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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 lot 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 pro ceeded 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.
“There’s always a crowd on the weekends and evenings are even worse,” Isobel explained as they walked toward the restaurant. “There are a couple of tables by the river, though, that are empty. We could just order the food and sit there.”
Neil had dated women who would never sit in the open air, let alone go near one of the weathered benches. Isobel didn’t seem to mind the breeze riffling through her hair. Her curls always seemed to be dancing around her face. His fingers itched to see if they were as soft as they looked. He couldn’t help but notice the way her knit top fit her breasts— not too tight, not too loose. A stab of desire reminded him again that he hadn’t slept with a woman in months. But that was because not just any woman would do. Isobel, however…
“A picnic table’s fine with me,” he agreed, his hand going to the small of her back to guide her.
She glanced up at him. Their gazes held. She didn’t shift away…just broke eye contact and walked to the end of the line.
Fifteen minutes later, they were seated across from each other on the gray-brown benches. Half their table was shaded by a tall maple. Neil had bought a basket of steamed crabs for them to share. Isobel had insisted that was plenty, and that was all she wanted. But he couldn’t resist the cheese fries.
He set those on the table between them.
Isobel laid a stack of napkins next to the crabs. “This always gets messy.”
He also didn’t know many women who would agree to picking steamed crabs for lunch. “Have you lived here all your life?” His information-gathering on Isobel Suarez had to start somewhere.
“Yep. Except for college.”
“You have a master’s degree, right?”
Reaching for a crab, she expertly cracked it. “I went straight through, summers too. I was lucky enough to earn a few scholarships to take some of burden off of Dad. The rest were loans, but I finished paying them off last year.”
She sounded glad about that and he realized she was the responsible type. Unable to take his eyes from her, he watched as she picked apart a crab, slipped some of the meat from one of the claws, and popped it into her mouth. She licked her lips and he felt as if his pulse was going to run away. She seemed oblivious to the effect she was having on him.
“Did you go to college?” She colored a bit. “I mean I heard you were a detective with the Boston P.D. before you took a job with the state.” She used her fingers to separate another succulent piece of crab.
“I went to college and earned a degree in criminal justice before I joined the police force.”
“Why did you leave the Boston P.D.?”
He went silent for a moment, realizing just how uncomfortable it could be to answer questions that went too deep or zeroed in on what he wanted to talk about least. “I left because I was getting too cynical.” He nodded to the dish of cheese fries. “Sure you don’t want one? Mrs. Sanford said they’re as good as everything else here.”
Isobel took a good long look at them, then at the crab she was picking. Finally, she smiled. “Maybe just one.” She picked up a fry with a layer of cheese, took a bite from the end…and savored it.
Neil shifted on the bench. Damn it, she was turning him on with no effort at all. He felt as if he’d been in a deep freeze and Isobel had suddenly pushed the warm current button.
She took another bite of the large fry and set it down on a napkin. “Why is it that everything that’s pleasurable comes with a price tag?”
“Don’t most things come with a price tag?”
Their table was cockeyed on the grass and they could both see the river. She looked toward it now. “You know that old line, the best things in life are free?”
He nodded as he studied her profile, her patrician nose, her high cheekbones, the few wisps of stray curls that brushed her cheek in front of her ear.
She went on. “I used to believe that was true. And maybe it is true when you’re young. But as you get older, everything seems to have a price.”
He wondered what she was thinking about that made her sad, but he knew exactly what she meant. His gaze followed hers to the water and he almost recoiled from it. The sight of the river brought memories that were painful. He never should have brought her here. He’d thought his mind would be on the investigation and he would dive into the usual background questions. He never imagined they’d get into a conversation like this.
“Are you involved with anyone?” he asked her, surprising himself.
Her big brown eyes found his and for a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer him, or that maybe she would say it was none of his business, which it wasn’t.
“No, I’m not involved with anyone. How about you?”
“Nope. No strings. No ties that bind. With my job, any kind of a relationship would be difficult. I travel. I have a home base but I’m rarely there.”
“Boston?”
“Yeah. It’s home, but not really. Do you have family?” he asked her. “I mean besides your dad.”
“I have a sister, Debbie, who lives here in Walnut River. We were always close but since her divorce, I think we’ve gotten even closer. We have a younger brother, Jacob, who’s an adventurer. I don’t think he’ll ever settle down. One month he’s in Australia surfing, the next he’s in South America helping to save the rain forest.”
“Lives in the moment?” Neil asked.
“Totally.”
“How long ago did you lose your mom?”
“Four years ago. I moved back in with Dad after she died because he just seemed so…lost. He was having more problems with his arthritis and had fallen down the basement steps one day when he’d done some laundry and hurt his shoulder. So it just seemed the right thing to do.”
“You were on your own before that?”
“Oh, sure. Since college. I had my own apartment over on Concord.”
“It must have been hard for you, moving back home.” He absolutely couldn’t imagine it, but then he didn’t have the relationship with his parents that Isobel obviously had with her dad.
“It was really odd moving back home. I mean, I had been in and out of the house ever since college, dinners on Sundays, stopping in to see how my parents were. But when I moved back into my old room, it was like I recognized it but I’d outgrown it. I didn’t want to change anything because Mom had decorated it for me and that was part of her. Yet it was a young girl’s room and I wasn’t young anymore.”
“What did you do?” he asked, curious.
“I packed away my cabinet of dolls, put the cupboard in the basement and moved in my computer hutch and printer. I couldn’t bear to part with the latch-hook rug my mom had made, but I hung a watercolor I had at my apartment and bought new curtains. A mixture of yesterday and today.”
“So living with your dad isn’t temporary?”
“I don’t see how it can be. He needs me and I can’t turn away from that.”
Neil admired what Isobel was doing. How many thirty-somethings would give up their life to help out a parent? “You’re fortunate to be close to your family.”
“You’re not?”
He’d left himself wide open for that one. “There’s a lot of distance between us, especially between me and my father.”
She broke apart another crab. “Is that your doing or his?”
If anyone else had asked him that question, he would have clammed up. But Isobel’s lack of guile urged him to be forthright, too. “I’m not sure anymore. At one time he put it there. Now we both keep it there.”
“That’s a shame. Because anything can happen at any time.”
That was a truth he’d experienced as a teenager.
They ate in silence for the next little while, listening to the birds that had found their way to the maples, to the sound of the breeze rustling the laurels and the foliage along the river, to the crunch of gravel as cars came and went. Whenever their gazes met, he felt heat rise up to his skin. It was the kind of heat that told him taking Isobel to bed would be a pleasurable experience. But as Isobel had said, most things had a price. He had the feeling she wasn’t the type of woman who lived in the moment. She was the type of woman who wanted a marriage like her parents had had and wouldn’t even consider a one-night stand as an option. He wasn’t considering it, either. This was an investigation, not a vacation.
After she wiped her hands with a napkin, she smiled at him. “I’m full.”
His pile of crab shells was much larger than hers, and he’d finished all but two of the fries.
“I really should get back,” she said. “I have laundry to do and cleaning. I play catch-up on weekends.”
His weekends were usually his own. The cleaning lady took care of his apartment and he sent out his laundry. Suddenly his life seemed much too easy compared to Isobel’s.
They finished their iced tea and cleaned up the remnants of lunch. His hand brushed Isobel’s as they reached for the same napkin. The electric charge he felt could light up the restaurant for a week.
She seemed as startled as he was. She blushed, shoved more crab shells onto a paper plate, then took it to a nearby trash can to dump it. Five minutes later, they were in his car headed for her father’s house. He’d felt comfortable talking to her while they had lunch, but now, there was an awkwardness intertwined with their silence.
Before he’d even stopped the car, her hand was already on the door. She unfastened her seat belt. “Thanks so much for lunch.”
He clasped her arm. “We didn’t talk about the hospital.”
“No, we didn’t,” she responded softly.
“I need to ask you more questions. Can you stop by my office after you’re finished work on Monday?”
“I never know exactly when I’ll be done.”
“I know. It doesn’t matter. When I’m not doing interviews, I’ll be going through records.”
She looked as if she wanted to protest again, to tell him no one at the hospital had done anything wrong, but then she gave a little sigh as if she knew any protest wouldn’t do any good. “All right.”
He felt as if he had to tell her this lunch hadn’t been all about his investigation because he finally had to admit to himself it hadn’t. “I enjoyed lunch with you, Isobel.”
She didn’t say anything, just stared at him.
He leaned in a little closer. The scent of her lotion or her perfume reminded him of honeysuckle. If he kissed her, would she taste as sweet as she smelled?
If he kissed her—
Mentally he swore and shifted away.
She opened the door and quickly climbed out.
Neil watched her walk up the path to the door. She didn’t look back.
And neither did he. Something told him his attraction to Isobel Suarez could bring him nothing but trouble.
On Monday afternoon, Isobel stopped to say hello to the nurses at the desk on the surgical floor, then continued down the hall and rapped lightly on the door to Florence MacGregor’s room. Her son, West, worked in the accounting department at the hospital.
As a high thready voice called for her to come in, Isobel pushed open the door. “How are you doing, Florence?”
The thin, petite lady almost looked swamped by white in the hospital bed. Her surgery had been recent—on Friday—and she was still pale with dark circles under her eyes. This was her second hip replacement. Her first had been about six months ago. She’d done well with that operation. But Isobel and the staff had noticed disorientation and memory problems even back then. Isobel had spoken to West about it, believing Florence should be evaluated for Alzheimer’s. But as far as Isobel knew, West hadn’t done that yet.
Isobel drew up a chair beside the bed and sat down. “How are you feeling today?”
“My hip hurts. West said you might be stopping in because I can’t go home when I leave here.” She sounded upset by that.
“No, I’m afraid you can’t. Remember when you went to Southside Rehab after your last operation?”
Florence’s eyes were troubled. “I remember exercising. I should be feeling better, don’t you think? My surgery was so long ago.”
Isobel realized reality for Florence slipped from now to the past, even to the future. “You just had your second surgery on Friday. That’s only three days ago.”
“Three days?” She looked down at her hip and leg and frowned. “Maybe I can’t think straight because of the pain medicine they give me.”
With Florence’s first surgery, the staff had thought that might be the case. But a nurse had made notes on the intake sheet that Florence’s memory seemed to fade in and out. Ella Wilder, her orthopaedic surgeon, had noted the same was true during her visits and checkups.
Isobel and West had spoken more than once about the responsibility of elderly parents and how they felt about it. They were of like minds. West lived with his mother to watch over her. However, Isobel was afraid Florence couldn’t stay by herself even during the day for much longer even if she recovered completely from surgery. The staff at the rehabilitation hospital would talk about that with West, she was sure.
Isobel noticed the beautiful bouquet of flowers on the windowsill in a glass vase. “What pretty flowers.”
“West sent them,” Florence said proudly. “He knows I like pink and purple.” There were pink carnations and purple mums, tall lilies, too.
“West came in just a little while ago to eat lunch with me. Have you had your lunch, dear?”
Isobel smiled at Florence’s concern for her well-being. Her lunch had been yogurt and salad in between patient visits. “Yes, I did have my lunch. Was yours good?”
“Oh, yes, very good. I had…I had…I know I had meat loaf yesterday. What did I have today?” Her blue eyes were confused and she looked frustrated. “I hate when I can’t remember. I know West worries about that. He worries about other things too and I—” She stopped abruptly.
“What other things, Florence?”
Florence thought about Isobel’s question, looked a little guilty, and then said, “Oh, I don’t know. I can’t remember that, either.”
But this time, Isobel wasn’t so sure that Florence didn’t remember. What was she hesitating to say?
“Have you had any visitors besides West?”
“Lily. We’ve been friends for a long time.”
“I’m glad she came. Maybe she can visit you while you’re working on getting stronger, too.”
“You mean at that place where I’m going to have physical therapy?”
“Yes. West and I will sit down with you tomorrow and show you the pictures from two different facilities. He’s going to show you the one he thinks is best for you.”
“He has pictures at home, too…in his desk.”
After Florence’s first surgery, she’d been transferred to Southside Rehab Facility. But her son hadn’t been entirely satisfied with her care. So this time, he’d also gathered brochures on Pine Ridge Rehab.
Isobel checked her watch and saw that if she didn’t leave now, she’d be late for a meeting in a conference room in the tower. Walnut River General had four floors but it also boasted a tower that had been a later addition, with conference rooms, boardrooms and guest suites for consulting physicians. The new chief of staff himself, Owen Randall, had asked her to attend this meeting so she didn’t want to be late. The way this day was going, she might be here until nine o’clock tonight answering Neil’s questions after she finished with her last case.
When she thought about Neil, her tummy fluttered and she remembered the way he’d leaned close to her in the car… when she’d thought he might even kiss her. But of course he wouldn’t do that. Her own reaction to him had just colored her perception.
She had so many questions where he was concerned. Why had he changed careers? Why was there distance between him and his parents? Had he taken her to lunch to further his investigation…or because he liked her?