The Wilders: Falling for the M.D.. Teresa Southwick

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СКАЧАТЬ other driver, it turned out, had some traumatic bruising to his spine. So much so that the swelling was pinching his spinal cord, causing his lower extremities to become numb and unresponsive.

      He called Ella and asked her to come down for a consultation. He thought his sister’s soft voice and gentle manner might help quell the second driver’s fears. She was there within the quarter hour.

      The last he’d seen, Ella was at the man’s bedside, calmly reassuring him. “In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the victim walks as soon as the swelling on his spine subsides. You just have to be patient.”

      The man looked anything but that. “But I’ll walk again?”

      “Most likely, as soon as the swelling there goes down,” she repeated.

      “But what if it doesn’t?” he pressed nervously. “What if it doesn’t go down?”

      She took his hand in hers and said without wavering. “We’ll do everything we can.”

      Peter smiled to himself and thought how proud his father would be if he could see her.

      NHC, Peter was certain, would never approve of all this handholding on the part of their doctors. The patient would be swiftly examined, given his diagnosis and then sent home to recuperate. And to nurse fears of never being able to walk again. Who knew how much damage that would ultimately create?

      It made him more determined than ever to block the takeover.

      All in all, Peter thought as he changed back into his street clothes in his dimly lit office, this had been one of the worst Januarys he’d ever experienced.

      He remembered Bethany saying it had snowed, and wondered if he was going to have to shovel his driveway when he got home that night. It wasn’t a heartening thought. Despite having lived in Walnut River his whole life, Peter was definitely not a fan of the white stuff.

      He paused just long enough to locate some lab and radiology reports and place them in his briefcase. When he stepped into the elevator car, it was empty. He continued to have it to himself all the way down. The doors opened again on the first floor and he walked out, then made his way down the corridor leading to the parking lot.

      As he opened one of the double doors and emerged into the frigid night air, he was in time to hear a woman exclaim, “Oh damn,” and then see Bethany Holloway suddenly disappear from view as she slid down the icy stairs.

       Chapter Seven

      Working triage in the E.R. had honed Peter’s reflexes. Instinct just took over.

      Holding on to the banister, he sailed down the steps and grabbed Bethany’s arm just before her body came in ungraceful contact with the icy ground.

      With her feet sliding in one direction and her body being jerked in another, Bethany overcompensated. In an effort to regain her balance, she threw her weight forward.

      The next second, instead of keeping her steady, Peter found himself going down. He landed flat on his back. Since he was still holding on to her arm, he wound up pulling her down as well.

      Right on top of him.

      The air knocked out of her, she stared down at his face, stunned. He thought she’d indignantly scramble to her feet—or try to. Instead, she started to laugh. Her laugh, low, melodic and sensual, was highly infectious, not to mention that he could actually feel her laughing.

      Picturing how absurd this had to look to anyone passing by—mercifully, there was no one—Peter started laughing, too. He laughed so hard, he became practically helpless and moisture began forming in the corners of his eyes.

      Moving with the rhythm of laughter, their bodies rubbed lightly against each other.

      Slowly, the laughter died away.

      Caught between amusement and concern, Bethany struggled to regulate her breathing. “I don’t think that this is what you had in mind.”

      Looking up at her, Peter found himself fighting an urge that hadn’t come over him in a very long time. So long that he could barely remember the last time. The pace he’d kept up these past ten years had left very little time for him to even attempt to nurture a private life. Even if that was partly by choice.

      Right at this moment, with her breath drifting down along his face and their bodies pressed together, he was acutely aware of what had been missing from his life. What was missing.

      So aware that he wasn’t conscious of anything but the tightening of his groin, the long, warm tongues of desire traveling through his body, heating it.

      Making him yearn.

      The look in her eyes told him he wasn’t alone here. For whatever reasons, Bethany was experiencing the very same thing. The same attraction, the same electricity.

      He wasn’t a reckless man by nature. Acting on impulse was something other men did, not him.

      Until now.

      In one unguarded moment, Peter reached up and framed her face with his gloved hands. He brought her face down to his.

      If having her body on top of his had set off a series of sharp, demanding electric shocks, kissing Bethany multiplied the sensations tenfold. She tasted of fresh strawberries and spring, both equally far removed from the moment.

      He lost himself in the sensation.

      For one brief shining second, he wasn’t Dr. Peter Wilder, highly respected internist, keeper of his father’s flame. He was just Peter, a flesh-and-blood man who longed for companionship, for someone to be there for him at the end of the day, for someone with whom he could share his thoughts, his plans. His love.

      He remembered other dreams he’d once had.

      Her head was spinning so badly Bethany thought maybe she’d hit it when Peter had accidentally pulled her down. But she’d landed on top of him and, though his body felt solid and hard, she knew for a fact that her head hadn’t made contact with him.

      Her pulse accelerating, she could almost feel her blood, exhilarated, surging through her veins.

      Bethany deepened the kiss.

      The second their bodies had come in contact, it’d felt as if something had just come undone within her.

      But if she didn’t draw back, if she let him continue even for another moment, Bethany was sincerely afraid of what that might do to her resolve, to the walls she’d been building up around herself for longer then she could remember. She only knew that they had been forged to keep the hurt back. If she let no one in, then she would never be hurt, it was as simple as that. She’d be invulnerable, the way she wanted to be.

      She wasn’t invulnerable now, she realized. She was shaking. Inside and out. Any second now, it was going to occur to him that the cold weather had nothing to do with her reaction.

      Her mind scattered in all directions, searching for something plausible to say in order to throw his attention off.

      “So.” СКАЧАТЬ