Peter raised an eyebrow. “Any connection?”
“My mother started the line.” She didn’t bother hiding her pride. There seemed to be no point to it. “Dad said they needed to live on more than love and Mom came up with a line of clothing that they sold to their friends. First few years, she worked out of an old VW bus that my dad turned into a work-room for her. Demands kept coming in and—” She stopped abruptly. She smiled at him. “You don’t want to hear about this.”
“I didn’t think I had a choice.” And then, for just a second, his expression softened as he thought of Lisa wearing the blouse for the first time. “My wife had a blouse made by your mother. Said it was her favorite thing in the whole world besides Becky—and me.”
“Becky,” she repeated. Curiosity got the better of her. “Your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“How old?” The doctor looked at her strangely. Wondering what she’d said wrong, Raven clarified, “Your daughter, how old is she now?”
“She isn’t any age now.” His tone was distant again, hollow. “My daughter died two years ago in a car accident. Along with her mother.”
That was why he’d looked at her like that yesterday when she’d mentioned the car accident that had claimed her parents. Of all the things they could have had in common, this was really awful, she thought. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
She’d placed her hand on his shoulder. Not wanting the contact, he moved his shoulder away. “Yes,” he said quietly, “So am I.”
Chapter Three
A little surprised at his reaction, Raven dropped her hand to her side. “You don’t like being touched, do you?”
“Not particularly.”
His tone was so frosty, a person could freeze to death. Raven began having second thoughts again. She wanted the best for Blue, but she was having trouble convincing herself that someone so removed could care more about the patient than he would gaining another cerebral rush.
“You know, I read somewhere that neurosurgeons believe they’re above God.”
Peter switched on his computer. The low hum told him it was going through its paces—just like the ones this woman was putting him through.
“Not above,” Peter corrected, “just working in tandem with.” He blew out a breath. He didn’t have time for this because he was due in surgery in an hour. “Look, I don’t think you came back here to check out my divinity, or lack thereof. Do you want me to consider taking your brother on as a patient or not?”
“No, I don’t want you to consider taking him on.” She saw the surgeon raise his eyebrows in surprise, so she drove home her point. “I want you to take him. Blue has an incredible zest for life. I’d like for him to be able to run through it, not restricted in any way.”
He was a realist, weighing the downside rather than the up. Whatever optimism he’d once possessed, the car accident had taken away from him. “That might not be possible.”
Raven refused to allow any negative thoughts to enter into this. She had to believe the surgery was going to be a success. Anything else was unthinkable.
“It will be possible, Dr. Sullivan, if you come on board.”
Just yesterday, he thought, she’d been skeptical, doubting not his ability but his heart. He wondered if he should tell her that he didn’t have one. “Despite my emotional distance?”
“After due consideration, I don’t think that’ll be a problem. You see, Blue likes you.” They’d talked about it last night and the boy seemed perfectly willing to put his fate in Sullivan’s hands. She placed a lot of stock in rapport. “If Blue likes you, you can’t help but like him back.” That, to her, was a given. She’d never met anyone who hadn’t warmed to the boy, usually instantly. “It’s a gift he got from my mother.”
“Whether I like him or not has nothing to do with the surgery.”
There was a knowing look in her eyes he found annoying. As if she was privy to some secret he wasn’t allow to know. “I disagree.”
Peter frowned as he typed in his password. She’d almost made him forget it. When was the last time that had happened? He was nothing if not organized.
“You’re free to disagree until the cows come home, that doesn’t alter the outcome.”
She laughed, a wave of nostalgia undulating over her. “Until the cows come home? I haven’t heard that expression since I was a little girl—and they really did come home.” She saw his eyebrows knit themselves together in a quizzical wavy line despite plainly visible efforts to resist curiosity. Maybe the man was a little more human than he liked to think. “We lived on a farm. My parents wanted the simple life.”
“Songbird, Inc. is a Fortune 500 company.”
“They wanted the simple life,” Raven repeated, emphasizing the crucial word, “but it kind of got complicated along the way.” Her parents had been wonderful people, taken much too soon. She wanted the whole world to know just how noble, how good they really were. Even this cynical man. “Not so they lost any of their initial values. They just had a lot bigger house to place those values in toward the end. My mother actually did sew every prototype, every new garment she created.”
He paused, trying to imagine the life the woman in his office must have led. It was probably something of a merger between latter day hippies and the captains of industry.
“What did your father add to this mix?”
“He played guitar while she sewed.” If she closed her eyes, she could almost see him. Sitting by the white stone fireplace, playing one of the songs he’d written while her mother worked on a loom, creating the fabric that would eventually find itself fashioned into a dress or a blouse or a scarf.
Nobody lived like that, he thought. Raven Songbird probably gleaned the scenario from some afternoon movie written for TV. One in which the woman worked while the man sat noodling around on some instrument or other. “Very productive.”
There was that cynical tone again. Hadn’t this man ever had a good day in his life? “Actually, it inspired her.”
Peter heard the defensive note in Raven’s voice. He realized it probably sounded as if he was criticizing her family. She had enough to deal with. “That wasn’t meant to be critical.”
“Yes it was,” she contradicted, then followed with an absolving smile. “But you can’t help that. You’re from a whole different world.” Considering what he did for a living, he probably had no idea what “mellowing out” meant. “There’s a great deal of pressure involved in working toward becoming a doctor.”
“There’s a great deal of pressure once you become one, too.” Peter stopped abruptly. He had no idea why he’d added that or why he’d shared a single feeling with this diminutive woman who somehow still managed to come across as slightly larger than life.
Needing a diversion, if only for a second, he punched in several letters on the keyboard. His schedule for the next two months appeared on the screen. He scanned it. It was more than full. Work, although not his salvation, kept him from dwelling on his loss and the way his days and evenings felt so hollow. And the times when a fourteen-hour day wasn’t enough to fill that hole, several times a year he volunteered his services to Doctors Without Borders, a nonprofit organization that provided free medical care to the poor of the world.
As it stood right now, there was hardly enough room on his schedule to fit in