if you’re trying to entrap me or the staff. As if you want to catch us in some little discrepancy—”
“I want the truth.”
There was something about Neil Kane besides his sex appeal that got to her. Maybe it was the resolve in his eyes that told her he was sincere.
“I stopped by today to see if we could discuss everything more calmly over lunch.”
“You’re asking everyone you question to lunch?”
This time, a dark ruddiness crept into his cheeks. “No, but I don’t get the feeling you’re hiding anything. You seem to want to be careful so no one gets hurt. I understand that.”
“In other words, you think I’m a pushover.”
He laughed and it was such a masculine sound, her tummy seemed to tip over.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” he explained. “Although you try, you really don’t watch every word you say. I get the feeling you’re a straight shooter. So am I. I thought we could make some progress together.”
Having lunch with the enemy wasn’t a terrific idea. On the other hand, Neil Kane wasn’t going to go away until he was satisfied with the answers he got. No one would have to know she was talking to him and maybe, just maybe, she could do some convincing of her own.
“I found a place I like,” he coaxed. “You can probably go like that if you want.”
At first she thought he was laughing at her, but then she realized he wasn’t. He was serious. Where was he going to take her—to a hot-dog stand?
“I’d like to change and wash the dirt off my face.” She crouched down, gathered her gloves with the small gardening tools and plopped them into her basket.
Neil picked up a hoe and a rake lying beside the garden.
“You don’t have to—” she began.
“Someone could trip over them.” Now he was smiling at her.
She couldn’t help but smile back. “You can just leave them on the porch.”
“I can wait there.”
“That’s silly. No, come on in. My dad’s watching TV. He might ignore you, but at least you can find a comfortable chair.” She started up the stairs and he kept pace with her. As he propped the tools against the wall, she said, “Mr. Kane, about my dad—”
“Do you mind if we drop the formality? My name’s Neil. We might feel less confrontational if we can at least call each other by our first names.”
“Isobel’s fine.”
Their gazes caught…met…held. Until finally he asked,
“What about your dad?”
Whenever she looked into Neil’s eyes, she lost every coherent thought in her head. She made the effort to concentrate. “If he seems to ignore you or is grumpy, it’s just him, not you. Please don’t feel offended. He had surgery on his shoulder two weeks ago and he’s not happy about it. He’s limited as to what he can and can’t do, and that frustrates him.”
“It would frustrate anyone.”
Neil seemed to understand and that was a relief.
As they crossed the foyer and went to the living room, her father didn’t say a word, just kept his eyes glued to the TV where a biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower played.
“Dad, I want you to meet—”
“Not now. Shhhh.”
She felt her cheeks flush and was about to apologize to Neil when he said, “My father told me he visited the Eisenhower farm when he was a boy.”
Isobel’s father swung his gaze to Neil. “No kidding. How’d that happen?”
“My grandparents apparently knew a friend of the family.”
“You’re from Pennsylvania?”
“No. I was born and raised in Massachusetts, but we took a couple of vacations there when I was a kid. I was interested in history so the Gettysburg Battlefield fascinated me. I enjoyed it almost as much as Hershey Park.”
To Isobel’s surprise, her father laughed, and then his gaze went to her, expecting introductions.
“Dad, this is Neil Kane. He’s…he’s…”
“An investigator for the state Attorney General’s Office,” Neil filled in.
“So you’re the one who’s been snooping around the hospital.”
Instead of taking offense, Neil smiled. “Investigators always get a bad rap when they try to find the answers, don’t they?”
Her father just grinned and pointed to the sofa, which sat at a right angle to his recliner. “Sit down and tell me about those trips to Pennsylvania. My parents moved up and down the East Coast. My dad had trouble finding work until they settled here.”
Isobel was absolutely amazed her father had started talking to Neil like this. But then maybe he sensed another history buff.
Who would have thought?
As she ran up the stairs, she mentally pictured everything in her closet, trying to decide what to wear. Then she chastised herself. What she wore simply didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to try to impress a man who would be here today and gone tomorrow. She wasn’t going to try to impress a man who thought she or other personnel at the hospital had committed some kind of crime.
No matter how easygoing Neil seemed today, or how gentlemanly, she had to be on her guard. Her future as well as the hospital’s depended on it.
Chapter Two
“I never expected you to bring me here. Only the locals know about this place.” Isobel’s eyes were the deep, dark brown of rich espresso. Her smile was even a bit friendly.
As Neil sat with Isobel in his car parked on the gravel lo
t of The Crab Shack, his gut tightened. How long had it been since a woman gave him an adrenaline rush? How long had it been since he’d actually felt happy to be somewhere with someone?
Happiness had been a commodity he couldn’t quite get a grip on ever since he’d lost his brother. Guilt had been a factor in that, a guilt he’d never been without.
But today, just looking at Isobel in her bright yellow T-shirt, her pin-striped yellow-and-blue slacks, he felt…good, damn good. And he shouldn’t. He’d only stopped by her house and brought her here to get information. He normally didn’t fraternize with witnesses in an investigation. He always proceeded by the book.
But stonewalled by most of the staff…
“Not everyone in Walnut River considers me an enemy,” he joked, returning her smile. “I’m staying at the Walnut River Inn. Greta Sanford told me about this place. She said to ignore how it looked on the outside and ignore some of the customers inside and just concentrate on the food.”
“You haven’t tried it yet?”
“I haven’t had the chance to explore.”
He’d arrived a few days ago and since then he’d spent most of his time in that hospital conference room.
“I heard you stayed at the hospital most nights until after nine.”
“Does someone post my whereabouts on a Web site so everyone can check what I’m doing?” He was half kidding, half serious.
She didn’t get defensive but rather looked sympathetic. “Scuttlebutt in small towns travels at the speed of light. Especially if it can impact jobs and careers.”
Neither of them was going to forget for a minute why he was here. If he thought he could make Isobel forget…
Why did he want to make her forget?
So she’d let her guard down.
Isobel unfastened her seat belt, opened her door and climbed out of the car.
The Crab Shack was just that—a shack located along the river about a mile out of town. There were about fifteen cars parked in the lot and a line of patrons extended out the door. The weathered gray wooden building looked as if it might collapse in a good storm.
Her Mr. Right? Page 2