Her Mr. Right? Read online

  “You’re not chief of staff anymore,” she reminded him with a smile.

  “No, I guess I’m not. Some habits are hard to break. I still care too much about this hospital and everyone in it.”

  “Can you care too much?”

  Peter ran his hand through his dark-brown hair. “I try to put the investigation and the takeover bid out of my head when I’m seeing patients. But those are always there, like swords hanging over my head.”

  “Is that why you wanted to talk to me?”

  He leaned back and took a deep breath. Then he pulled a letter out of the inside of his suit jacket. “No. I want to talk to you about something my father left.”

  She could see the legal-size envelope had the name Anna written on it. As was Isobel’s usual habit, she didn’t poke or prod. She let Peter set the pace.

  “I’ve had this since my father’s estate was settled. His lawyer gave it to me.”

  “Something for Anna?”

  “It’s a letter within a letter. My dad wrote to me explaining what this letter was, that he wanted me to make the decision of whether to give it to her. It’s one hell of a responsibility.”

  “Do you know what it says?”

  “Not explicitly. But it does explain to her that she’s our half sister, not our adopted sister.”

  “That must have been difficult for you to learn.”

  “It was. But even more shocking…” He paused for a moment, then went on. “My father had an affair and my mother never knew about it. Anna was the result of that affair.”

  “That is a bombshell. It was a huge secret for your father to keep. And now you’re considering keeping it, too?”

  “It’s really Anna’s secret. Still, I don’t like keeping something so important from David and Ella, either.”

  “So if you give this letter to Anna, would you be giving it to her for her sake or for your sake?”

  He smiled wryly. “This is exactly why I wanted to talk to you. To try and figure that out.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t anything you haven’t thought of already.”

  “No, I guess it isn’t. I just don’t know what to do, Isobel, because of the tension with Anna right now. She works for the company that wants to destroy everything my father spent his life building! At least that’s the way Ella, David and I see it.”

  “That’s business, not personal,” Isobel reminded him.

  “You think the two can be separated?”

  “Maybe not in your mind, but maybe in Anna’s mind they can.”

  “I can understand if she wants to be loyal to the company that pays her, but that’s clashing with family loyalty.”

  “If you give her this letter, what do you think it will do?”

  “It will either put her on the family’s side, or make her stand even firmer against us because of what my father did and never acknowledged. I have to ask myself how I would feel having lived in a house all those years with a man who claimed to be my adopted father, yet who was my real father and he never told me.”

  “Do you believe it’s better if she never knows?”

  “I don’t know what I believe, except that a secret carries weight and that weight is a burden. On the other hand, I can’t believe a person wouldn’t want to know the truth about their life, their parents, their real family. How can I possibly keep that information from her?”

  Isobel let the question hang in the air.

  “I guess I knew the answer all along, didn’t I? But I just can’t spring this on Anna, either. I’m going to have to find the right time to give it to her.”

  “You’ll know the right time,” Isobel assured him.

  Peter stood and so did Isobel. “Thank you for stopping in. I just needed to…lay it all out in front of someone objective.”

  “Have you told Bethany?”

  “Yes. We don’t have secrets. But she can’t be objective because she loves me.” He grinned. “I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

  “I wouldn’t, either,” Isobel agreed.

  As she moved toward the door, Peter asked, “You are coming to our wedding, aren’t you? The invitations go out next week.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  After a goodbye and Peter’s thanks, Isobel left his office and passed his exam rooms, going through the door to the reception area. Five minutes later, she was back at her office. To her surprise, she found Neil waiting for her.

  “You just happened to be passing by?” she teased as she unlocked the knob, her fingers fumbling with the key.

  He took the key from her hand. “Want me to try?” He was so very close to her, his arm brushing hers, his fit body a reminder of how she’d felt pressed against him.

  He easily slid the key into the lock and opened the door. Then he followed her inside.

  “I thought we could work on the files tonight,” he explained. “Your place or mine? I’ll spring for dinner.”

  “I put stew in the slow cooker this morning. It will be ready when I get home. Do you want to come over to my dad’s place?”

  “Are you sure he won’t mind someone barging in?”

  “I’m positive. So much of what I do is confidential and I can only talk about it in broad terms. Dad gets tired of that. He likes specifics. Unless I’ve gotten an e-mail from Jacob or something new happens with Debbie, our dinner conversation is pretty dull.”

  “What would we do without the weather?” Neil asked, sounding serious.

  “That’s what you talk about with your parents, too?”

  “Yeah, that’s the main topic of conversation. Why don’t I stop at that bakery on Lexington and pick up something for your dad’s sweet tooth. What’s his favorite?”

  “Anything with chocolate.”

  “Is chocolate your favorite, too?”

  The timbre of his voice created pictures in her mind of satin sheets, naked bodies, strawberries dipped in chocolate and whipped cream. “Like father, like daughter,” she answered flippantly.

  Neil dragged his finger from her cheek to the corner of her lip. He looked as if he wanted to kiss her, but he knew where they were and so did she. “I’ll meet you at home.”

  When she nodded, Isobel knew deep down that she was just asking for trouble and she didn’t care.

  It was so obvious to Isobel that her father liked Neil. Throughout dinner they talked and Isobel enjoyed just sitting there and listening, seeing her father totally engaged. After she had cleared the table, her father watched Neil set up his laptop computer.

  “So you’re both going to work now?” he grumbled.

  “Isobel’s going to help me go through some files,” Neil explained.

  “And you don’t want anyone at the hospital to know you’re helping him, do you?” her dad asked her.

  Isobel and Neil exchanged a look. Both of them wondered how much her father knew. To distract her dad, Neil asked him, “Have you ever worked on a computer?”

  John frowned, apparently knowing full well what Neil was doing. “I sold out my hardware business before I had to computerize. Ledgers were always good enough for me. I didn’t need a machine that could make everything disappear with the tap of one wrong key.”

  “I think you might like where the Internet could take you, especially with your love of history.”

  “What does history have to do with it?”

  “You could find sites devoted to any subject you wanted to read about. Some senior centers are setting up computer banks and teaching seniors how to use them.” Neil glanced at Isobel. “You said you’re helping with an auction to raise funds for the senior center. It would be a project to suggest.”

  “Would you be interested in something like that, Dad?” Isobel asked, curious.

  “You mean I could look up Eisenhower or Truman or Thomas Jefferson?”

  “You certainly could. Do you go to the senior center? You could ask your friends if they’d be interested.”

  “I haven’t gone since I had this shoulder oper
ated on.”

  “You know Mr. Bruckenwalt told you he’d pick you up and take you whenever you wanted to go,” Isobel reminded him.

  “It’s bad enough Cyrus has to take me to and from PT. I’m not going to ask him to chauffeur me to the senior center. Besides, I can’t even lift my own lunch tray yet. A man’s got his pride.”

  “Your pride is keeping you cooped up in here. That’s why you’re bored,” Isobel offered gently.

  “Do you miss your friends?” Neil asked.

  Her dad shrugged, not wanting to admit it. “I keep myself occupied. I do crossword puzzles. Now that the weather is nicer, I can take walks.”

  “And soon you’re going to be using that arm again,” Isobel said encouragingly.

  “You and your positive thinking. Sometimes it makes a man tired.” He sank down heavily into his recliner.

  “When you went to the senior center, what did you do there?” Neil asked.

  “Ate lunch, played cards, yakked about the old days.”

  “Is there any reason why you can’t invite some of your friends here? You could order a pizza. You wouldn’t have to worry about carrying a tray.”

  Isobel’s dad was silent for a few moments.

  “I never thought about doing that. I know Benny doesn’t like to go to the senior center anymore, either, because he can’t hear very well. He might like to come over, too.”

  “We’ve got at least three decks of cards in the desk drawer,” Isobel commented nonchalantly, thinking Neil’s idea was a good one.

  “Yeah, we do, don’t we?” Her dad rubbed his chin and pushed himself out of the recliner. “Maybe I’ll call Benny now and see what he thinks. Then I’ll turn in for the night. You two aren’t going to be any fun if you’re going to work.” Her dad smiled at them to take the sting out of his words, then headed for the stairs.

  After she could hear her dad’s footsteps in the upstairs hall, Isobel sat down next to Neil on the sofa. “I wish I had thought of your suggestion. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

  “You’ve had a lot on your plate. One person can’t think of everything.”

  Their gazes met and held for one very long minute. Neil had tossed his suit coat over the back of the sofa and tugged off his tie. His white oxford shirt was rumpled from a day of wear, but with the cuffs rolled back, he looked incredibly relaxed—and sexy. The temperature in the room seemed to climb another ten degrees. With the warmer weather, the house was a little stuffy.

  “Do you need to be hooked up to the phone line?” she asked him.

  “No, I have everything on the flash drive. I just need an outlet. Why?”

  “Because we could go out on the sunporch and work. I can open the window.”

  “That sounds like a great idea. Grab my briefcase. I’ll get the computer.”

  Five minutes later, they were set up on the glassed-in porch. The light beside the wicker sofa burned brightly. Darkness had fallen and the scent of just-blooming lilacs wafted in from the open window that looked out onto the backyard.

  Side by side they sat there, breathing in the spring flowers and dampness, night settling in and each other. Oh, they worked. Neil brought up page after page that Isobel examined with him, searching for charges that didn’t fit, checking anything that seemed over the top, showing him her own billing sheets. She explained basic charges, time allotments, services rendered.

  Still, their arms brushed often, his shirtsleeve against her bare skin. When she pointed to something on the screen, he leaned close, his mouth almost touching her cheek. By the time they had spent an hour and a half examining and checking, silence and shadows and the perfumes of spring wrapped them in an intimate cocoon.

  “This is tedious work,” Isobel murmured as they finished another page.

  “It’s not so bad doing it with you.” Neil’s voice had a husky quality that brought her eyes to his. The desire she saw there made her breath catch and her mouth go dry.

  After a moment she asked, “Would you like me to get us something to drink?”

  “I’d like something else a lot more.”

  She didn’t have to ask what Neil wanted because she wanted it, too. Leaning into him, she raised her lips to his.

  Chapter Six

  Time, place and consequences had no hold on Isobel as she gave herself up to the delight of Neil’s kiss. That delight, however, soon morphed into desire and thrills and novelty that made her gasp in pleasure and moan in surrender.

  The wicker couch’s floral cushions gave with their weight as Neil’s arms wrapped around her and they leaned against its back. His lips were on her cheek, on her eyelids, then they returned to her mouth. His hands smoothed over the back of her silky blouse then roamed into new territory. They were at her waist, on her stomach, almost touching her breasts.

  Isobel’s slim skirt rode up her thighs as she restlessly reached for handfuls of Neil’s shirt and pulled it from his trousers. She didn’t think twice about what they were doing. She didn’t think at all. She’d never experienced such mindless pleasure or basked in a man’s hungry desire. She and Tim—well, they’d been attracted to each other, but she’d never wanted to put her hands all over him the way she wanted to put her hands all over Neil. She’d never wanted to get into Tim’s skin the way she wanted to get into Neil’s. She’d never before felt the heat and the urgency to make love because she knew when she did, she’d rocket straight away from earth. Neil had that effect on her, whether he was just looking at her, kissing her or touching her. There was an innate virility that poured from him—an alpha determination he couldn’t keep in check. Yet he could be kind and gentle, too. That mixture in a man was totally irresistible.

  He stroked her hair back from her face. “Do you want this, Isobel? Are you sure?”

  Beyond rationality, her body cried out for more—more of touching, kissing, holding and most of all, completion. “I do,” she murmured, reaching for his belt buckle.

  She didn’t stop to admit that the illicit nature of making love on the back porch with her father upstairs had an element of danger she found enticing. She’d never realized the extent of the excitement that danced around danger—the danger of being heard or found or seen.

  Still, she knew the glassed-in porch was so separate from the rest of the house, so far away from her father’s room, he couldn’t possibly hear them. Once he went upstairs for the night, he didn’t come down again. Those steps were hard on his knees. As far as neighbors…their yard was bordered by maples, spruce and oaks. There might be a stray cat lurking out there, but not much else. A spirea hedge surrounded the yard and gravel from the alley beyond would alert them to a neighbor taking a walk, or a car backing in for the night.

  All of those thoughts were extraneous as she trembled while Neil undressed her…as he shrugged out of his shirt and she unzipped his fly. Naked on the sofa, Neil pulled her onto his lap, caressed her breasts and kissed her lips. She could feel his arousal beneath her thigh. He was hot and hard and big. The excitement he created had her reaching between them, stroking his stomach, moving lower. He slid forward with her on the cushion, turned her on his lap so she was facing and straddling him. She’d never made love like this…this was over-the-top exhilarating, tempting, brand-new.

  They didn’t speak. They were too busy nibbling, kissing, tasting.

  Neil turned from her, grabbed his trousers, fished in a pocket for his wallet. Moments later he was pushing into her, she was melting around him and desire was a newly awakened hunger that made a need so far deep inside of her, she didn’t know how she’d satisfy it.

  But Neil did. His hands slipped under her buttocks and he pushed in deeper, farther, groaning as his own hunger was partially satisfied. His lips clung to hers, his tongue never stopped moving, his body rocked closer, his hands guided her movement and they created an irresistible friction. She pushed, he thrust, they rocked until her muscles tightened, her nerve endings lit up with excitement and her world shattered into a thousand pieces around
her. In the throes of her orgasm, she felt Neil’s final thrust, held him as he shuddered, and sighed when his lips broke from hers. He caught her tight against his chest.

  But after a few moments, he leaned against the back of the sofa, taking her with him. Her heart was beating hard against his chest and she could feel the racing of his heart, too. The primitive pounding in her ears slowed as they began to breathe normally again. Their bodies were glazed with their exertion and she loved the scent of Neil…the scent of the two of them together. He held her for a very long time.

  She was almost lulled by a happiness she’d never experienced until she started thinking again. Neil had been prepared with a condom. That wasn’t so unusual, she guessed, lots of men were. Still…

  “Do you always carry a condom in your wallet?”

  He was silent and she didn’t look up. Finally he inquired,

  “Why are you asking?”

  Now she sat up and awkwardly disengaged herself from him. She should get dressed, but she had to know something first. “I’m trying to put two and two together and I’m getting five. You said you haven’t slept with many women, only a few since your divorce. Was the condom old or new?”

  “Because you’re concerned you might get pregnant if it’s old?” His voice was gruff.

  “Because if it’s new, I have to wonder if you planned this. If you want to keep me close so I’ll help you. If you want to get me on your side so you can get the information you need.”

  “Isobel.” Her name was a protest tinged with anger.

  She went on anyway. “You said you never get involved with someone in an investigation. Why now? Why me?”

  His thumb nudged her chin up so she was gazing into his eyes. “Are you so lacking in self-confidence you don’t know how beautiful you are?”

  Although she wanted to cover herself, she couldn’t look away. Did he mean that?

  “I haven’t had men rushing to take me out.”

  “Then you haven’t met the right men.”

  He was angry, but at least his anger was honest. She could tell that. Had tonight been as important to him as it was to her? Or could he separate emotion from pure physical desire? Perhaps tonight had just been about slaking that desire.