would be difficult. I travel. I have a home base but I’m rarely there.”
“Boston?”
“Yeah. It’s home, but not really. Do you have family?” he asked her. “I mean besides your dad.”
“I have a sister, Debbie, who lives here in Walnut River. We were always close but since her divorce, I think we’ve gotten even closer. We have a younger brother, Jacob, who’s an adventurer. I don’t think he’ll ever settle down. One month he’s in Australia surfing, the next he’s in South America helping to save the rain forest.”
“Lives in the moment?” Neil asked.
“Totally.”
“How long ago did you lose your mom?”
“Four years ago. I moved back in with Dad after she died because he just seemed so…lost. He was having more problems with his arthritis and had fallen down the basement steps one day when he’d done some laundry and hurt his shoulder. So it just seemed the right thing to do.”
“You were on your own before that?”
“Oh, sure. Since college. I had my own apartment over on Concord.”
“It must have been hard for you, moving back home.” He absolutely couldn’t imagine it, but then he didn’t have the relationship with his parents that Isobel obviously had with her dad.
“It was really odd moving back home. I mean, I had been in and out of the house ever since college, dinners on Sundays, stopping in to see how my parents were. But when I moved back into my old room, it was like I recognized it but I’d outgrown it. I didn’t want to change anything because Mom had decorated it for me and that was part of her. Yet it was a young girl’s room and I wasn’t young anymore.”
“What did you do?” he asked, curious.
“I packed away my cabinet of dolls, put the cupboard in the basement and moved in my computer hutch and printer. I couldn’t bear to part with the latch-hook rug my mom had made, but I hung a watercolor I had at my apartment and bought new curtains. A mixture of yesterday and today.”
“So living with your dad isn’t temporary?”
“I don’t see how it can be. He needs me and I can’t turn away from that.”
Neil admired what Isobel was doing. How many thirty-somethings would give up their life to help out a parent? “You’re fortunate to be close to your family.”
“You’re not?”
He’d left himself wide open for that one. “There’s a lot of distance between us, especially between me and my father.”
She broke apart another crab. “Is that your doing or his?”
If anyone else had asked him that question, he would have clammed up. But Isobel’s lack of guile urged him to be forthright, too. “I’m not sure anymore. At one time he put it there. Now we both keep it there.”
“That’s a shame. Because anything can happen at any time.”
That was a truth he’d experienced as a teenager.
They ate in silence for the next little while, listening to the birds that had found their way to the maples, to the sound of the breeze rustling the laurels and the foliage along the river, to the crunch of gravel as cars came and went. Whenever their gazes met, he felt heat rise up to his skin. It was the kind of heat that told him taking Isobel to bed would be a pleasurable experience. But as Isobel had said, most things had a price. He had the feeling she wasn’t the type of woman who lived in the moment. She was the type of woman who wanted a marriage like her parents had had and wouldn’t even consider a one-night stand as an option. He wasn’t considering it, either. This was an investigation, not a vacation.
After she wiped her hands with a napkin, she smiled at him. “I’m full.”
His pile of crab shells was much larger than hers, and he’d finished all but two of the fries.
“I really should get back,” she said. “I have laundry to do and cleaning. I play catch-up on weekends.”
His weekends were usually his own. The cleaning lady took care of his apartment and he sent out his laundry. Suddenly his life seemed much too easy compared to Isobel’s.
They finished their iced tea and cleaned up the remnants of lunch. His hand brushed Isobel’s as they reached for the same napkin. The electric charge he felt could light up the restaurant for a week.
She seemed as startled as he was. She blushed, shoved more crab shells onto a paper plate, then took it to a nearby trash can to dump it. Five minutes later, they were in his car headed for her father’s house. He’d felt comfortable talking to her while they had lunch, but now, there was an awkwardness intertwined with their silence.
Before he’d even stopped the car, her hand was already on the door. She unfastened her seat belt. “Thanks so much for lunch.”
He clasped her arm. “We didn’t talk about the hospital.”
“No, we didn’t,” she responded softly.
“I need to ask you more questions. Can you stop by my office after you’re finished work on Monday?”
“I never know exactly when I’ll be done.”
“I know. It doesn’t matter. When I’m not doing interviews, I’ll be going through records.”
She looked as if she wanted to protest again, to tell him no one at the hospital had done anything wrong, but then she gave a little sigh as if she knew any protest wouldn’t do any good. “All right.”
He felt as if he had to tell her this lunch hadn’t been all about his investigation because he finally had to admit to himself it hadn’t. “I enjoyed lunch with you, Isobel.”
She didn’t say anything, just stared at him.
He leaned in a little closer. The scent of her lotion or her perfume reminded him of honeysuckle. If he kissed her, would she taste as sweet as she smelled?
If he kissed her—
Mentally he swore and shifted away.
She opened the door and quickly climbed out.
Neil watched her walk up the path to the door. She didn’t look back.
And neither did he. Something told him his attraction to Isobel Suarez could bring him nothing but trouble.
On Monday afternoon, Isobel stopped to say hello to the nurses at the desk on the surgical floor, then continued down the hall and rapped lightly on the door to Florence MacGregor’s room. Her son, West, worked in the accounting department at the hospital.
As a high thready voice called for her to come in, Isobel pushed open the door. “How are you doing, Florence?”
The thin, petite lady almost looked swamped by white in the hospital bed. Her surgery had been recent—on Friday—and she was still pale with dark circles under her eyes. This was her second hip replacement. Her first had been about six months ago. She’d done well with that operation. But Isobel and the staff had noticed disorientation and memory problems even back then. Isobel had spoken to West about it, believing Florence should be evaluated for Alzheimer’s. But as far as Isobel knew, West hadn’t done that yet.
Isobel drew up a chair beside the bed and sat down. “How are you feeling today?”
“My hip hurts. West said you might be stopping in because I can’t go home when I leave here.” She sounded upset by that.
“No, I’m afraid you can’t. Remember when you went to Southside Rehab after your last operation?”
Florence’s eyes were troubled. “I remember exercising. I should be feeling better, don’t you think? My surgery was so long ago.”
Isobel