He was coming unglued.

She knew it, knew that it would be like this.

Knew the second she had seen the tall, dark, brooding doctor, and heard his voice.

Knew that there was trapped emotion within him that if she could only tap, would sweep her away.

And she needed to be swept away, needed to feel, just for a moment, as if every star in the universe was in the right place and that everything, everything would be all right.

Anything less was unthinkable.

The M.D.’s Surprise Family
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Gail Chasan,

with thanks and delight

MARIE FERRARELLA

This RITA® Award-winning author has written over one hundred and twenty books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

What’s Happening to the Bachelors of Blair Memorial?

Bachelor #1: Lukas Graywolf + Lydia Wakefield = Together Forever IN GRAYWOLF’S HANDS (SIM #1155)

Bachelor #2: Dr. Reese Bendenetti + London Merriweather = True Love M.D. MOST WANTED (SIM #1167)

Bachelor #3: Dr. Harrison MacKenzie + Nurse Jolene DeLuca = Matrimonial Bliss MAC’S BEDSIDE MANNER (SSE #1492)

Bachelor #4: Dr. Terrance McCall + Dr. Alix Ducane = Attached at the Hip UNDERCOVER M.D. (SIM #1191)

Bachelor #5: Dr. Peter Sullivan + Raven Songbird = ??? THE M.D.’s SURPRISE FAMILY (SSE #1653)

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

“Are you God?”

The soft, somewhat high-pitched voice punctured a tiny hole into his train of thought. Seated at his desk and studying a new AMA report regarding brain surgery techniques, Dr. Peter Sullivan looked up sharply. He wasn’t expecting anyone. This office was supposed to be his haven, his island away from the noise and traffic just outside his door.

His haven had been invaded.

A boy stood in his doorway. A small-boned, black-haired boy with bright blue eyes. The boy’s manner was woven out of not quite a sense of entitlement, but definitely out of a sense of confidence. He had on an Angels sweatshirt and a pair of jeans that looked baggy on his thin frame.

As the boy looked at him, his perfectly shaped eyebrows wiggled together in a puzzled expression as if, now that he’d asked the question, he had doubts about the assumption he’d made.

Served him right for not making sure his door was properly closed, Peter thought, annoyed at the intrusion. Beyond his door all manner of people wandered the halls of Blair Memorial, especially on the ground floor, where all the doctors’s offices were located. But traffic wasn’t supposed to leak into here.

He carefully marked his place, then gave his attention to the task of sending the boy on his way.

“Excuse me?” Peter knew his voice could be intimidating. To his surprise, the little boy looked unfazed. Peter didn’t feel like being friendly, especially not this morning. He’d heard that one of his patients hadn’t made it.

It wasn’t supposed to matter.

He purposely distanced himself from the people he operated on, thinking of them as merely recipients of his skills, almost like objects that needed repairing. To approach what he did in any other way was just too difficult for him.

And yet, Amanda Peterson’s death weighed heavily on him.

He’d learned of her passing by accident, not by inquiry, but that didn’t change the effect the news had had on him. He’d thought that he’d been properly anesthetized by the knowledge that there was only a two percent chance the woman would survive the surgery, much less the week.

Still, two percent was two percent. A number just large enough to attach the vague strands of hope around.

Damn it, why couldn’t he just divorce himself from his emotions? Why couldn’t he just not care anymore? Every time he thought he had that aspect of himself under control, something like this would happen and he’d feel that trickle of pain.

Rather than leave, the boy in his doorway crossed into his office, moving on the balls of his feet like a ballet dancer in training.

“Are you God?” he repeated, cocking his head as if that might help him get a clearer handle on the answer.

“No,” Peter said with the firm conviction of a neurosurgeon who’d just had God trump him on the operating table. The boy didn’t move. “What makes you ask?” Peter finally ventured.

The boy, who couldn’t have been more than about seven or eight, and a small seven or eight at that, pulled himself up to his full height and watched him with eyes that were old. “Because Raven told me that you can perform miracles.”

“Raven? Is that some imaginary friend?” His daughter Becky had had an imaginary friend. Seymour. She’d been adamant that he address Seymour by name whenever he’d spoken to the air beside her. There had even been a place for Seymour at the table. And she’d insisted that he say good-night to Seymour every evening after he’d read her a bedtime story, otherwise Becky would look at him with those big brown eyes of hers, waiting.

God, he’d give anything if he could say good-night to Seymour again.

“No,” the dark-haired boy told him patiently, “Raven’s my sister.”

“Well, your sister’s wrong.” He wondered if he was going to have to escort the boy to the hall. “I’m not God and I don’t do miracles.”

Because if he could have, if he could have just performed one miracle in his life, it would have been to save Lisa and Becky. He would have willingly and gladly given his own life to save them. But the trade hadn’t been his to make.

The small invader seemed unconvinced. “Raven’s never wrong.”

Peter snorted. Women never thought they were wrong, even short ones. Becky had been as headstrong as they came. He’d always laughed at what he called her “stubborn” face whenever she’d worn it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed.

“First time for everything, kid.” He nodded toward the doorway behind the boy. “Why don’t you go now and find her?”

The boy half turned. As if on cue, a woman came up to his doorway. A woman with long, shining blue-black hair and eyes the same intense color blue as the boy’s. She was of medium height, slender, with alabaster skin—the kind of woman that would have inspired one of the Grimm Brothers to pick up his pen and begin spinning a story about Snow White. The family resemblance was glaring.

As was the fact that the relieved-looking woman standing in his doorway was very possibly one of the most beautiful women ever created.

Even a man whose soul was dead could notice something like that, Peter thought vaguely.

She could have shaken him, Raven thought, her hands clasping her brother’s shoulders. He’d given her a scare. Again. “Blue, what did I tell you about wandering off?”

“You were talking to that nurse, looking for Dr. Sullivan,” Blue told her matter-of-factly. He gestured toward the man at the desk. “I found him for you.”

At seven, Blue had the reading level of a twelve-year-old. He had his father’s penchant for absorbing everything and his mother’s ability for optimistic interpretation.

Raven pressed her lips together. There was no arguing with Blue. Talking by the time he was a year old, Blue had been called precocious by her parents. He was their change-of-life miracle baby. Free-spirited, Rowena and Jon Songbird accepted everything that came their way, finding the very best in life and mining that vein until that was all there was.

They’d infused that talent, that view of life, within her ever since she could remember, but there were times when that ability was severely challenged.

Blue’s present situation challenged her optimism to the limit.

Raven placed her hand on the boy’s shoulder in a protective gesture. “I was asking that nurse directions to the office.”

“I know.” Blue looked up at her with a smile that took up half his face. “But I found him.”

It was more than apparent that he couldn’t see what the problem was. Couldn’t see why his sister would get upset if he went off on his own as long as he was undertaking the present mission at hand. The offspring of a neo-hippie couple, Blue marched to his own drummer and, at times, the tempo drove her crazy.

For a moment the duo seemed to be completely oblivious to Peter. Not that he minded, but he didn’t want it happening while they were taking up space within his office.

“Excuse me,” Peter interrupted the exchange. “But just why were you looking for me?”

The woman turned to give him just as radiant a smile as the boy with the improbable name of “Blue” had.

“I’m your ten o’clock appointment.” Lacing her arms around the boy she’d drawn closer in front of her, she amended, “We are your ten o’clock appointment.”

Peter glanced at his calendar. He didn’t have anything scheduled until his one o’clock surgery this afternoon. He raised his eyes to her face. “I’m sorry, but—”

Just then his phone buzzed, interrupting him. Peter yanked up the receiver and said, “Yes?” in less than a friendly tone.

“Oh, thank God you’re in.” The voice on the other end of the phone breathed a sigh of relief. The voice belonged to Diane, the chief administrator’s niece who, as the general secretary, was well-meaning but far less than perfect at her job. “Um, Dr. Sullivan, I think I forgot to let you know that you have a ten o’clock appointment this morning. Did they show up yet?”

“Yes, I’m looking at them right now.”

“Oh, good.”

“A matter of opinion,” he informed her tersely as he hung up. He didn’t like being caught unprepared.

“You weren’t expecting us?” Raven concluded.

“Not until this moment.” He looked at the boy she was holding in front of her. Children didn’t belong in this office. What went on here was far too serious for their childish voices and innocent demeanors. Besides, being around children painfully reminded him that he no longer had one of his own. “Madam, people who come to see me don’t usually bring their children—”

The smile she gave him had a very strange, almost tranquilizing effect on him. It seemed to effortlessly enter into every pore of his body like steam.

“He’s not my child, he’s my brother and, since this concerns him, I thought he should have the opportunity to meet you.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed. The appointment had been made without his knowledge and he certainly hadn’t said whether or not he was going to take the case. “I’m on review?”

She laughed. It was a light, breezy sound that made him think, for no apparent reason, of springtime and tiny green shoots on trees.

She glanced at her brother before answering. “I suppose, in a manner of speaking.” The woman indicated the two chairs in front of his desk. “May we?”

For the moment he had no choice but to incline his head. Blue scrambled right up into the chair closest to the desk. Facing him, Blue smiled up at Peter with his sister’s mouth, generous and friendly.

The young woman sat down. Rather than perch on the edge, the way he’d seen so many people in this office do, she slid back, making herself comfortable.

Almost succeeding in making him comfortable.

Peter had to pull himself back to recapture the edge he always felt, the edge that separated him from anyone who sat on the other side of the desk. The edge that kept him separate from everyone.

“I’ve heard you’re the best.” Raven paused for half a second, in case Dr. Sullivan wanted to pretend to be modest. But when no such pretense materialized, she continued, “But I also wanted to get a feel for you myself.”

“A ‘feel’ for me?”

He stared at her as if she were speaking another language, had descended from another planet. What was she talking about? What went on in this office and the operating room—if he agreed to undertake the surgery—had nothing to do with “feelings.” It had to do with facts, with the latest procedures and available technology.

She made him think of some latter day free spirit who had accidentally stepped across a rift in time. She certainly looked the part with her colorful clothing and her surfboard-straight hair.

“My parents taught me that you could tell a great deal about a person by the way they behaved both on their home territory and on yours.” And then she flashed a dazzling smile at him, as if she could read the thoughts running through his mind. “Don’t worry, I’m not inviting you to my house.”

“Look, Miss—” He stopped, looking to her to fill in the gap.

“Songbird,” Raven supplied. “But you might find it easier to call me Raven.”

Songbird. It figured. The woman was definitely as flighty as they came. She meandered around enough to imitate the flight pattern of a slightly dizzy bird.

“Miss Songbird, is there a point to this?” he asked impatiently, looking at his watch. He felt as if he was wasting precious time here and as he spoke, Peter began to rise from his chair. “Because if there isn’t, then I have got—”

The woman with the mesmerizing, almond-shaped eyes reached out and placed her hand on his, staying his exit. For half a second, immobilized by surprise, Peter left his hand beneath hers. The next moment he pulled his hand back, staring at her as if she were some kind of alien creature. He was willing to concede the point without debate.

“Sorry, still getting a feel for you. You are awfully tense. Are you operating soon?”

Not a retro-hippie, he decided, but a Gypsy. All that was missing was a tambourine and a colorful scarf around her head. She already had the bright outfit. “Just who are you?” He wanted to know.

“No,” she said as if he’d asked her another question entirely—or was about to, “I don’t believe in tarot cards, or fortune-telling, but there is such a thing as an aura and I can feel yours.” She felt it prudent not to tell him about her mother’s heritage. It might only served to spook him, or worse, to make him more cynical. “It’s very, very uptight. Brittle, you might say,” she added.

Beyond brittle, he thought. Damn close to broken. His aura, if there was such a thing, had long since been destroyed. Lisa and Becky had been his only reason for living and now they were gone. If he was alive, it was just because he’d been going through the motions for so long, he’d forgotten how to stop.

He looked from the boy to the woman. She’d come in with a manila envelope tucked under her arm. He assumed this visit had something to do with that. “Would you like to tell me why you’re here?”

“My brother’s pediatrician thought we should come to see you.” This time, she did slide forward on the seat, as if what she was saying made her uneasy and she wanted to say it quickly. “Blue has three tumors along his spinal cord. He needs to have them removed as soon as possible,” she recited as if she’d rehearsed the words for hours in her vanity mirror. “I have an X ray.” She laid the large manila envelope on his desk.

With a barely stifled impatient sigh, Peter took out the X ray she’d brought and looked at it. He was aware that the boy was leaning forward and had propped his chin on his fisted hands, staring at the same X ray.

“That’s my spinal cord,” he said as if he knew exactly what a spinal chord was. “Kind of messed up, isn’t it?”

Peter looked at Raven. “How old did you say he was?”

“I’m seven,” he said.

“Seven,” Peter repeated. The same age that Becky had been before… Before. He didn’t remember Becky sounding this old. “He doesn’t sound seven.”

“He was reading at three,” Raven told him proudly.

Peter nodded. “Impressive.” He turned his attention to the X ray.

It was the barest of introductions to the problem. He would need extensive films taken if he decided to undertake the surgery. But what he was looking at was enough to tell him that the boy’s pediatrician wasn’t mistaken. There were indeed tumors clustering at the base of the boy’s spinal cord.

“Your brother’s pediatrician is right,” he informed Raven crisply, sliding the X ray back into the manila envelope.

“Yes, I know.” She looked at him. “Dr. DuCane’s been Blue’s doctor ever since he was a week old and I trust her implicitly. That’s why we’re here.”

He looked from the boy to the woman. “What kind of a name is Blue?”

Blue grinned at Raven and launched into an explanation. “It was the color of the sky my mother was staring at when she gave birth to me in the field.”

Peter looked sharply at Blue’s sister. Had the boy’s mother gone into premature labor while they were out on the road? “‘In the field’?”

Raven pressed her lips together, obviously struggling with something. “My mother didn’t like hospitals. She said they always made her think about people dying.”

He noticed the grim set to the woman’s mouth, such contrast to the smile that had been there seconds ago. The change vaguely stirred a question in his mind, but he let it go. He didn’t indulge in personal questions, unless they had something to do with the outcome of the surgery. “Is that why she’s not here right now?”

“No.” Raven took a breath, as if that could somehow buffer the pain that assaulted her each time her mind turned to the subject. “She’s not here because she died in a car accident when Blue was two. Both of my parents died in the crash.”

She didn’t add that they, along with Blue, had been on their way to her college graduation. They’d gotten a late start because her mother had been finishing up a project that was due. In a hurry, they weren’t paying strict attention to the road. The highway patrolman told her that a trucker who had fallen asleep at the wheel had plowed right into them.

Blue, in the back seat, had miraculously managed to survive, but both of her parents had died instantly.

She saw an odd expression come over the doctor’s face. She was accustomed to looks of pity or sympathy. This was neither. “Is anything wrong, Doctor?”

The words “car accident” had instantly raised myriad thoughts in his head, bringing with it an unwanted image that he strove, every day of his life, to erase from his mind.

He’d been on the scene only minutes after it had taken place.

The surgery had run over and he’d been hurrying home to his family because he’d promised to be there early for once. Lisa and Becky were taking him out for his birthday. He’d had no idea that they had been on their way to the hospital to surprise him. Driving fast, with one eye out for the highway patrol, he’d passed an overturned car on the side of the road.

The scene was already behind him when the delayed recognition had hit him.

He didn’t know how many seconds had passed before he’d realized that the mangled blue Toyota hadn’t just resembled Lisa’s car, it was Lisa’s car.

He remembered praying as he’d spun his car around. Praying he was wrong. That someone else’s family was there, beneath the sheets, and not his.

It was the last prayer he remembered praying. Because the answer had been negative.

Peter blew out a breath slowly, shutting away the memory. Shutting away the pain.

“No,” he told her in a dead voice, “nothing’s wrong.”

Chapter Two

Peter frowned. He could tell the woman sitting in the 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 repositioned herself so that she could peer into his face. “What?”

This time the shrug employed both shoulders. “Something.”

She shook her head. The short laugh was a knowing one. “You didn’t eat.” Turning slowly on her heel, she led the way into her kitchen. “C’mon, I’ve got leftover pot roast.”

He knew better than to argue. So he followed her into the kitchen, because, for a little while, he needed her company. Because he felt as if every day he stood at a critical crossroads and he had no idea which way to go. Today was one of those days when he didn’t know why he even continued to place one foot in front of the other.

When his mood was darkest, he came to talk to Renee. And to remember a happier time.

Moving quickly for a woman who wrestled daily with the whimsy of rheumatoid arthritis, never knowing when she would be challenged and when she would receive the green light to move freely, Renee put out a plate of pot roast and small potatoes. His favorite meal, as she remembered.

Peter said nothing as she prepared the plate.

She gave him a look just before she went to retrieve a bottle of soda from the refrigerator.

“Am I going to have to drag the words out of you?” Then she laughed. “Why should tonight be any different than usual?” she speculated. Placing a glass in front of him, she looked down at Peter. “Talk to an old woman, Pete. Tell me about your day and why you’re here tonight instead of last night or tomorrow.”

She went to get a glass for herself when she heard him say, “I lost a patient today.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Renee crossed back to the table and helped herself to the bottle of soda. Her voice was filled with understanding. She’d told him more than once that it took a special person to do what he did, day after day, and not break down. “But it does happen. You’ve saved more than you’ve lost.”

Peter realized that she’d misunderstood him. “No, I don’t mean that way. I meant, I lost a patient,” he repeated between forkfuls of pot roast that melted on his tongue. “He walked out of my office. Actually, his sister took him away.”

Renee set down her glass. “Sister, huh? You probably scared her away.”

Not likely, not someone like the woman who’d been in his office this morning. “I don’t scare anyone.”

Like a mother studying her child, Renee took his face in her hand and pretended to scrutinize it carefully, just to be certain that she was right. “Not with your looks, Pete, but I have to tell you, you were definitely hiding behind a pillar the day they were teaching all about bedside manners.”

He shrugged as she withdrew her hand. “A surgeon doesn’t need a bedside manner.”

“Don’t you believe it. A lot of the times—and especially in the field you’re in, Pete—the surgeon is all that stands between the patient and the big sleep. Patients want to hang on to what you tell them. They want you to make them feel better even before they get wheeled into the operating room.”

He raised his eyes to hers. He thought she knew him better than that. “I don’t deal with giving out false hopes.”

Renee sat across from him at the table, nursing the glass of soda she’d just poured for herself. The expression on her face transcended conversation. “The mind is a very powerful tool, Peter. It can perform miracles at times.”

He had a great deal of respect for Renee, but her philosophy was completely alien to him. “If people could think themselves well, Renee, there’d be no reason for doctors.”

She leaned in closer as she spoke. “That’s not what I meant—exactly. But a patient needs all the help he can get—so does a doctor.” She looked at him pointedly. “Use what’s available. Make a patient think positive. It can’t hurt.” She smiled encouragingly at him. “What have you got to lose?”

He could give her the answer without thinking. “Time.” And giving a patient empty words was definitely wasting it.

Unfazed, Renee shrugged before she took another sip. “It goes by anyway. Might as well do something good with it.” Setting down her glass, she looked at his plate. The four slices she’d put there were gone, as were the tiny potatoes. She nodded at it. “See, I knew you were hungry.” She let her eyes travel down his upper torso. “Come by more often, Pete. You’re getting way too skinny.”

He hadn’t come here to talk about himself. Reversing the tables on her, he gazed at her for a long moment. Her health was a major concern to him. “You doing okay?”

Like someone uncomfortable with the subject matter, Renee shrugged dismissively. She’d once told him that the less she thought about the advancing arthritis that sought to conquer her, the better off she was.

“I’ve got my good days and my bad days, same as everyone else.” And then she flashed a smile. “This is a good day.” Renee glanced at the wheelchair that was tucked away in the corner in the family room. She used it when there was no way around it. But most of the time, she didn’t have to resort to it. “That’s always there, waiting for me.” And then she smiled at him, as if her point was made. “I just think myself out of it.”

Peter shook his head. The woman was incorrigible. Just like Lisa had been. Just like Becky had been on her way to becoming. “Whatever works.”

Leaning across the table, Renee covered his hand with hers. “That’s right. Whatever works. And positive thought works.”

He was glad she felt that philosophy worked for her, but it wasn’t the way for him. He sincerely doubted that he was capable of thinking positively. Not after the negative event that had traumatized in his life.

The floors smelled of antiseptic and something that had been sprayed to mask the scent. It succeeded only in becoming an annoying hybrid. But the smell would be gone by the time the daily hospital traffic began to weave its way through the halls.

It was early.

He liked the quiet, before the noises started. Normally he would just be heading to the hospital, but he’d arrived at Blair Memorial earlier than usual today. As happened with a fair amount of regularity, sleep had eluded him again last night. He’d spent it tossing and turning, find tiny islands of sleep and snatching them, only to wake up again soon afterward. By four he’d given up the fight.

He decided he might as well get an early start on the day. There was a surgery scheduled for nine this morning and he felt a need to review the CAT scans again. He knew the procedure cold, but he’d always felt that it never hurt to be overprepared.

It beat the hell out of being underprepared.

Preoccupied, he didn’t notice her at first. Whenever he was locked into his thoughts, he tended to have tunnel vision to the exclusion of the rest of the world.

But even so, the fact that there was someone sitting in the hallway right outside his office did register in the peripheral portion of his brain, that small space where he allowed life’s ordinary little happenings to huddle together.

As he fished out the keys from his pocket, Peter was vaguely aware that the figure rose from the chair. Swirls of color penetrated his consciousness and he glanced in the figure’s direction. And was not as surprised as he would have thought he should be.

It was the boy-with-the-funny-name’s sister.

She grinned at him broadly. He had the impression of standing beside an overly lit billboard. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he echoed only because she’d used the word. Looking around, he saw that she was alone. He’d half thought that if she turned up at all, she would bring reinforcements with her, not fly solo.

He put his key into the lock and turned it. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you,” she answered simply, succeeding in mystifying him further.

Not waiting for an invitation as he opened the door, Raven Songbird walked into his office.

He dropped his keys back into his pocket as he looked at her suspiciously. “Why?”

Her face was the picture of innocence. “Because I wanted to talk to you.” She’d been waiting for him to show up for almost twenty minutes. Alix DuCane, Blue’s pediatrician, had told her that the unfriendly neurosurgeon usually came in early and she’d wanted to catch him before his day got under way.

“There’s a handy thing called the telephone.” He glanced at the one on his desk for emphasis.

She’d thought about calling him, but had dismissed it. More than likely, she would have gotten his receptionist or the answering service. And she had a feeling that asking him to return the call would have fallen on deaf ears.

Raven told him a little of her philosophy. “I prefer talking to people face-to-face.” She could see that didn’t sit very well with him. “Are you always so unfriendly, or is it just me?”

“Yes and yes,” he answered tartly before asking a question of his own. “Are you always so ‘in your face’ with people?”

“Mostly.”

He wasn’t prepared for the smile. Or for the effect it seemed to have on him. Discreetly, he took a breath, as if that would help shield him from this small dynamo who was determined to invade his professional life. “So I haven’t been singled out?”

“Well, yes, you have,” she allowed, then quickly added, “but not for that. My doctor thinks I should give you a second chance.”

“Oh, he does, does he?”

“She,” Raven corrected, then supplied the doctor’s name. “Dr. Alix DuCane and, actually, she’s Blue’s doctor, not mine.”

He was familiar with the name if not the person. Ducane had been on staff at Blair Memorial for several years and was now head of pediatrics. She’d been here when he’d first arrived. Knowing what he did about the pediatrician, he was surprised that the woman hadn’t picked up the phone to call him about this.

“And just why did she recommend this generosity of spirit on your part?”

She’d never liked sarcasm. But this was for Blue, so she was going to put up with it. She would have been willing to put up with the devil himself for Blue and it was beginning to look as if she just might have to.

“Because Dr. DuCane thinks you really are the best.” She’d called the woman after her visit with Dr. Sullivan, not to complain but just to explain why she wasn’t about to take the pediatrician’s advice. Alix had prevailed upon her to rethink her decision and to give the doctor another chance. Alix had volunteered to provide the bedside manner herself if necessary.

It was time to get to the point. Since he’d begun operating, his patients had all been over the age of eighteen and he now preferred it that way. “I don’t do children.”

Unlike her late parents and her brother, Raven had a temper she usually kept under wraps. It was the one gene, according to her mother, that her maternal grandfather had contributed to the mix. Jeremiah Blackfeather had never been a mild-mannered man and there were times that Raven felt as if her late grandfather was channeling through her. “From what I see, you don’t do people, either, Dr. Sullivan. Just subjects.”

The slight show of temper surprised him. For some unknown reason, it also amused him, though he kept that to himself. “And you don’t approve.”

“I want my brother’s life to matter to you.”

“A good surgeon doesn’t get involved, Ms. Bird.”

“Songbird,” she corrected. Then, for emphasis, she added, “Like the clothes.”

Peter looked at her, puzzled for a moment, then something clicked into place inside his brain. Lisa had had a wildly colorful blouse she’d absolutely adored. She’d had it on the day she was killed. He’d given it to her on their first anniversary. He remembered the tag because it had been in the shape of a bird. A dove, Lisa had told him.

Peter raised an eyebrow. “Any connection?”

“My mother started the line.” She didn’t bother hiding her pride. There seemed to be no point to it. “Dad said they needed to live on more than love and Mom came up with a line of clothing that they sold to their friends. First few years, she worked out of an old VW bus that my dad turned into a work-room for her. Demands kept coming in and—” She stopped abruptly. She smiled at him. “You don’t want to hear about this.”

“I didn’t think I had a choice.” And then, for just a second, his expression softened as he thought of Lisa wearing the blouse for the first time. “My wife had a blouse made by your mother. Said it was her favorite thing in the whole world besides Becky—and me.”

“Becky,” she repeated. Curiosity got the better of her. “Your daughter?”

“Yes.”

“How old?” The doctor looked at her strangely. Wondering what she’d said wrong, Raven clarified, “Your daughter, how old is she now?”

“She isn’t any age now.” His tone was distant again, hollow. “My daughter died two years ago in a car accident. Along with her mother.”

That was why he’d looked at her like that yesterday when she’d mentioned the car accident that had claimed her parents. Of all the things they could have had in common, this was really awful, she thought. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

She’d placed her hand on his shoulder. Not wanting the contact, he moved his shoulder away. “Yes,” he said quietly, “So am I.”

Chapter Three

A little surprised at his reaction, Raven dropped her hand to her side. “You don’t like being touched, do you?”

“Not particularly.”

His tone was so frosty, a person could freeze to death. Raven began having second thoughts again. She wanted the best for Blue, but she was having trouble convincing herself that someone so removed could care more about the patient than he would gaining another cerebral rush.

“You know, I read somewhere that neurosurgeons believe they’re above God.”

Peter switched on his computer. The low hum told him it was going through its paces—just like the ones this woman was putting him through.

“Not above,” Peter corrected, “just working in tandem with.” He blew out a breath. He didn’t have time for this because he was due in surgery in an hour. “Look, I don’t think you came back here to check out my divinity, or lack thereof. Do you want me to consider taking your brother on as a patient or not?”

“No, I don’t want you to consider taking him on.” She saw the surgeon raise his eyebrows in surprise, so she drove home her point. “I want you to take him. Blue has an incredible zest for life. I’d like for him to be able to run through it, not restricted in any way.”

He was a realist, weighing the downside rather than the up. Whatever optimism he’d once possessed, the car accident had taken away from him. “That might not be possible.”

Raven refused to allow any negative thoughts to enter into this. She had to believe the surgery was going to be a success. Anything else was unthinkable.

“It will be possible, Dr. Sullivan, if you come on board.”

Just yesterday, he thought, she’d been skeptical, doubting not his ability but his heart. He wondered if he should tell her that he didn’t have one. “Despite my emotional distance?”

“After due consideration, I don’t think that’ll be a problem. You see, Blue likes you.” They’d talked about it last night and the boy seemed perfectly willing to put his fate in Sullivan’s hands. She placed a lot of stock in rapport. “If Blue likes you, you can’t help but like him back.” That, to her, was a given. She’d never met anyone who hadn’t warmed to the boy, usually instantly. “It’s a gift he got from my mother.”

“Whether I like him or not has nothing to do with the surgery.”

There was a knowing look in her eyes he found annoying. As if she was privy to some secret he wasn’t allow to know. “I disagree.”

Peter frowned as he typed in his password. She’d almost made him forget it. When was the last time that had happened? He was nothing if not organized.

“You’re free to disagree until the cows come home, that doesn’t alter the outcome.”

She laughed, a wave of nostalgia undulating over her. “Until the cows come home? I haven’t heard that expression since I was a little girl—and they really did come home.” She saw his eyebrows knit themselves together in a quizzical wavy line despite plainly visible efforts to resist curiosity. Maybe the man was a little more human than he liked to think. “We lived on a farm. My parents wanted the simple life.”

“Songbird, Inc. is a Fortune 500 company.”

“They wanted the simple life,” Raven repeated, emphasizing the crucial word, “but it kind of got complicated along the way.” Her parents had been wonderful people, taken much too soon. She wanted the whole world to know just how noble, how good they really were. Even this cynical man. “Not so they lost any of their initial values. They just had a lot bigger house to place those values in toward the end. My mother actually did sew every prototype, every new garment she created.”

He paused, trying to imagine the life the woman in his office must have led. It was probably something of a merger between latter day hippies and the captains of industry.

“What did your father add to this mix?”

“He played guitar while she sewed.” If she closed her eyes, she could almost see him. Sitting by the white stone fireplace, playing one of the songs he’d written while her mother worked on a loom, creating the fabric that would eventually find itself fashioned into a dress or a blouse or a scarf.

Nobody lived like that, he thought. Raven Songbird probably gleaned the scenario from some afternoon movie written for TV. One in which the woman worked while the man sat noodling around on some instrument or other. “Very productive.”

There was that cynical tone again. Hadn’t this man ever had a good day in his life? “Actually, it inspired her.”

Peter heard the defensive note in Raven’s voice. He realized it probably sounded as if he was criticizing her family. She had enough to deal with. “That wasn’t meant to be critical.”

“Yes it was,” she contradicted, then followed with an absolving smile. “But you can’t help that. You’re from a whole different world.” Considering what he did for a living, he probably had no idea what “mellowing out” meant. “There’s a great deal of pressure involved in working toward becoming a doctor.”

“There’s a great deal of pressure once you become one, too.” Peter stopped abruptly. He had no idea why he’d added that or why he’d shared a single feeling with this diminutive woman who somehow still managed to come across as slightly larger than life.

Needing a diversion, if only for a second, he punched in several letters on the keyboard. His schedule for the next two months appeared on the screen. He scanned it. It was more than full. Work, although not his salvation, kept him from dwelling on his loss and the way his days and evenings felt so hollow. And the times when a fourteen-hour day wasn’t enough to fill that hole, several times a year he volunteered his services to Doctors Without Borders, a nonprofit organization that provided free medical care to the poor of the world.

As it stood right now, there was hardly enough room on his schedule to fit in a breath, much less another challenging surgery. He glanced up from the monitor. By all rights, he should turn Raven Songbird away. Give her and her vivacious personality a referral.

But as he began to frame the words, he made the mistake of looking at her. Specifically, at her eyes. There was something eloquent and tender within the blue orbs, not just the humor with which she peppered her words, but something more. Something that made him feel that if he turned her and her brother away, he would be guilty of an unspeakable crime.

Peter was far more surprised than she was to hear himself say, “Why don’t you bring Blue back tomorrow morning and we’ll see about getting back on the right footing.”

He watched, mesmerized as the smile on her face blossomed until he felt as if it spread to him, as well.

“What time?”

He had consultations lined up back to back both at the hospital and in his private office across the street from Blair. The two open three-hour blocks had surgeries packed into them. There wasn’t even time for lunch. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d eaten in snatches, between patients. “How does seven in the morning sound?”

“Early.”

He sighed, thinking, looking for an alternative. His last surgery was at five. If all went well, it would end at eight. “There’s nothing open until—”

She didn’t let him finish. Her bright smile cut through his words before he could get them all out. “Early’s good,” she assured him. “I’m usually up at five. Blue doesn’t sleep in much later than that.”

“Five?”

“Five.”

“Voluntarily?” He tried not to stare at her mouth. The smile made it difficult not to.

She nodded. “It’s a holdover from living on the farm. You had to be up early to take care of chores before school started.”

He shook his head and laughed, realizing that for the first time in weeks, he was actually amused by something. “This is beginning to sound like pages from Little House on the Prairie.”

Raven’s laugh echoed in the wake of his. He found himself liking the sound a little more each time he heard it. He usually wasn’t aware of laughter, because he usually wasn’t aware of any kind of happiness, other than when he told members of a family that the patient would pull through. Ordinarily, he left that sort of thing up to whoever was assisting him. The less personal contact he had with people, the better. It was just too much of an effort otherwise.

But this bird-woman left him no choice. He didn’t like not having a choice.

“At times,” she was saying to him, “it felt a little like that, too.”

He found himself staring at her, at her mouth when she laughed, at her eyes when she looked at him. With effort, he reined himself in and focused on what they both needed him to be: Blue’s surgeon, nothing else.

And as such, there were procedures he needed to outline for her, things that had to be done before a prognosis.

“Before I see your brother tomorrow, I’m going to need those scans I mentioned yesterday.” Opening a drawer, Peter frowned. He didn’t find what he expected. Annoyed, and doing a bad job of disguising it, he played hide-and-seek with two more drawers before locating the hospital order forms in a fourth. He pulled one off the top and began writing instructions across the bottom. He signed his name with a flourish, then slowly printed the boy’s name in the space at the top.

“Take this to Imaging on the first floor,” he told her as he wrote.

“Don’t I need an appointment?”

“You’ll have one by the time you get there,” he assured her. “Ten o’clock, all right?”

She was surprised that Sullivan was actually asking rather than ordering. Blue was in school right now, but she could easily get him out. That gave her more than an hour to get back.

“Ten’ll be terrific.”

“All right.” Finished, he put down his pen. “Just present this when you get there.” He held out the form to her.

Taking it, Raven squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Doctor. You’re not going to regret this.”

He already was, he thought, as he watched her leave the office.

The boy looked smaller to him this time.

Sitting in the chair that he had occupied a little more than a day ago, Blue Songbird seemed to have mysteriously gotten smaller. Or the chair had somehow gotten larger.

Or maybe it was the gravity of what he had seen on the scan that was affecting the way he viewed the boy, Peter thought, making him seem so vulnerable.

Calling the Imaging department as soon as the boy’s sister had left his office yesterday, he’d told the woman on the other end of the line to put a rush on the procedure. Because of his standing in the medical community, not to mention Blair Memorial itself, the receptionist knew better than to offer even a single word of protest or to point to the fact that they were already overbooked, overworked and understaffed for the amount of scans and films they had to take and review.

Instead she’d offered a pleasant, “Yes, Doctor,” and promised to do her best. He’d ended the conversation by telling her he certainly hoped so.

As he’d hung up, he could almost hear the woman cowering. A tinge of guilt pricked him before he’d blocked it. He was not in the business of making friends, he was in the business of extending lives, of making them more tolerable for people who, through no fault of their own, were faced with intolerable alternatives. Everyone had a purpose in life, and healing was his.

As he looked over his shoulder at the backlit display on the wall and the CAT scan held in place with metal clips, he remembered why he didn’t, as a general rule, operate on children. Because as impervious as he tried to make his heart to the life-and-death situations he dealt with, the plight of someone so young faced with something so devastating got to him.

As if reading his mind, the small boy in the large chair smiled brightly at him. It seemed as if he was somehow trying to convey the thought that the situation was not as dire as it appeared. That everything would be all right if he just had a little faith.

It was entirely unfounded optimism. Peter knew that he lived in a world where everything that could go wrong did go wrong. And, more likely than not, with heavy consequences.

Peter suppressed a sigh he felt to the very bottom of the soles of his feet. A kid of seven wasn’t supposed to be faced with things like this. He was supposed to be able to run, to laugh and to feel immortal.

Like Becky.

Peter banked down the thought before it could go any further. He shifted his eyes toward Raven. She was unusually quiet for a woman who had verbally accosted him not once but twice. What they had to talk about was not meant for a child’s ears. “Are you sure you want him here?”

Blue answered before his sister had a chance to. He answered with the voice and attitude of a young adult who had always been allowed to think freely, who felt that his thoughts mattered as much, not more, not less, than the next person’s. That person usually being Raven. “It’s my body.”

Strange, strange family, Peter thought with a resigned shrug. He looked at Raven again.

“As we’ve already determined, Dr. DuCane was right. There are tumors on your brother’s spinal column. Initially it looked like a cluster, but in actually there seem to be four. Four small tumors.”

“That doesn’t sound like so many,” Blue offered.

One was too many if it was the wrong kind or in the wrong place. And, in this case, it might be both. Tests would have to be done on the actual tissues before they could discover if the tumors were malignant or not. In his experience, Peter thought grimly, given their location, they usually turned out to be the former. If nothing was done and the tumors were left where they were, it was only a matter of time before they would grow larger and eventually paralyze this boy who had life pulsing from every pore.

Well, there you had it. He did have tumors, Raven thought. Her fingers and toes felt numb. All this time, she’d been secretly holding her breath, praying that there’d been some mistake, that the initial X ray that Dr. DuCane had authorized was erroneous, that the pains in his back were nothing more than just good, old-fashioned growing pains.

But deep down she’d known it wasn’t a mistake. That there was something very, very wrong with this perfect little boy.

Raven felt the sting of tears and instantly forced them away. She wasn’t about to cry in front of Blue. If she was anything other than upbeat, he would sense it and it would make him worry. Worse, it would make him afraid. There was no way she was going to allow that to happen. He had to feel that this was just something he had to go through and that, at the end, he would be perfect again.

Just as he’d always been.

Peter glanced toward the boy’s sister. For a second he thought he saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes. But in the next moment that smile of hers was fixed in place and she was nothing short of confidence personified.

He only wished he felt half that confident.

Raven took a deep breath. “So, Dr. Sullivan, when can you operate?”

“You understand that the operation is extremely delicate?” he said.

If successful, the boy would heal faster than an adult, but there would still probably be therapy, still a painful recovery period to face. And that was if everything went right. There were no guarantees. A great deal could go wrong that was beyond anyone’s control. He knew that better than anyone.

Raven nodded. She placed her hand over Blue’s and gave it a squeeze along with an encouraging smile. She kept her voice cheerful. “That’s why we came to you.”

“Yeah.”

Peter turned his chair around, looking at the CAT scan. Thinking. As with a great many neurological problems, time was of the essence, but they did have a little leeway. He wanted Raven to use that leeway to carefully think things over before she gave him the okay to go ahead.

This wasn’t the kind of dilemma a boy of seven should be privy to, even if it was his body. Turning his chair back around, he looked at Blue. “I’d like to talk to your sister alone.”

Rather than being upset, Blue looked resigned. “Whatever you tell Raven, she’s only going to tell me later.”

“That’s up to her.” And undoubtedly, the woman could couch this a great deal better than anything he could say to the boy. He’d lost the knack of talking to children, not that he’d really ever had it. It was just that Becky had talked to his heart and that was how he communicated with her.

“Okay.” Blue rose and crossed to the doorway.

“Wait for me in the hall,” Raven told him. After Blue let himself out and closed the door behind him, she looked at the surgeon expectantly. She supposed it was better this way, after all. Dr. Sullivan might say something to make Blue feel that the surgery wouldn’t go well. “All right, we’re alone. What is it you want to tell me?”

Without the boy to listen, Peter felt less restrained. “Are you aware of the risks involved?”

“I think I am. I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on ever since Dr. DuCane told me what she suspected.”

He didn’t bother mincing words. “If I operate, he might still become paralyzed.”

“If you don’t, he definitely will.”

Like the rest of his body structure, the boy’s spinal cord would be small, delicate. Peter had the hands of a skilled surgeon, but he didn’t like taking chances if he could help it. “There’s a small chance—”

She knew what he was about to say. Raven shook her head. “Too small to take. I believe in meeting problems head-on instead of hiding from them.”

“There’s also the fact that the tumors might be malignant—”

Her eyes met his. She could feel the air backing up in her lungs again. “Yes?”

“If that’s the case, the operation might cause the malignancy to spread—”

“Let sleeping dogs lie, is that it?” She smiled, shaking her head. She wasn’t about to place her head in the sand and hope for the best. She had to tackle this and then hope for the best. “It might spread anyway—if it’s malignant and there’s no proof that it is,” she informed him with feeling.

He’d found that when emotions were involved, the right decision was not always made. It was best to make decisions after the heat had left and things had cooled off. “Ms. Songbird, I want you to think about this—”

“My name is Raven,” she told him, “And I have thought about it.”

He sincerely doubted it. He heard the passion in her voice, the urgency. He didn’t want her making a final decision like that. “Think about it some more,” he countered. “We have a small window of time. Use it.”

She blew out a breath, trying not to sound as impatient as she felt. God, why weren’t her parents here? She needed someone to lean on. “How long am I supposed to look through this window?”

Now she was being rational. “At least twelve hours, twenty-four would be better.”

Raven nodded her head. “All right,” she told him even though she already knew what the decision was going to be.

Chapter Four

“What did I ever do to deserve you?” Renee smiled warmly at her son-in-law. Then, grasping the wheels of the wheelchair she’d been forced to use today, Renee scooted herself back from the front door.

“You had Lisa.”

Peter entered, his arms full of the groceries he’d stopped to pick up. He’d called her earlier to see if he’d left his jacket at her house the other night. It had been an excuse to talk to the one person who made him feel comfortable, the one person he didn’t feel he had to keep his guard up around. The tired note in Renee’s voice had alerted him. He knew that this was one of her bad days.

Being Peter, he’d asked about it. She’d been slow to confirm his suspicions. Further pushing on his part had informed him that she hadn’t been able to get out of the house to go to the store. He’d volunteered to go for her, picking up the few things she’d admitted that she needed.

Peter made his way to the kitchen and placed the three grocery bags on the counter. Without waiting for Renee to say anything, he began to unpack them. He knew his way around her kitchen as well as she did.

“Have you taken the anti-inflammatory medication I prescribed for you?” he asked casually.

Renee came to a stop directly behind him. She’d gotten far better at managing her wheelchair around corners than she was happy about. But she’d resigned herself to the necessary evil.

“No.”

He looked at his mother-in-law over his shoulder, noting that she avoided eye contact. “Have you even bothered to have it filled?”

“I will, I will,” Renee assured him, and then she sighed. “It’s just that I don’t like being foggy.”

He gave her a look. They both knew she was just being stubborn. “It won’t make you foggy.”

Renee waved her hand dismissively. “They all make me foggy, or nauseous or something.” With another resigned sigh, she said to him what she always said at times like this. “It’ll pass, it always does.” And then she smiled. “But thanks for worrying.”

He mumbled something unintelligible as he got back to unpacking and storing. “You know that patient I told you I lost?”

Immediate interest entered her eyes. He knew she liked something to chew on. “The one who walked out with her brother because of your less than warm-and-toasty bedside manner?” He nodded in response. “Did she have a change of heart?”

Heart, that was the word that best suited Raven Songbird, he thought. She displayed a great deal of it in every word she uttered. “She showed up at the hospital yesterday, said she’d changed her mind.”

Placing the carton of milk on her lap, Renee propelled herself to the refrigerator to put the item away. “Guess she knows quality when she sees it, even if you have to make a cactus seem warm and cuddly sometimes.”

It felt as if he fought a two-front war. “It’s not my job to coddle them,” he reminded her.

The look Renee gave him showed she was completely unconvinced. “Well, there we disagree. Sometimes that is part of the job.”

Peter paused, shaking his head. “That’s what she said.”

Approval shone in her hazel eyes. “Smart cookie. What’s her name?”

Peter had to think for a second. He’d never been very good with names. “Raven,” he finally said. “Raven Songbird.”

The second half gallon of milk on her lap, Renee paused in midroll to look at him with something akin to surprise and awe. “Like the clothes?”

He nodded. “Exactly like the clothes.” He figured Renee might get a kick out of it. After all, the woman could have been a contemporary of hers. “Her mother started the company.”

Slipping the milk onto the shelf, Renee closed the refrigerator door again. “Well, I guess she can afford the best—and you are.”

It was no secret that he didn’t come cheap. His fee was right at the top of his field, but then, the amounts that he charged enabled him to do his volunteer work for Doctors Without Borders. The fees he collected from his wealthier clients help to fund the operations that he performed on the devastated citizens of Third World countries. In so doing, he wound up bringing hope to the hopeless. Given that he felt no hope himself, he was struck by the irony of the situation.

Peter paused to kiss the top of his mother-in-law’s silver head. “Flattery will get you everywhere,” he told her with a smile.

“Oh, good.” She said the words with such feeling, he stopped folding the paper bags and looked at her. “Because I have something to tell you.”

Putting the empty bags on the side of the table, he pulled a chair to him, straddled it and looked at her across the table. “Okay, what?”

Renee took a deep breath. It wasn’t a subject she was looking forward to, only one that she knew needed broaching. Until now, she’d allowed him to have his bleeding heart. But she knew her daughter wouldn’t have wanted him to continue grieving this way, not for this long. There was no easy way to begin. “It’s been more than two years since Lisa and Becky were taken.”

Peter could feel himself tensing as he looked at her warily. “Yes?”

Renee reached across the table and touched his hand. “And I think it’s time you moved on.”

“Moved on? Moved on how?” He knew exactly how she meant, but he wasn’t about to give in to that. “I’m working.”

Renee left her hand where it was, feeling that her son-in-law needed the human contact. “Yes, I know, but I think that you should do more than work.”

Peter shrugged as he glanced away. “There’s not enough time—”

She watched him pointedly, remembering another Peter. A happier Peter. She missed him. And she had a feeling that Peter missed him, as well. “There was when you were married.”

“There was a reason to have time when I was married,” he informed her flatly.

Because he understood what Renee was attempting to do, he forced a smile to his lips. The woman’s heart was in the right place, if a little off kilter. “I have my work and I have you, Renee.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it in the courtly fashion he knew she loved. “That’s enough for me.”

Renee was not about to be dissuaded. “It shouldn’t be. Not that I’m undermining what you do,” she was quick to explain. “Your work is very, very important. You perform miracles. But I am a poor substitute for what you really need.” And she knew that he couldn’t fight her on that score.

He truly loved Lisa’s mother. She was the mother he had never known as a boy, so he humored her where he wouldn’t anyone else. “And what is it that I need?”

Renee set her mouth firmly. “Female companionship.”

He gestured toward her. “In case you missed it, you’re a female, Renee.”

She snorted at the weak attempt to deflect her focus. “I’m old enough to be your mother.”

His smile was broad as he took her hand in his. “I like older women.”

Renee pulled her hand away, giving him a stern, motherly look. “Peter—”

“Don’t,” he warned her quietly. He saw compassion enter her eyes. “Maybe someday I’ll be ready.” Although he sincerely doubted it. “But right now, this is all I can manage.” In a rare, unguarded moment of honesty, he admitted to her what he barely admitted to himself. “I’m lucky to be sane.” And then he shrugged off the moment. “I didn’t exactly have a thriving social life before Lisa, so this is business as usual for me.” Peter took his mother-in-law’s hand in his. “I know you mean well, Renee, but this is something that’ll work itself out.”

Renee closed her hand over both of his. “Don’t hide from life, Pete,” she told him. “You have far too much to offer—and so does life,” she added pointedly. Then, she withdrew her hands and looked at him through the eyes of a mother. “Now then, have you eaten?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “I didn’t come here for you to feed me, Renee.”

“Well, you’re not leaving until I see you have something.” She pulled away from the table, pivoting the wheelchair so that she could access the refrigerator. “It’s the least I can do.”

Peter rose to his feet. He hated seeing her relegated to that chair. “No,” he contradicted, “the least you can do is let me get that prescription filled for you.”

She turned from the refrigerator and sighed, surrendering. “I guess one of us has to stop being stubborn first.”

He grinned back. “Guess so.”

With a resigned nod of her head, Renee propelled herself over to the drawer beside the sink where she kept all the miscellaneous things that she had no given place for. Opening it, she riffled through myriad papers and odds and ends until she found the prescription he had written for her. It was dated several weeks ago and was for a brand-new anti-inflammatory drug that had hit the market.

She held the paper out to him. He knew which pharmacy she frequented. “Go—” she waved Peter on his way “—fill it.”

Triumphant, he gave her a knowing smile. “Thought you’d never ask.”

“By the way,” she called after him. On his way to the front door, he turned to look at her. “Before I forget, next time you see the Songbird girl, see if you can get a scarf for me.” Her face softened and she looked like a young girl, he thought, not an older woman imprisoned in a wheelchair. “I always loved their colors.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised before heading out.

The phone was ringing by the time he walked into his apartment later that evening. An emergency? he wondered. Undoubtedly it was his answering service. He’d just left the only person who would have called him privately. After Lisa and Becky had died, people didn’t know what to say to him and he had no idea how to field their pity. Eventually, all the friends he and Lisa had had together drifted out of his life.

Pushing the door closed behind him, he quickly crossed to the kitchen where the phone hung on the wall and picked up the receiver.

“Sullivan.”

“You don’t keep banker’s hours, do you?”

He knew it was her. Even though he’d never spoken to Raven on the telephone before, he could tell it was her. The sound of her voice over the line was a little deeper than it was in person, a little like brandy at room temperature, swishing along the sides of a glass. But it was unmistakable.