Flannery balanced a hot dog in one hand and took a sip from the cup of steaming coffee she held in the other. “No problems. The appendix was red-hot, though. Another few hours and things could’ve gotten messy.” She took a bite and chased it with more coffee. “It’s good you jumped right on it.”

“Are you sending him home tomorrow?”

Flannery nodded. “As long as he’s not running a fever. I saw Tim Campbell giving out cigars in the lobby. Looks like you made his night too.”

Harper laughed. “I’d say Mary did that.”

“So…” Flannery polished off the rest of her hot dog in two bites and reached for a plastic plate with a huge slab of chocolate cake on it. “What’s the story with the new visitor?”

Harper forked up a few pieces of salad and considered ignoring the question as if she didn’t understand where Flann was headed. But she knew Flann, and she recognized the bird-dog glint in her eyes—bright and eager and relentless—when she spied quarry. No point in avoiding the inevitable. “There’s probably a story there, but I don’t have it.”

“You can get a patient’s life history in five minutes without even trying, but you spend—what—fifteen minutes with a hot-looking woman, and you don’t know the story?” Flannery shook her head. “Clearly, I failed to teach you anything of importance.”

“I can’t remember you teaching me much of anything, seeing as how you’re always trying to catch up to me.”

Flannery grinned. “I’d say once I was able to walk, we were even.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harper said, the game an old one and her mind only half on the familiar rivalry. Ordinarily, Flannery’s unremitting competition never bothered her, and on those occasions when they bumped up against each other around a woman, Harper had been happy to concede the chase to Flannery. That idea didn’t appeal to her right now. In fact, some instinctive resistance rose inside her when she thought of Flannery pursuing Presley Worth, although if she had to say why, she wasn’t sure she could. She’d only spent a few minutes in Presley’s company, but those few minutes had left more of an impression than had any woman she’d met in a long time. True, Presley was unlike many of the women she’d known since childhood, but her unfamiliarity wasn’t what appealed the most. Presley seemed totally self-contained and just a little bit apart from everything, and that very aloofness piqued Harper’s curiosity. For someone whose life was grounded in the lives of others as hers had been since birth, Harper found that very insularity intriguing. Presley was a mystery she’d like to unravel, a desire as unusual as it was disconcerting. It didn’t hurt a bit that Presley had been unfazed by Flannery’s teasing flirtations—unlike most women faced with Flann’s megawatt attention, Presley hadn’t melted, she’d teased back in a way that had put her in control. Harper spent so much time letting others lean on her, the idea of someone else in charge was appealing.

“Hey.” Flannery’s voice cut into her reverie.

“What? Sorry.”

“I was asking for the details—where she’s staying, what is she doing here, is she married, that sort of thing.”

“How would I know that?” Harper rankled at Flannery’s assumption that Presley was hers for the asking.

“Well, what did you talk about?”

“Nothing, really. I only spent a few minutes with her. I walked her down to the admin offices. She said she came about a job.”

Flannery’s brows drew down. “A job? And you didn’t ask about that? Didn’t it strike you as just a little odd?”

“Why would it?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the way she looked.”

“I’ve got two eyes, don’t I?”

Flannery grinned. “Yes, but sometimes I’m not sure you actually see anyone unless they’re sitting on one of your exam tables.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harper was feeling grumpier by the second—much the way she used to when Flann bugged her until she joined in on one of her harebrained schemes in college. Schemes that usually led to her bailing Flann out of one mess or another.

“Meaning, half the time you don’t notice when a woman is sending you interested signals.”

“There weren’t any signals.”

“Good.” Flannery collected the rest of the crumbs of chocolate cake on her fork and licked them off. “Because I’m pretty sure I was getting some, so…as long as you don’t mind, I thought I’d follow up on that.”

The grumpiness turned to outright irritation. “Since when did you care what I thought about you chasing a woman?”

Flannery put the fork down beside her plate and cocked an eyebrow. “I can’t remember any time when it really bothered you. If it had—”

“If it had, are you saying you would’ve done anything any differently?”

“I don’t know,” Flannery said, her tone curious. “I guess I’d like to think so.”

“Hell, it doesn’t really matter. I didn’t get the sense she was sending signals to either one of us, and I think it’s kind of premature for us to be sitting here discussing something that isn’t even likely to happen.” Harper rose and grabbed her tray. “I’ve got some calls to make and patients this afternoon. I’ll catch up to you later sometime.”

“Sure.” Flannery rose, her expression pensive. “Hey, Harp?”

Harper turned. “Yeah.”

“Keep your antennae tuned, just in case.”

Harper laughed and left to dispose of her tray, rolling her shoulders to work out the pain that lanced between her shoulder blades. Flann was just being Flann, and neither she nor Flann had any reason to think Presley Worth had given them a second thought. Presley had been friendly and she’d joined in Flannery’s game, but she hadn’t given any indication she wanted more. Harper had no idea why that bothered her quite so much.

When her pager went off just as she reached the lobby, she was grateful for the interruption to her brooding thoughts and strode to Dora’s desk. “Can I use your phone, beautiful?”

Dora laughed as she always did when Harper called her that and turned her phone to face Harper. “Of course you can, handsome.”

Harper grinned. Dora was one of her favorite people. Dora had been her first-grade teacher and, like almost everyone else Dora’s age in town, was still her father’s patient. When Harper’d returned to begin practicing medicine at the Rivers, Dora had been one of the first to tell her how glad she was to see her back home. Harper dialed the page operator. “Harper Rivers.”

“Hi, Harper,” Sandy Reynolds said.

“What have you got, Sandy?”

“Your father asked me to catch you. He wants you to meet him in the medical staff office as soon as you can.”

Frowning, Harper checked her watch. She had a forty-minute drive to see Charlie Carlyle, an elderly farmer with diabetes who’d called her answering service to say he was having trouble with his foot. That could be anything from an ingrown toenail to a diabetic ulcer or something worse, and she didn’t want to leave him waiting too long. On the other hand, a summons from her father wasn’t something she could ignore, and after what he’d told them all that morning, a call from him in his official capacity as chief of staff couldn’t be anything good.

“On my way. Thanks, Sandy.” She passed the phone back to Dora. “Thanks, Dora.”

“Don’t look so worried, Harper. Your father will take care of the Rivers. The two of you will.”

Harper didn’t even ask how Dora knew something was happening. Dora always seemed to know everything, as Harper’d discovered the first time she’d hidden a frog she’d picked up on the way to school in her lunchbox and Dora had discovered it within a matter of minutes, almost as if she’d had X-ray vision. She only hoped Dora was right about this too, and she and her father could handle whatever was coming.

*

“That would be the assistant chief now,” Edward Rivers said at the sharp rap on the door. “Thank you for your patience.”

“Not at all.” Presley, seated in a blue-upholstered club chair in front of Rivers’s broad dark wood desk, turned slightly and glanced over her shoulder. Harper Rivers walked in and slowed when her gaze met Presley’s.

Presley read an instant of confusion, then a spark of anger that was quickly quelled as the midnight blue of Harper’s eyes turned arctic. Harper dismissed her after that first quick appraisal and focused on Edward Rivers.

“You wanted me?” Harper said.

“Harper, this is Ms. Presley Worth, Vice President of Operations at SunView Health Systems,” Edward said. “Dr. Harper Rivers, Assistant Chief of Staff.”

Presley rose and held out her hand to Harper. “We’ve met, briefly. Good to see you again, Doctor.”

Harper shook her hand. “I see you got the job.”

Presley smiled wryly. She deserved that slight barb. Harper Rivers might have appeared the quieter of the two Rivers siblings, but she was by no means the passive one. “Yes, it appears that I have.”

“Ms. Worth,” Edward said, “perhaps you could brief us on your requirements so we can see that you have everything you need.”

Presley stood as Edward sat behind his desk and Harper leaned a shoulder against a bookcase with rows of hardback texts, some of which appeared as old as the building itself. Sitting put her in a subordinate position, and she needed to take command immediately in the presence of two alpha males, gender notwithstanding. Walking to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, she put the sunlight behind her to shade her face just enough to force both doctors to concentrate on her. Smiling, she launched into her familiar pitch.

“In a transition such as this, we proceed in stages, beginning with an overall assessment of the institution, its internal operations, financial projections, et cetera. That provides us a general view of how to position the institution within the SunView system. We then move on to the second stage, which you might think of as the integration stage—where systems are streamlined, efficiency protocols are instituted, assets are reallocated—all with the aim of optimizing resources and returns. The final stage would be the placement of a permanent management team to continue the operational plan going forward.”

Harper, hands in the pockets of her trousers, frowned. “What does all that mean in practical terms? Will you be bringing in your own people to run the hospital?”

Presley chose her words carefully. Harper was the scion of a medical dynasty, not a simple country doctor, and at this stage, the less actual detail the administration of the target institution was provided, the better. “SunView employs individuals who have experience in this kind of assessment and analysis, of course. At this point most of the communication will be done remotely, but I and my admin will be here on site.” She glanced at Edward. “I’m afraid I’ll have to impose on you to provide some office space for us.”

“Of course,” Edward said. “You may have this office immediately.”

“Thank you,” Presley said, glad that he had saved her the awkward task of informing him she was taking over in all but name. “That’s very kind.”

Harper sucked in a breath. Her father seemed to know a lot more about what was happening than he’d let on, and none of it made her very happy. “Wait a minute. You’re not eliminating the chief of staff position—that’s a medical—”

“Actually, Harper,” her father cut in, “it’s considered an administrative appointment, and as such, is very much part of Ms. Worth’s territory now.”

“You misunderstand,” Presley said. “We are not removing Dr. Rivers at all. However, certain functions of the post will need to be modified, particularly those involving allocation of resources.”

Harper gritted her teeth and decoded Presley’s doublespeak. Her father’s role as chief of the medical staff was to represent the various medical departments in budget negotiations with the board, among other things. The same board who had sold the hospital to SunView. The board who no longer held the reins, financial or otherwise, effectively giving SunView control over everything, including the medical staff. The taste of betrayal was a bitter pill, and bile soured her throat. Were the board members so shortsighted they couldn’t see what they had done?

“Just how many positions do you plan on eliminating?” Harper asked.

“Naturally, streamlining operations is one of our goals.” Presley smiled. “Dr. Rivers, I’m sure you can appreciate that the hospital is a business as much as it is a humanitarian institution. If the business is not viable, the hospital cannot survive.”

“I haven’t heard anything about patients in all of this. This isn’t Silicon Valley. We aren’t a biotech company.”

“Indeed,” Presley said. “But you are in the business of caring for people.”