Falling for the MD

David rolled his eyes, his natural humor returning. “You’re starting to quote Shakespeare, time for me to leave.”

Peter hated to see his brother go. David was around so infrequently and there never seemed to be enough time to catch up. “Can I give you a ride to the airport at least?”

David shook his head. “I’ve got a taxi waiting.” As if to prove it, he nodded toward the lot. Peter made out the yellow body and black lettering of a local cab service. “You know I hate long goodbyes.”

Peter nodded. “I know it. Ella knows it.”

“Don’t worry about NHC,” David advised.

Peter laughed shortly. “Hard not to,” he said honestly. “What is their motto again? Whatever NHC wants, NHC gets?”

David grinned. His money was on Peter. His brother might be a man of few words, but in Peter’s case, still waters ran deep. Very deep.

“No, I think it’s: ‘We’ve never met a dollar bill we didn’t like’.” He felt compelled to give his older brother a few words of encouragement. “Which is exactly why Walnut River General won’t be joining their so-called family. People feel cared for when they come to Dad’s hospital—excuse me, your hospital—”

“It’s not mine,” Peter corrected. “You were right the first time. Dad’s hospital.”

David ignored him because they both knew that wasn’t true. Walnut River General was the mistress in Peter’s life, the lover he lavished his attention on and from whom he’d never strayed. Peter’s life was filled with relationships, but they were all with his patients and friends. Not a single one of them was a romantic entanglement.

From the moment he first took his Hippocratic oath, Peter had been devoid of any sort of relationship that might eventually become permanent. There’d been one in college, but that was all behind him. Beyond caring about his own family, Peter had told David more than once that there wasn’t time for anything else.

“You can’t put a price on that,” David concluded, as if Peter hadn’t interjected anything. He paused to embrace his older brother before taking his leave. “It’ll be all right.” he promised. “Call me if you need me. I’m only a five-hour flight away—if you don’t factor in inclement weather and mile-long security lines,” David added with a grin.

Crouching for a moment, he peered into the limousine. Ella rolled down the rear window and leaned forward. “Make me proud, little sister.”

Peter smiled, shaking his head. “Just what she needs, pressure.”

David raised his shoulders and then lowered them in another careless half shrug. “We all need a little pressure.” He glanced toward Anna as he made his pronouncement. “Keeps us on our toes and keeps life interesting.”

Anna shifted uncomfortably as David told her goodbye again and then hurried off to the cab.

“I’d better be leaving, too.” She looked at Peter, loathing to ask for a favor but she’d been so overwhelmed with grief, she hadn’t been thinking straight when they set off to the church. “If you could drop me off at my hotel on the way back to your place, I would greatly appreciate it.”

She sounded as if she was talking to a stranger, Peter thought. “No problem,” he told her.

The limousine driver had popped to attention the moment they’d approached the vehicle, and he was now holding the rear passenger door open for them. Peter waited until Anna climbed in beside Ella, then got in himself.

“Are you sure you won’t come to the reception?” Peter prodded. “Just for a few minutes.”

But Anna remained firm. “I’m sorry, I really do have to leave. I have a flight to catch, too. I realize that I won’t be reconstructing some Hollywood wannabe starlet’s breasts in the morning, but what I do is important, too.”

“No one said it wasn’t, Anna,” Peter pointed out.

Why did everything always devolve into an argument between them? Right now, he really wasn’t in the mood to walk on eggshells.

Unable to take any more, Ella spoke up. “Please, we just buried Dad. Do you two have to do this now?”

Their father’s death had brought everything too close to the surface. Like nerves and hurt feelings.

It was Peter who retreated first.

“Ella’s right.” It was on the tip of his tongue to say We shouldn’t be acting this way, but he knew Anna would take the statement as accusatory and it would only add kindling to the fire. So instead, he changed the subject, hitting on what continued, thanks to Bethany’s announcement, to be foremost in his mind. “Anna, I’m going to need your help.”

It was obviously the last thing she had ever expected to hear from him. Anna looked at Peter, utterly surprised. “You need my help?”

He could feel Ella looking at him, mystified. But it was true. He did need Anna’s help. “Yes.”

This was definitely a first, Anna thought. An uneasiness immediately slipped over her. An uneasiness because she had a feeling she knew what her older brother was going to say. And if she was right, she was going to have to turn him down. Because she was facing a huge conflict of interest. So, she made a preemptive strike, nipping a potential problem in the bud before she was faced with it. “I’m sorry, Peter, but all my time is already accounted for over the next few months,” she said firmly.

“I see.” He let the matter drop, silently upbraiding himself. Given their distance recently, he should have known better than to ask.

Peter’s small, two-story house was stuffed with people. Nearly everyone who’d attended the service and gone to the cemetery had followed the stretch limousine back to the reception.

Peter mentally tipped his hat to Ella. He had no knowledge of these kind of situations, no idea what was expected beyond the necessary funeral arrangements. Ella had handled all the subsequent preparations, securing a caterer and telling the man what to bring, where to set up and when.

Initially, when he’d seen how much food was going to be on hand, Peter had envisioned himself having to live on leftovers for the next six months. Watching his various guests help themselves, he smiled now, thinking that if there was enough left over for a sandwich for lunch tomorrow, he’d be doing well.

He supposed that sorrow brought out the hunger in some people. As for him, the exact opposite was true. He wasn’t sure if he’d had more than a single meal since his father had suffered the fatal heart attack that had taken the man away from them.

Damn, but I am going to miss you, Dad. You left too soon, he thought not for the first time.

“You’re not eating.”

The words took him by surprise. Or rather, the voice did. Bethany Holloway, the Jill-come-lately to the hospital’s board of directors.

As he turned to look at her, he caught himself, thinking that David was dead-on in his evaluation of her appearance. But he had a sneaking suspicion that they might find themselves on the opposite sides of an opinion.

Pity, he thought.

“That’s because I’m not hungry,” he said, punctuating his statement with a half-hearted smile.

“You really should have something,” Bethany advised. The next moment, she was putting into his hands a plate containing several slices of roast beef and ham that she had obviously taken for herself. “You’re looking a little pale.”

Trying to return the plate to her proved futile. “You have a degree?” he asked amiably.

Bethany knew he meant in medicine, but she deadpanned her answer.

“In observation.” She quickly followed up with, “And it doesn’t take much to see that you haven’t been visiting your refrigerator with any amount of regularity.” That actually stirred a few distant memories within her. She really had so few when it came to her own home life. “My father used to get too caught up in his work to remember to eat,” she added, hoping that might persuade him to take a few bites. She could well imagine how he had to feel. It wasn’t easy losing family, and from what she’d observed of father and son, they had been close.

“Used to?” Peter echoed. “Is he—” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the question. The word dead stuck in his throat like an open wound, the kind sustained by swallowing something that was too hot.

“Gone?” she supplied. It was a nice, safe word for what he was implying, she thought. “No, actually, I’m the one who’s gone. From the state,” she added quickly when she saw his eyebrows draw together in minor confusion. “As far as I know, both of my parents are still working like crazy.” Bethany lifted one shoulder in a quick, careless shrug and then took a sip from the glass of diet soda she was holding in her other hand. “It makes them happy so I suppose it’s all right.”

From her tone, Peter inferred that it was not all right with her. Questions about her began to form in his mind.

Bethany looked around the tightly packed family room and beyond. There was barely enough space for people to mill around without rubbing elbows and other body parts against one another.

“This a very large turnout.” She smiled at him. “Your father had a lot of friends.”