The Wilders

Chapter Eight

Peter arrived in the parking lot some five minutes after Bethany did. He’d been harnessed by such little things as obedience to speed limits and not flying through yellow lights that were turning red. Because of the hour and the weather, the tiny lot was all but empty.

Peter parked his car beside hers. When he got out, so did she. She looked rather satisfied with herself, he thought. “This wasn’t a race, you know.”

She had the good grace to look somewhat contrite. “Sorry, I’m always in a hurry to get where I’m going.”

“I noticed that.” She appeared set to dash up the two steps leading to the coffee shop door. “Hold it.”

She looked at him, puzzled. Was there a lecture in the wings? “What?”

“You have snow in your hair.” He brushed it aside with his fingertips. “Makes you look like an ice princess.” The moment he said the words, he saw her eyes cloud. “What?” he wanted to know. “What did I say?”

“Nothing.” Bethany turned away and walked up to the entrance. The snow on the shop’s roof made it look almost quaint.

Moving ahead of her, Peter opened the door and held it. The warm air within the shop instantly brushed over her face, making the cold a thing of the past. She took a breath.

Silly to act that way, she upbraided herself. It had been years since she’d heard the taunting term applied to her and she knew that Wilder didn’t mean it in the same way. Just an unfortunate choice of words, that’s all, she thought.

The shop was empty except for one person sitting alone at a table near the front counter. About to walk over to a table, Peter curbed his impulse. Instead, he let Bethany choose one, sensing that she’d prefer it that way.

“You don’t want to talk about it,” he guessed.

Stopping by a table in the middle of the shop, she unbuttoned her coat and draped it over the back of the chair before sitting down. “No.”

Peter followed suit, sliding into his chair after leaving his overcoat on the back. The waitress came over, an old-fashioned order pad in her hand. He found that oddly reassuring, given that orders were now electronically taken and submitted in some of the more upscale restaurants in Walnut River.

He waited until the young woman retreated before leaning across the table and responding to Bethany’s answer. “Fair enough. I won’t push.”

She knew what he was saying. That he respected her desire not to discuss the matter while she’d continued to push for a lengthy discussion of the blessings involved in Northeastern Healthcare’s possible takeover.

Well, he was wrong here, too, she thought. “Apples and oranges, Peter. One subject’s personal, the other is very, very public.”

“Patient care should be personal.” His voice was mild, his feeling wasn’t.

In a perfect world, he’d be right, she thought. But the world was far from perfect. They had to do the best they could and make use of every opportunity that came up. And being taken under NHC’s wing was a genuine opportunity.

“It’s a noble sentiment,” she allowed. “But it really is no longer possible.”

He nodded at the waitress as the woman returned with two cups of coffee and the Danish he’d convinced Bethany to split between them.

“Well, it isn’t if we all just give up and focus on a paycheck,” he said, once the waitress had left their table again.

Bethany gave him the benefit of the doubt, since he seemed to be so impassioned about the subject. Maybe the man was too close to see the big picture. “Medicine is specialized now.”

That would presuppose that what NHC offered was special and, as far as he was concerned, the HMO route detracted from medicine, it didn’t add to it.

Raising his cup to his lips, he took a swallow and let the black, bitter brew wind through his system. “Working for an HMO is too compartmentalized. I don’t treat a left pinkie or a right toe, I treat—”

She sighed wearily. “The whole patient, yes, I know. So you said. But in the time you’ve spent with that one whole patient, you could have helped three.”

She was still thinking assembly line. That didn’t work in this case. People brought nuances, shades of gray, individuality, to the table. They weren’t all the same. “Or missed important symptoms for all three because I was moving so fast.”

She stirred in cream and raised her eyes to his. “No, you wouldn’t.”

All right, he’d bite, Peter thought. “And why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you’re good,” she said simply. “You’re experienced.”

Gotcha. The woman had just made his argument for him, Peter thought. “I got that experience one patient at a time.”

They were going around in circles. “In your grandfather’s day, doctors could do that—make house calls, be devoted to their patients like he was—”

“You’ve been looking into my background?” he interrupted, surprised. He hadn’t mentioned that his grandfather had been a doctor.

When it became clear that he was going to be a stumbling block, she’d made it her mission to learn as much as she could about Peter Wilder. She liked to know what she was dealing with. With the possible exception of when he’d just kissed her, she really didn’t like surprises. “I like being thorough—”

He was quick to feed her words back to her. “So do I, that’s my point.”

He was fast when he wanted to be, she’d give him that, Bethany thought. But she was just as sharp, if not sharper. “And my point is that medicine has made an awful lot of wonderful strides and breakthroughs in the last couple of decades, things your grandfather wouldn’t have dreamed of.”

He broke off a piece of the Danish. Glazed sugar drizzled down from his fingers just before he popped the piece into his mouth. It didn’t take a clairvoyant to see where she was going with this. “And you’re saying these breakthroughs wouldn’t have been possible without the backing of conglomerates like NHC.”

He noticed that there was a small, triumphant toss of her head accompanying the single enthusiastic word. “Exactly.” Before he could respond, she held up her hand, stopping what she knew was going to be an onslaught of information.

“I’m not saying that medicine was in the Dark Ages before managed care came along, but you have to admit that progress has definitely sped up since it came on the scene. By operating efficiently, HMOs like NHC can fund research projects, secure the latest equipment for their clinics and hospitals—”

Peter cut in, feeling that he knew a little more about that situation than she did, no matter what she professed to the contrary. “Equipment that a physician has to plead with the powers that be to use because usage is so expensive,” he reminded her.

She looked down at the pastry in her fingers, uncomfortable with the fact he’d just tossed at her. She couldn’t, in good conscience, tell him he was wrong. “Sometimes,” she conceded.

“A lot of times,” Peter countered. Placing his hand on hers, he claimed another small piece of the pastry.

Bethany drew back her hand self-consciously. “Look, I—”

He’d had enough of this confounding dance during work hours. Right now, all he wanted was to share a cup of coffee and a few unnecessary calories with a woman who, heaven help him, stirred him in a way he hadn’t been stirred in a very long time.

“Bethany,” he began quietly, his eyes pinning hers, “why don’t we just call a truce for now and enjoy our coffee?”

Why did that make her more nervous than discussing the takeover? She tried to bank down the odd flutter in her stomach. “And talk about what? The weather?”

He laughed in response and looked out the window that faced the parking lot. It had started snowing again. “Beats being out in it.”

She followed his gaze and groaned. She could feel her feet getting cold already. “Well, we’ll have to be soon enough.”

But right now, they were warm and dry. “Do you always take the pessimistic view of everything?”

“It’s not pessimistic,” she informed him, her chin raising defensively. “It’s realistic.”

She was an overachiever, he thought. An overachiever used to being in charge. But somewhere along the line, the woman had obviously forgotten the reason she was trying so hard. She’d gotten caught up in the race and forgotten the reason.

He studied her thoughtfully, peering at her over his coffee cup. “I bet you got straight A’s in school.”

Where had that come from? “Not that it has anything to do with anything, but yes, I did.”

It had a lot to do with things, Peter thought. It told him the kind of person she was. Determined. Relentless. And probably very hard on herself if she fell short.

“Your parents must have been really proud.”

She made a small, disparaging sound. “If they were, they never let on.” She saw the interest that instantly entered his eyes and silently chastised herself. What was she thinking, letting that slip out?

“They were too busy to notice?” he asked.

She bristled at the sympathy she heard in his voice. God, but she didn’t want any pity from him. She’d done just fine. Successful people didn’t need pity.

“They had—have,” she corrected herself, “important positions. There was a lot of demand on their time,” she explained. She was making excuses for her parents, she realized. The words felt awkward in her mouth. “They were trying to give my sister and me a quality life.”

Peter read between the lines. It wasn’t that uncommon a story. “And they wound up skimping on the quantity, didn’t they?” he guessed.

He saw her squaring her shoulders and wondered if she was conscious of the action. Was she gearing up for a fight?

“We had the best education, a beautiful penthouse apartment, everything we could ask for,” she said proudly.

“Bedtime stories?”

Her mind came to a skidding halt. She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “What?”

“Bedtime stories,” he repeated, breaking off yet another piece from the swiftly dwindling pastry. The portion that was left was small. He pushed the plate toward her. “Did your parents read you and your sister bedtime stories?”

“No.” They were rarely home when she and her sister were young. “I didn’t need bedtime stories,” she informed him, then finished the last of the Danish.

“Every child needs that,” he said with gentle authority.

She sighed. He was making her feel as if she had been denied something important. She didn’t like being made to feel that way. “Is that what you want to do, Peter?” she asked sarcastically. “Read your patients bedtime stories?”

He smiled and shook his head. “No, I can bond without that.” Taking a napkin, he wiped his fingers carefully as he regarded her with interest. “Do you see her often?”

She needed a map to keep track of this conversation. “Who?”

“Your sister.”

“Belinda? No,” she replied, “not often.” Bethany could see that Wilder was going to push this. She nipped it in the bud. “She’s living in London, has been for three years.” She shrugged slightly. “Some fantastic job for an international banking firm.” And their parents were proud of her, she added silently. Belinda had been the older one, the one who did things first. Anything Bethany achieved had to be bigger and better or it wouldn’t be noticed.

But she’d made her peace with that, she insisted silently. Right?

“So your sister has an MBA, too.”

“From Yale,” she told him. That trumped hers from Princeton. The thought always rose in her mind when she told anyone about her sister. Needing to take out her frustrations on someone, she glared at Peter. “You make it sound as if getting an MBA is like coming down with some kind of a disease.”

That wasn’t his doing—she’d come up with that all on her own, he thought. “Only if the degree robs you of your sense of humanity.”

She shook her head. “Tell me, do you leave your halo and wings in your office, or do you take them home every night so you can polish them?”

The woman was working up a full head of steam, he thought. The best defense was a good offense. It was one of the rare sports analogies that he was familiar with.

The cell phone belonging to the man at the far end of the floor rang as if on cue. Peter smiled. “I think we’re supposed to go back to our corners, now.”

Since he’d mentioned it, this was a little like a boxing match. And that, she thought, was probably her fault. She doubted that he would have initiated a conversation about NHC on his own.

Not that it seemed to be getting her anywhere. She was tired and not at her best. “Why don’t we table this for the night?” she suggested.

He was more than happy to accommodate her. “Fine with me. I’d rather talk about you, anyway.”

They weren’t going that route, either. “And I would rather go to bed.” No sooner were they uttered than her words came back to her. One second before her cheeks turned an electrifying shade of pink, bordering on red.

“I mean my bed.” That still sounded like an invitation, she thought, embarrassed. “Alone. To sleep,” she added with an almost desperate note in her voice.

Laughing, he took pity on her and let her off the hook. “Relax, Bethany. I didn’t take that to be an invitation.”

She was relieved, and yet there was a small part—a very small part, she qualified—that wasn’t so relieved. That was insulted.

Memories of being the butt of everyone’s jokes in elementary school and junior high came rushing back to her with such a force, they all but stole her breath.

Was he being insulting? After kissing her? Or maybe because he’d kissed her.

“Why not?” she demanded. “Do you find me that unattractive?”

Seemingly bemused, he looked at her. “Do you even own a mirror?” he asked. “Because if you do, I suggest you look into it more often. If anyone could pull me out of my workaholic state, it would be you—” he paused “—as long as you promised not to launch into another debate in the middle of a heated embrace.”

Flustered, yet at the same time warmly pleased, Bethany was at a loss as to what to say. She didn’t want to encourage him, and yet, if she were being totally honest with herself, she didn’t want to completely discourage him, either.

The upshot was, she didn’t know what to say in response. She had no practice here, no experience to draw on. For her, flirtation, or whatever this was, constituted uncharted waters.

And then he came to her rescue. “I think we should call it a night.”

She grasped the excuse with both hands. “Yes, so do I.”

He smiled, pretending not to notice how relieved she looked. “We agree on something. That’s a good sign. Maybe I’ll bring you around yet.”

She’d been so intent these past few days on getting him to change his mind and thinking of him as being incredibly stubborn, it had never occurred to her that he might be trying to change her mind, as well. This put everything in a slightly different light. Made the verbal tennis game a little trickier.

“Don’t count on it,” she told him.

“Counting” on it wouldn’t have been the way he would have put it. Still, one thing was certain. His outlook. “Oh, but I’m an optimist, remember?”

How could he hem her in so effectively when the words were of her own choosing? “I—”

Whatever she was about to say was cut short by the sound of squealing brakes and the screech of tires. A bone-jarring crash followed, as the sound of metal twisting and entangling itself about the obstacle it had just disastrously met echoed through the coffee shop.

Peter was on his feet instantly, forgetting his overcoat behind him.

Stunned, Bethany’s mouth dropped open as she watched him fly out the front door. She felt the blast of cold air from the open door.

“Peter, wait,” she called. “You forgot your coat.”

But the door was already shutting, separating them. Leaving her inside the warm shop while he braved the cold without any regard for himself.

Hastily throwing on her own coat, she grabbed his and hurried out the door.

The cold threw its skeletal arms around her, locking her in a frigid embrace. As the warmth of the shop swiftly faded, Bethany initially had trouble focusing.

And then she saw the accident.

She didn’t have far to look. The car she’d heard screeching had crashed into a utility pole so hard, two-thirds of it had folded up into itself, forming a grotesque metal accordion. Luckily for the driver, his car had spun around and it was the rear of the vehicle that was compressed.