thought to herself that Peter Wilder was really a very rare man. And, not for the first time, she felt an accompanying little flutter in the pit of her stomach as she thought it. Except that the flutter was getting bigger each time. She was going to have to watch that.
Chapter Twelve
Observing people had always been a hobby for Peter. At a very young age, he’d discovered he could tell a lot by the way people interacted with one another. For the most part, people fascinated him.
But tonight, watching the different board members cluster around Bethany—not to mention studying more than a handful of the male physicians buzzing around her like so many bees who had lost their navigational system—caused a mild irritation to rise up within him. Irritation, and—he conceded—perhaps a minor case of jealousy as well. He didn’t like it. He’d always believed that jealousy was a useless, demeaning emotion.
So why did he feel like separating Bethany from her admiring throng and keeping her all to himself?
Where the hell were all these primitive feelings coming from? Moreover, where were they going to lead him? He wasn’t all that certain he wanted to know.
When the orchestra began to play after dinner, Peter decided that maybe it was time to stop trying to figure out what was going on internally and just make the most of the moment.
Coming up behind her chair, Peter bent down until his lips were next to her ear and asked, “Would you care to dance?”
Bethany abruptly ended her conversation with the neurologist who had been monopolizing her for the past ten minutes and looked at Peter quizzically. She seemed surprised. “You dance?”
He inclined his head in silent assent. “That would be what my question implies, yes.”
Bethany had trouble wrapping her mind around the concept. She thought of Peter as intelligent, capable, generous and kind. Fluid and graceful, however, did not enter the picture.
“Funny,” she said, rising. “I never thought of you as someone who would enjoy dancing.”
“How did you think of me?” Taking her hand, he led her to the dance floor. “Besides the obvious.” When he turned to face her, he smiled, prodding her memory. “I believe you said something about my being a stick-in-the-mud?”
Bethany’s smile was rueful. “I was wrong,” she admitted freely. Then, as anticipation flared within her veins, she added in a quieter voice, “About a lot of things.”
Taking her hand, he tucked it against his shoulder, then placed his other hand at the small of her back. His palm came in contact with her bare skin. He’d forgotten that there was no material there. Desire shot out to the foreground.
“Such as?” he prodded gently after a beat.
They were swaying to the music, their bodies all but merging. All sorts of feelings were swarming inside of her, feelings that hadn’t visited before—except perhaps since he’d kissed her.
She found herself aching for a repeat performance. Aching for a great many things. Everyone around them began to fade away.
Raising her head, Bethany looked up into his eyes. “Some things are better left unsaid.”
“I can appreciate boundaries,” he told her indulgently.
Until just now, he’d thought that his own were fairly well defined and in place. But now, suddenly, they felt as if they were crumbling. Holding her to him like this, feeling the heat of her body mingling with his, he could feel those barriers shattering like so much glass being struck by a stone. When she leaned her head on his shoulder, her hair brushing against his chin, he could feel everything within him tightening as heat traveled up and down his body, making him aware of every single inch of hers.
As they continued to dance, he tried not to breathe in the scent of her hair, tried not to let his mind wander down paths that would ultimately lead nowhere, but his thoughts refused to be bridled.
When the musicians stopped playing, Peter and Bethany were still dancing, their bodies moving in time to a melody all their own.
Bethany laughed, then covered her mouth to lock in the sound. It was late and all the lights of the houses that surrounded hers were off. The neighborhood was asleep.
It might be asleep, but she felt wide-awake. Wide-awake and ready to go. Anticipation pulsed all through her like a horse at the starting gate.
“We could buy two MRI machines with the money that was raised tonight,” she declared.
Peter had driven her home and she was now vainly searching for her keys in a purse that should have given her no trouble because of its minute size. She still couldn’t locate them.
“I had no idea there were that many well-off people in Walnut River. Walnut River,” she repeated. Another infectious laugh, quieter this time, escaped. “That sounds like a quaint town that should be down the road from Little House On The Prairie.” She looked at him to see if he agreed, then went back to swishing her fingers around the bottom of her purse, seeking to come in contact with metal.
“Henry knows a lot of people.” Amusement curved his lips as he watched her rummage. The lady, he thought, had had a few too many. Uninhibited, she was adorable. “People who like to feel good about themselves because they give to good causes. By the way, that was a sizable donation you offered,” he pointed out. She’d made the pledge after having her second or third glass of wine. She was new at this sort of thing, he judged. People who didn’t ordinarily drink tended to be a little reckless when they did imbibe. “At the risk of being indelicate—”
Her head shot up. Was that hope in her eyes? Couldn’t be.
“Yes?”
He didn’t want to see her embarrassed when it came time to make good on the pledges. “Can you actually afford it?”
God, but he was proper. She’d thought he was about to say something a lot more personal, a lot more intimate, than ask about her financial state.
“Sure. I’m rich.” And it had been more of a burden than a boon most of the time, she thought sadly. “Didn’t you know that? Got a trust fund and everything. But it’s a secret.” To underscore the point, Bethany placed her forefinger to her lips, as if to seal in the sound of her words.
He wasn’t quite following her and wondered if the wine was jumbling up her thoughts. “Your trust fund’s a secret?”
Still searching through her purse, she nodded. “Don’t want anyone to know,” Bethany said, then sighed. “People don’t believe you’re serious about your work if they know you’re well-off. They think you’re just slumming, amusing yourself,” she announced, saying it as if it was the latest cause that needed to be taken up. And then her eyes brightened. “Ah, here it is.”
Triumphantly, she pulled the key ring from her purse and held it up.
Getting said key into the lock proved to be yet another challenge. Bethany missed the opening twice, hitting the door instead. On her third attempt, she dropped the key ring altogether.
She looked down at the keys as if they’d escaped. “Oops.”
Peter bent down and retrieved her key chain. Rather than hand it to her, he decided it would be simpler if he just unlocked her door, so he did. Turning the knob, he opened the door, pushing it so that she could walk in first.
He followed her into the house, then placed the key on the small table next to the door. She swayed a little as she turned around to face him. He caught her by the shoulders to steady her. “I think you had a little too much wine.”
Unfazed, she looked up at him and said, “I did.”
She made it sound as if she’d done it on purpose. He couldn’t fathom her reasoning. “Why?”
She took a heartening breath