Their Christmas To Remember

“Easy...” he said, stepping in to gingerly help her into a more comfortable lean. “Don’t want to pull a staple. I did a good job there, but I’d like to revisit it about as much as I’d like to go see that big silly tree.”

She settled, and he watched her for a few seconds as her breathing evened out and she lost some of that worrisome pallor. “All right now?”

“I love the lighting and the tree.” She sailed right past his question and got back to what she wanted to talk about. But the fact that she was talking at all answered his question. “We go every year.”

When her little mouth twisted at the end of the statement, he knew it wasn’t physical pain.

Conley had been there before him, and had done something to brighten Jenna’s spirits, but he’d somehow just made her sad again.

Emotions. He wasn’t good at emotions. He could generally identify them, or when there had been an emotional shift, but he wasn’t good at responding. At least, he wasn’t good with all the emotions that weren’t amusement. He was good at that one. But even he failed to amuse when things ran too deep, too real.

Without his usual joking to fall back on, and knowing he’d not made the situation any better, it took him several seconds to come up with something resembling the proper response. “Family tradition?”

She nodded, then swiped her eyes with the arm that didn’t have the IV in it. “Except this year. They’re going without me.”

Joking wouldn’t help this. Even with his limited emotional palette, he could see that.

The location of the door through which he could escape became this presence in his mind, temptation glowing behind him. Hard to ignore. It would be so easy to say something polite, manufacture a reason to dart out and make his escape, maybe summon Conley back to cheer Jenna up again. Easy, but impossible. Good guys didn’t do that kind of thing.

“Aww, lass. I’m sorry you’re stuck here with the like of me this year.”

She sniffed, mustering such a pitiful little smile he felt worse for wanting to leave. “I like you.”

“I like you too.” It seemed the thing to say. Reassuring. Maybe even putting the conversation back to one where he knew how to respond.

Then she asked, “You really don’t want to go to the lighting?”

“Nah.” He waved a hand, made an exaggerated face of dismissal, shook his head, played up what silliness he had in him at the moment.

Then he saw it, a little sparkle returned to her dark eyes. She tilted her head and crooned, “You wouldn’t go with me if I could go?”

The playful and entirely unserious flirting of a twelve-year-old? That he could deal with. Much easier to play than try to solve problems he had no business making worse through his inadequacy. Stick with what he was good at: bodies. He was good at fixing bodies. He wasn’t a neurologist, or a psychologist, although that might’ve been helpful when his brother had been shot. Or now, with a fragile, overwrought twelve-year-old girl.

Ruffling Jenna’s short, dark hair, he teased, “That’s a bit different, isn’t it? I’d be goin’ with you for the company. No’ the silly tree.”

“You would?”

“Course I would,” he assured her, then, trying to make sure this was on proper ground, added, “We’d bring your whole family. And Dr. Angel.”

“Dr. Angel’s going to take me tonight,” she suddenly announced, voice far brighter than it had been. “And you can come with us!”

Her happy, chirruped words set his shoulders to granite, stiff and rigid enough to build on.

Was that how Conley had brightened her mood? The woman who smelled of heaven had promised to take his patient out of the hospital without a discharge order or consultation?

Surely not...

“Dr. Angel said she was taking you to Rockefeller Center tonight?” he asked, just to be sure. Always best to do your due diligence before ripping some hide off a colleague.

“Jenna, don’t fib to Dr. McKeag.” Angel’s voice came from the door at his back, then she came into view and he looked at her fully.

Smiling. She was smiling. This was a joke?

Jenna argued, sullenness drifting into her voice as she folded her arms. “It’s true. Sort of.”

“Yes,” Angel agreed. “But the ‘sort of’ part is important. Look how red his face got.”

Jenna innocently asked, “Are you embarrassed, Dr. Wolfe?”

“Angry,” Angel corrected.

“I’m waiting to decide. After someone explains ‘sort of’ to me.”

Jenna frowned so dramatically it’d have been comical in any other situation.

“I’m going to go to the ceremony and live stream it for her, let her tell me where she wants me to film. That sort of thing,” Conley explained, as if that were an everyday occurrence, nothing special.

“It’ll be almost like I get to go,” Jenna added, but Wolfe couldn’t take his eyes off the angel in the room, living up to her name.

He couldn’t stop himself from smiling either. Nurses went above and beyond all the time for their patients, but Wolfe didn’t see it much in the physicians. Even in himself, which at that moment made him feel like a jerk, so the smile kind of annoyed him. It warmed his cold, anti-Christmas heart. Slightly.

Had to be relief over not having to cause drama at the hospital. “That’s really—”

“My end of the deal,” Angel cut in, then directed her attention back to Jenna. “Speaking of, Dietary will bring you something good any minute. And when we get finished with the tree, I’ll bring you the peppermint cocoa.”

“And the snickerdoodle.”

“And the snickerdoodle,” Angel confirmed. “I haven’t forgotten.”

Bribed with sweets and the ability to boss an adult around for her own amusement? Someone should teach Dr. Angel how to bargain. And maybe take lessons from Jenna.

“Dr. Wolfe is going to go with you,” Jenna said.

Wolfe snapped back to the conversation. “I’m what now?”

“You said you would go with me,” Jenna reminded him, sounding terribly pleased with herself. So much different from the sad little sprite she’d been earlier.

He looked at Angel to get a read on her reaction, but her carefully closed expression and the lack of any sort of verbal response told Wolfe he’d get no help from her. She wasn’t even looking at him.

Did that mean she did or didn’t want him to go?

Dammit. All these emotional landmines. He hated trying to sort this stuff out. He’d much rather deal with actual guts than metaphorical ones.

If he backed out now, that’d probably be insulting a colleague. As a pediatric emergency specialist, she worked more with his brother in Emergency than with him but was actually in pediatrics. Which would violate his rule about causing stress in the work environment. Stress often led to scandal. It was one of his guiding lights to bring as little extra drama to the floor as possible; these kids and their families went through enough without dealing with that kind of selfishness.

“Okay, but I should warn you I have an early bedtime tonight,” Wolfe announced, at least giving himself a plausible reason to leave early. “I can go for the start at least. What time?”

Angel took too long to answer, especially given the way she avoided looking at him, but when she did there were strings of hesitation in the melody of her voice. “Starts at seven. We’ll need to get a cab soon to make it.”

He could smooth this over. Just be extra friendly to banish whatever doubts she harbored.

“Do I have time to change?”

“If you go now.” Angel gave a location to meet and then set about instructing Jenna on how to view the video feed.

Nothing else to do, he directed—just so his trip there wasn’t a total loss, “Eat the food, darlin’. We keep our promises, right?”

“I will.”

He winked at Jenna, then headed out.

This would be all right; it wasn’t a date. The heavenly smelling Dr. Angel was practically mute under most circumstances, even if she was currently trying to melt his Grinchy heart with acts of unexpected kindness with his young patient. She’d revert once they were alone, he was sure of it. Silent and introverted would counterbalance the distracting nature of her scent.

Outside the juxtaposition with the hospital’s natural scent, he might not notice her at all.

CHAPTER TWO

HAVING CHANGED INTO street clothes, Wolfe stuffed his hands into his favorite lambskin gloves, protecting them from the already bitter winds of late autumn while he waited for Dr. Conley.

One of the few things in his life that he cared about—the state of his hands. It directly correlated with his ability to do his job to the highest level, which was the one thing that gave him any nobility. The same basic root as the reason he was about to participate in the evening’s looming horror show: to be a good doctor for his young patient.

People tended to look sideways at anyone who disliked Christmas as much as he did, and in no way did he ever want to explain his reasons. There really was no way to sufficiently explain without the gory details he’d fled Scotland to remove from his life by removing his parents. Which made this the time for expert-level faking, and he’d found it useful to focus his disdain on whatever subject of Christmas-centered conversation that came up, not the holiday. Trees, for instance. Or caroling. People couldn’t balk at him loathing eggnog. He refused to believe people actually liked that slimy abomination anyway. Dressing in ugly jumpers, singing songs that were either far too somber or far too cheerful? Who liked that?

He’d survived a lifetime of this particular yearly sacrifice to materialism, he could do it again. Wouldn’t be the last time his acting skills would be called upon this season.

“Hey.” Dr. Conley’s voice came from behind him, cutting through his rapidly spiraling pep talk, and he turned in time to see her swing on a boxy black coat with oversize buttons. The motion caused the waistband of her red jumper to ruck up, exposing what was either a tiny waist, or the curve of shapely hips. Or both.

The cold winds that had been chapping his cheeks suddenly caressed like a cool breeze on his heated skin and, despite that heat, a shiver ran through him. A flash of socially acceptable midriff and suddenly he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

What was wrong with him? She wasn’t that attractive.

Sure, she had those fantastic dark blue eyes, and what man wouldn’t want to shove his hands into that shining black hair? But it was probably the freckles that were messing him up. He loved freckles almost as much as he hated Christmas.

“You ready?” she asked, apparently not noticing he’d gone stupid, or prompting him because she had. “Can you get the cab? They ignore me.”

The request was enough to get him functioning and he did so while silently reminding himself why Conley was off-limits. Because we don’t bring scandal into the workplace. We don’t do scandal period. Scandal never did anyone any good and bringing it around the kids was completely out of bounds. Besides, she was so quiet and serious, he could almost see flashing above her head in neon: Commitment. Commitment. Commitment. Not a woman to have a casual, limited-time-only fling—his only type of relationship.

New plan for the evening: be his most ridiculous. Conley never laughed; she’d hate him being anything but seriously festive and seriously serious. Which would keep him from making any hormone-driven mistakes on the off-chance she felt the same pull of sugar-frosted temptation. Besides, Jenna would laugh at him being a dork. Two birds, one big stupid stone.

Once in the cab, he settled in beside her and tried to focus on the unpleasant cab odors rather than the sweet scent she seemed to emanate.

She sat less than a foot away, and the way she snugged the coat around herself and looked the other direction should’ve made him feel more relaxed about the likelihood she’d encourage him to do something stupid.

The silence sat so heavily even the cabbie was put off by it. Wolfe was usually good at meaningless chatting. Putting her at ease would at least make it easier to get through the evening.

“So,” he started, looking back over to find her fidgeting with one of the oversize buttons, tugging and rolling back and forth. “What’s the plan? Film the whole thing?”

She stopped flipping the button about and just rubbed at it like a worry stone. “I don’t really know. When I offered, it sounded very straightforward. She’s going to tell us what she wants to see, and I think she’ll see the performances on television. I really don’t know what there will be to look at on the ground, but that’s what she focused on, that the broadcast was far away, and she couldn’t look up at the tree towering above. Probably just the tree. I hope just the tree. Not sure I’ll be able to find anything but the tree and the rink.”

Although she said a whole lot, she didn’t once look at him. She looked everywhere else—out of his window, through the partition to the front seat at the posted license, at her buttons...

Knowing how little she really wanted to interact with him should’ve made him happy. Really shouldn’t have felt like a challenge.

“Start at the tree, then?”

She nodded, fumbling her phone from her pocket and wordlessly typing into a search engine.

“What are you looking for?”

“They get the tree from a different part of the country and a different breed of pine every year.” She paused, finally looking over at him. “What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re watching me like I’m doing something dumb.”

“I’m watching you like you’re about to waste time looking for information I already possess.” He plucked the phone from her hands, flipped to the camera, took a smirking selfie and handed it back to her.

Her stunned expression made him want to misbehave a little more. With his best rendition of her Southern accent he mimed back, “What? You’re watching me like I’m about to do something dumb.”

It took her a moment, but her reaction finally caught up with her and the plush mouth that had been hanging open stretched in a slow, bemused smile. “I will...treasure? This?”

There was a question at the end of every word she paused her way through. Then she laughed. An actual laugh that accompanied her turning the phone off and stashing it again.

And just like that, his plan not to get too friendly went up in flames.

“Consider it an early Christmas gift,” he murmured. “And the only gift I’m giving this year, so be honored.”

“You don’t do Christmas with your brother?”

Of course she’d ask about Lyons. She worked with his brother more than she worked with him, but his mention brought up that mixed bag of emotions he’d been struggling to deal with for a while. Before Lyons had been shot, they’d both been content ignoring the holiday, but this year Wolfe just didn’t know what to do with his brother. They weren’t close, but since last Christmas, Wolfe had been ineffectively trying to change that, and knew beyond any doubt that Lyons shouldn’t be alone when this Christmas rolled around. But he didn’t know how to talk about it. Just as he’d failed to know how to talk to Jenna.

“Lyons doesn’t do Christmas either,” he said after a lengthy pause.

“Is it a Scottish thing?”

She was funny. Or dumb. Both of which appealed in entirely different ways. “Scotland’s a Christian country...”

“Yes, but don’t you do gifts on Boxing Day? I’m not entirely sure what that is, to be honest. But there’s also the chance that you all do something with kilts and flinging massive logs,” she offered, and, instead of turning the phone back on, gave the buttons a rest to flip the case open and closed, open and closed, open and closed.

“The only massive logs I like to fling are the ones that fit into my fireplace.” He was supposed to be the one being a dork tonight, but she was getting in the good zings. “How do they celebrate Christmas where you’re from?”

Such a simple question, he didn’t expect the color to drain from her cheeks, which only darkened the swath of freckles that were thickest at the apples and across her nose.

He knew enough about paling to know that it didn’t come lightly and guessed, “That is the face of someone who dislikes Christmas.”

“No, it’s not,” she argued, not a drop of passion in her voice. “I want to see the tree very much. I was going to go anyway. I just wasn’t going to stream it.”

“Why? It’s technically a different tree every year, but it’s the same as last year.”

“I didn’t see it last year.”

“Why not?”

“Because I arrived in January,” she answered after the slightest pause. With other topics, she spoke easily enough, but when it came to talking about herself? She paused long enough to draw attention to it, like the beat people took to come up with a story before telling a lie. Like every conversation with his parents, which no doubt colored his thinking. Why would she lie about that? Silly.

“For point of reference,” she explained, “Jenna was my first patient at Sutcliffe, and I diagnosed the initial mass on her kidney.”

And the truth, he was sure of it. Her careful choosing of words was for some other reason.

And he’d performed that first surgery to remove part of the one kidney, which had seemed to come out clean. Which the chemotherapy and radiation should have finished off. It hadn’t been a date that had been burned into his memory at the time, but with her relapse and second surgery, he’d become more familiar with it—January 17.

And it explained her connection to Jenna. Why she continued to visit her despite no longer being her physician. He didn’t know much about her, except that she was moving to Atlanta and that she needed to be friendlier at work, but being captive in the back of a cab gave him a moment and freedom to ask questions.

“Why are you leaving so soon? Not getting on with someone?”

Again, the small amount of color she’d regained drained away, except for her ears. Her ears went bright, fiery red. Man, he was on a roll with her.

“I just want to go now. But it’ll be nice to have some proper New York Christmas activities before I go.”

“To Atlanta,” he clarified. “I heard you were moving to Atlanta. Want to be closer to family?”

“Look.” She gestured out of the window and he followed the motion as the cab slowed.

They’d arrived at the cross street between towering buildings, the plaza a block in. The tree still sat unlit. “We made it in time, I see.”

“Thought the crowd and traffic would be worse.” She went with the subject change.

He fished cash from his wallet, despite her objection, and paid the cabbie. When he opened the door to get out, the sound of the busy city streets wiped away that strange sense of intimacy he’d been feeling, exchanging it for Christmas music from a jazz band on the corner of 49th and Rockefeller Plaza, doing their best to assure everyone that it was “the most wonderful time of the year.”

He didn’t buy it.

* * *

Angel climbed out of the back seat, trying to shrug off the little squabble that had gone down over who was going to pay the cabbie. It was a kind offer, she knew that. He was being gentlemanly. But all she really felt was an insinuation that she couldn’t afford to pay, just like all those times when she hadn’t been able to.

When she’d been in medical school, she’d really thought that once she’d begun making a very comfortable living, that fear, that feeling of inadequacy would fade away like so many bad memories.

And she’d run with the notion. She’d been in medical school, hundreds of miles from Knott County, Kentucky, and the local Conley stigma. It should’ve been safe to be open and share her past—the poverty, the criminal family, the unfortunate time she’d spent in juvenile detention—with the boyfriend she’d thought to love but had lost instead. That mistake had followed her to New York, taking her first job too after she’d had the misfortune to work for a man who knew Spencer, and noticed they shared the same medical school.

Thinking she could get past that here? Wishful thinking. That inadequacy stayed pinned to her, like an errant shadow she couldn’t shake off. Sometimes, after the fact, she could rationalize her way through why her first instinctive reactions to the things said to her were wrong-headed, but reason and emotion were different things. She’d been judged too harshly for too long, and, no matter how far she’d run, it had chased her. She expected it now. Sometimes she even thought she deserved it.

Knowing how unlikely it was that McKeag would think she couldn’t pay didn’t make it feel any less real, any less pointed. But making a scene over a cab fare would just draw a big circle around her insecurities.

So, she put up the mildest fuss, then moved on.

His small, kind contribution wasn’t the same as charity. She didn’t rely on charity for anything anymore.

Phone in hand, she stopped on the sidewalk and tried to flip through to the camera and juggle that with the social media account she was supposed to stream through. Not that she’d ever streamed before. But the words had come out of her mouth regardless. Everyone streamed, right? She’d looked up the instructions in the locker room while changing, but now could absolutely not remember the steps.

“Are you waiting for someone else to join us?” McKeag asked. Jenna might call them both by their first names, far too personal for her; he’d be McKeag. Wolfe sounded too...something. Primal.

“No, I’m just—” Just not wanting to admit she was having issues. She could figure it out. She didn’t need the help of the walking embodiment of gloriously scruffy, dimpled manliness. She tapped the icon that was supposed to initiate this nonsense again. Then twice more.

Nothing happened.

“Technological difficulties, please stand by,” he said, his voice like a surprisingly soothing narrator, but that damnable brogue played up.

“It’s not difficulties. I know how to do it. I read—”

“Never done it before?” he cut in.

She puffed, didn’t answer and mashed the icon again.

Then he was at her shoulder staring at the little screen; the firm plane of his chest against her back and the proximity of his head to hers made her fumble, nearly dropping the phone.

“Here.” He pulled off remarkably nice gloves, stashed them in his pocket, then wrapped one warm, firm hand around the wrist of her phone-holding hand. The heat of his touch spread up her arm and directly into her chest, making her muscles go soft and far too pliant. With no effort, he bent her arm slightly, to see the screen.

When he lifted his other arm to reach over her, which would practically be an embrace, the bitey critters returned with ravenous delight, and before she started to squirm against him, or throw herself shamefully on the pavement with her butt in the air like Meemaw’s ever-horny cat, she turned and pressed the phone into his hands.

He was going to do it, but, God help her, he couldn’t put his arms around her like that. The danger of making a complete fool of herself had already escalated when Jenna had tricked him into coming, and, given the choice, she’d rather be judged culturally stupid than accidentally throw herself at him.

She’d just been too lonely for too long. Another reason to move on. Although they were both massive cities, Atlanta and New York City might as well be different countries. Here she tried to speak the language and always sounded wrong, off...dumb. At least there, she’d have the native tongue, even if she had to keep her low-class dialect under control still.

Angel couldn’t say she’d had a crush on McKeag the entire eleven months she’d been at Sutcliffe. Those lame feelings had probably taken a good two weeks to colonize and really infect her, leaving her flustered simply by the man’s presence, and the chills he could send racing to little-used parts of her body even without all the physical touching. “You do it.”