The M.D.'s Surprise Family Read Free Page B

universe.
    It was the only time he felt alive.
    She was still waiting. The woman honestly expected him to answer. He bit back an exasperatedsigh. “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.”
    â€œAnd 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.
    â€œWe 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 mereslip 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 withouthis 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.
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    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