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always knew Ella would kick butt as a doctor. Seeing her in action was all the confirmation she needed. Ella was cool, composed and completely in control—all the things Anna couldn’t quite manage during her single year of med school.
Anna and Richard stepped aside to allow the team access to the elevator. Just before the doors slid closed, Anna’s gaze met her sister’s for only a millisecond.
Everything on the periphery seemed to fade, and for a moment Anna was ten years old again, snuggling in her sleeping bag in a tent in their big backyard next to her sister and best friend while the stars popped out, sharing secrets and popcorn and dreams.
Oh, Ella. I miss you so much, she wanted to whisper, but she could never say the words tangled in her throat, and in an instant, the doors closed and the moment was gone.
She fought back tears, praying her emotions wouldn’t betray her in front of Richard.
“Wow,” he said after a moment. “Hurricane Ella, as usual.”
“Right.” She didn’t trust herself to say more than that as a thousand different regrets pinched at her.
Their rift was largely her fault, one that had been widening for eight years since she left Walnut River, and it had become an unbreachable chasm these days.
If she had told Ella and their brothers about her job with NHC, her involvement in the merger might not have come as such a shock to the other Wilders. Instead, for two long years she had chosen the coward’s way, avoiding their questions when they asked about her work, offering them half-truths and evasions.
She had suspected exactly how they would react. She supposed that was the reason she had deceived them for so long.
“Not a good time for sisterly conversation, obviously.”
She wrenched her mind away from her guilt to Richard, who was watching her with entirely too much perception in his blue eyes.
She forced a smile past her aching heart. “Ella runs a mile a minute. She always has. When we were kids, she was always on the go. You remember what she was like.”
“I do. There was never a quiet moment with the two Wilder girls around.”
She forced another smile, though she had a feeling it was probably as transparent as it felt. She could only hope he didn’t see the hurt washing through her in fierce waves.
“You never asked your question,” he said.
She blinked at him. “Sorry. What question was that?”
“I don’t know. You said you wanted to ask me something and then we were sidetracked.”
She frowned, replaying their conversation of the past few minutes in her mind. Suddenly she remembered the direction of her thoughts and she could feel herself flush.
If not for the encounter with Ella, she might have made some laughing remark and changed the subject. But her emotions were too raw for equivocation and for some strange reason she decided to be blunt.
“I did ask you, but you didn’t give me a straight answer. I’m just wondering if it’s business or personal.”
“What?”
“The…hostility. Coolness, antipathy, whatever you want to call it. I’m just wondering if you’re angry because I work for NHC or if there’s something else behind it.”
A strange light flickered in his eyes for just an instant before his handsome features became a mask once more. He opened his mouth but before he could say anything, the elevator arrived.
Only after they stepped inside and he pushed the button to return to the main floor did he turn to answer her.
“I suppose a little of both,” he said. “We were friends. You said it yourself. And for one night, we were far more than that. I guess I’m trying to figure out how a woman I considered a friend could turn her back on her family and this town.”
I didn’t, she wanted to cry. But she was already so tired of defending herself and her choices to everyone in Walnut River. Didn’t anyone think it was possible—just maybe—that she might have the community’s best interests at heart?
Richard certainly didn’t. She could see the censure in his eyes. She couldn’t argue with him. That was the hell of it. He had the right to his opinions and she suspected nothing she said would convince him her motives were anything other than crass profit.
The elevator arrived at the main floor and the doors sprang open. He walked with her through the lobby, past the censorious eyes and out of the hospital.
She wanted to thank him for providing a buffer, but she couldn’t figure out just how to put the words together.
“I’m parked over there,” he pointed.
“Oh. I’m on the other side. I guess I’ll see you around, then.”
“Probably not. I was only filling in temporarily today in the meeting. My partner is usually the one at our firm who represents the hospital. He should be back on the job tomorrow.”
She should be relieved, she told herself. The prospect of spending more time with this prickly, distant Richard who had once been so very dear to her was not appealing.
“Well, in that case, it was…good to see you today.”
“Right,” he answered.
She walked to her car, wondering why she felt worse leaving the hospital than she had going in.
Chapter Three
Twenty minutes later, Anna walked into her duplex apartment and was instantly assaulted by a miniature dynamo.
Her dark mood instantly lifted as if dozens of sunbeams had followed her home.
“There’s my Lilli-girl.”
Her tiny dog gave one short yip of greeting then did a standing leap on all four legs, jumping almost to Anna’s knees. She laughed at the dog’s antics and bent to scoop Lilli into her arms, all five pounds of her.
“Did you have a good day, sweetheart? I hope those two big monsters didn’t run you ragged.”
Lilli—short for Lilliputian—yipped again and wriggled in her arms maneuvering so she could lick eagerly at Anna’s chin with her tiny sandpaper tongue.
Anna smiled and cuddled the dog closer. What a blessing this duplex had turned out to be, one of the few bright spots in her life since she had been ordered by the NHC CEO, Alfred Daly to come home to Walnut River to wrap up the hospital merger.
She hadn’t been able to find a single hotel in town that would allow pets, but then she’d stumbled on this furnished place near the river that would allow a temporary lease for the short time she expected to be in Walnut River.
The duplex itself wasn’t anything fancy, just bare bones lodging with little personality or style. But it had a good-sized backyard for Lilli to play in, and the landlady had two gentle yellow labradors who already adored her little Chihuahua-pug mix and kept her company all day.
Yeah, Anna was paying an arm and a leg above her per diem for the few weeks she expected to be here. But she figured it was worth it if she didn’t have to kennel Lilli during her time in Walnut River or confuse her with a temporary placement with one of her friends or coworkers back in Manhattan.
She adored the dog and had from the moment she heard her tiny whimpering squeaks from a Dumpster near her subway stop in the financial district. Anna had been on her way back uptown on a cold dank January evening after working late and only heard the puppy by a fluke when she had paused for a moment to fix a broken heel on her shoe.
Another night, she might have been in too big a rush to investigate the sound. But that night, something had sparked her curiosity and she had dug through the Dumpster until she found Lilli, bedraggled, flea-infested, half-starved. The tiny puppy had looked at her with