Isobel was out of breath as she braked to a stop on her bike in front of the Walnut River Inn. When she’d started out, she’d really had no intention of coming here.
Neil might not even be here.
She could just tell him she’d been out for an evening ride and…what? She just happened to pass the Inn?
She was almost ready to turn around and head down the street when she heard, “Isobel.”
That was Neil’s voice. He was standing on the porch wearing black jeans and a red polo shirt that seemed to emphasize his broad shoulders. His sandy-brown hair blew in the breeze. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes from here but she knew their golden depths were trained on her.
He was coming down the steps now and she couldn’t pretend she didn’t hear him call her. Wheeling her bike up the curved path, she parked it beside the porch.
“Hey,” he said with a smile. “Did you just happen to be passing by, or did you come for a reason?”
Leave it to Neil to be blunt. When he wanted to know something, he just asked.
“I don’t think that was a difficult question,” he remarked, grinning now.
She felt foolish. Her hair was damp from her exertion but she had chosen a crisp yellow cotton blouse and her best pair of jeans to ride in. “Both, I guess. I didn’t particularly have this destination in mind when I started out.”
“If you want to talk, we can go up to my room. Or if you’d rather, we could go for a walk. But then, of course, some of the fine citizens of Walnut River might see you with me.”
Pulling her helmet from her head, she hung it on her handlebars. Should she go to his room? This conversation would be short, and at least they’d be able to discuss things in private. “Do you have any water in your room?”
“In fact, I have a small refrigerator stocked with juice, soda and water.”
She wasn’t afraid of Neil. He was the kind of man a woman could trust. No, she hadn’t been around him that much, but she did have sensitive radar in her line of work. “Juice would be terrific.”
Opening the door, he led the way through the foyer and to the staircase. She admired the hardwood banister, the fine-quality blue-and-white wallpaper.
Neil had let her go first and at the head of the stairs, he directed her, “Second room on the left.”
Neil was staying in the Lighthouse Room. It overlooked the backyard with its profusion of bushes and trees, which were all green with spring life. But she hadn’t come here to admire the inn or the nautical décor in the room. She could see Neil had made himself at home. His laptop was open on the small blue desk and there was a stack of papers beside it. He was wearing deck shoes but sneakers were tumbled haphazardly under a straight-back chair next to the double bed. On the nightstand, a psychological thriller lay open next to the phone.
She’d come here tonight for a reason and one reason only. “I think we should talk about what happened in the stairwell.”
Neil closed the door and the little click made her realize how alone they were, and more aware of how attracted she was to him—his height, the sandy hair on his forearms, his strong chin. He motioned to the red upholstered chair by the window, but she shook her head.
“So I guess this is going to be a short conversation,” he remarked glibly.
“How can you joke—”
“I’m not joking, Isobel. Apparently you came to get something out of the way. You just want to do it and go on home again. No muss, no fuss.”
He sounded almost angry and she had no idea why. “I don’t want to take up any more of your time than I have to. And for your information I’m working on a fund-raising auction for the senior center. We have two more weeks to get donations and there’s still a lot to do.”
“Then why do we need to talk about the kiss at all?”
“Because…because it affects our interaction together—professionally,” she added quickly.
“Oh, you mean whenever you see me at the hospital, you’re going to think about the kiss?”
“Why are you making this so difficult?” She really was puzzled.
“Tell me something. Are you and Peter Wilder involved?”
“No.” Isobel was so shocked she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“When I left the two of you, you looked pretty chummy.”
“Peter is engaged to Bethany. They’re getting married next month.”
Neil’s expression didn’t change.
Now she was getting mad, too. “Do you honestly think I’d even be tempted to get involved with someone who is already promised to someone else?”
When he didn’t answer, she had had enough. “If you do think that,” she headed for the door, “I shouldn’t be here at all.”
He caught her arm. “Isobel, wait. No, I don’t think that. But you seemed very friendly with Wilder.”
“Are you digging now? For professional reasons, or personal ones?”
He frowned and admitted, “Personal ones.”
She could see that Neil was serious, that maybe after their kiss he’d even been a little bit jealous. That idea made her heart flutter faster. “Peter and I…” She stopped and shook her head. “We’re colleagues.”
“And you can’t say more than that because he’s perhaps consulting you about something?”
She kept silent.
Releasing her arm, he placed a hand on both her shoulders and nudged her a little closer. “So…” he drawled. “What did you want to talk about?”
After a shaky breath, she laid it out. “I can’t get involved with you. There’s no point. Not when you’ll be leaving after a few weeks.”
“Isobel,” he said in a soft, gentle voice that made her name sound romantic. “Have you ever taken a roller-coaster ride?”
Her eyes widened because she absolutely didn’t know where he was going with this question. “Actually no, I never have.”
His brows arched and he rubbed his thumb back and forth over her collar bone, distracting her immensely. “You don’t know what you’re missing. As an amusement-park ride, it’s meant for fun and excitement and thrills. You start out slowly and you think, Oh, this isn’t so scary, but then you start mounting the first hill. The excitement builds. You’re still going very slowly but although the earth is far below, you don’t seem to be in any danger. But then you come to the top of the hill. It seems like you’re suspended there for a moment, just a moment, and then, so fast that you don’t know what hit you, you’re over the top, down the dip, on a straight stretch into another dip, up another hill, down with a whoosh. There’s absolutely nothing like it, except maybe a kiss like we shared. Except maybe thinking about another kiss.”
“Neil,” she protested softly.
He nudged her a little closer and at the same time, he moved in, too. “Tell me you don’t want to experience another dip and whoosh.”
“Fun and excitement and thrills have never been driving forces in my life.” She practically squeaked because she was so deprived of air.
“Maybe it’s time to change that.”
Getting hold of herself, she managed to ask, “How many affairs have you had since your divorce?”
Now it was his turn to look startled. “I thought I asked tough questions,” he commented wryly.
She waited.
“I’m not a thrill-seeker either, Isobel. I’ve only dated two other women since my divorce.”
If he was telling her the truth, that information truly astonished her. “Two women in two years?”
“I’ve gone out with a few others, but nothing developed from it. I don’t take every woman I date to bed. I’m careful, I’m selective, and to be honest, I work too much to have a social life.”
“So you see me as a diversion from your job?”
“No, Isobel. I see you as someone special. The moment you walked into my office, I felt it. Didn’t you?”
If she admitted that—
“I thought it was a fluke,” he went on. “I thought I’d been cooped up for too long, asked too many questions, interviewed too many personnel. So when an attractive woman walked in, sure, she got my attention, but then minute by minute, that current between us never subsided. By the time you left, I was having a hell of a time keeping my mind on what I was supposed to be asking you.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“Yeah, well, usually I’m great at compartmentalizing. I can separate the work from my personal life. That’s why I’ve never dated anyone involved in a case.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“So…are you considering dating me?”
He laughed. “Dating? Let’s put it this way. I’d like to spend more time with you.”
“And what about the investigation?”
“I’ve been doing this a long time, Isobel. You’re not involved in anything going on at the hospital. If something is going on. In fact, I think you could be a help to me.”
“What kind of help?”
“I’d like you to go through some of the files and computer data with me and answer questions I might have. No one else is willing to do that, either because they don’t want to get the hospital in trouble, or because they do. I can’t trust either side because of the takeover issue. But I think you would be honest with me. You’re an insider. You know the goings-on. I think you could be an asset. No one has to know you’re helping me if we do it in our off-hours.”
“You really trust me that much?”
“I do.”
Could he be playing her? Could he be using her? Could he be telling her he trusted her to get her to trust him?
“So many suspicions,” he said with a rueful shake of his head. “Maybe this will help prove I’m telling the truth.”
She’d thought about Neil’s kiss since it had happened. She hadn’t been able to think about much else. But now she had the opportunity to kiss him again. Did she want to take that roller-coaster ride? Did she want to change her life and put a few thrills in it?
Staring into Neil’s forthright brown eyes, she simply couldn’t resist the romantic notion that he was attracted to her, or the excitement of being desired.
She lifted her lips and he didn’t hesitate. His kiss took her back to the stairwell and then sent her head spinning. His tongue was so erotically sensual, all she could do was hold on, breathe in his scent, feel his strength and ask for more. Not in words, but by stroking his tongue, by pressing her breasts against his chest, by letting her leg settle between his.
He groaned, pressed her even closer, then broke the kiss and lifted his head. “Damn it, Isobel. If you don’t want to end up in that bed, we’ve got to stop now.”
She almost smiled—almost—though her heart was still racing, her body still tingling. Neil was looking at her as if she were “special.” That was almost hard to take, hard to accept, hard to feel because she’d never felt that kind of special with a man before. Finally the haze of sensual hunger diminished as each second ticked by.
She backed away from him another step. “I’d better go.”
“You didn’t have your juice.”
“I’d better go,” she said again.
His face was stoic now as he nodded and let her precede him out the door. They didn’t speak as he walked her down the steps, as they made their way through the foyer and out over the front threshold.
He looked as if he might want to kiss her again. She knew if she let him do that, they’d end up back in his room, on his bed, in his bed.
She descended the porch steps.
“Isobel.”
She turned to look at him.
“Will you help me?”
There was only one rule of thumb she used to guide her actions. Not what other people thought, not what her friends might say, not even what her coworkers might do. It was something her mother and dad had taught her well. She always tried to do what was right. And helping Neil get to the bottom of the hospital’s problems seemed right.
“Yes,” she said softly.
Without looking at him again, without witnessing a desire in his eyes he couldn’t quite bank, without feeling the yearning for yet another kiss, she flipped up her kickstand, wheeled her bike to the sidewalk, hopped on and rode away.
The following afternoon, Isobel stopped by Peter’s office, curious as to why he wanted to see her.
“I suppose you didn’t eat lunch,” he began.
“I blocked off this time for you today. I’ll grab something later.”
“I know the hours you put in. Everyone here appreciates that.”
“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 operated 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.