The Nightshift Before Christmas. Annie O'Neil
right?”
“Jorja? Could you make sure the tablets are all updated to reflect what’s on the board? We’ve got quite a few changes to note,” Katie called over her shoulder to the main desk.
“Sure thing, Dr. McGann. On it!”
Josh leaned against the wall, one foot crossed over the other, hands stuffed in his pockets, happy to just watch her play out her ignoring game. He threw in an off-key “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” whistle for good measure.
“And let’s pop something different on the music front, Jorja. Some nice carols.”
Josh grinned at Jorja, dropped her a wink and dropped his whistle simultaneously.
“They just don’t stop, do they? Your parents?”
Only the squeak of the whiteboard pen could be heard over the usual hospital murmur.
Wow. Having a conversation with a brick wall would have yielded more return.
“The indefatigable McGanns! That’s how I always thought of them.”
Katie’s lips tightened. She didn’t do chitchat. Especially when it came to her parents. They were the source of any well-packed baggage Katie had hauled around through the years. Parents who’d discovered they hadn’t really been up to parenting so had handed it over to nannies and boarding schools to do the work for them. They were harmless enough folk at a cocktail party, but he knew their lack of interest as parents hurt Katie deeply.
“I’m not staying there this week.”
Interesting.
“I always stay at the hospital over Christmas,” she volunteered hastily, with a quick pursing of her lips. “My parents have come in to ski for the week—”
Josh snorted and was relieved to see Katie join in with an involuntary snigger.
“Well...at least they’ll look fabulous in their ski gear before they hit the cocktail circuit.”
Her eyes flicked away with a shake of her head. She must have remembered she’d told herself not to enjoy being with him.
“It’s easier not to get stuck in a storm if I’m here.”
Wow! Two whole sentences! They were on a roll. He kept his ground. Nodded. Tried not to look too interested. He’d learned long ago that it took a lot to get Katie talking, but once you opened the floodgates...
“So...where are you really staying?”
Bang goes that theory.
“Honestly, Kit-Kat. My plan was to just stay here.”
Her brown eyes were briefly cloaked by a studied blink. Then another. Her lips twitched forward for a microsecond in a moue. Was that a response to his being there? Had an image of the two of them wrapped together as they’d always been in bed flashed across her mind’s eye as it had his?
He cleared his throat and shifted his stance. “Casual” was getting tough to pull off. What he wouldn’t give to take the two steps separating them and start to kiss those ruby lips of hers as if each of their lives depended on it. It felt as though his did, and standing still was beginning to test his fortitude.
“I see.” She abruptly turned to face the main desk, where Jorja was checking in a new patient. “We’d best get you to work, then.”
Fair enough. She wasn’t saying no.
And... A smile began to tug at the corners of his mouth. Depending on how you looked at it, Katie was saying yes. Yes to his staying. Yes to his being in the hospital. Yes to their being together.
Okay, it was a bit of a leap, but he was willing to take the risk. In for a penny and all that...
He pushed away from the wall and took a step behind her when she turned back to face the board, unsurprised to see her shoulders stiffen...then relax when he kept just enough space between them for her to know he wouldn’t do what he’d always done before their lives had been ripped in two.
He closed his eyes and pictured the scene. She’d be studying something—anything—an X-ray, a chart, the wall—it didn’t matter. He’d step right up behind her, arms slipping round her waist, hands clasped against her belly, his chin coming to a rest on her pillow of chestnut hair or slipping down alongside her cheek for a little illicit nuzzle or to drop a kiss on her neck...
He heard her sigh at the exact same time he was blowing out a long, slow breath between his lips. Oh, yeah. They were on the same page all right. It just hadn’t been turned for a while.
“Hey, you two—you’re in for the Secret Santa, right?”
Josh and Katie both whirled round to see a grinning Jorja holding out a Santa hat with folded pieces of paper being rapidly jiggled around.
“Count me in.” Josh reached into the hat and grabbed a bit of paper. If he was going to show Katie he knew how to settle down, enjoy small-town life... “Who doesn’t love a bit of Secret Santa action?” He turned to Katie. “That is if it’s all right with the boss lady?”
“Who am I to curtail your holiday cheer and our small-town ways?”
And they were back in the ring! Three years ago the idea of going back to his small-town roots would have made him run for the hills...or the bright lights of Manhattan, more like it. But after he’d quit Boston for Manhattan, Chicago, Miami, none of them had stuck. Not one had sung to him. Nothing worked without Katie.
“I’m just a small-town boy, and nothing says home like...” His eyes sought hers and in that instant he was sure each of them knew what he might say.
“Like what, Dr. West?” Jorja pressed.
Katie. It had always and only been Katie.
“Like having an opportunity to put down roots! In the form of a Secret Santa. I just love a good old-fashioned round of Secret Santa.”
Too emphatic?
He felt Katie giving him a curious glance. Good. He wanted her to see the changes. Maybe not all of them. The pins in his leg could wait. And the scars along his hip and spine. It wasn’t looking like she’d be ripping off his clothes for a moment of unchecked ardor anytime soon, so he was good with that. But he’d been careful that she didn’t see him walk too much. She’d know. She’d definitely know. And she’d never come back to him then.
“Dr. McGann? Are you taking part in the draw?”
Jorja waggled the hat in front of his wife’s face. She might be a good nurse, but that girl sure didn’t read body language all that well.
He watched Katie put on her bright face and return her focus to Jorja. “Of course. In for a penny...”
Josh felt Katie’s eyes land on him as the words came out of her mouth, her hand plunging into the hat blindly to grab a bit of crumpled paper.
She remembered. They’d both said it. A lot. Especially in the early days of their marriage, when they’d needed every penny to repay their medical-school bills, making their own way after just about the best elopement a couple could ever have had when Katie had decided her parents didn’t deserve to put on a society wedding. A church full of her parents’ business associates and bridge pals mixing with his ruckus of a family, who would show up to a black-tie event wearing their funeral clothes? No, thanks.
His lips twitched as her eyes stayed locked on his. They’d spent just a few hundred dollars on rings, the honeymoon, and a huge chocolate cream pie that they’d set between them at a roadside diner and eaten in one go... Then, not too long after, they had been putting down deposits on cribs and—
Josh raked a hand through his hair and looked away first. It was still hard to go there. Still impossible to believe they’d really lost their little girl. That sweet little baby who’d never even had one chance to look into her parents’ eyes...
“Right!