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“Okay.” He stretched out his legs and rested his hands on his abdomen. He didn’t need to be at Peter’s cocktail party for a while. “I’ll keep you company.”
Courtney looked puzzled. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
That made two of them. “Does it matter?”
“It kind of does in my world.” She stared at him. “I haven’t known many people who gave to others without having a personal agenda. Your father was one.”
“What did he give you?”
“My job in the gift shop for one thing. I needed it badly and somehow he knew that. He sort of took Janie and me under his wing and watched out for us. Never once did he ask for anything in return.”
But he’d been on the receiving end of his father’s dark side. Everybody had one, even James Wilder.
“Hell of a guy,” David said.
“That he was. You look a lot like him,” Courtney observed.
“Is that a compliment?”
“Maybe. Mostly just stating a fact. But you’re very different from him.”
“Another fact?”
“Just an observation.”
“Based on what?” he asked.
“Based on the fact that your father went out of his way to befriend a stranger.”
“And?”
“What makes you think there’s an ‘and’?”
“Don’t ever try to bluff in a poker game, Court. Your feelings are all over your face,” he said. He should know. Faces were his bread and butter.
“Okay. Remember you asked. I can’t imagine your father going long periods of time without visiting his family.”
“Unless they screwed with his moral code,” David snapped. She was right. He shouldn’t have asked.
“So your father disapproved of something you did?” she guessed.
His father had disapproved of almost everything he did. “Didn’t he tell you I was Walnut River’s resident bad boy?”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Every time I rode my motorcycle through town people said there goes that Wilder boy, living up to his name again.” When he looked over at her she was smiling, which somehow took the sting out of the memories.
“You had a motorcycle?”
“I paid for it myself.”
“So you and your father had issues?” she asked.
“My father said I needed my head examined and if I insisted on riding the bike it was only a question of time until it happened.”
“Want to talk about the deeper issues?” she asked.
“You want to talk about your husband?” he shot back.
“Not especially.”
“Me either,” he agreed.
She was quiet for several moments before saying, “It just seems to me that whatever you did must have been pretty bad to cut yourself off from family.”
“So you’re an expert on family matters?”
“Hardly.” She shook her head. “I never had one, which is why it strikes me as so incredibly sad that you’d ignore a perfectly good one.”
“Have you ever heard that saying—don’t judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes?”
“Yes. And I stand by what I said.”
“Meaning you don’t think much of me.”
“Look, I don’t mean to be an ungrateful witch. And my opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it—”
“But?”
“I knew your father and the distance between you must have hurt him a lot.”
“Distance goes both ways,” he shot back, knowing it was lame and childish.
But the anger was gone as quickly as it ignited. Not reaching out was one more transgression in a long list. David had always thought there would be time to make things right. Even if Courtney had a point, which he wasn’t saying she did, there was no way to fix it now. His father was dead and any chance of rectifying the past had died with him.
Speaking of death, she was a widow and obviously understood losing someone—even someone she had issues with. But the man had died in service to his country. Either her standards were a tad high or she had just cause. He found himself curious when he didn’t want to be interested in anything about Courtney Albright.
What he’d done had violated more than his father’s moral code. And he’d done it because he was desperately in love with a woman who needed him. He’d thought they loved enough to do anything for each other. But that woman was only thinking about herself when she used him. He had a hunch Courtney was in desperate need, which made trusting her a no-brainer. But he couldn’t resist wanting to help her either. Over time he’d learned how to help without getting emotionally involved, but that was a dangerous slope and already his hold was slipping.
That was why he needed to get on a plane back to L.A. as soon as possible.
Chapter Three
In the bathroom down the hall from the pediatric ICU, Courtney pulled on the blue scrubs the nurses had found for her and tugged the waistband tight. She wouldn’t win any fashion awards, but at least they were clean. It felt good to wash the accident off. Then she glanced in the mirror and nearly shrieked.
Her hair was drying naturally and without a blow dryer the effect wasn’t pretty. There were bruises on her forehead and the ones on her cheekbone could be an extension of the dark circles under her eyes, a by-product of not sleeping the night before. Catnaps in the chair beside Janie’s bed didn’t count, but there was no way she would abandon her child. It had taken a lot of persuasion and the threat of physical intervention for the nurses to talk her into leaving long enough to clean up.
As she walked down the hall alone, preparing to deal with whatever came along today, she remembered how good David’s company had felt until he’d excused himself for a cocktail party hosted by his brother Peter following the rededication of the hospital library to their father. But that was yesterday. Today was situation normal—her and Janie against the world.
When she walked into her daughter’s room, she stopped short. Correction: Janie wasn’t alone. David was there, looking far too good in his worn jeans and black body-hugging T-shirt. It made him look every inch the bad boy he’d said he used to be. The leather jacket was draped across the back of the chair she’d slept in last night.
Her heart stuttered, sputtered, then shifted into high gear as a wave of warmth swelled through her and settled in her cheeks. He looked like a movie star and she looked like a really unfortunate “before” picture. Courtney knew it was bad to care about how she looked to him and worse to be so ridiculously happy that he was here. Bad to worse didn’t change the fact that both were true.
Her daughter waved and pointed to the biggie-sized cup bearing the logo from Buns ’n’ Burgers that he was holding.
“I’m so happy to see you eating something.” She walked over to the bed and kissed Janie’s forehead then checked out the contents of the cup. All evidence pointed to the fact that it was a vanilla milkshake. “Wow, sweetie, your favorite. Where did you get that?”
“Buns ’n’ Burgers,” David said.
She slid him a wry look. “Let me rephrase. Buns ’n’ Burgers isn’t a delivery kind of place. How did it get here? Did one of the nurses bring it?”
Janie shook her head and pointed to David.
He shrugged. “When I called for a progress report, her nurse said she wasn’t eating. So I took the liberty—”
“It wasn’t necessary for you to go out of your way,” she said. “I could have gotten her one here at the hospital.”
“Rumor has it that Buns ’n’ Burgers is her favorite place. Besides, I wanted to see if the food is as good as I remembered,” he explained.
“And?” Courtney asked.
“I’ve been all over the world and never tasted better.”
“And you remembered that vanilla milkshakes are her favorite.”
Janie nodded and rubbed her tummy.
Courtney frowned. “Is something wrong? You haven’t said anything, kiddo.”
“She told me that it feels weird on her chin when she talks. So I suggested she not talk.” David folded his arms over his chest, drawing her attention to his wide shoulders and flat abdomen.
As soon as the word hot popped into her head, Courtney turned back to her daughter. The little girl pointed to her arm, which was in a sling.
“She wants to know if your wrist hurts,” David said.
“I got that.” Amused, Courtney looked back at him. “But since when did you learn to interpret sign language from a six-year-old girl?”
“You’ve heard of a horse whisperer,” he said.
“Yes. And you’re what? A babe whisperer?” She couldn’t resist the zinger or hold back a smile.
“Exactly,” he said, not without smugness. “I understand women from six to sixty.”
“Word on the street is that you concentrate your powers of persuasion in the twenty-to-thirty range.”
“Do you always believe everything you hear?”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “Pretty much.”
Janie tapped David’s arm and he lifted the cup closer to her mouth. She made a noisy job of finishing every last drop of her milkshake, then reclined in the bed with a satisfied sigh. She was on the mend, thanks to David. But Courtney hadn’t expected to see him again.
She looked up at him. “I thought you’d be on the first plane back to L.A.”
“I wanted to check in on Janie. Make sure everything’s okay this morning.”
And bring her favorite food to coax her to eat. Courtney didn’t trust this heroic act and wondered what he was after.
“And?” she asked.
He grinned. “I’m happy to say the stitches look good and there’s no sign of infection.”
“If every part of my body didn’t hurt, I’d be doing the dance of joy,” she said.
“Can I have a rain check?” Amusement was another good look for him.
They stared at each other for several moments and the pulse at the base of her throat began to flutter. “So,” she said, dragging out the word slightly, “the airport is probably your next stop after you leave here?”
His expression was bemused. “Since I’m here, I thought a short visit would be nice.”
“Family before facelifts?” As soon as the words were out, she put her hand over her mouth.
“Shoots and scores,” he said, one eyebrow lifting.
“David, I—” She shook her head and felt like the world’s biggest jerk. “I’m not sure why you bring out my snarky side—”
“So it’s my fault?” His mouth twitched with amusement. “If I were a shrink,” he said, “I’d have a field day with how you can’t take responsibility for your sarcastic streak.”
“I’m pretty tired.” She blew out a breath. “In my own defense I have to say that spending the night here doesn’t reveal my naturally sweet disposition.”
“I’ll look forward to seeing it.”
There was no good way to interpret the cryptic comment so she refused to think about what he meant. “I was teasing and it came out wrong. Your relationship with your family is none of my business.”
“True. But since we both seem to be defending ourselves, let me say that my family understands being busy. Medicine is a demanding mistress and everyone but my sister, Anna, is a doctor.”
Courtney noticed the slight frown when he mentioned his sister, which was a different—darker—expression from when he’d talked about his other siblings. She wanted to ask, but until she could regain full function of the filter between her brain and her mouth, she figured it was better not to comment.
The fact was that doctors were busy. His father had put in long days here at the hospital until he retired. It’s where she’d met him after Janie was born. When her husband had moved them to Walnut River—scratch that. He’d dumped her pregnant and alone in this town, then taken off to join the army. Like everyone else, at first she’d thought him noble and patriotic. It wasn’t until later that she’d found out his motives were selfish and shallow. Everything he’d done—and what he hadn’t done—had cost her. Everything except leaving her here.
She’d grown to love this place and that had started with James Wilder. She knew his son Peter from working here. And recently Dr. Ella Wilder had returned. But Courtney had never met his other sister.
“I don’t know Anna,” she said.
“Me either,” he answered, so softly she wasn’t sure she’d heard right. And his frown deepened.
“Mommy, I’m a little bored.”
Janie wasn’t too uncomfortable to talk. But that wasn’t the only reason Courtney felt tears well in her eyes. A lump of emotion jumped from her chest to push against her throat. “I’m so glad,” she whispered.
