No Ordinary Billionaire (The Sinclairs) (R) (2 page)

At the time, Dante hadn’t realized that Patrick was taking his last breath as his friend hit the ground with a gasp, his eyes still open and his head covered in blood. Now that he
did
know, Dante couldn’t stop seeing that horrifying vision over and over again in his mind.

They were currently in flight on Grady’s private jet, making their way from Los Angeles to Amesport, Maine. They’d be landing in a small airport outside of the city limits.

“I could use a beer,” Dante told Grady in a tortured voice, not looking at his brother as he buried his face in his hands. “Ouch! Shit!” Dante moved his hands away, the pain of the still-tender wound on his face irritated by his actions.

“Alcohol and painkillers don’t mix,” Grady mentioned calmly as he picked up the laptop from the floor. Miraculously, the computer was still working, and Grady frowned as he opened the top and saw what his brother had been viewing. “You were watching the funeral? We were all there, Dante. I know you feel like shit because you couldn’t be there. Every one of us went for you because you couldn’t.”

They all had, and the fact that his brothers and sister had attended the funeral for him while he was laid up in the hospital, to pay their last respects to a man they never even knew, touched him deeper than they would ever know. They’d stood in his place, united in their support of him at Patrick’s funeral. It had meant a hell of a lot, but . . .

“I had to see it myself.” Dante looked up at his older brother, his expression stony. “And I’m not taking the painkillers.” Maybe it was stupid, but feeling the pain of his injuries seemed to somehow make him feel less guilty that he was still alive. If he was fucking hurting, he was paying the price of still being alive while Patrick was buried six feet under.

The psychologist thought he was having self-destructive thoughts.

Dante didn’t give a shit.

“Hold on,” Grady answered gravely, leaving briefly and coming back with a bottle of beer. He screwed off the top and handed it to Dante. “It’s not exactly the healthiest thing for you to have right now, but I doubt it will do much harm.”

Tossing his head back, Dante took a gulp of the cold liquid, letting it slide down his throat, suddenly questioning the intelligence of doing so. The taste brought back a flood of memories, all of them about the many times over the years that he and Patrick had hung out together having a beer. He finished it quickly as Grady watched him pensively, handing the empty bottle back to his brother after he drained it. “Thanks.”

Grady took the bottle from Dante’s hand with an uneasy scowl. “Are you okay?” he asked again in a husky voice. “I know your wounds hurt like hell, but they’ll heal. That’s not what I’m asking. I need to know if
you’re
okay.”

Dante stared at his older brother, the concern on Grady’s face nearly breaking him. Although the Sinclair siblings had all scattered to different areas of the country after they’d left their hellish childhood and adolescence behind, the affection they all had for each other had never died. They might only get together on rare occasions, but they all still cared. He had seen it in every one of his siblings’ eyes at the hospital.

The anxiety and distress that was lodged deeply in Grady’s gray eyes finally made Dante admit for the first time, “No. I don’t think I am.”

Patrick was dead. Dante wished he had died in his place. His body was racked with pain, and everything inside him was cold and dark.

Right at that moment, as his anguished eyes locked with his older brother’s, Dante wasn’t sure he would ever be okay again.

CHAPTER 2

“Did you read my column today?”

Dr. Sarah Baxter bit her lip to keep from smiling as she looked at her elderly female patient, still sitting on an exam table after a routine visit. Elsie Renfrew was eccentric, but she was also a member of the Amesport City Council, and the biggest gossip in town, so she was far from demented. Sarah had grown very fond of the older woman, but she knew just how wily she actually was, and that Elsie knew the personal business of almost every resident in Amesport. Most people in town called her Elsie the Informer, but Mrs. Renfrew had enough power and clout locally that nobody would dare mention that moniker to the venerable woman face-to-face. Sarah rather admired the older woman’s spunk, but she found herself constantly and carefully monitoring anything she said to the chirpy, inquisitive woman. Even a casual comment about another Amesport resident was likely to end up in Elsie’s What’s Happening in Amesport column of the
Amesport Herald
if there was even a hint of juicy information. Sarah might admire the fact that her patient was over the age of eighty and still so active in the community, but she’d also readily admit that Mrs. Renfrew terrified the hell out of her sometimes. Just the slightest slip and the seemingly sweet woman would twist the information around and make it the subject of town gossip. Not that Elsie was mean-spirited. She just felt it was her duty to report any news in Amesport since her roots in the area went back to the time the town was founded.

“No, Mrs. Renfrew, I haven’t had a chance to read the paper today.” Sarah knew she was blatantly lying, but she quickly justified that fibbing was better than the possible alternative. She’d read the newspaper this morning at breakfast, including Elsie’s article titled “Another Sinclair Hottie Returns to Amesport Wounded.” If there was one thing Sarah definitely
didn’t
want Mrs. Renfrew to know, it was that she knew way more about
that
situation than anyone else in town—except for the so-called rich hottie’s family.

“Now, honey, I told you to call me Elsie ages ago.” The tiny gray-haired woman patted Sarah on the arm and hopped nimbly to the ground, her sneakers absorbing most of the impact. Amazingly, Elsie still looked elegant, even though she was dressed in white sneakers and a red sweat suit.

Sarah sighed as she snaked a hand out to catch the woman around her upper arm to make sure she was steady. She still wasn’t used to the informality around the friendly coastal town of Amesport. “You did tell me that. I’m sorry, Elsie.” Even after nearly a year of practicing here, Sarah still had a hard time calling her patients by their first names if they requested it, and had realized that she actually got to know them well enough that every one of her patients preferred it.

She’d done her residency in internal medicine and first year of practice in Chicago, rarely seeing a patient for very long before moving on to the next one. Her focus had been on hospitalized patients, so she’d rarely had a chance to get to know any of them personally, except for a few who required extensive hospitalization.

Sarah shuddered, a reaction she had every time she thought about even entering a hospital now.

“I kind of thought you might end up being the doctor who is seeing to Dante Sinclair’s injuries when he gets here.” Elsie raised an eyebrow with a sly look on her face. “It’s not like we have very many doctors here.”

Sarah shook her head, focusing her attention on her patient. “Even if I was his doctor, Elsie, I couldn’t tell you. Patient confidentiality.”
And
thank
God
for
that
. Being a doctor gave Sarah a good excuse to clam up when Elsie asked any questions about other residents.

“So are you saying you
are
going to be this Dante Sinclair’s doctor?” Elsie said shrewdly, shooting Sarah a calculating stare. “But you can’t tell me because of medical ethics?”

“No. I didn’t say that at all.” Elsie wasn’t trapping her into admitting anything. “I was just reminding you that no physician can gossip about any of their patients,” Sarah said firmly, knowing if she gave Elsie an inch, she was likely to take way more than a mile. The determined elderly woman would drag her across the whole country to get an answer.

“He’s very rich, you know. Single and a hero. He threw himself in front of his partner to try to save his life, and killed the shooter so no one else got hurt. He’d be a good one for you, honey,” Elsie told her thoughtfully. “Beatrice and I were just talking about you two this morning.”

Oh, God.
Just the thought of Elsie talking to Beatrice Gardener about her destiny was a terrifying thought for Sarah. Beatrice was the second-biggest gossip in Amesport and considered herself the town matchmaker. Around the same age, the two women were absolutely lethal together. “I’m not looking for a man,” she told the older woman hurriedly, her voice almost desperate.

Elsie opened her mouth to argue, but there was a tap on the door before she could say whatever it was she wanted to say.

“Come in,” Sarah called eagerly.
Please, please come in.

Kristin, her cheerful, redheaded office manager and medical assistant, popped her head in the door. “All ready to get your blood work, Elsie.” Kristin opened the door completely and motioned for Elsie to come with her.

“Thank you,” Sarah mouthed silently to Kristin as Elsie’s lips turned down in an irritated frown. Elsie was obviously unhappy that she hadn’t achieved her objective but started heading reluctantly toward the door. Sarah called out to Elsie, “Have a good day. I’ll see you again in a few weeks to go over your blood tests.”

“Remember what I said,” Elsie called over her dainty shoulder. “Beatrice and I are rarely wrong. You two are perfect for each other. Beatrice is having one of her hunches about you two.”

“Okay,” Sarah answered weakly, breathing a sigh of relief as Elsie exited. Kristin shot her a knowing wink as she closed the door, leaving Sarah blissfully alone.

Thank God.

It wasn’t that Sarah didn’t like her patients, and most of the time she could have a lively conversation with Elsie about other things that didn’t revolve around the Amesport gossip. But her patient had definitely been on an information mission today, and Sarah had been afraid she’d inadvertently give away something in her expression because she was a lousy liar. In fact, she sucked at it.

Probably because I never really had any friends to lie to before I came here.

She’d never had any need or reason to lie. When one dealt with scientific data, lying was generally unnecessary.

Dante Sinclair
was
going to be her patient. She’d already studied all of his medical records, knew he was flying in today from Los Angeles. She’d spoken with his attending physician at length and his department psychologist as well. Last night she’d studied his injuries and read his history, poring over all of the notes on both his medical condition and the incident that had gotten him injured in the first place.

He lost his partner. It had to have been a horrific experience for him. Yet he was still able to kill a serial killer, even after he’d been hit several times. And he did it while shielding his partner, who had already taken a fatal hit.

Sarah couldn’t deny that Dante Sinclair was a hero, but judging by some of the psychological records, he wasn’t taking the death of his partner well and was exhibiting some self-destructive behavior.

Survivor’s guilt.

Even though Sarah wasn’t a psychologist, and honestly didn’t completely understand emotional behavior herself, it made sense to her in a rather convoluted way.

Survivor’s guilt is a mental condition that occurs when a person perceives themselves to have done wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not.

If Sarah hadn’t had to deal with some psychological trauma of her own the year before, she might have said survivor’s guilt was totally illogical. But she couldn’t say that anymore. Mental reactions weren’t logical, but they happened, and they could destroy the lives of those suffering through them.

Quickly leaving the exam room, Sarah ducked into her small office and changed out of her scrubs, pulling on a pair of jeans and a purple short-sleeved shirt. After grabbing her purse and slipping her feet into a pair of sandals, she walked quietly through the hallway, wanting to get out the door before she encountered Elsie again. Kristin was drawing routine labs, but it wouldn’t take long.

I can’t believe I’m sneaking around like a criminal in my own office.

Taking a deep breath as she left the building, she let the scent and feel of the coastal town soothe her soul. Amesport was just big enough to have everything she needed but small enough to still be quaint. Her office was in the center of town, and the area was alive with activity, as it always was during the tourist season in the early afternoon. The humidity made her shoulder-length blonde hair start to curl up at the ends, taking on a life of its own, but she ignored it. She wasn’t about to go back into the office to look for a hair clip, and she was getting used to the Maine weather doing crazy things to her hair. As she headed for her compact four-wheel-drive vehicle, she wished she had the time to walk through the town square. She could desperately use a latte from Brew Magic, the local coffeehouse, and she liked strolling down Main Street. Most of the time she walked to work, but she’d driven today, knowing she was going to have to drive out to the peninsula.