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“Because this is an impromptu meeting and we all have other places we need to be, I’m going to dispense with the reading of the minutes today and get right down to the heart of the matter.” His small, brown eyes rested on Peter for a long moment. “Or matters, as the case might be,” he corrected himself.
“First of all, we, the board and I—” Wallace gestured grandly around the table before continuing, and it struck Peter that the man was a born showman who was given to dramatic pauses “—would like to offer the position of chief of staff to you, Dr. Wilder.”
For a moment, Peter didn’t know what to say. Chief of Staff had been his father’s position. In his later years, James Wilder juggled that and being chairman of the board. Both were full-time jobs. It never ceased to amaze him how his father managed to do justice to both, but he had. In the end, it had probably taken a toll on his health.
That notwithstanding, Peter was flattered by the offer, but he knew his limitations. With a self-deprecating smile, he shook his head. “Thank you, all of you, but I don’t believe I’m experienced enough to take that on.”
Wallace laughed at the refusal. “Modest. You’re your father’s son all right. Actually, we’re asking you to take the position on temporarily, just until we find a suitable candidate. Your father left very big shoes to fill. It’s going to take us a while before we find someone who comes close to his caliber. Until then, we would consider it an honor, as well as a huge favor, to have a Wilder in that position for a little while longer.” Wallace paused just long enough to allow the words sink in. “You’d really be bailing us out.”
Very adroitly, the new chairman of the board had maneuvered him until his back was against the wall. Peter knew he had no choice but to agree. It helped somewhat knowing that it was only for a little while.
“Well, put that way, I don’t think I can turn it down.”
“Wonderful. Then it’s settled. Peter Wilder is the new temporary chief of staff.” Wallace grew somber, as if the next topic could only be spoken about with the utmost respect and gravity. “As for the second reason for this meeting, I think we’re all aware of what that is, but I’ll be the one to say it out loud. Northeastern Healthcare has expressed a great interest in acquiring our little hospital and I believe that their offer is worth discussing at length.”
Peter could feel his stomach tightening. “As long as our final answer is no,” he commented.
Wallace shot him a look as if he’d just violated some sort of sacred procedure.
He probably had, Peter thought. He wasn’t up on the intricacies of parliamentary procedure and the kind of pomp and ceremony that went with conducting meetings properly. It had never aroused the slightest bit of interest in him.
What did interest him were people—patients—who needed his care, his skills. He couldn’t help wondering how his father, a very simple man at bottom, had been able to put up with all of this.
Wallace narrowed his eyes as he continued to look at him. “Excuse me?”
Now that he was in the potential fray, he might as well speak his mind, Peter thought. “Well, you can’t seriously be thinking about accepting their offer, Wallace.”
Wallace frowned. “You haven’t even heard the amount yet.”
Peter laughed shortly. “I don’t need to hear the amount. You can’t put a price on what we do here.”
“I’m sure that would come as a surprise to the insurance companies, Dr. Wilder,” Bethany said. She saw the incredulous look on the doctor’s face and quickly continued. She needed to make this man understand why he was wrong. “Patients pay for their care, that’s the whole point. And if that care can come about more efficiently, more quickly, it’s a win-win situation for us and for them.” Her voice grew more impassioned as she continued. “Besides, we’re just a simple hospital. One huge lawsuit could ruin us and force us to close our doors.”
“There’s never been a lawsuit against the hospital,” Peter said, in case she was ignorant of the fact.
“That doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be,” Bethany pointed out. “People are a great deal more litigation-crazy than they were when your father joined the staff here. With a conglomerate like NHC taking Walnut River General under its protective wing, we’re all but invulnerable.”
The other board members in the room faded into the background. One attempted to say something, but Peter ignored him. Because Walnut River General meant so much to his father, to him, this had suddenly become personal.
“And where does the patient fit in with all this?” Peter wanted to know. How could someone who looked like an angel be so cold?
“The patient is the one who benefits,” Bethany insisted. She clearly thought he was oblivious to that. “NHC puts us on the map, makes us eligible to receive grants, updates our equipment, perhaps even gets us state-of-the-art equipment. You can’t possibly ignore that.”
“No,” Peter agreed. “Updated equipment is extremely important, but that’s what we have fund-raisers for. And so far, they’ve done pretty well by us.”
The man just wasn’t getting the big picture. He thought too small. “Personal donations,” she said. “Think how much more we could do with allotments from a conglomerate with bottomless pockets.”
He wondered if she was actually that naive, or if it was a matter of her being heartless. He preferred thinking it was the former, but he had a feeling he was wrong. “Isn’t that a little like selling our souls for thirty pieces of silver?”
Wallace cleared his throat, getting them to both look in his direction for a moment and breaking the growing tension.
“Aren’t you being a little dramatic, Peter?” Wallace asked.
“No, I’m being pragmatic,” he responded. “I didn’t go to medical school to practice assembly-line medicine.” His main focus wasn’t Wallace, it was Bethany. He wanted to make her understand, to see the flaw in the way she thought. “The doctors here treat the whole patient, they don’t deal with him or her piecemeal. I don’t want some accounting analyst holding a stopwatch and looking over my shoulder, telling me that I need to move faster or I’ll wind up pulling the hospital’s batting average down.”
“There’s nothing wrong with seeing more patients,” Bethany insisted.
“There is if you wind up shortchanging them because you have a quota to meet or a schedule to live up to. Can’t you see that?”
Bethany’s eyes flashed angrily. Was he accusing her of being obtuse? She’d never reacted well to criticism. She’d had to put up with a lot of it while she’d been growing up. She didn’t have to anymore.
“You’re ignoring all the benefits that being part of an organization like Northeastern Healthcare can provide for the hospital. They have access to far more facilities than we do.”
“Looks like someone has done their homework,” Wallace said. There was no missing the admiration in his voice or the approving look on the chairman’s face as he looked at Bethany.
Was Wallace for the takeover, or was he just trying to score points with Bethany? Peter wondered in mounting frustration.
He didn’t often lose his patience, but his father’s death had changed the rules and shaken him down to his very foundation.
“Then give her a gold star, Wallace, but don’t give NHC the hospital. Everyone will regret it if you do, most of all, the patients.” Peter rose from his chair. The legs scraped along the floor as he pushed it back from the table. “Now, if you will all please excuse me, I have patients waiting to see me.”
It was only by calling up the greatest restraint that he didn’t slam the door behind him as he left.
Chapter Four
Bethany could feel the vibrations created by Peter’s exit long after he’d left the room. Even after the meeting had abruptly broken up less than fifteen minutes later. Until she’d witnessed Wilder’s reaction she’d figured the takeover to be a slam dunk.
So much for intuition.
She wouldn’t have thought it to look at him, but Wilder was positively archaic. The man was standing in the way of progress, pure and simple. He was obviously so stuck in the past, he refused to open his eyes and see the future, or even acknowledge, much less read the handwriting on the wall.
Bethany’s mouth curved as she walked down the fourth-floor corridor. It looked like it was up to her to make the temporary chief of staff see the error of his ways. She’d made up her mind about that the moment the meeting broke up. All the other board members already had some sort of relationship with Peter and seemed obviously wary of upsetting him, whether because they liked him, or were still treading on eggshells because of his father’s recent death. Just as possibly, their hesitation arose out of respect for the late James Wilder.
Whatever the reason, she didn’t know and she didn’t care. No single person should be allowed to stand in the way of bettering a situation that ultimately affected so many just because clearly he viewed all change as bad and something to be avoided.
She knew people like Peter, had dealt with them before. People so set in their ways they felt there was no true path except the one they were standing on. They were stuck there, like the prehistoric creatures had been in the La Brea tar pits. The only difference was, the animals hadn’t wanted to be stuck—they’d wandered in and had no choice. Wilder had a choice and he’d focused on the wrong one.
Knowing she couldn’t confront the man while he was seeing patients, Bethany positioned herself outside his office a few minutes before noon. She assumed that, like every other physician she had ever known, he would break for lunch around that time. So she waited.
At one o’clock, she was still waiting.
Mystified, Bethany moved to the door and tried the knob, intending to check whether Wilder was still actually in his office or had somehow managed to leave by a back door without her knowing it. Her hand was on the knob when the door suddenly opened. Jerked forward, she stumbled and found herself bumping up against the doctor full force.
He was quick to grab her by the shoulders so the collision wouldn’t send her falling backward. Caught off guard, she sucked in her breath, stifling a noise that sounded very much like a gasp.
She wasn’t accustomed to being at an awkward, physical disadvantage. She liked being in control. Complete poise had been her credo since college. To her credit, she managed to collect herself almost immediately.
“Oh, Dr. Wilder—”
“That’s what it says on the door,” he acknowledged, unable to see why she should sound so surprised at seeing him walk out of his own office. Ever the doctor, his dark eyes swept over her, checking for any minor signs of damage or bruising. There were none visible. Still, he asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” Bethany brushed absently at her dress, smoothing it out. “I’m a lot more resilient than I look.”
“Good.” With a satisfied nod of his head, Peter began to walk toward the elevator.
Bethany had expected him to stand still so she could talk to him. Instead, she had to fall into step to gain his ear. Moreover, she found she had to fairly trot in order to keep up with the man. If she didn’t know better, she’d speculate that he was trying to avoid her.
“I was hoping to run into you—”
He glanced at her with mild, amused interest. “And you decided to do that literally?”
She frowned. Was he teasing her, or did it go deeper than that? Her childhood was steeped in ridicule and the wounds from that had never quite healed. “That wasn’t the plan.”
Stopping by the elevator, Peter pressed the down button on the wall. A faint glimmer of a light went on, circling the button.
“What was the plan?” he asked, feeling that he was probably setting himself up. Braced, he sank his hands into the deep pockets of his lab coat and waited for her to answer.
Bethany psyched herself up for exactly half a second before saying, “I wanted to talk to you about NHC’s offer.”
He looked at her for a long moment. The woman didn’t appear to be someone who had adult attention deficit disorder. But then, you just never knew, did you? From what he’d gathered, she was an overachiever. That could be a sign.
“I believe you already did,” he reminded her.
“But you walked out,” she countered. Walked out before she could even get warmed up, she added silently.
“Not very polite,” Peter granted amicably. “But in all honesty, there was no point in wasting your time or mine. I’d heard enough.”
“You hardly heard anything at all.”
There they had a difference of opinion. “I heard the words ‘Northeastern Healthcare’ and ‘takeover.’ In my book, that’s really enough.”
The man really was closed-minded, Bethany thought, annoyed. Which meant that she had her job cut out for her. But she was up to it. She liked Walnut River, liked working at the hospital. And she wasn’t going to allow this man to stand in the way of the takeover.
Bethany did her best not to let her emotions surface as she argued. “You could at least listen to what they have to offer, Dr. Wilder.”
“I’m not some hermit living in a cave, Ms. Holloway. I know exactly what NHC has to offer.” He enumerated. “A lot of gleaming, brandspanking new equipment they ultimately resist letting us use because of the prohibitive cost of operating the same gleaming, brandspanking new equipment.” The look he gave her felt as if it was going right through her, straight to the bone. “I’m not some child who can be bribed by the promise of an expensive toy.”
The elevator arrived, empty. Peter stepped in. Bethany was close behind him. As the steel doors closed, she suppressed a sigh. Losing her temper was not the way to go.
“I don’t think of you as a child, Dr. Wilder.”
His mouth curved and she felt something within her responding to the expression. The man did have charisma, she couldn’t help thinking. “I’m sure the medical board will be happy to hear that.”
This wasn’t funny and she didn’t like being the source of his amusement. “But I do think of you as a throwback.”
The smile remained as he arched an eyebrow. “Speaking your mind again?”
Bethany squared her shoulders. Her chin went up. “Yes.”
Peter faced forward and shook his head. “It’s not charming.”
“I’m not trying to be charming.”
“Good.” He continued looking at the steel door before him. “Because you’re not succeeding.”
Knowing the value of temporary retreat, Bethany backpedaled. A little. “Maybe throwback wasn’t the right word.”
He nodded, watching the floors go by. “Maybe.”
She stopped backpedaling. “But you have to admit, you’re stuck in the past.”
That got to him. He turned his head to look at her. “No, I am in the present.” He felt his temper flare, something that very rarely happened. What was it about this woman that got his jets flaming? “And I won’t give up this hospital without a fight.”
It was her turn to appear amused. “That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?”
“Whatever it takes, Ms. Holloway.” Peter faced forward again, mentally counting to ten. “Whatever it takes.”
The elevator arrived in the basement and he got off. All he wanted to do was to get a bite to eat before he went back to seeing his patients. Bethany was interfering with the smattering of peace and quiet he was hoping for. He knew he should have brought his lunch with him and remained in his office. But there hadn’t been anything in his refrigerator to bring. He needed to get around to shopping, and soon.
He spared her a glance as he walked into the cafeteria. “Are you planning to follow me around all afternoon, Ms. Holloway?”
Bethany responded with a wide smile, paraphrasing his earlier words, “Whatever it takes, Dr. Wilder. Whatever it takes.”
He inclined his head. “Touché.”
She grabbed at what she felt was a temporary truce. “Won’t you at least listen to me?” she pressed, following Peter into the main area where all the food was served. There were steam tables on two sides of the opposite wall and a bed of ice for cold beverages and desserts on the third. Just before the exit were the coffee dispensers.
Peter picked up a tray and handed it to her. She looked a little uncertain as she accepted it.
“I’m assuming you want to keep up the ruse that you actually want to be here,” Peter said, moving to the left wall. “That means buying some food.”
“Right,” she murmured. Bethany looked around the cafeteria. This was actually her first time down here. She usually left the grounds at lunchtime, preferring to get her meals at one of several nearby restaurants. “Then will you listen to me?”
“I’ve been listening to you since you pounced on me outside my office,” he told her innocently.
His comment earned him an interested look from the young nurse who walked by, her tray laden with what passed for a nutritious lunch. The woman’s hazel eyes went from him to Bethany and then back again before a very wide smile sprouted on her lips.
Terrific. “I think you and I just became the latest rumor that’s about to make the hospital’s rounds,” Bethany noted glibly.
He nodded his head, as if that was fine with him. “They have little else to talk about this week,” he said drily. Nodding at the small row of dispensers, he asked, “Coffee?”
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