chair on the other side of the desk was about to launch into a full-fledged recital of her family history. Being trapped here, listening to a long-winded recitation of who had what was the last thing he wanted. It was bad enough that she had brought the boy to the preliminary consultation. He didn’t need to see the boy until he’d made up his mind as to what was necessary. After all, it wasn’t as if he had X-ray vision to study the boy’s problem and, whatever he needed to know, the boy’s sister could tell him.
And tell him and tell him.
Peter held his hand up, visually stopping her before she could sufficiently warm up to her subject matter. “I don’t need to hear that.”
His sharp tone cut her dead.
Raven pressed her lips together. She was beginning to have serious doubts about Dr. DuCane’s recommendation. Dr. Peter Sullivan might very well be a wizard with a scalpel in his hand, but for Blue she required more. She required a doctor with something more than ice water in his veins. She wanted a surgeon with a passion for his work and a desire to save every patient he came across. She was beginning to think that Sullivan was not that surgeon.
“Why not?” she asked.
The simple question caught him up short. He wasn’t accustomed to being challenged professionally, not by patients or the relatives of patients. There was emotion in her voice, something he strove to keep out of his realm. He never had anything but crisp, clear, economic conversations with the people who entered one of his offices. They told him their problem, usually coming in with extensive scans and films, and he studied the odds of succeeding in the undertaking. He liked beating the odds. It was his way of shaking his fist at the universe.
It was the only time he felt alive.
She was still waiting. The woman honestly expected him to answer. He bit back an exasperated sigh. “Because in this case, it has nothing to do with what is wrong with the patient.”
He made it sound so sterile, so detached. Raven looked Dr. Sullivan in the eyes and corrected quietly, but firmly, “Blue.” She glanced at her brother. “He has a name.”
“And rather an odd one at that.” The words had escaped before he’d had a chance to suppress them. Trouble was, he wasn’t accustomed to censoring himself—because he rarely spoke at all.
Raven glanced at Blue. To her relief, the doctor’s words didn’t seem to affect him. She should have realized they wouldn’t. Like his parents before him, Blue was a blithe spirit, unaffected by the casual, small hurts that littered everyday lives. It was as if he examined a larger picture than that which everyone else saw. Twenty years her junior, Blue was very precious to her and, she vowed silently, if she had to move heaven and earth, she was going to find a surgeon who could help Blue. Really help.
In her opinion, that surgeon wasn’t Dr. Sullivan.
She raised her chin just a tad. Peter noticed for the first time the slightest hint of a cleft in it.
“We prefer to think of it as unusual—just like Blue is.” She reached across and took Blue’s small hand in hers. She closed her fingers around it. Peter got a sudden image of union and strength. Odd thing to think of when he was looking at a mere slip of a woman. “Well, Doctor, I think that you’ve told me all I really need to know.”
Obviously the woman was woefully uninformed. But then, this was his domain, not hers. “I don’t think so. There are CAT scans to arrange to be taken. I need to study those before I agree to do the surgery.”
He had no more emotion in his voice than if he was talking about deciding between which colors to have his office painted. She was right. This wasn’t the man for them. Centered, her mind made up, Raven smiled as she shook her head. “That won’t be necessary.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed. Feeling like someone whose turf was challenged, he told her, “I’ll decide what’s necessary.”
Her eyes never left his. “No,” she replied softly but firmly, “you won’t.” Rising to her feet, she closed her hand a little more tightly around her brother’s. “Thank you for your time, Doctor.”
It took a great deal of conscious effort on his part not to allow his mouth to drop open as she and her brother walked out of his office.
Astonishment ricocheted through him. He had just been rejected. The woman had rejected him. That had never happened to him before. Patients were always seeking him out because he was reputed to be one of the finest neurosurgeons in the country. And ever since he’d found himself without his family, there was nothing left to fill up his hours but his work.
Oh, he stopped by occasionally at Renee’s to see how she was doing, but that hardly counted. Renee had been, and in his opinion still was, his mother-in-law. By her very existence, she represented his only connection to Lisa and his past. Besides, he got along with the woman. She was like the mother he could never remember.
Neither he nor Lisa had any siblings. Only children born of only children. It made for a very small Christmas dinner table. Especially since his mother had died when he’d been very young and his father had passed away before he’d ever met Lisa.
He had promised Lisa that they would have a house full of kids. It was a promise he never got to keep.
As twilight crowded in around him, bringing with it a heightened sense of loss, he found himself driving not to the place where he slept night after night, but to the house that had once seemed so cheery to him. The house where he would see Lisa after putting in an inhuman amount of hours at the hospital. Because Lisa had been his bright spot. She had made him laugh no matter how dark his mood.
Now the laughter was gone, as was the brightness. He’d sold his own house shortly after the funeral and moved into a one-bedroom apartment. He didn’t require much in the way of living space and the memories within the house they had bought and decorated together had become too much to deal with. He preferred being in a position where he had to seek out the memories rather than have them invade his head every time he looked at anything related to Lisa’s or Becky’s life.
Peter pulled up in the small driveway and got out. Telling himself that he should be on his way home instead of bothering Renee, he still walked up to her front door. He stood there for a moment before he rang the bell.
Renee had given him a key to the house, but he never used it. He always rang the bell and on those rare times when she wasn’t home, he’d turn around and leave. The house where Lisa had grown up was too much to bear without someone there to act as a buffer.
Renee Baker answered the door before the sounds of the bell faded away. A tall, regal-looking woman with soft gray hair and gentle brown eyes, she greeted him warmly as she opened the door.
“I was hoping you’d stop by.” She paused to press a kiss on his cheek, then stood back as he crossed her threshold. “You look like hell, Pete.” She closed the door behind him. “Bad day?”
He let the warmth within the house permeate him a moment before answering. “There aren’t any good ones.”
The expression on Renee’s face told him that she knew better. “There are if you let them come, Pete.” She cocked her head, looking at him. “Did you eat?”
His reply was a half shrug and a mumbled, “Yeah.”
Because he wasn’t looking directly at her, Renee
