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  That had always been their plan. But now Ella and J.D. were getting married in a month and Anna wasn’t even sure she would receive an invitation.

  Especially not if she successfully carried out her objective of making this merger a reality.

  Her career or her family.

  A miserable choice.

  “You should talk to her,” J.D. said into the silence, with a sudden gentleness that made her want to cry again.

  “I wish this were something that a little conversation could fix,” she murmured. “I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”

  “You never know until you try,” he answered.

  She didn’t know how to answer him, and to her relief she was spared from having to try when the door opened.

  She looked up, expecting Walter with his coffee, then she felt her jaw sag as recognition filtered through.

  “Sorry I’m late, J.D. That traffic is a nightmare,” the newcomer said. He was tall and lean, with hair like sunlight shooting through gold flakes. His features were classically handsome—long lashes, a strong blade of a nose, a mouth that was firm and decisive.

  The eight years since she had seen Richard Green had definitely been kind to him. He had always been sexy, the sort of male women always looked twice at. When they were teenagers, he couldn’t seem to go anywhere without a horde of giggling girls around him, though he had barely seemed to notice them.

  Now there was an edge of danger about him, a lean, lithe strength she found compelling and seductive.

  J.D. rose and shook his hand. “I appreciate you filling in for Phil at the last minute.”

  “No problem.”

  The attorney looked over J.D.’s shoulder and she saw shock and disbelief flicker across the stunning blue eyes that had lost none of their punch even after eight years.

  “Anna!”

  In a different situation, she might have rushed to hug him but he was sending out a definite “back off” vibe.

  “You two know each other, obviously,” J.D. said.

  She managed to wrench her gaze away from Richard, wondering how she could possibly have forgotten his sheer masculine beauty—and how she ever could have walked away from it in the first place.

  The reminder of how things had ended between them sent a flicker of apprehension through her body. He looked less than thrilled to see her. Could this merger become any more complicated? Her family was fighting against her tooth and nail, the hospital administrator was marrying her sister in a month’s time, and she and the hospital attorney had a long and tangled history between them.

  How was she supposed to be focused and businesslike around Richard when she couldn’t help remembering exactly how that mouth had tasted?

  “Richard lived only a few blocks away from the house where we were raised,” she finally answered J.D., and was appalled to hear the husky note in her voice. She cleared her throat before continuing. “We went to school together and were...good friends.”

  * * *

  Friends? Is that what she called it?

  Richard listened to her with a mixture of anger and disbelief.

  He supposed it wasn’t strictly a lie. They had been friends through school. Both had been on similar academic tracks and had belonged to many of the same clubs and after-school organizations. Honor Club, Debate, Key Club. Even later when they went off to different universities, they had stayed in touch and had gotten together as often as possible with their other friends.

  Yeah, they had been friends. But there had been much more to it, as she damn well knew, unless she’d somehow managed to conveniently wipe from her memory something that had certainly seemed significant—earthshaking, even—at the time.

  What the hell was she doing here? Why hadn’t somebody—J.D. or Peter Wilder or Phil Crandall, his absent partner—warned him?

  He had heard from Peter and Ella that Anna was working for Northeastern HealthCare, their dreaded enemy. He just had never dreamed she would be a part of the conglomerate’s efforts to take over Walnut River General.

  She had changed. She used to wear her hair down, a long, luscious waterfall. Now it was tightly contained, pinned back in a sleek style that made her look cool and businesslike. Her features were just as beautiful, though some of the bright, hopeful innocence he remembered in the clear blue of her eyes had faded.

  How could she sit across the boardroom table, all cool and gorgeous like some kind of damn Viking princess, acting as if her very presence here wasn’t a betrayal of everything her family had done for this hospital and for this community?

  The depth of his bitterness both shocked and disconcerted him. What did it matter if the NHC executive was Anna Wilder or some other mindless drone they sent?

  Either way, the outcome would be the same.

  NHC was determined to purchase the hospital from a city council eager to unload it and a solid core of doctors and administrators was just as determined to prevent the deal.

  Richard numbered himself among them, even though he was here only in a fill-in capacity for his partner.

  Yeah, he had been crazy about Anna once, but it had been a long, long time ago.

  That fledgling relationship wasn’t significant in the slightest. It hadn’t been important enough to her to keep her in Walnut River and whatever might have been between them certainly had no bearing on the current takeover situation.

  “Shall we get started with the hearing?” he said icily.

  She blinked at his tone—and so did J.D., he noted with some discomfort.

  Richard had built a reputation as a cool-headed attorney who never let his personal feelings interfere with his legal responsibilities. He supposed there was a first time for everything.

  After a long awkward moment, Anna nodded.

  “By all means,” she replied, her voice matching his temperature for temperature.

  Chapter 2

  Two hours later, Richard understood exactly why Anna Wilder had been brought into this takeover.

  She was as cold as a blasted icicle and just as hard.

  While the NHC attorney had been present to vet the information offered by the hospital side, all of them recognized that Anna was truly the one in charge.

  She had been the one leading the discussion, asking the probing questions, never giving an inch as she dissected their answers.

  Richard had certainly held his own. Anna might be a tough and worthy opponent but he had one distinct advantage—he was absolutely determined to keep NHC from succeeding in its takeover efforts while he was still alive and kicking.

  “Thank you, everyone.” Anna stood and surveyed the men around the boardroom table with the sheer aplomb of a boxer standing over the battered and bloody body of an opponent.

  “We’ve covered a great deal of ground. I appreciate your forthrightness and the hospital’s compliance with the municipal council’s disclosure order. You’ve been very helpful. I’ll take this information back to my superiors and we can go from there.”

  Richard gritted his teeth. Until they could find a way out of it, the hospital administration had no choice but to comply with the municipal council’s strictures.

  For now, city council members controlled the purse strings and they appeared eager to escape the costly hospital business that had been a drain on taxpayers for years.

  Even the NHC contretemps a few weeks ago involving charges of corporate espionage hadn’t dissuaded them.

  The only bright spot in the entire takeover attempt was that the municipal council seemed genuinely committed to listening to the opinion of the hospital board of directors before making a final decision to move forward with the sale of the hospital to NHC.

  Right now, the board members were leaning only slightly against the sale, though he knew the slightest factor could tip that ultimate decision in either direction.

 
Who knows? Maybe the NHC bigwigs would take a look at the hospital’s tangled financial and personnel disclosures and decide another facility might be more lucrative.

  Though he was committed to doing all he could to block the sale, Richard was nothing if not realistic. He wasn’t even the hospital’s lead attorney, he was only filling in for his partner, who had called begging the favor only an hour before the meeting.

  Before he knew Anna Wilder was on board as the NHC deal-closer, he would have jumped at the chance to step up and handle the merger discussions. Seeing her at the board table with her sleek blond hair yanked ruthlessly into a bun and her brisk business suit and her painfully familiar blue eyes changed everything.

  He sighed as he gathered his laptop and papers and slipped them into his briefcase. He was zipping it closed when Anna managed to surprise him yet again, as she had been doing with depressing regularity since he walked into the boardroom.

  “Richard, may I speak with you for a moment?”

  He checked his watch, his mind on the very important person waiting for him. “I’m afraid I’m in a hurry,” he answered.

  “Please. This won’t take long.”

  After a moment, he nodded tersely, doing his best to ignore the curious glances from J.D. and the NHC attorney as they both left the room.

  Anna closed the door behind the two men and he was suddenly aware of the elegant shape of her fingers against the wood grain and the soft tendrils of hair escaping her pins to curl at the base of her neck.

  She had changed perfumes, he noted. In college she had worn something light and flowery that had always reminded him of a sunwarmed garden. Now her scent was slightly more bold—and a hell of a lot more sexy, he had to admit. It curled through the room, tugging at his insides with subtle insistency.

  She turned to face him and for an instant, he was blinded by the sheer vibrancy of her smile. “Richard, I know I didn’t say this before, but it’s really wonderful to see you again! I’ve wondered so many times how you were.”

  He found that hard to believe. She had to know where he was. If she had wondered so much, she could have found out as easily as sending a simple e-mail or making a phone call.

  “I’ve been fine. Busy.”

  Too busy to spend time mooning over the only woman who had ever rejected him, he wanted to add, but managed to refrain.

  He was an adult, after all, something he would do well to remember right about now.

  “Rumor has it you got married,” she said after a moment. “Any kids? I always thought you would make a wonderful father.”

  “Did you?”

  She either missed the bite in his tone or she chose to ignore it.

  “I did,” she answered. “You were always so great with the neighborhood children. I can remember more than a few impromptu baseball games with you right in the middle of the action. You didn’t care how old the players were or anything about their ability level. You just tried to make sure everyone had fun.”

  He was trying really hard to ignore the softness in her eyes and the warmth in her voice.

  She had walked away from everything he wanted to offer her, without looking back. He had a right to be a little bitter, eight years later.

  “So do you have any children?” she asked. She seemed genuinely interested, much to his surprise.

  “One,” he finally answered, not at all pleased with her line of questioning. He didn’t like being reminded of old, tired dreams and newer failures.

  “Boy or girl?”

  “Boy. He’s just turned five.”

  And he would be waiting impatiently for his father to pick him up if Richard didn’t wrap things up quickly and escape.

  “I do the best I can with him, especially since his mother and I aren’t together anymore. The marriage ended right after he was born. I have full custody.”

  He wasn’t sure why he added that. It wasn’t something he just blurted out to people. If they hadn’t been friends so long ago, he probably would have kept the information to himself.

  Shock flickered in the depths of her blue eyes. “Oh. I hadn’t heard that part. I’m so sorry, Richard.”

  He shrugged. “I’m sorry she’s chosen to not be part of Ethan’s life, but I’m not sorry about the divorce. It was one of those mistakes that make themselves painfully clear minutes after it’s too late to be easily fixed.”

  “That doesn’t make it hurt less, I would imagine,” she murmured softly.

  “No, it doesn’t,” he answered, his voice short. He regretted saying anything at all about Ethan and especially mentioning his failed marriage that still stung.

  He gripped his briefcase, desperate to escape this awkwardness, but her words stopped him before he could do anything but put his hand on the doorknob.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  He eased his hand away, flashing her a wry look. “You haven’t seemed to have any problem asking questions for the last two hours. You’re amazingly good at it.”

  “That was different. Business. This is...not.”

  For the first time since the meeting she seemed to reveal her nerves weren’t completely steel-coated. Wariness flickered in her eyes and she appeared to be gripping a file folder with inordinate force.

  He ought to just push past her and get the hell out of there but he couldn’t quite bring himself to move.

  Instead, he shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  “I just wondered about this...hostility I’m sensing from you.”

  Apparently he wasn’t as good at concealing his inner turmoil as he’d thought. “I’m sure you’re imagining things.”

  “I don’t think so,” she answered, her voice pitched low. “I’m not an idiot, Richard.”

  Abruptly, suddenly, he was furious with her, as angry as he’d ever been with anyone. She had no right to come back, dredging up all these feelings he had buried long ago. The rejection, the hurt, the loss.

  He had thrown his heart at her feet eight years ago. The hell of it was, he couldn’t even say she had stomped on it. That might have been easier to handle, if she had shown any kind of malice.

  But he supposed that would have been too much bother for her and would have required her to care a little. Instead, she had politely walked around it on her way out the door.

  And then she dared to stand here now and ask him why he wasn’t thrilled to see her!

  This wasn’t personal, he reminded himself. Or if some part of him couldn’t help making it so, he shouldn’t let everything between them become about their shared past. He couldn’t afford it, not in his temporary role as hospital counsel.

  “Why would I be hostile?” he said instead. “You’re only the point man—or woman, I guess—for a company trying to destroy this hospital and this community.”

  She blinked a little at his frontal assault, but it only took her seconds to recover. “Not true. I would have thought as an attorney you could look at this with a little more objectivity than...” Her voice trailed off.

  “Than who? Your family?”

  She sighed. “Yes. They won’t listen to reason. Peter and David think I’ve betrayed the family name and Ella...well, Ella’s not speaking to me at all.”

  He didn’t expect the sympathy that suddenly tugged at him, fast on the heels of his own anger. Her family had always been important to her. Sometimes he thought she placed too much importance on their opinions. She had always seemed painfully aware that she was adopted and struggled hard to find a place for herself among the medicine-mad Wilders.

  As a single child himself, he could only imagine what she must be feeling now—alienated by her siblings and bearing the brunt of their anger over her role in the NHC takeover attempt.

  On the other hand, he instinctively sided with her siblings in this situation, not Anna.

  He pushed away the wholly inappropri
ate urge to offer her comfort. “How did you expect them to react, Anna? This hospital is in their blood. Your family is basically the heart of Walnut River General. Everyone here knows that. And the soul, the essence, of this place is the sense of community—neighbors reaching out to help neighbors. That’s what has made this hospital such an integral component to the quality of life in Walnut River. No one likes to go to the hospital, but the ordeal is made a little easier here when you know you’ll be treated with respect and dignity, often by someone who has known you all your life.”

  She blinked with surprise. “Times change,” she answered. “The health-care industry is changing. Independent community hospitals just don’t have the competitive edge anymore.”

  “Nor should they. It’s not about making money. It’s about helping people heal.”

  “Exactly! And if Northeastern HealthCare can help them heal in a more efficient, cost-effective way and provide better access to cutting-edge procedures not currently available in this market, don’t you think that will be better for everyone in the long run?”

  “Will it?”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed. “Walnut River would be part of a powerful consortium of health-care providers. With that backing, the hospital can afford to bring in state-of-the-art equipment and the newest procedures. NHC is already talking about building a cancer treatment center so patients don’t have to drive twenty miles away for radiation treatment! And they’re talking about an entire renovation of the labor and delivery unit and an after-hours Instacare facility for parents who work during the day to bring their children to see a doctor....”

  Her voice trailed off and color brushed her cheeks like the first hint of autumn on the maple trees along the river. “I didn’t mean to ramble on. I’m afraid I get a little...passionate sometimes.”

  She obviously believed the NHC takeover would truly be best for the hospital. Richard had to admire her passion, even if he disagreed with it.

  “You certainly are free to believe what you want,” he said. “And I’ll do the same.”

  After a moment, she nodded. “Fair enough. But that doesn’t really answer my question.”