He rounded the corner from the E.R. on his way to the doctor’s dining room and saw Sam, and his spirits did a one-eighty. Her smile lifted the cone of darkness around him to let in the light. Then he noticed the tall, good-looking guy beside her, who had made her laugh. The one in the expensive charcoal suit and red power tie. The one with dark hair, blue eyes and a confident, cocky walk. That put a crimp in his mood. In fact when the guy put his hand at the small of her back to guide her into the cafeteria, Mitch felt a punch of jealousy that rocked him hard.
Who was this guy? The ex-fiancé? Was she going to apologize like Daddy wanted and patch things up with the serial cheater?
He should keep on walking and avoid her like bubonic plague, but suddenly he turned left instead of right and followed them. When Sam did a double take and recognized him, her smile faltered and her shoulders tensed.
“Mitch.” The pulse in her throat started to flutter wildly and his spirits went up a notch.
“Hi, Sam.” He eyed the guy. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is my big brother. Connor Ryan.” She glanced between them. “Connor, this is Mitch Tenney.”
Connor held out his hand, but there was a measuring look in his eyes. “Nice to meet you.”
They shook hands and Mitch returned the greeting as her big brother sized him up. Like any good, protective big brother would do. Actually this would be her stepbrother and Mitch didn’t miss the irony of Ryan doing justice to sibling responsibility while Mitch had failed his identical twin miserably.
“So, Connor, I haven’t seen you around here before. Do you take after your father in the hospital business?”
“No. I’m an attorney.”
“Connor is with Upshaw, Marrone, Ryan and Ryan.”
“I’ve heard of the firm,” Mitch said. They were a prominent, high-profile group who handled some of the biggest corporate deals in Las Vegas, the most recent a major upscale development on the South Strip.
“And I’ve heard of you.” Connor slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “You’re the loose cannon of the E.R. Dad told me about.”
“Guilty,” Mitch said.
“He’s working on that,” Sam pointed out. “People can be difficult and Mitch is sometimes a little too honest.”
“I just call ’em as I see ’em,” he explained.
Something shifted in Connor’s gaze, as he nodded. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
Sam glanced at her watch. “I thought you had an appointment, Con. We better get something to eat before you have to go. It was nice to see you, Mitch.”
Connor stopped suddenly as she was tugging him away. “Why don’t you join us, Mitch?”
“I’m sure Mitch is too busy,” Sam said.
“No, I’m not.”
“Surely you’d rather go in the doctors’ dining room where the food and service are far superior to what the peasants get here in the cafeteria,” she said.
“I can suck it up,” Mitch said. “If the company and conversation are worth slumming for.”
“I can tell you from firsthand experience that Connor is not worth it.” The words were teasing but the spirit of it wasn’t reflected in her eyes.
“I’ll take my chances.” Mitch folded his arms over his chest and met her gaze. If she hadn’t been so clearly trying to discourage him from staying, he might have let her off the hook. But something about Samantha Sunshine made him want to mess with her. “Unless there’s some reason you’d rather I didn’t eat with you.”
Connor looked from one to the other. “Is there something going on that I should know about?”
“Absolutely not.” She smiled but it was strained around the edges. “Of course you’re welcome to sit with us.”
“Good.” Mitch straightened his halo and followed them.
After going through the food line past the steam table, grabbing drinks and paying the cashier, they sat at a table in a corner. The lunch crowd had dissipated and the cafeteria was quiet.
Connor looked at him. “So, Mitch, how are things in the E.R. business?”
“Busy.” He took a bite out of his burger. “What brings the two of you here? I see Sam from time to time, but, Connor, it seems you’re a long way from your legal stomping grounds.”
“Dad called Sam and me over for a meeting.”
“He wanted to discuss the Catherine Mary Ryan Cancer Center. Con was here for legal input and I shared personal thoughts on the project,” she explained.
Con settled his paper napkin in his lap. “My sister and I decided this would be a good chance to catch up after he got through with us.”
“Do you always come running when your father snaps his fingers?” Mitch asked, feeling his halo wobble. For some reason any mention of Arnold Ryan brought out the worst in him.
Connor thought for half a second, then nodded. “Pretty much. My father isn’t the kind of man who’s easily put off.”
Mitch recalled Sam telling him about her learning disability and the less than sensitive way her stepfather handled it. Anger churned through him. “Growing up with him as a father must have been difficult.”
“It had its moments,” Connor agreed. “My stepmother smoothed out his rough edges. She was a warm and caring woman. The whole family felt her loss when she died.”
Sam stared at the salad she was pushing around her plate. “Dad buried himself in work and channeled his energy into running Mercy Medical Center.”
Connor forked up some green beans and chewed thoughtfully. “Actually, he wasn’t working here then.”
Sam looked at him. “Sure he was.”
“No. He was working for a competitor at the time. After your mom passed away he applied for the position here at the hospital. At the same time he began proceedings to adopt you legally.”
“I remember when my mother was very sick he promised her that she wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen to me,” Sam said. “Didn’t he start the legal process before she died?”
Connor shook his head. “It’s not surprising your memories are fuzzy. You were only five or six. But I was almost sixteen and just about to get my driver’s license. It’s funny how a momentous event like that crystallizes memories of things that were going on at the time.”
“What was going on?” she asked.
“I was learning to drive and looking for every opportunity to get behind the wheel. Dad let me chauffeur him to a meeting with an acquaintance who was on the hospital board of directors. He told Dad that image was important and he needed to stand out from the competition. Right after that I remember home evaluations by social services and court proceedings to finalize the adoption.”
Mitch happened to be watching Sam’s face while her brother was talking and saw the downward slide from surprise to comprehension to hurt.
“Where else did you drive him?” Mitch asked.
“Nowhere.” Connor grinned. “Once I had my license I shunned the transportation gig and turned my attention to being a chick magnet with a cool car.”
“Oh, right,” Sam said, pushing aside her shock. “That beat-up old thing?”
“Aside from the fact that Dad wouldn’t buy me wheels and it was all I could afford, that Chrysler was a classic.”
“One that was always breaking down,” she teased.
“That you remember.” Connor sighed.
“Like you said, memories are crystallized by whatever events are going on. My mother had died recently and you were supposed to pick me up from first grade and never showed. I was pretty scared.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Connor protested.
“I know.” Sam toyed with her salad some more. Not much of it had been consumed. “But that clunker was not why the girls chased you on an annoyingly regular basis.”
Connor put his fork down and grinned. “I think buried somewhere in there is a compliment.”
“At the risk of inflating your already inflated ego,” Sam said, “you are, in fact, a hottie.”
“Is that on the record?” her brother asked.
“Don’t push your luck.”
Though she was doing a good job of hiding her feelings, Mitch saw the shadows in her eyes. But if she wanted to discuss what was bothering her, she’d have brought it up. He’d take that as a cue that she didn’t want to talk about it.
Finally, Connor looked at the expensive Rolex on his wrist. “As pleasant as it is having my ego inflated, I’ve got an appointment and traffic on the Fifteen freeway is a bitch this time of day.” He looked at her. “Gotta run, sis.”
“Coward. I was getting the best of you,” she said.
“No way.” He stood, then bent and kissed her cheek. “Be good. Nice to meet you, Mitch.”
“Same here.”
Connor hurried out and they were alone. Mitch waited as long as he could, then finally asked, “You didn’t know why your stepfather adopted you, did you?”
“No.” The expression in her eyes was as tender as a fresh bruise. “In spite of his impatience with me I guess I always hoped that deep down there was some affection. I never suspected that adopting me was nothing more than a bullet point on his résumé.”
“Sam—” Mitch ran his fingers through his hair. What could he say? There was no way to refute the truth.
“I should have known.” She pushed her uneaten salad away.
“Where in the rule book does it say that? You were a little kid. How could you possibly understand what was going on?”
“Not so much then as later,” she said, meeting his gaze. “My father never missed an opportunity to imply that I probably took after my biological father, who had no use for me. But he, Arnold Ryan, was a hero for taking me in, putting a roof over my head and making it legal.”
“I’m sure he cares about you.” He wasn’t sure of any such thing, but didn’t know what else to say.
“He cared about my mother. I’m sure about that. But the truth is pretty evident to me now.”
“And that is?”
Her eyes were bleak. “He never wanted to be responsible for me at all. Ever.”
Son of a bitch, he thought. The man was a coldhearted jerk. He’d get points for not abandoning Sam into the child welfare system, but that was about all. And who’s to say Ryan wouldn’t have done that if the job he’d coveted wasn’t on the line? Sam had come along with the “for better or worse” vows. But when the worst happened, he’d used a sad little girl who’d just lost her mother. He agreed that Ryan would have adopted her sooner if he’d really wanted the responsibility. But he hadn’t wanted it.
Any more than Mitch had wanted to be responsible for his brother.
The thought crept in and squeezed his chest.
He tried to tell himself that he wasn’t a son of a bitch like Arnold Ryan. The situation with his brother had been different. Robbie was a drug addict who couldn’t get the monkey off his back and Mitch had made token attempts to help but all of it failed.
Maybe there was a good reason for that. Maybe he’d never wanted to be his brother’s keeper in the first place.
He was just like Sam’s stepfather.
If she had any sense, she would despise him as much as he despised himself.
Chapter Seven
With a quick, irritated flourish of his hand, Mitch scratched notes in a patient’s chart. “It’s Halloween, Sam. Surely there’s something important you have to do.”
“There is. And I’m doing it right now.”
“Can’t you give it a rest?”
“No.”
Leaning an elbow on the high counter at the nurse’s station, he glanced at her. “Why?”
She straightened the black pointy hat on her head. It went with the gnarled, warty fake nose, green face paint and black cape. She’d been told that the hospital employees got into the spirit of Halloween and dressed up, jobs permitting. Her job permitted, but today hadn’t been easy. There’d been a subtle shift in Mitch, as if he weren’t even trying, as if he’d already fallen short of the mark.
“It’s important to observe your progress at intervals during the coaching process so we can make any necessary adjustments.”
He tapped his pen on the chart and met her gaze. “Is that the politically correct way of saying that I’m not making any progress?”
“Absolutely not.” She shook her head and felt her hat tilt.
“Because I have. Made progress,” he added. “For instance, I could have called you a witch.” He was doing his best fake innocent act, but the devilish gleam in his eyes gave him away.
“And today that would be true in every sense of the word because I’m getting into the spirit of the day.” She pressed her clipboard against her chest. “At the same time I’m giving off a vibe of approachability.”
“All outward evidence to the contrary.” He tapped her fake nose. “Nice look, by the way. Typecasting?”
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but saying mean stuff will not discourage me from doing my job.” She glanced at her notes. “Now that there’s a break in the E.R. action, can we talk about what happened with that earlier patient?”
“You should have dressed up as a pit bull.”
“Tsk, tsk,” she said, wagging her finger. “I’ve got you now, my pretty.”
“Not yet. But, I could easily be had.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively.
“Focus, Doctor. You remember the little boy who fell and cut his knee?”
“Yeah.” He blew out a long breath. “Every news station does a segment on safe Halloween costumes. How is it possible to miss the fact that kids need to be able to see where they’re going when they’re dressed up?”
“It’s not like that mother pushed him down. She felt horribly guilty about what happened.”
“She should.”
“She cares about her child.”
“If that were true, she’d have paid attention to the warnings and just said no to the full-face rubber werewolf mask that severely restricted his vision.”
“Instead of glaring at her, perhaps it might have been more helpful to suggest face paint for next year instead of an over-the-head mask.”
“In terms of instant gratification, I find glaring much more personally satisfying.”
She moved closer to him when two orderlies wheeled a bed past her. “The District in Green Valley Ranch has a party going on this afternoon and all the merchants are giving away a lot of candy. Pointing out an activity like that would be more helpful than reducing her to tears with a look.”
Mitch’s eyes sparked with something that made her insides quiver. “Bet my glare against your fake nose that she’ll take better care of the kid next year.”
“I’m sure she will, but there are ways to get the message out without making her feel like the worst mother on the planet.”
“That was a tad shrill, Miss Ryan.” He looked around at E.R. personnel who were glancing in their direction, then wagged a finger at her. “And right in public, too. Isn’t there a rule about finding a more private place where you can rake me over the coals?”
Sam knew the gleam in his eyes meant that privacy plus Mitch Tenney equaled trouble.
But he was also right. One of the first things she’d said to him after her first observation right here in the E.R. was that he could have talked to the teenager behind closed doors.
“I’m not raking you over the coals,” she said. “And thank you for reminding me that a public venue is an unacceptable location for this discussion.”
“Not unacceptable for me. Just my way of letting you know I’m paying attention and making progress.”
His way of toying with her, and darned if she wasn’t liking every minute of it. “For the sake of discretion, let’s go into the break room.”
He shook his head. “That’s the hard drive of the hospital rumor mill. I’ll buy you a cup of cafeteria coffee.”
“Make it an herbal tea and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
“Samantha the twenty-some
thing witch, politically correct, environmentally aware and herbally responsible. Do you have any idea how sexy that is to me?”
“Oh, please.” She was onto this technique.
As long as he kept it light, she could resist. And he was teasing, but the word responsible made her think about that day he’d met her brother. When she’d found out she’d only been legally adopted because her father didn’t want to look bad.
That had hurt. For years she’d made excuses for Arnold Ryan’s treating her differently from his biological children. She’d believed she wasn’t smart enough, or pretty enough, or good enough, when the real reason was that she wasn’t his and he’d never truly wanted her to be. That was hard to hear, but she gave him credit for taking her in. It counted for something in her book.
Mitch had been incredibly sweet and supportive, right up until she’d said out loud that her father had never wanted to be responsible for her. A multitude of emotions had crossed his face. Pain. Guilt. Disgust. Instinctively she knew that all of it was directed at himself. So far all he’d told her was that he’d had a brother, a twin. And there was animosity between him and his mother. He had a couple of hot buttons and she planned to toy with them.
They walked into the bustling cafeteria and secured their hot drink of choice, then found a table for two in a back corner.
Sam sat against the wall and set her mug on the wood-trimmed Formica table. Mitch slid into the steel-framed hunter green plastic chair across from her.
“So, Sunshine, give me your best shot.”
One corner of her mouth curved up. “Suddenly I’m ‘Sunshine’?’”
“How can starting off on a lighter note be a bad thing? I’m not stupid.”
“No one ever said you were.” And the words would never pass her lips. She knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that derogatory word. “You’re a considerate, caring man.”
“No, I’m not. It’s a well-known fact that I’m rude and abrasive. In fact, I elevate those particular qualities to art-form status.”
“Oh, please. If that were true, you wouldn’t have made it a point to send that little boy to radiology to have his candy X-rayed after you did his sutures.”
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