The M.D.'s Surprise Family. Marie Ferrarella

the carton of milk on her lap, Renee propelled herself to the refrigerator to put the item away. “Guess she knows quality when she sees it, even if you have to make a cactus seem warm and cuddly sometimes.”

      It felt as if he fought a two-front war. “It’s not my job to coddle them,” he reminded her.

      The look Renee gave him showed she was completely unconvinced. “Well, there we disagree. Sometimes that is part of the job.”

      Peter paused, shaking his head. “That’s what she said.”

      Approval shone in her hazel eyes. “Smart cookie. What’s her name?”

      Peter had to think for a second. He’d never been very good with names. “Raven,” he finally said. “Raven Songbird.”

      The second half gallon of milk on her lap, Renee paused in midroll to look at him with something akin to surprise and awe. “Like the clothes?”

      He nodded. “Exactly like the clothes.” He figured Renee might get a kick out of it. After all, the woman could have been a contemporary of hers. “Her mother started the company.”

      Slipping the milk onto the shelf, Renee closed the refrigerator door again. “Well, I guess she can afford the best—and you are.”

      It was no secret that he didn’t come cheap. His fee was right at the top of his field, but then, the amounts that he charged enabled him to do his volunteer work for Doctors Without Borders. The fees he collected from his wealthier clients help to fund the operations that he performed on the devastated citizens of Third World countries. In so doing, he wound up bringing hope to the hopeless. Given that he felt no hope himself, he was struck by the irony of the situation.

      Peter paused to kiss the top of his mother-in-law’s silver head. “Flattery will get you everywhere,” he told her with a smile.

      “Oh, good.” She said the words with such feeling, he stopped folding the paper bags and looked at her. “Because I have something to tell you.”

      Putting the empty bags on the side of the table, he pulled a chair to him, straddled it and looked at her across the table. “Okay, what?”

      Renee took a deep breath. It wasn’t a subject she was looking forward to, only one that she knew needed broaching. Until now, she’d allowed him to have his bleeding heart. But she knew her daughter wouldn’t have wanted him to continue grieving this way, not for this long. There was no easy way to begin. “It’s been more than two years since Lisa and Becky were taken.”

      Peter could feel himself tensing as he looked at her warily. “Yes?”

      Renee reached across the table and touched his hand. “And I think it’s time you moved on.”

      “Moved on? Moved on how?” He knew exactly how she meant, but he wasn’t about to give in to that. “I’m working.”

      Renee left her hand where it was, feeling that her son-in-law needed the human contact. “Yes, I know, but I think that you should do more than work.”

      Peter shrugged as he glanced away. “There’s not enough time—”

      She watched him pointedly, remembering another Peter. A happier Peter. She missed him. And she had a feeling that Peter missed him, as well. “There was when you were married.”

      “There was a reason to have time when I was married,” he informed her flatly.

      Because he understood what Renee was attempting to do, he forced a smile to his lips. The woman’s heart was in the right place, if a little off kilter. “I have my work and I have you, Renee.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it in the courtly fashion he knew she loved. “That’s enough for me.”

      Renee was not about to be dissuaded. “It shouldn’t be. Not that I’m undermining what you do,” she was quick to explain. “Your work is very, very important. You perform miracles. But I am a poor substitute for what you really need.” And she knew that he couldn’t fight her on that score.

      He truly loved Lisa’s mother. She was the mother he had never known as a boy, so he humored her where he wouldn’t anyone else. “And what is it that I need?”

      Renee set her mouth firmly. “Female companionship.”

      He gestured toward her. “In case you missed it, you’re a female, Renee.”

      She snorted at the weak attempt to deflect her focus. “I’m old enough to be your mother.”

      His smile was broad as he took her hand in his. “I like older women.”

      Renee pulled her hand away, giving him a stern, motherly look. “Peter—”

      “Don’t,” he warned her quietly. He saw compassion enter her eyes. “Maybe someday I’ll be ready.” Although he sincerely doubted it. “But right now, this is all I can manage.” In a rare, unguarded moment of honesty, he admitted to her what he barely admitted to himself. “I’m lucky to be sane.” And then he shrugged off the moment. “I didn’t exactly have a thriving social life before Lisa, so this is business as usual for me.” Peter took his mother-in-law’s hand in his. “I know you mean well, Renee, but this is something that’ll work itself out.”

      Renee closed her hand over both of his. “Don’t hide from life, Pete,” she told him. “You have far too much to offer—and so does life,” she added pointedly. Then, she withdrew her hands and looked at him through the eyes of a mother. “Now then, have you eaten?”

      He laughed, shaking his head. “I didn’t come here for you to feed me, Renee.”

      “Well, you’re not leaving until I see you have something.” She pulled away from the table, pivoting the wheelchair so that she could access the refrigerator. “It’s the least I can do.”

      Peter rose to his feet. He hated seeing her relegated to that chair. “No,” he contradicted, “the least you can do is let me get that prescription filled for you.”

      She turned from the refrigerator and sighed, surrendering. “I guess one of us has to stop being stubborn first.”

      He grinned back. “Guess so.”

      With a resigned nod of her head, Renee propelled herself over to the drawer beside the sink where she kept all the miscellaneous things that she had no given place for. Opening it, she riffled through myriad papers and odds and ends until she found the prescription he had written for her. It was dated several weeks ago and was for a brand-new anti-inflammatory drug that had hit the market.

      She held the paper out to him. He knew which pharmacy she frequented. “Go—” she waved Peter on his way “—fill it.”

      Triumphant, he gave her a knowing smile. “Thought you’d never ask.”

      “By the way,” she called after him. On his way to the front door, he turned to look at her. “Before I forget, next time you see the Songbird girl, see if you can get a scarf for me.” Her face softened and she looked like a young girl, he thought, not an older woman imprisoned in a wheelchair. “I always loved their colors.”

      “I’ll see what I can do,” he promised before heading out.

      The phone was ringing by the time he walked into his apartment later that evening. An emergency? he wondered. Undoubtedly it was his answering service. He’d just left the only person who would have called him privately. After Lisa and Becky had died, people didn’t know what to say to him and he had no idea how to field their pity. Eventually, all the friends he and Lisa had had together drifted out of his life.

      Pushing the door closed behind him, he quickly crossed to the kitchen where the phone hung on the wall and picked up the receiver.

      “Sullivan.”

      “You don’t keep banker’s hours, do you?”

      He knew it was her. Even