All She Ever Wanted (3 page)

"She always loved the cable cars."

Cole's chest tightened. Natalie had loved the cable cars and the sailboats down at the marina, the fresh crab on Fisherman's Wharf, the long walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. At one time, he'd thought she'd fallen in love with the city as much as with him. Hell, maybe it had always been the city and never him. Not that he cared anymore. She was old news. Nothing was worse than old news.

"What was that book she was talking about?" Josh asked.

"I have no idea." It occurred to him that it was the second time that day someone had mentioned something about a book.

Silence fell between them as several long minutes passed. It was too quiet. Cole didn't like it. "Do you think she's coming back?"

Natalie could not go back in there. She could not stitch up Cole's head and act like there was nothing between them. Like they'd never been friends, never kissed, never made love ...

She leaned against the wall and tried to breathe. She hadn't felt this unsettled since she'd seen her first dead body. She was a twenty-nine-year-old doctor, not a foolish nineteen-year-old girl with a mad crush on the most attractive man she had ever seen. She wasn't naive anymore. She wasn't reckless. She wasn't stupid. Was she?

No. She couldn't go back there—not to his room, not to the past. She had her life together now, and she'd worked damn hard to get it that way. Cole Parish was no longer part of that life. That's the way he'd wanted it then and the way she wanted it now.

Why was it all happening tonight? First that author on television talking about a story that sounded a lot like Emily's, and now Cole. Was there a full moon? For three years she'd lived and worked in San Francisco, and he had never crossed her path. She'd almost forgotten about him, or pretended to forget about him, which wasn't easy considering he ran the biggest newspaper in town. And today he was here in the flesh, all six foot two inches of him.

He was bigger than she remembered, a full-grown man with strong shoulders, muscular arms, and long, lean legs. But some things hadn't changed. His hair was still a rich, deep brown, and his eyes were as dark and unreadable as ever. In the past those eyes had accused her of terrible things. And his voice ... his low baritone voice had once told her he loved her, then later told her he never wanted to see her again.

She'd loved Cole more than she'd loved anyone in her life, and he'd hurt her. Even now she could feel the deep ache in her heart that had once been a blistering, unbearable pain. She didn't think she could go through that pain again. Nor did she think she could go back into the examining room.

"Steve," she said abruptly, as a second-year resident walked by, "there's a head laceration in room two that needs stitches. Can you take it for me? I've got a phone call."

"Sure. I'll be right there."

Natalie nodded and walked quickly down the hall. She was a coward. There was no doubt about that. It was better this way. Cole could get treatment for his injury, and she could take care of people she didn't know. People who hadn't broken her heart.

Cole stared at the young man preparing to stitch him up. "Where's Natalie?"

"Dr. Bishop? She had to take a phone call. I'm Dr. Fisher. I'll take care of this for you."

The doctor might believe that Natalie had a phone call, but Cole didn't.

"Could you hold still, please?" the doctor asked.

It took all of Cole's willpower to do just that. His mind was running in a dozen different directions, and they all led back to Natalie. She was living and working in San Francisco. They could have run into each other at any time. Maybe they'd even seen each other in a crowd or almost bumped into each other at the grocery store or the movies.

Why had she come to San Francisco to work? She could have gone anywhere. St. Timothy's was a good hospital, but there were good hospitals across the state—across the country for that matter. Had she had another reason for wanting to take up residence in his city? Because there was no doubt that San Francisco was his town. His family ran the major newspaper. They were in the middle of things; they always had been. Natalie knew that. She'd spent holidays and weekends with his family. She would have had to know there was a possibility she'd run into him. Maybe that's what she'd wanted ... to see him again.

He shoved the thought away. He didn't care what she wanted. She was no longer in his life. She hadn't been for a long time. In a few minutes he would be on his way, and with any luck they wouldn't meet again for another ten years.

Dr. Fisher finished his stitching, handed Cole a prescription for a painkiller, and discharged him.

Cole got to his feet, feeling off balance. He suspected that had more to do with Natalie than with the gash in his head. When they reached the hall, he paused, unable to stop himself from looking around. There were a number of people in scrubs and white coats rushing around, but none of them had red hair. Or blue eyes. Or a mouth he could almost still taste ...

"Do you want to talk to her before we go?" Josh asked.

"No, I don't want to talk to her. Why would I want to talk to her? She is the last person I want to talk to," he added, finally cutting himself off. Judging by Josh's amused expression, he was making a fool of himself.

"Whatever you say," Josh replied. "I'll take you home."

Home for Natalie was a tiny attic apartment under the eaves of a three-story pink Victorian house, one of San Francisco's infamous painted ladies. But Natalie wasn't thinking about the city when she slipped into bed just after midnight. She was thinking about Cole and Emily. She hadn't been able to get either one of them out of her mind. On her dinner break, she'd run down the street to the local bookstore and picked up a copy of Fallen Angel. She was sure the book had nothing to do with Emily. Cole's newspaper wouldn't have reviewed it if that had been the case. And he hadn't appeared to know what she was talking about when she'd mentioned a book to him.

Still, she couldn't get the story out of her mind. She opened the first few pages and began to read. The opening scene took place in an off-campus dorm room where Ellie first met Nancy and their fellow suite mates, Linda and Maggie. Settling back against the pillows, she began to read.

Their friendship began on a sunny day in late September when Ellie and her parents arrived at Santa Cruz University, an hour and a half south of their home in San Francisco. The college spread across a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the infamous Beach Boardwalk with its aging but treasured wooden roller coaster.

Ellie was filled with excitement and joy but also a sense of trepidation. She had been worrying about her prospective roommate since she'd been assigned to room 232 at the off-campus dorm called Fontana Gardens, a three-story building a half mile from the campus. The only thing she knew about her roommate was that her name was Nancy and that she was from Los Angeles. It would be the first time in her life that Ellie had ever shared a room. Actually, it was the first time Ellie had ever shared anything. Her parents had spoiled her rotten. She knew that even if they didn't.

Ellie hoped that Nancy would like her. While Ellie had had all the material things money could buy, what she'd never really had was a girlfriend. She hoped more than anything that Nancy would be the best friend she'd always wanted.

Natalie drew in a sharp breath and closed the book, her heart racing as if she'd just finished a long-distance run. The names were changed, but the story was theirs. Fontana Gardens, the three-story dorm, was Paloma Gardens, named for the street on which it was located. Ellie was Emily. And Nancy was her. Their suite mates Maggie and Linda were Madison and Laura. And that first day in the dorm rooms still burned brightly in her memory. She'd been just as worried about meeting Emily as Emily had been about meeting her. And she knew what was going to happen next.

She set the book the aside. She didn't have to read the next page. All she had to do was lay back and remember. She pulled the covers up to her neck, and stared up at the ceiling, suddenly afraid to close her eyes. Did she want to remember? Did she want to go back to Paloma Gardens, to Emily, to the day where it had all begun? Her eyes burned as she tried to keep them open, but the past was pulling her back. Her lids grew heavy, as she gave into the desire to see it all again.

The dorm room was smaller than she'd imagined, the walls bare, begging for posters. A cheap-looking dresser sat next to each twin bed. This was it? Natalie wondered. This was college? She'd worked so hard to get here, holding down two, sometimes three jobs, as well as maintaining a straight-A average. And she'd ended up in a bedroom that didn't look much better than the one she'd shared with her mother in a run-down apartment in Los Angeles. But the room didn't matter.

She was free. She was starting a new life, and she couldn't wait. This life would be different. No one would have to know where she came from or what she'd left behind. No one would have to meet her poor excuse for a mother, who was drunk more often than she was sober. No one would have to know that she'd taken a five-hour bus ride to get here, with no one to send her off or say good-bye.

No one would know that she owned nothing more than what was contained in the two old suitcases now sitting next to one of the beds.

She could be anything she wanted to be, and she wanted to be a doctor. She wanted to make her father proud. He'd told her that the one thing he'd always wanted was a college education. But his parents hadn't been able to afford it, so he'd taken a job as a truck driver. He'd told her it would be different for her. And it would be different, but not because of him. He'd died when she was eight years old. But his dream for her had continued to burn in her heart, despite her mother's best efforts to squelch it. That dream was beginning today. She just hoped her roommate, Emily Parish, wouldn't be a total freak or a big party girl. Natalie might have made it to college, but this was just the first step in her ten-year plan to become a doctor, and she would need somewhere to study.

The door burst open and a girl came flying into the room with so much energy and sparkle that Natalie took an instinctive step backward. Wavy, long brown hair, laughing brown eyes, and an incredible smile. Emily Parish quite simply lit up the room.

"Natalie Bishop?" Emily asked. "Are you my roommate?"

Natalie nodded and said, "Yes" as Emily enveloped her in a big bear hug.

"Wow. Can you believe we're here?" Emily asked when she finally let go.

"Not really."

"We are going to have the best time. I've been waiting for this day for so long. I can't even tell you."

"Me, too," Natalie muttered, as Emily's parents entered the room. Richard and Janet Parish were the picture of rich sophistication infancy clothes and expensive jewelry. They were polite to Natalie, but she could see from their expressions that they were more than a little worried about leaving their daughter in the dorm. With the help of a few strong guys down the hall, Emily's belongings were unloaded. By the time they were done, there was barely room to turn around.

"Don't worry," Emily whispered. "As soon as they leave, we'll have a garage sale."

"You can't sell your stuff."

"I didn't want to bring it all. They insisted. They're a little overprotective."

Overprotective was right. Both Emily and Natalie received endless instructions about staying safe. Mrs. Parish pulled Natalie aside at the last minute and said, "Watch out for our Emily. She's an innocent She doesn't know what she doesn't know."

Natalie promised she would, because there was no way she couldn't promise. Besides, she was used to watching out for her mother, and Emily couldn't possibly be as difficult as that.

When the door closed behind the Parishes, Emily cranked up the newly connected stereo, jumped on her bed and began to dance, her long hair flying out behind her. "Come on," she said.

"Are you kidding?" Natalie asked doubtfully. "We might break the beds."

"So what? I don't know about you, but this is the first time in my life that I can do whatever I want to do. I have been waiting for this moment forever!"

A moment later, Natalie found herself attempting some sort of a dance on her own bed. She couldn't remember ever doing anything so silly or so girlish. And that was the way Laura and Madison had found them when they'd walked through the connecting bathroom to meet their suite mates.

Laura, a short and slightly overweight girl with dirty blond hair, offered them chocolate-chip cookies. Madison, a tall and thin blonde with a model's face and body, offered them some beer her boyfriend had stashed in her suitcase. Within minutes Emily had dubbed the four strangers the Fabulous Four. It was the beginning of a friendship meant to last a lifetime.

It had only lasted a year and a half.

Natalie's eyes flew open. She ran a hand across her wet cheeks, realizing she'd been crying. She'd closed off those memories for ten years, and now they were back. She didn't know whether to be furious or happy. With a sigh, she stared down at the book, flipping it over to gaze at the author's face. Garrett Malone. Who was he and how did he know so much about them?

Emily couldn't have told him. Had someone else in the Parish family talked to him? It didn't make sense that they would. They were devastated by Emily's death. They wouldn't have wanted a book to be published about their daughter, especially not a piece of fiction, especially not a book about ... murder.

Natalie's stomach turned over at the thought. Emily's death had been a tragic accident. She'd fallen off the rooftop deck during a party at the sorority house. Everyone knew that. If it had been anything else, Cole and his family would have made sure someone was punished. She needed to keep reading, to find out where the story was going. If the author was right about some of the stuff, was he right about Emily's death? Was there more to it than any of them had suspected? She opened the book and began to read.

Natalie woke up hours later to a persistent knocking on her door. She pulled a robe over her sweats and thin T-shirt and stumbled to the door, dimly aware that it was obviously morning and she'd managed only a couple hours of sleep. She expected to find Mrs. Bailey, her downstairs neighbor, who often dropped by with bagels on Saturday morning. Instead she found Cole.

"Why did you walk out on me?" he demanded.

"What?"

"You heard me." He marched into her apartment with a determined look on his face.

Wearing a pair of blue jeans and a long-sleeve black knit sweater that emphasized his broad chest and muscular build, Cole was even more impressive than he'd been the night before in his suit and tie. Or maybe in casual clothes he just looked more like the guy she remembered, the man she'd fallen in love with.