1. Against Doctor' s Orders

“Come again?”

“Most places up here don’t have it. You won’t need it except maybe in August, when it can get a little stuffy. Then just open the windows, and if you want a bit more air, you can put a fan in one of them. I’ll see to it when the time comes.”

“A fan. In August.”

“Maybe.”

“Wonderful.” Presley added another item to her list of things she intended to torture Preston for. “Which direction is town? I thought I’d walk around and get acquainted.”

“You won’t be walking to town. It’s about eight miles.”

“Eight miles. Lovely.” She couldn’t wait for Carrie to arrive to see to the rest of the arrangements Preston had neglected. “All right then, I’m going to need a car. Today. Where’s the nearest rental place?”

“I imagine that would be in Albany. And that’s a good—”

“Yes, I know, forty-five minutes away.” She considered her options. “Where would I go to buy one?”

“Well”—Lila seemed to be searching for words—“a new one or used one?”

“One that runs.”

Lila smiled. “I know just the place. When you’re ready, I’ll drive you over.”

“Let’s go.”

Lila’s cousin’s husband Clyde operated a small used-car dealership out of a garage next to his house twenty minutes away. Lila called, and a big man in baggy jeans and a faded T-shirt met them in the driveway in front of a single-story white cement building surrounded by a dozen cars and trucks.

“Good morning, ladies. You’re looking for a car, I hear.”

Presley surveyed the vehicles, all of which looked relatively new and surprisingly clean and in good condition. “I need something reliable with air-conditioning and GPS.”

The man glanced at Lila, who gave him a nod. “Are you going to be hauling anything?”

“What would I want to haul?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Hay, sod, feed, furniture—that kind of thing?”

Presley smiled thinly. “No. No hauling.”

“And I guess you won’t be pulling a trailer, either.”

“Not in this lifetime.”

“Well then, I think I’ve got what you want.” He showed her a relatively new Subaru hatchback with all the basic requirements and assured her it was in excellent condition. “And if you have any problems with it, just bring it back and I’ll take care of it.”

“Fine. Will you take a check?”

“I sure will. And I’ll get the registration taken care of for you this morning as soon as motor vehicles opens up. You’ll need insurance.”

“I’ll have my assistant call you with that information. Can you have someone deliver it to me when it’s ready? My cell number is on the check. You can call me, and I’ll tell you where.”

“I can do that.”

“Excellent.” She wrote a check, handed it to him, and turned to Lila. “Might I impose upon you a little while longer? I’ll need a ride to town while Clyde gets this ready for me.”

“Of course. I was going to go grocery shopping and stock up the kitchen anyhow.”

“Wonderful.”

Lila dropped her off a little before nine.

“Thanks, Lila.” Presley grabbed her briefcase. “You’ve been a tremendous help.”

“If you need a ride back before Clyde gets the car ready, you call me. It’s no bother.”

“That’s all right. I can always call a cab.” She paused, reading Lila’s expression. “Or not.”

She laughed before Lila could. The absurdity of the entire situation was starting to feel normal. She waved as Lila drove away, and surveyed Argyle Community Hospital for the first time. The ivy-covered red brick building with its white colonnaded front entrance and two symmetrical wings extending out in a lazy U stood on a hillside above the village. The road up wended through what Lila had told her were apple orchards. A rolling grassy lawn studded with shrubs and flower beds bordered the circular drive in front. With its tall gracious windows and elegant portico, the place might have been a grand hotel or a private summer home. It bore no resemblance to the modern, sprawling hospitals Presley was used to. A pretty place. She started up the broad stone sidewalk, thinking of all the uses for a building like this when it wasn’t a hospital any longer.

Chapter Three

The hospital foyer soared two stories to a vaulted ceiling painted in swirling patterns of dusky rose, periwinkle, and pale cream. A line of brass chandeliers with candelabra bulbs lit the upper recesses, and floor-to-ceiling windows on either side of the massive entrance let sunlight in to dance across the highly polished marble floors. Presley’s low heels tapped rhythmically as she crossed to a gleaming mahogany desk in the center of the expanse, behind which sat a tiny white-haired woman wearing a bright red jacket and a blazing smile. Presley glanced around and didn’t see anyone resembling a security officer, and she doubted that this diminutive octogenarian could stop a flea. Hopefully the other entrances were staffed more conventionally.

“Good morning,” the woman said in a surprisingly full, strong voice. “Are you here about a patient? Visiting hours aren’t until one unless you’re here to see someone in the ICU.” She pulled over a clipboard. “I can check a room number for you.”

“No, I’m not here to see a patient,” Presley said, scanning the desk in vain for a computer monitor. A clipboard? Why should she be surprised? “A business matter.”

“Oh, then you’ll want administration.” A thin bony hand pointed toward another set of polished wooden doors at the far end of the foyer. “Right through there to your left, second hallway on the right, and then follow the signs. Oh”—she held out a laminated card with a V on it—“just clip this to your jacket there.”

Smothering a smile, Presley took the little laminated card and clipped it to her jacket. A visitor’s badge. What next? Perhaps the plane had been caught in a time warp and she’d been transported back in time rather than simply across the country. “Thank you.”

“Not at all, dear. You have a nice day.”

Have a nice day. When was the last time someone had said that to her and sounded as if they really meant it? She spent her days in meetings with others just as busy and absorbed in their own projects as she was, or spearheading acquisitions that more often than not were unpopular with most of the people involved. Unused to the simple interchange, she searched for the appropriate response. “You do the same, Ms.…”

“It’s Mrs.…Mrs. Dora Brundidge. You can call me Dora. Everyone does.”

“All right, Dora. You enjoy your day.”

“Why, thank you. I will.”

Presley made her way from the reception area toward the main hospital entrance, slowly taking in the portraits dominating both side walls. On the left, four men, stern and serious looking in stiff, high-collared white shirts, vests, and coats, faced two men across the foyer in more modern garb. All the paintings were done in oils, the style formal, the elaborate frames gilt with engraved plaques beneath illuminated by individual brass lamps. Moving from one to the next, she perused the names. Alexander Rivers. Roger Rivers. Charles…William. Rivers all. Curious, she crossed to the right and studied the others. Andrew. Edward.

She pulled up a mental image of the report Carrie had given her on Argyle Community Hospital. Her memory was eidetic, or nearly so for practical reasons, and she sifted through the names of the board of trustees and then came to the entry she was seeking. Medical Chief of Staff: Dr. Edward William Rivers. She returned to the reception desk. Dora gave her another smile.

“Did you forget something, dear?”

“No, just curious. It looks as if the Rivers family is an institution around here.”

“Oh, well I would say so,” Dora said. “The first Dr. Rivers—that would have been Alexander Rivers—founded the hospital way back when the community was established, and there’s always been a Dr. Rivers at the Rivers.”

“The Rivers?”

“That’s what the hospital was called until after the war. Then, you know, the hospital name was changed, but it will always be the Rivers to a lot of us. We were mostly all born here, and our children too.” Dora laughed. “We’ve got some new blood over the years, of course—people moving in to try their hand at farming or raising goats and alpacas and such—but the majority of the families have been here a long time.”

“Yes, of course.” Presley tucked away that little bit of information. Community resistance in any kind of takeover was a possibility, although in this instance, she doubted any kind of organized or effective opposition could be mounted in time to slow the transition. She planned to be in and out as soon as possible, but it never hurt to be forewarned. “Well, thank you again.”

As soon as she passed beyond the foyer into the main building, the ambience changed. The hallways were still wide and grand with paneled wainscoting and tasteful muted colors and paintings of pastoral scenes hung at intervals, but the familiar signs of hospital activity were everywhere. Small discreet signs directed patients toward radiology, the outpatient labs, admissions, and the ER. Others pointed visitors to the elevators for the intensive care unit, the surgical waiting room, and the patient floors. Hospital personnel in scrubs, lab coats, and smocks hurried through the halls, some pushing gowned patients in wheelchairs. A young blonde in a white shirt with a logo above her breast that said Food Service pushed a rattling cart with pots of coffee and trays of bagels. She slowed and smiled at Presley, her gaze unmistakably appreciative.

“Looking for the conference room?” the blonde asked. Her ID read Deana.

“Is that where the coffee is going?”

Deana laughed. She was pretty in a completely unstudied way—clear eyed, no makeup, youthful and fresh. “Yes. Grand rounds, right?”

“Afraid not.”

“There’s plenty more in the cafeteria, then. Need directions?”

“I can probably find it. I’ll just follow the coffee.”

“Good. Need any help, let me know. Always guaranteed to be fresh. The coffee, that is.”

The mild flirtation was surprisingly pleasant and Presley grinned. “No doubt.”

The blonde grinned back and continued off with the clattering cart. Presley followed the signs toward the outpatient area, interested to see what kind of facilities were available. More signs pointed to cardiology, pediatrics, and the walk-in clinic. A few patients waited in seating areas here or there. She backtracked and took a left turn toward the emergency room and instantly felt the controlled tension in the air. The overhead lights were brighter, a row of wheelchairs lined one wall, and men and women in various colored scrubs hurried by. A young man in blue scrubs nodded to her as he pushed a gurney holding an old man with an oxygen cannula in his nose and a beeping portable cardiac monitor by his side. The old man’s eyes were closed, his stubbled cheeks pale, and his frail body barely made a ripple in the crisp white sheet covering him. Somewhere up ahead a child wailed.

She glanced into the patient waiting area across from the closed double doors marked Patients Only. Rows of plastic chairs faced a cubicle where a woman in a flowered smock sat at a computer behind a sliding Plexiglas window. A frazzled brunette in low-cut jeans and a frilly white ruffled top that exposed her pale midriff rocked a red-faced, tear-streaked toddler. An old woman with thick ankles and heavy black shoes in a worn gray sweater and shapeless faded floral housedress sat against the far wall with her palms pressed against her broad thighs, staring straight ahead as if she were somewhere else. Waiting for news, perhaps about the old man. Two teenage girls with teased hair and nearly identical tight, scoop-necked tank tops huddled over their phones in another corner, thumbs flicking rapidly as they texted.

The ER swished open, and Presley caught a glimpse of a big whiteboard with names scrawled in Magic Marker next to room numbers. Charts sat in slots down the wall beside the board. Over half of the ten or so slots were filled. Busy for a weekday morning.

Presley recalled the stats for the last year. The hundred-and-twenty-bed hospital had seen over eight thousand patients come through the emergency room with an admission rate of 15 percent. The hospital ran at 85 percent capacity and the OR at 90, employed a hundred nurses, nearly that number of ancillary technicians, another twenty in the clerical ranks, and a half dozen administrators. There were no full-time physician employees—all were private practitioners with admitting privileges. The model was an old one and not particularly efficient—too many overlapping specialties and not enough centralization. The number of inpatients at any time could easily be cared for by far fewer hospital-employed physicians. However, that wasn’t a problem she needed to be concerned with. The location within sixty miles of a medical center made the entire facility redundant.

As the ER doors started to close, two women walked through talking intensely in low voices. The taller, dark-haired one with a stethoscope slung around her neck was dressed casually in black pants and a neatly pressed pale blue shirt. The other, a sandy-brown-haired woman in hospital greens and a white lab coat, paused, and both scrutinized Presley.

The dark-haired one caught the door before it could swing closed and smiled. “Are you on your way in to see a patient?”

The question, or maybe it was the quick, warm smile and honey-slow voice, caught Presley off guard. A morning for surprises. “No. Thanks. Actually, I’m looking for the administrative wing.”

The one in scrubs laughed, her dark brown eyes dancing. Her grin was cocky and confident. “Well, we wouldn’t exactly call it a wing, but maybe a wing tip.”

“That will do nicely,” Presley said.

“I’m headed that way.” The dark-haired one held out her hand. “Harper Rivers.”

Another Rivers. Presley took her hand. It was large, warm, and strong. “Presley Worth.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Harper Rivers’s eyes were a dramatic shade of deep blue, and Presley had a hard time looking away. She released Harper’s hand. “You too.”

“I’m Flannery,” the sandy-haired one said, edging into Presley’s field of vision. “The better-looking sib.”

Presley glanced from one to the other and saw it then—the bold angle of the jaws, the firm straight noses, the full expressive lips. Eyes of a different color, but similar intelligent, confident gazes. The supply of Rivers doctors was apparently endless.

“I’ll wisely reserve comment,” Presley said.

Harper laughed and Flannery grinned.

“Are you new in town?” Flannery asked.

Curious, Presley nodded. “I am. How did you know that?”

The grin returned. “Because I don’t know you, and I would’ve remembered if I’d seen you before.”

“Aha,” Presley said. The woman was so self-assured she didn’t even pretend to be embarrassed at using such an old line, and that made her interesting. “Of course.”

Harper Rivers shook her head, her expression amused. “Don’t you have a case, Flann?”

“I’m going.” Flannery backed up a step, her focus still on Presley. “Staying long?”

“A while.”

“Excellent. If you need a tour guide or…anything, I’ll be free later today. Just call the operator. She’ll page me.”

Harper called after her, “Let me know what you find.”

Flannery tossed a salute. “Will do. Lunch?”

“Sure.” As Flannery disappeared around a corner, Harper turned back to Presley Worth, who looked after Flann with amused, faintly appraising blue eyes. Harper was used to seeing interest in a woman’s eyes when they considered Flann, but Presley’s expression was far more contemplative, as if she was trying to decide if Flann was worth her time. An unfamiliar reversal where Flann was concerned. Harper searched for something to say that wouldn’t sound like a follow-up to Flann’s invitation. “Been in town long?”

“That obvious?”

Harper laughed. “Only to someone paying attention—between me and Flann, we know the families of every patient in the hospital. Plus…”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Harper didn’t usually strike up conversations with women out of the blue, and definitely not in the hospital. That was Flann’s special skill. Flann was at ease with women anywhere and always had more dates and interested women than she could handle. Not so Harper. She preferred slow introductions and cautious explorations. She didn’t date much—she liked her privacy, and dating anyone at the hospital automatically meant everyone in the community would know before the night was out. And she’d grown up with many of the women she saw outside her professional arena and thought of them as friends, not romantic possibilities.

“Oh no,” Presley said. “You started it—now you have to finish.”

The teasing challenge in Presley’s voice caught Harper’s attention. “Your tan is a few weeks too early for the local weather, and…”

Presley made a keep-going gesture.

“And you look like a city girl.”

“Why do I think that might be a veiled insult?”