Read Online The M.D.'s Surprise Family by Marie Ferrarella - Free Book Online

little as she continued watching at him. “Nothing, I just like the way you say my name.”
    â€œYou mean, under duress?”
    The laughter was soft, making him think of gentle breezes and hope springing eternal. He had to be getting punchy.
    â€œI’m not forcing you, I’m asking you,” she told him softly.
    Not only her expression, but her voice began toseep into him, like early morning mist that seemed so innocuous, but somehow managed to drench you if you walked in it long enough.
    She drenched him.
    â€œRaven,” he repeated more firmly, trying to distance himself from this woman and having a harder and harder time doing it. She was like quicksand, he suddenly realized. The more he pulled against her, the more he felt himself being held fast and going under.
    This was ridiculous.
    This was also what came of putting in eighteen- to twenty-hour days. If he didn’t watch himself, his patients were going to suffer. And that was absolutely unacceptable. He might not want to regard them as anything more than items in need of repair, but neither did he want to view them as recipients of possible failed surgeries. Each and every one of them had been brought to him to be made whole again and there was no way he was about to shirk that shoulder-crushing responsibility.
    He attempted one last time to detach himself. “Raven, I think the news would come better from you. You handle the P.R., I’ll handle the surgery,” he added glibly.
    â€œHe likes you,” she reminded him.
    â€œYour brother doesn’t even know me,” Peter declared, taking no trouble to hide his annoyance.
    But if she was the target of that anger, she allowed it to bounce right off her. “He’s met you twice now. It doesn’t take much for Blue to form opinions.” Here came that smile again, the one that could disarm him faster than a high-powered magnet could yank a gun out of an assailant’s hand. “And he’s usually right.”
    He sighed, shaking his head. A couple maneuvered past them on their way to the front entrance. Stepping aside, he found himself standing closer to Raven than he’d intended. “So, what, now you’re going to tell me that your brother is some kind of psychic?”
    â€œNo, just that he’s rather intuitive when it comes to people.”
    He nodded, remembering she’d mentioned something like that to him the other day. “So you said.”
    She smiled at him, smoke penetrating through the minuscule, almost unperceivable cracks of a thick brick wall. “You were paying attention.”
    â€œI always pay attention. There’re just times when I don’t chose to acknowledge the fact,” he said.
    Her eyes looked as if she was retaining some secret amusement. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
    Why should she bother? he wondered. After the surgery and the two standard follow-up visits, the chances were very high that he and Raven would never interact again. From somewhere deep within the recesses of his mind and soul, the single word “pity” whispered along the fringes of his consciousness. It grew larger, floating upward like a scrap of paper being raised by the wind. He shook himself free of it.
    â€œMy car’s right there.” Raven pointed toward the lot at a sleek red sports car that sat low to the ground. “You can follow me.”
    â€œFollow you?” He wasn’t even following her mentally and had no intentions of doing so physically.
    She turned, looking up at him again. “Home, so you can tell Blue.”
    He’d assumed that suggestion had faded away. “I thought that we—that I—”
    To Peter’s surprise, Raven lightly touched his cheek, silencing him as the sensation undulated through him, rolling along his flesh.
    Raven raised her eyes to his and smiled.
    He could feel that very same smile unfurling inside his chest, as if, for just a single moment in