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

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      Bethany inclined her head. They’d made a little progress, she supposed. “Fair enough. Does this mean that you’re willing to listen to the positive side of NHC taking over the hospital?”

      She asked the question with a smile that he found very difficult to resist. He supposed that he could listen. That didn’t mean she could convince him, because some things were written in stone. But to refuse to listen made him out to be irrationally stubborn and he didn’t want her thinking of him that way. Not after what had just happened between them.

      “I might be willing to listen,” he allowed, enunciating each word.

      “But?” she pressed, sensing that the word was hovering about, waiting to emerge from his lips.

      “No ‘but,’” he assured her. “Just a condition.”

      “A condition,” she echoed. “What condition?”

      She was looking at him warily. It amused him. No one had ever thought of him as someone to be wary of. “If you let me buy you a cup of coffee, I let you talk.”

      He expected her to be relieved, and perhaps a little embarrassed for being so suspicious. She appeared to be neither.

      “Is this going to be like the last time you bought me coffee? You walked out on me in mid-sentence,” she reminded him when he looked at her quizzically.

      “No, it won’t,” he said with a warm smile. “This isn’t going to be like the last time. You can finish your sentence and I’ll finish my coffee.” He turned to his right. “There’s a coffee shop two blocks down. It’s open late. Is that out of your way?”

      “No, it’s not.”

      Maybe he wasn’t quite the stick-in-the-mud she had thought he was. Lord knows he didn’t kiss like a stick-in-the-mud. He kissed like a man who knew his way around women. But then, she didn’t have much experience in that area.

      Bethany smiled up at him and nodded. “Okay, you’re on.” She glanced over toward his car. “I can drive,” she suggested. “Since your car looks like it’s gone into hibernation for the winter.”

      “No, I think I should dig it out.” The sooner he got it running again, the better. “Don’t go anywhere,” he cautioned.

      “And miss the chance of engaging in another argument with the chief of staff?” she teased. “I think not.”

      He stopped. “Temporary chief of staff,” he reminded her.

      “You could be chief permanently if you wanted the position.”

      She said it with such certainty, he almost believed that she meant it. He wanted to set her straight before things got too complicated. Peter shook his head. “I don’t want it.”

      Bethany stared at him. He wasn’t being modest, she realized—he was serious. He didn’t want to be chief. She couldn’t understand that. Couldn’t understand not wanting to advance, not being driven to strive ever further. She couldn’t understand a man who wasn’t goal oriented, who didn’t want to climb to the top of the mountain just to claim it. Her whole life had been filled with personal challenges, with pushing herself to the next goal, the next finish line. It was all she’d ever known.

      “Why not?” she asked, mystified.

      The answer was simple. “Because I’m busy enough. Because being chief of staff or chairman of the board of directors or holding down any official position that has to do with the hospital, takes time away from doing what I was meant to do, what I love doing. I love being a doctor. I love helping people.”

      “You could help them more in a position of power,” Bethany insisted. “You could dictate policy if you were the chairman.”

      He decided that she must have known far more influential chairmen than the one who ran the hospital’s board. “No, I couldn’t. I could make suggestions and have them up for a vote, during which time I would spend my time arguing with a bright up-and-coming Princeton MBA graduate.”

      She smiled. “And this is different from the present situation how?”

      He grinned. “Well, right now I have more time to devote to my patients than I would if I were tangled up in all the paperwork and demands on my time that either position ultimately requires.”

      Peter saw her nod her head, whether in agreement or because she was just giving up, he didn’t know. But for now, it was enough.

      He turned away from her and began to walk to his vehicle. The dark blue sedan was half-submerged in snow, just as she had pointed out. Mentally, he crossed his fingers and hoped the engine would start once he turned the key in the ignition.

      “Peter!” she called to him. As he turned around, he heard her yell, “Think fast!”

      He didn’t think fast enough.

      A snowball came flying at him, hitting him in the face. He heard her laughing gleefully. Without pausing, he squatted down and scooped up a handful of snow, packing it quickly with the expertise he’d acquired living in Massachusetts and growing up with three siblings.

      He let it loose, getting her on the chin.

      Bethany shrieked with laughter as snow found its way under her coat, drizzling down along her throat.

      “Oh God, that’s cold,” she cried, shivering as she brushed away the snow.

      He was already prepared to fire off another salvo, but he stopped, his arm raised behind his head. “Give up?” he challenged.

      It went against her grain to give up, even when it came to something as simple as a snowball fight. But she had a feeling that pitted against him in this sort of contest, she’d lose. It was better to do it now—before she got any colder—than later.

      “For now,” she conceded.

      There was something in her tone alerting him that this really wasn’t over. Dropping the snowball to the ground, he brushed the remnants of the snow off his overcoat.

      “Does that mean I should be on my guard?”

      Her eyes reflected her amusement and what he could only describe as a delighted wickedness.

      “Maybe,” she laughed. “Consider yourself warned, Dr. Wilder.”

      “Peter,” he corrected.

      “Peter,” she echoed.

      “I will,” he responded. “But that warning works both ways,” he added.

      It gave her pause.

      Without quite turning his back on her, Peter hurriedly brushed off some of the snow that had settled on top of the hood of his car before getting in. He turned the key in the ignition. The car made a futile-sounding noise, as if it were coughing, then suddenly fell stone-cold silent.

      He tried again. This time there wasn’t even a hint of a sound.

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