The M.D.'s Surprise Family

“Let sleeping dogs lie, is that it?” She smiled, shaking her head. She wasn’t about to place her head in the sand and hope for the best. She had to tackle this and then hope for the best. “It might spread anyway—if it’s malignant and there’s no proof that it is,” she informed him with feeling.

He’d found that when emotions were involved, the right decision was not always made. It was best to make decisions after the heat had left and things had cooled off. “Ms. Songbird, I want you to think about this—”

“My name is Raven,” she told him, “And I have thought about it.”

He sincerely doubted it. He heard the passion in her voice, the urgency. He didn’t want her making a final decision like that. “Think about it some more,” he countered. “We have a small window of time. Use it.”

She blew out a breath, trying not to sound as impatient as she felt. God, why weren’t her parents here? She needed someone to lean on. “How long am I supposed to look through this window?”

Now she was being rational. “At least twelve hours, twenty-four would be better.”

Raven nodded her head. “All right,” she told him even though she already knew what the decision was going to be.

Chapter Four

“What did I ever do to deserve you?” Renee smiled warmly at her son-in-law. Then, grasping the wheels of the wheelchair she’d been forced to use today, Renee scooted herself back from the front door.

“You had Lisa.”

Peter entered, his arms full of the groceries he’d stopped to pick up. He’d called her earlier to see if he’d left his jacket at her house the other night. It had been an excuse to talk to the one person who made him feel comfortable, the one person he didn’t feel he had to keep his guard up around. The tired note in Renee’s voice had alerted him. He knew that this was one of her bad days.

Being Peter, he’d asked about it. She’d been slow to confirm his suspicions. Further pushing on his part had informed him that she hadn’t been able to get out of the house to go to the store. He’d volunteered to go for her, picking up the few things she’d admitted that she needed.

Peter made his way to the kitchen and placed the three grocery bags on the counter. Without waiting for Renee to say anything, he began to unpack them. He knew his way around her kitchen as well as she did.

“Have you taken the anti-inflammatory medication I prescribed for you?” he asked casually.

Renee came to a stop directly behind him. She’d gotten far better at managing her wheelchair around corners than she was happy about. But she’d resigned herself to the necessary evil.

“No.”

He looked at his mother-in-law over his shoulder, noting that she avoided eye contact. “Have you even bothered to have it filled?”

“I will, I will,” Renee assured him, and then she sighed. “It’s just that I don’t like being foggy.”

He gave her a look. They both knew she was just being stubborn. “It won’t make you foggy.”

Renee waved her hand dismissively. “They all make me foggy, or nauseous or something.” With another resigned sigh, she said to him what she always said at times like this. “It’ll pass, it always does.” And then she smiled. “But thanks for worrying.”

He mumbled something unintelligible as he got back to unpacking and storing. “You know that patient I told you I lost?”

Immediate interest entered her eyes. He knew she liked something to chew on. “The one who walked out with her brother because of your less than warm-and-toasty bedside manner?” He nodded in response. “Did she have a change of heart?”

Heart, that was the word that best suited Raven Songbird, he thought. She displayed a great deal of it in every word she uttered. “She showed up at the hospital yesterday, said she’d changed her mind.”

Placing the carton of milk on her lap, Renee propelled herself to the refrigerator to put the item away. “Guess she knows quality when she sees it, even if you have to make a cactus seem warm and cuddly sometimes.”

It felt as if he fought a two-front war. “It’s not my job to coddle them,” he reminded her.

The look Renee gave him showed she was completely unconvinced. “Well, there we disagree. Sometimes that is part of the job.”

Peter paused, shaking his head. “That’s what she said.”

Approval shone in her hazel eyes. “Smart cookie. What’s her name?”

Peter had to think for a second. He’d never been very good with names. “Raven,” he finally said. “Raven Songbird.”

The second half gallon of milk on her lap, Renee paused in midroll to look at him with something akin to surprise and awe. “Like the clothes?”

He nodded. “Exactly like the clothes.” He figured Renee might get a kick out of it. After all, the woman could have been a contemporary of hers. “Her mother started the company.”

Slipping the milk onto the shelf, Renee closed the refrigerator door again. “Well, I guess she can afford the best—and you are.”

It was no secret that he didn’t come cheap. His fee was right at the top of his field, but then, the amounts that he charged enabled him to do his volunteer work for Doctors Without Borders. The fees he collected from his wealthier clients help to fund the operations that he performed on the devastated citizens of Third World countries. In so doing, he wound up bringing hope to the hopeless. Given that he felt no hope himself, he was struck by the irony of the situation.

Peter paused to kiss the top of his mother-in-law’s silver head. “Flattery will get you everywhere,” he told her with a smile.

“Oh, good.” She said the words with such feeling, he stopped folding the paper bags and looked at her. “Because I have something to tell you.”

Putting the empty bags on the side of the table, he pulled a chair to him, straddled it and looked at her across the table. “Okay, what?”

Renee took a deep breath. It wasn’t a subject she was looking forward to, only one that she knew needed broaching. Until now, she’d allowed him to have his bleeding heart. But she knew her daughter wouldn’t have wanted him to continue grieving this way, not for this long. There was no easy way to begin. “It’s been more than two years since Lisa and Becky were taken.”

Peter could feel himself tensing as he looked at her warily. “Yes?”

Renee reached across the table and touched his hand. “And I think it’s time you moved on.”

“Moved on? Moved on how?” He knew exactly how she meant, but he wasn’t about to give in to that. “I’m working.”

Renee left her hand where it was, feeling that her son-in-law needed the human contact. “Yes, I know, but I think that you should do more than work.”

Peter shrugged as he glanced away. “There’s not enough time—”

She watched him pointedly, remembering another Peter. A happier Peter. She missed him. And she had a feeling that Peter missed him, as well. “There was when you were married.”

“There was a reason to have time when I was married,” he informed her flatly.

Because he understood what Renee was attempting to do, he forced a smile to his lips. The woman’s heart was in the right place, if a little off kilter. “I have my work and I have you, Renee.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it in the courtly fashion he knew she loved. “That’s enough for me.”

Renee was not about to be dissuaded. “It shouldn’t be. Not that I’m undermining what you do,” she was quick to explain. “Your work is very, very important. You perform miracles. But I am a poor substitute for what you really need.” And she knew that he couldn’t fight her on that score.

He truly loved Lisa’s mother. She was the mother he had never known as a boy, so he humored her where he wouldn’t anyone else. “And what is it that I need?”

Renee set her mouth firmly. “Female companionship.”

He gestured toward her. “In case you missed it, you’re a female, Renee.”

She snorted at the weak attempt to deflect her focus. “I’m old enough to be your mother.”