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Their Christmas To Remember
Amalie Berlin
A Christmas kiss……with the rebel surgeon!In this Scottish Docs in New York story, Dr Angel Conley will do anything to bring the joy of Christmas to her young patients—only she doesn’t count on gorgeous Scottish surgeon Wolfe McKeag being her reluctant partner in crime! They’ve both spent their lives running from relationships, but as their passion for each other turns into so much more dare they believe in the magic of Christmas?


A Christmas kiss...
...with the rebel surgeon!
In this Scottish Docs in New York story, Dr. Angel Conley will do anything to bring the joy of Christmas to her young patients! Only she doesn’t count on gorgeous Scottish surgeon Wolfe McKeag being her reluctant partner in crime! They’ve both spent their lives running from relationships, but as their passion for each other turns into so much more, dare they believe in the magic of Christmas?
Scottish Docs in New York duet
Book 1 – Their Christmas to Remember Book 2 – Healed Under the Mistletoe
“Another wonderful second chance book.... Enjoy their journey back to love.”
—Goodreads on Back in Dr. Xenakis’ Arms
“I believe readers get an absolutely charming and enthralling read in this book that captivated me right from the start....”
—Harlequin Junkie on The Rescue Doc’s Christmas Miracle
AMALIE BERLIN lives with her family and her critters in Southern Ohio, and writes quirky and independent characters for Mills & Boon Medical Romance. She likes to buck expectations with unusual settings and situations, and believes humour can be used powerfully to illuminate the truth—especially when juxtaposed against intense emotions. Love is stronger and more satisfying when your partner can make you laugh through the times when you don’t have the luxury of tears.
Also by Amalie Berlin (#u19305b5f-b9e4-59ee-8769-31ad286e0369)
Taming Hollywood’s Ultimate Playboy
Challenging the Doctor Sheikh
Dante’s Shock Proposal
The Prince’s Cinderella Bride
The Rescue Doc’s Christmas Miracle
Back in Dr Xenakis’ Arms
Scottish Docs in New York miniseries
Their Christmas to Remember
Healed Under the Mistletoe
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Their Christmas to Remember
Amalie Berlin


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07551-0
THEIR CHRISTMAS TO REMEMBER
© 2018 Amalie Berlin
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dedicated to my mom, Jeanne, the world’s best nurse.
She always goes above and beyond
for those in her care.
Contents
Cover (#u4a536245-c06a-5ca8-89a5-07dfee0e686a)
Back Cover Text (#uf73a1971-7a0d-581e-aab3-6eabee80ebd2)
About the Author (#u9f5940fd-69b1-53fa-b9f8-cda26dd3b2ee)
Booklist (#u49b6592f-7ba3-55a3-a0a8-0188476675ea)
Title Page (#uf163baec-d86e-561a-a7d4-8cbaba97a0c5)
Copyright (#uc7986422-9bbe-5c17-acc5-5cfd3a2e2bc6)
Dedication (#u99f5c1d5-0e0e-5c75-9b49-6056f4bbb8da)
CHAPTER ONE (#u6dd243ee-54f2-5996-b986-1a044f17622f)
CHAPTER TWO (#u23096404-f90f-54f3-8d10-06867c18aaee)
CHAPTER THREE (#u37ec1047-721b-5528-9503-32d25fbcace0)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u19305b5f-b9e4-59ee-8769-31ad286e0369)
DR. ANGELICA CONLEY knocked once before pushing into the room of her very first patient at Sutcliffe Memorial Hospital almost a year after that first treatment in Emergency. A patient she’d been saddened to see readmitted earlier in the week.
“Hi, Jenna.” She wasn’t Jenna’s doctor now, she’d just had the sad duty of discovering and diagnosing Jenna’s original nephroblastoma, which had recurred after six months of remission. Jenna was now under the care of a pediatric oncologist and the Scottish pediatric surgeon who unknowingly set Angel’s imagination on fire. At least she hoped he didn’t know but, considering the way women seemed to fall at his feet, he probably at least suspected. She was alive, after all. It was one of the only things she had in common with her colleagues. In almost every other way, she stood apart from them, an oddity who didn’t fit in to the Manhattan scene, and never could.
She really should’ve known that from the start—she’d had three decades to write it into her DNA, but she’d still fallen for the fantasy that things could be different here, that who she was and where she’d come from wouldn’t matter. But within three days at her first New York job, her past had come back to bite her, which was how she’d ended up at Sutcliffe. Fortunate, probably, but still...
Being human was the only thing she had in common with her colleagues and being subject to the emotions that came with it. Like humiliation. If the serial Scottish flirt hadn’t sorted out her pesky reaction to him yet, she just had to hang in there until January and she’d be far enough away it would no longer matter what he or the rest of her New York colleagues felt about the Kentucky bumpkin who’d taken the turnip truck to medical school. She’d never hear them laughing from eight hundred miles away.
And in Atlanta, no one knew her or her history. Especially not old boyfriends she’d once been young and foolish enough to share with. Turned out New York really wasn’t that big if you shared the same profession.
But this was about Jenna. Not about Angel’s own problems. Or the Scotsman.
Although it was hard to fake a smile in the face of bad news, that didn’t mean Angel couldn’t try and put the twelve-year-old at ease, especially since she’d heard there was something more amiss today.
Jenna lay in her hospital bed, swaddled in extra blankets, the dark, sunken shadow below her brown eyes an unfortunate and telling symptom of a wasting disease along with the natural exhaustion and fear that accompanied it.
She didn’t bother turning her attention to Angel, who she usually called her favorite doctor. The lack of response and her dull stare at the television could mean anything; the trauma swirling around her was as much emotional exhaustion as physical.
“I heard you’re not feeling well today.” Angel tried anyway, praying she had some leverage. It was only three days since surgery, and Jenna needed to eat to get better, which had been the day’s report: Jenna’s refusing to eat.
“No.” The one-word answer set her alarm bells to full volume. No matter what was going on, Jenna tended to maintain a generally happy outlook, regardless of her difficult diagnosis and obstacles. Today, there wasn’t even a hint of a smile on her face.
This could take a while. And that was okay. Angel’s shift was over; she had time for however long her quick visit became. Her tiny, half-empty apartment wouldn’t miss her.
The door to the bathroom was closed. Angel tilted her head to listen and look for light beneath, but there was nothing. “Your mom here today?”
“No.” Another single word answer. Whatever was wrong, there would be no quick solve.
Angel snagged a chair and slid it up to the bedside, indicating her intention to stay. “Did she have to work?”
“No.”
“Has she already left for the day?”
“No...” This time the admission came with a little quiver to her lower lip.
The weight and tightness blooming in Angel’s chest had her leaning forward, trying to keep alarm from entering her voice. Something must have happened. Nothing insignificant would keep Mrs. Lindsey away from her daughter’s bedside for even a day.
She took a moment and studied the girl’s position in the bed. She’d considered it a hallmark of weakness and exhaustion, but since they’d started to speak, Jenna’s arms had crossed over her chest. She also avoided eye contact. The teariness wasn’t worry, she was angry. This was not the product of an emergency.
Just narrowing the options away from fear to anger eased the alarm roiling through her. Angel sat back up, allowing a deep breath. Sometimes she was glad for the survival skills her earliest education had given her. She might’ve been born far from any kind of city, but she could read people well enough to catch the first whiff of danger and knew when to depart before situations escalated to the need to run. It also came in handy in normal conversation or treating kids who really didn’t want treatment.
“Where is she?”
“With Mattie.” Jenna looked as far from Angel as she could then, out of the windows to the flurries blowing around in the late November chill.
Did that mean outside? “Where did they go?”
“It’s his birthday,” Jenna murmured, then added, “and it’s on tree day this year.”
The lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was happening today. Always the first Wednesday after Thanksgiving, which Angel had celebrated last week with the best turkey sandwich she’d ever tasted, purchased the night before from an authentic New York deli.
“Is that what he wanted for his birthday?” Hard to believe—the kid was four. Would be easier to believe if he wanted to visit the tree at the local pizza arcade.
“We always go. Every year.” Jenna’s voice wobbled.
Every year. Except this year she didn’t get to go. This year, which had been a bad year. And this week had started with her losing one of her kidneys along with the tumor that had reached her spine with enough pressure to corrupt her balance and the ability to control her legs. Her second such surgery this year, and it promised another round of chemotherapy after Christmas. Her hair had only just gotten long enough to begin styling again.
It was a lot for a child. It would’ve been a lot for an adult.
“Next year you’ll get to go again.” Angel heard the words come out, knew it was wrong to say it—no one could promise this child she’d be alive next year—but the defeat she saw in the slope of Jenna’s frail shoulders and the pain in her voice had the words flying out of Angel’s mouth before that logical part of her brain kicked in. All there was in that second was the need to comfort, connecting with the part of her own soul that knew bitter disappointment and wished to soothe that hurt so hard that any heart could hear it.
“No, I won’t.” The softly spoken words dropped like stones in the room. “No more holidays after this year. Maybe Valentine’s Day, not that any boy would want to be the Valentine of Baldy.”
“Now you’re just talking crazy.” Angel snagged Jenna’s bony hand and squeezed, and, though she’d yet to get any eye contact from the girl, took it as a small sign of hope when she didn’t pull away. “You know tomorrow you’re going to feel a lot more like yourself. What can I do to make today better?”
“Take me to the tree.”
She’d been told No so much lately, but Angel had to say it again. “Sweet girl, you know I would do that if I could.”
A chirp from the neglected laptop on Jenna’s bedside table interrupted Angel’s train of thought, then she remembered. “They’ll broadcast it tonight, the whole ceremony with the singers and the Rockettes. We could watch it together? I’ll go get us some dinner, and we’ll sit here and soak up Christmas spirit with whatever you want.”
“It’s not the same,” Jenna grumbled. “They do those shots from far away. They don’t get up close and look way up at the top. One time, I even crawled below the barrier rails and almost got to the tree before they caught me.”
The tree could be leverage to get her to eat.
Sometimes she still thought like the criminals who’d raised her, and even if this was a con that was being used for good, that pang of self-disgust still stabbed cold into the back of her neck for the briefest of moments. Before she used that leverage anyway.
“What if I took my phone to Rockefeller Center and went to the base of the tree, and live streamed it for you to watch, right from the thick of things? You could tell me what you wanted to see, and I’d go film that.”
Jenna finally looked at her, and a little zing of triumph negated that lance of less positive feelings about herself.
“You would?” Voice so hopeful, but her expression shouted worry this was just something else she couldn’t have. “Would you bring me a peppermint hot cocoa and a snickerdoodle from the cookie shop?”
Got her.
“I absolutely would do that for you. Would you do something for me if I did?”
“What?”
“Eat some lunch?” Angel phrased it like a question and pretended even to herself that she’d had no ulterior motive for visiting the little patient, that she’d have come and visited anyway because it was the kind thing to do. That was what good people did, and it was something she was working on. Might always be working on. “I’ll tell them to bring up something good. You eat it, and I’ll live stream the tree lighting and bring you goodies afterward.”
Jenna looked for a moment as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but then smiled so wide Angel could ignore the regret she should feel for her terrible adulting skills. “I will!”
She did better in her daily life and in her practice, but Jenna was special. And Angel knew a whole lot about disappointment and deprivation, which colored her actions. She might not be able to cure Jenna today, but she could make today better.
Angel rounded the bed to fetch the laptop, and they took a moment to link to her social media account, then checked the schedule for the tree ceremony.
“Lasses.” A deep, deliciously resonant voice came from the open door behind her, announcing the arrival of the brain-scrambling Scotsman.
He did that on purpose, she was just sure of it—the man’s brogue got thicker when he wanted to pour on the charm, as he apparently now did.
She was yet another weak creature who responded. Oh, she tried not to like it, and usually failed. Like right now, she failed completely to control her smile reflex. No matter how hard she willed softness and relaxation into her cheeks, they fired anyway. The best she could do was try to twist it into a rueful grimace as she made room for the surgeon.
“Jenna, my love, I’m hearing rumors you’re no’ eatin’.” Dr. Wolfe McKeag hit the Rs in his speech so hard they seemed to keep on rolling even after he’d moved on to lavish his attention on other words. Did he do that with his family? Dr. Lyons McKeag, his brother, worked in the ER with Angel, and he seemed to have become much more acclimatized to the sound of American vowels. And Rs.
However Wolfe McKeag liked to live his life, it wasn’t her business. But how strange it must be to be so proud of where he came from that he’d play it up instead of hiding it completely. To not live in perpetual fear of being found out if anyone got close... She’d told one person and lost her first job. The possibility that he’d tell someone here and get her fired again always sat in the back of her mind.
Angel couldn’t imagine life without that edge. Being so comfortable with herself, her past. Even a decade after removing herself entirely from the place and the people of her early life, all that came to mind when she actively tried not to think back was the lone pair of pants she’d had to wear one year.
What kind of demented designer even made camouflage-patterned corduroy? Certainly not one who had ever worn camouflage in a practical sense. Not even the stealthiest hunter could sneak up on a deer if every step announced their arrival. Not that she’d been able to shoot the deer that time she’d tried to help her father hunt when the larder ran bare.
And none of that had any bearing on her day, or the evening’s tasks ahead of her. McKeag could stay here and sweet-talk Jenna all he liked, but Angel had already solved the problem. She might not have had to if she’d waited—even a twelve-year-old couldn’t help but cave when McKeag came cooing.
Shooting the kid a surreptitious smile, she made her way toward the door, greeting him in passing. “Dr. McKeag.”
“Dr. Conley,” he returned, and she chanced a glance to find his pale blue eyes fixed on her. Just for a second. Just long enough to awaken the bitey critters in her belly. Some people had butterflies, Angel had things with teeth. And they roused so infrequently she’d have sworn they’d died off long ago, except for McKeag.
“Dr. Wolfe, I’m going to eat. Dr. Angel is going to get me peppermint cocoa and snickerdoodles.”
Kid made it sound as if that was the food she’d agreed to eat...
“Dr. Angel?” he repeated.
And the bitey belly critters escaped her middle and went instead to biting and sending goosebumps down her arms. The soft hair stood on end, like an ineffective porcupine.
He really needed to never say her first name again. Ever.
“She’s my Angel,” Jenna said, and that was enough to bring Angel’s smile back just as she ducked out of the room and into the safe, antiseptic solace of an empty corridor, where she could breathe.
Body betrayals were something she’d not miss about New York City, or about Sutcliffe. She rather preferred being cadaver-like from the neck down. It was safe. No primordial body signals to contend with meant she could devote her whole body to the list of actual, important problems she managed. Like finding a dietitian and sweet-talking her into a late lunch for Jenna.
And sorting out how to sweet-talk the dietitian before she got down there because, as well as she could read people, she lacked any skills in sweet talk.
* * *
The heavy door swung closed behind Conley, the force of the swing shoving the air and producing a wave of her scent that hit Wolfe dead on. Fruity, and something else. Not a perfume, he didn’t think. Or maybe it was. There was something soft about it. Sweet. Made him think of the first breath of spring on the breeze after a long, cold winter.
A perfumer would make a killing with that scent.
Her bare skin probably smelled even better. Everywhere. Something he’d have to be satisfied imagining—Wolfe had only a few rules, and not dating a coworker sat at the top. After a childhood drowning in the scandals of his parents, he hadn’t followed his older brother across the Atlantic just to invite more drama once he got settled. Not into his life, and especially not at work. Conley was a nonstarter. No matter how fantastic she smelled. No matter how delightfully freckled her skin.
“Dr. Wolfe?”
Jenna’s voice broke through the wrong direction his thoughts had taken, reminding him where he was and what he was supposed to be about. With a patient, preparing to cajole her into eating. He should be joking. Not focused on the sexy-sweet wake left behind the departing southern belle with her long Es and gentle cadence.
“I think I’ve got bad breath,” he said, snapping back into the appropriate mindset as he turned back to face the young girl.
She grinned at him, her cheeks still dimpling no matter how badly her body was failing her. No matter what he’d been told, her spirit still sparkled through the veil of the sickness draped over her. “Why do you think that?”
“She left very quickly, your Angel, didn’t she? And right after I got here.” He lifted one brow, his best Sherlock Holmes impression.
Someone had charted a mountain, but whatever had been wrong with the girl had been a molehill. She seemed in her normal Jenna–high spirits.
He didn’t mention that Conley always left quickly when he was around—that would mean he noticed. Or cared. Maybe she did that when anyone was around. He enjoyed light-hearted chatter with everyone, but, during the year since she’d arrived, he could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Conley around anyone outside patient consultations and their irregularly scheduled department meetings for Pediatrics, which shouldn’t matter to him either.
“She’s in a hurry because she’s going to the tree lighting tonight.”
“Ah, Christmas. Gets earlier every year, doesn’t it?” Earlier and more obnoxious, but Wolfe knew better than to try and explain his feelings on the holiday to a child, especially one who needed to look forward to the magic he’d heard it held but couldn’t quite remember feeling. Inadequate small-talk about the holiday was the best he could do.
She argued, though with less energy. “No, it takes forever to get here.”
The tree was just the official, publicly agreed as acceptable kick-off to the Lousy Season. Stores had begun pushing Christmas about the same time they began pushing Halloween. Which was when he stopped going to stores and wouldn’t really resume until February. The explosion of tinsel and fairy lights that covered the city? Harder to avoid.
It was on his lips to tell her that time moved faster the older you got, but it sounded like a promise he’d love to make but couldn’t. “Are you waiting for Santa?”
“No.” She rolled her eyes at him and then looked at him far too closely. “Why don’t you like the tree?”
He must’ve made a face...
“It’s just a big tree,” he answered, adding, “and it’s cold out there.”
Just as he was about to ask her about the lunch he’d heard she’d refused, and the breakfast she’d also refused, she started squirming in the bed, trying to shift up higher so that the bend of the mattress fit the bend of her body, and all the color drained from her face.
He knew that look. Pain. Kids could forget they’d had their bodies cut open and that they weren’t yet able to move freely.
“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 (#u19305b5f-b9e4-59ee-8769-31ad286e0369)
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.”
He looked at her for a long second, his blue eyes pale in the center with deep indigo rings around them, giving them a mesmerizing quality under the best conditions. But when he grabbed eye contact like that, and held it, he had to see those frustrating feelings swimming around in her own eyes. It was just right there, and it didn’t take someone who’d survived childhood by reading other people’s intentions to see it.
His eyes were probably the heart of his damnable attractiveness. It wasn’t that the rest of him wasn’t wickedly handsome—the man had a jaw so square it screamed masculinity, and that mouth. If he didn’t stop smiling...heaven help her. She could imagine Lyons laughing about it tomorrow, even if she’d never actually seen him smile.
Just as she felt her heartbeat hit the high millions per second, he broke his gaze away to fix on her phone, not mentioning her lapse into starry-eyed staring. A few taps and he announced, “We’re a couple of minutes early. She might not be watching yet, but you know anyone following you will be able to see this, right?”
“Well, sure.” She knew that. She wasn’t dumb. At least, not all the time. She just didn’t know how to start the danged thing. And she really hoped no one else at the hospital would be watching. Being around Wolfe was hard enough. “If someone starts watching, they’re going to be bored pretty quick and turn it off. It’s for Jenna, so we’re basically just going to walk around and look at stuff.”
“Then why were you looking up facts for the tree?” He kept the phone on her, clearly recording, which was not how she’d planned this going. She was going to hold the camera, not have her graceless, stuttering inadequacies immortalized online. “I was just going to tell her what it was and let her know she can look up where the tree came from to see the farm and stuff. I don’t know. I didn’t really have time to come up with a good plan.”
She snapped her fingers for him to hand the thing back over to her and stop recording her.
“So, you’re not going to play tour guide,” he reiterated, still recording.
“No.”
He watched her a moment longer, which was at least ten times longer than she wanted him to look at her, then handed the phone back. “Good thing I’m here. The poor kid needs some entertainment.”
She looked at the screen and saw four viewers watching, as well as a comment pop up from Jenna. “She’s here. She wants us to go to the tree.”
Soon, she expected, the other three watching would drift off somewhere more entertaining. Any second now.
He gestured for her to follow. “Get me in screen. You’re just awful at being a cameraman, love.”
That was teasing. It sounded like teasing. Not real criticism.
He put his gloves back on and gestured again for her to follow him into the plaza. Was she supposed to film him walking?
While not paying attention to his backside. Oh, Jeez, Jenna did not need a long screengrab of that man’s behind while he walked. This needed to be PG, even if her mind had sunk to the depths of at least PG-13 at that precise moment.
Jerking the screen up and off him, she panned it over the crowd and toward the tree as they walked. Let Jenna get a feel of what it was like to walk into the plaza. That was the experience. Not McKeag’s butt.
He glanced back at her, then, seeing that she was not filming him, fell back until he was in step with her. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m in awe of the majesty of—” your behind “—the crowd.” She sighed. “I’m trying to keep it level and not be all super shaky.”
“No stabilizer?”
“I have no idea. It’s a new phone. It should do all the things.”
To his credit, he didn’t laugh at her ineptitude. His smile was potent enough, especially when his hand moved to the small of her back and steered her to the left around some people she would’ve totally seen before running into while futzing with the phone. “She says the cookie place is on the far side of the plaza.”
“If it takes cookies, I’ll buy a dozen.”
If someone could shout an exclamation point with their eyes, Angel attempted it—eyes so wide they might pop clean out of the socket. She jabbed him in the arm with her elbow, so he didn’t miss it, and shook her head. Finger over the microphone, she whispered, “Kids take that kind of thing literally. You can’t say you’ll buy a dozen, she’ll expect a dozen and she needs some actual nutrition, not just empty calories.”
His adulting skills were also lacking in the child-bribing department. Which somehow made him more attractive.
“Yes, ma’am.” He all but saluted, then turned the camera to him, discreetly moving her fingertip off the microphone. “Lass, you know you can’t eat a dozen cookies and nothing else, right? I’m just prone to extravagance, my mum used to say. But I think your mum would whack me with the IV pole if I tried to give you a dozen cookies. So, it’s two. Any others that may come back to the hospital must be shared.”
She crossed her eyes and shook her head. “There is a two-cookie limit on what will be allowed onto the floor. If you bring a box, all the children—even the ones who can’t eat right now—are going to want a cookie and we haven’t cleared that with Dietary. This has to be a secret. Secret cookies come in small numbers.”
She puffed, then realized it probably sounded like hurricane force winds with her face so close to the camera and switched to reading comments again.
The administrator was watching.
Crap.
“Um, we’re...yes, ordered to only bring two.”
Back to their tree quest.
He led through the crowd, and she tried to pretend that the gentle steering wasn’t nice. It was kind of chauvinistic, really. That was exactly what she’d think if she saw some other woman being led around like that, but somehow he made it feel comforting. Probably nothing to do with him; it was a side effect of the ball of nerves in her chest every time she ventured into a proper New York crowd. That many people, packed so close? It was just plain scary. Riding the subway had made her break out in a cold sweat the first couple of times she’d tried it.
The presence of anyone she knew would’ve felt comforting. Safe. It wasn’t anything to do with him.
When they reached the denser crowds, he took her hand instead and cut through the sea of bodies until they were in the crush, three bodies back from the railing that kept the tree safe from the public. That was worse. Even with his fancy gloves, her hand in his wiped all thoughts from her head. All she could do was catalog sensations. All the tingling. The parts of her that trembled and heated. Insanity.
“Look up.” His voice was in her ear. She tilted her head back to look up at the tree, and he steered her arm, tilting the camera back.
They’d arrived just in time. The MC began to speak, and she missed every single word the man said. All she could do was stare up at the tree, focus on keeping it steady and try really hard to ignore the feel of him behind her. The crowds of New York were something she could never hope to get used to; they literally pressed so tightly together that the crowd seemed to move like one organism—which meant everyone directly beside her was touching her. So why was it that she only really felt him at her back? His heat. His solidity. The fan of his breath on her neck...
Someone flipped a switch and the tree blazed to life, thousands of lights instantly glowing.
It towered over the plaza and glittered as if covered by the wealth of the Rockefeller family. As if someone had opened some vault of jewels and strung the sparkling strands from bough to bough, spiraling upward to a crystal star that wiped out pretty much every thought she’d had before coming down.
So far gone from the strands of threadbare tinsel of her childhood trees. No hulking fire hazards of multicolored lights. No icicles dripping from everywhere because icicles were cheap and covered a multitude of tree imperfections. Icicles, it was well known, could kill your pets while making your Christmas tree seem full and high class. Not true, at least on one count. She hoped not many people lost pets to icicles.
No icicles here, not as she’d known them—though there did seem to be some crystal, icicle-like ornaments among the perfect, colored glass balls.
Did her family still celebrate the holidays? Maybe they’d only ever tried for her. It had been the one time of year she could count on receiving a gift, and only learned as a teenager that most of those gifts had been stolen. For her. For them. She didn’t know anymore.
“Ready?” he asked, breaking through the cold fog that rolled over her any time she thought about her estranged family.
“For what?” She looked over her shoulder, but he was already sliding between her and the next nearest body, so he stood more to the front and she could get part of him in frame with the tree.
“This is a stately Northern Porcupine Cone Tree. It was brought to this country approximately three hundred years ago by immigrants from the land of...”
Porcupine Cone? Was that a tree? No way. Three hundred years?
She felt her brows coming down even before he smiled extra bright at her.
He did not have the information.
“I don’t remember where they came from, but it was very far away.” He gestured up and down, denoting the height, and she finally caught on that he’d changed his accent. He now sounded like a remarkably proper BBC documentary narrator. “This magnificent beast of a Christmas tree is approximately seven hundred feet tall. The Rockefeller family employs twelve brigades of elves—one for each of the days of Christmas—both to make the lights and ornaments and put them onto the tree in the dead of night when the rest of the world is sleeping.”
She should stop this, shouldn’t she? Her smile said she wanted to hear more of this silliness, but he was lying to the kids and they would believe him. Well, might believe him.
But it was kind of amusing? To her, at least.
“Unfortunately, this year there was a terrible scandal in the Elf Union as Old Man Winter outsourced the production of the ornaments to South Pole elves, paying them significantly lower wages than the North Pole Union allows. And thus began the much misunderstood War on Christmas.”
CHAPTER THREE (#u19305b5f-b9e4-59ee-8769-31ad286e0369)
THE REMAINDER OF the ceremony continued in much the same manner—Wolfe narrating in the most outlandish and ridiculous fashion, which made the comments on the stream go berserk, and more and more people tune in to what was supposed to be a temporary, barely viewed feed on Angel’s account.
Now she couldn’t erase it. Now, although she barely used the thing, each view pressed on her like the weight of a stare. Increased traffic could only lead to increased scrutiny. Increased exposure and danger.
“You might’ve become an internet celebrity, in my small circle of friends and followers,” she murmured as she eyed the three-digit number of people following their—well, his—antics.
“Ah, fame. Such a burden. Next thing you know, women will be throwing themselves at me.” The ceremony had ended a few minutes ago, but he was obviously still on.
She flipped the phone case shut and walked with him back out of the plaza, because walking was the only way in which she could keep up with the man. It was both satisfying and horrifying to know how quick-witted he was. Satisfying because he was a surgeon, he took care of children in extremely critical situations, so him being bright was a good thing, but horrifying because she was a doctor too, she should be able to be as effortlessly witty as he was. Instead, she couldn’t work the phone, and she couldn’t come up with anything outlandish to say about the tree or the holiday.
“Dr. McKeag...”
“Angel, please, call me Wolfe. We’re friends now, right? Or at least we’re peers who aren’t mortal enemies. Call me Wolfe. I’d hate to think that you didn’t enjoy the evening half as much as I did, and I truly didn’t expect to enjoy it so much.”
Call him Wolfe, as if that made any of this easier. It was a step out onto a rickety bridge over rushing flood waters.
He paused at 49th, where they’d exited the cab earlier, and looked at her, the cookies in one hand and the caddy of hot drinks in the other. “You turned the phone off, right?”
She showed him the closed case, then dropped it into her coat pocket. “Listen, Mr. Alberts was on the feed, so it did go further than I’d hoped.”
“Was he?” He handed her the cookies to free his hand to hail a cab, leaving her begrudgingly grateful for his remembering, and saving her asking.
“He was.” She tucked the small bag of snickerdoodles into her other pocket and cleared her throat. “And about one hundred and thirty-several people I barely know.”
He deserved to know the number, even if it was unlikely to trip him up the way it did her.
“You sound worried.”
How much should she admit to? It was unlikely this would snowball into Spencer coming out of the woodwork again to warn Alberts this time. She wasn’t even social media friends with him, or anyone else from her epic three-day job, but putting herself out there at all felt like running into a bear’s den.
“No, lass,” he said, probably because she took so long to answer, slipping into an even more familiar way to address her, a way he usually reserved for patients. Until a rascally light sparked in his eyes, and he followed up with, “I don’t feel slightly guilty for this evening. If you feel guilty, I’m going to have to assume you’ve been having untoward thoughts about me and all the things you’d like to do to me in the back of this cab.”
As he spoke—the velvety rumble of his voice, the way he leaned ever so slightly closer—her cheeks flamed brighter and brighter, and there went her ability to think again.
A taxi pulled up to the curb beside her, but still not a single danged word popped into her head. At least, nothing above a second-grade denial. Nuh-uh!
He took her scarlet silence with a grin, opened the door and gestured for her. “I’ll let you do the delivering to the hospital without me. I don’t think my manly virtue could be sustained if I climbed into this darkened leather interior with you now, Dr. Angel.”
He was teasing. She knew he was teasing. Sort of. Probably. She still couldn’t think of anything to say back to him, just climbed into the seat and held out her hands for the drinks.
When he’d placed the warm cardboard carrier in her hands, she found her tongue, or at least some semblance of the grace she wished she could display under pressure, and said, “Thank you for accompanying me this evening, Wolfe.” Oops. Said his name, and it took a couple of stumbling stutters to finish. “I... I... I’m sure the stream was more interesting to Jenna—and everyone else—because you were narrating it. It no doubt brightened her evening far more than it would’ve had she not sort of tricked you into coming with me.”
He kept hold of the door with one hand and leaned down to speak through it. “I could’ve found a way out of it, you know. I did give myself an out—early bedtime—should I be having no fun at all. But I was. You’re a much better cameraman than you give yourself credit for, Angel.”
Before she could say anything else, he ducked in, kissed her cheek in a vigorously platonic but sweet way, which still made her body turn into a human sparkler, and closed the door.
“Which hospital, Dr. Angel?” the driver asked from the front, having heard every word along with her complete inability to keep up with the dashing Scotsman.
“Sutcliffe,” she answered, then settled back, balancing the drink caddy between her knees and pulling the phone out again to check the views.
Could people keep watching the video now that it wasn’t live anymore?
When she opened the case, all the color she’d built up from Wolfe’s teasing drained right away. Closing it hadn’t shut it off. It always shut it off. Always. Always, always, always. But not today.
Jenna was still listening, and she’d filled up the comments with several lines of kiss marks and hearts.
If she’d just fallen off the Empire State Building, it still wouldn’t have been further or faster than the plummeting in her middle. Thank goodness she’d not had time to eat before the outing, nothing to throw up.
She didn’t look at the video, or the state of it, just manually turned the blasted thing off and closed the case again. Just pretend those hearts were Jenna’s way of showing appreciation for an entertaining evening. That’s all. She was blowing kisses of gratitude and affection.
Not Jenna’s way of commenting that she, and countless others, had heard Wolfe’s suggestion Angel was about to maul him in the back seat of a taxi.
* * *
By the time she arrived at the hospital, Angel had miraculously accepted Wolfe’s teasing, but although she wanted to think of it as flirting, the more likely reason was that he was bored, and he’d noticed she was tongue-tied around him.
And the unconcealable starry eyes she tended to have. Her ability to crush in a secretive manner had never really progressed beyond the age where you automatically hated the person you liked the most. So, around ten. She was a ten-year-old trapped in the body of a grown woman, and how ridiculous was that?
The sooner she got to Atlanta, the better. This place was hell on her self-esteem and her nerves. That was the problem. She worried about fitting in, then worried about being found lacking, then about the looming threat of public humiliation she’d spent a lifetime trying to outrun. It would come if she stayed. Just a matter of time. Catastrophe. Could still happen in Atlanta, at least if she got dumb again and overshared with someone, but that was something she could control. Here? Nope.
She stepped off the elevator on Jenna’s floor and made a beeline to her room. It was late enough that the kid should be sleeping, not waiting up for treats, but at least she could find out whether dinner had happened, and that would ease one worry standing between her and sleeping tonight.
She knocked on the right door and a moment later, before she could even reach for the knob, it swung open and Mrs. Lindsey, eyes glittering and smile too broad to be anything but alarming, invited her in.
“Dr. Conley! We were hoping you’d arrive soon.” She relieved Angel of the cup caddy, making her immediately glad she’d bought four cups instead of one. Mr. Lindsey was also there, as well as little Mattie.
“Did you all just get here from the lighting?” Angel eased the bag of cookies from her pocket. Should’ve bought more than the two cookies she’d argued for—there was a four-year-old boy there too.
“Did you get the cinnamon sticks?” Jenna asked, holding out her hands eagerly enough that her mother stopped everything to set her up with the drink, then did the same with her littlest playing on the floor in the corner.
“We came as soon as they lit the tree, so we could start decorating,” Mrs. Lindsey explained. “If Jenna has to be here for any length of time, we’re going to make it nicer.”
Angel looked around and noticed a few little touches of Christmas that now graced the simple buttery yellow walls. A tangle of twinkle lights and faux pine boughs wrapped around the television. There was also an old-fashioned Santa embroidered on a small blanket draped over the recliner placed in every room for the loved ones who stayed with the littles. Small touches, but heartfelt. Meaningful.
Suddenly, her nerve-inducing, awkward contribution felt completely worth it. Felt like a gift for her as well.
“That’s a lovely idea.” Angel watched Mr. Lindsey get a sprig of plastic mistletoe to suspend from an empty little hook on the railing upon which the privacy curtain hung. Then promptly snagged his wife by the hand and kissed her cheek.
“If you hang it there, you get to move it around and then it can be anywhere around the bed for everyone to get kisses.” There was a wistful quality to Jenna’s smile that suggested a boy on her mind, but it passed quickly. “Snickerdoodles?”
Angel didn’t comment on the mistletoe or the kisses—that might remind everyone of Wolfe’s teasing and she appreciated the small amount of sanity she’d managed to hold on to this evening. Instead, she jiggled the bag and handed the oversized cookies to Mrs. Lindsey to make necessary decisions about distribution.
“When Jenna told us you and Dr. McKeag were going to film the lighting for her, we had no idea how remarkably silly he was. I’m kind of glad I didn’t know that before the surgery, I might’ve thought him unfit for treating my daughter, but he’s both a skilled surgeon and an absolute, charming delight.”
And another woman in the world fell victim to the charm of Wolfe McKeag.
Which really should comfort her. If anything, he was used to women being dazzled by his eyes, his mouth, his dark, curling hair, that accent, the butt, which she now couldn’t forget, and which was still prompting her to think about his other parts. Parts she’d long ago sworn not to think about.
“He’s probably the best surgeon on staff,” Angel agreed, because, nope, she was unwilling to admit he was charming. Or a delight. Or whatever Mrs. Lindsey had called him. “I really need to get home. I used up my ability to stay awake past my bedtime during residency. Now I sleep just as often as I can and relish my eight hours.”
“Thank you for the treats and the recording,” Jenna said from around her cookie. “I ate half of my soup—it was okay. This is better.”
“Tomorrow you’re going to eat more, right?” Angel prompted but smiled just the same. “And don’t tell Dr. Wolfe, but I had fun with him there, even if I briefly wanted to strangle you for making him go with me. He was...”
“Funny,” Jenna filled in for her, and Angel nodded.
“He was funny.”
“And cute,” Jenna added.
“I’m glad you think so.” Angel deflected that one. She buttoned her coat back up and reached out to squeeze Jenna’s hand. “Glad you enjoyed the rare Christmas Porcupine Cone Tree.”
They all laughed then.
Just as Angel made it to the door, she heard Jenna call, “You should marry him. Then you won’t leave New York and you can stay here to help take care of me.”
Angel didn’t sigh, but her heart did. There was no way to take those words and not ache. Guilt. Sadness. Worry. All vied for top billing in her chest.
For the hundredth time this evening, words failed her. Jenna’s statement was equal parts teasing and the current of fear that permeated the thoughts of all people dealing with terrifying illness, but with the straight-shooting of a child.
“You know...” Angel decided to focus on that part and turned back from the door to face her young former patient “...your doctors are great doctors. I don’t do anything to help take care of you anymore. I just show up because you’re darling and I love seeing you.”
“And you’re my angel. I know when my mom brought me to see you last winter, no one else was paying attention to my sick feeling, but you did. You’re the reason I got better for a while. I need you to stay here in case I get sicker and people don’t believe me.”
No beating around the bush this time, and Angel felt it into her core.
She could see how it might’ve appeared that way to a child, but Angel making her diagnosis had been far from remarkable or miraculous. By the time Angel had seen her, the tumor had begun affecting her spine, and that was a lot easier to catch than the earlier symptoms. It had just been much more obvious when Jenna had got to her.
“Honey, everyone will believe us now,” Mrs. Lindsey gently interjected, giving Angel some cover.
“You’ve got the best team,” was all she could think to say. It was true, and Angel wasn’t even part of the team, she just kept turning up because she cared, and people in pediatrics knew at least that about her, and that sometimes she was a way to get Jenna to do something she’d refused to do.
It took a few more minutes of comforting words and gentle goodbyes for her to extricate herself.
Tomorrow would be an early day, and she’d find out exactly how many of the people who’d watched the stream had hung around for her failure to disconnect it.
And she’d have to tell Wolfe...
Man, if she had any sense at all, she’d call in sick.
* * *
Wolfe woke up in a good mood the next morning, and even his irritation at knowing why he’d awakened in such a good mood hadn’t been enough to shake him out of what he could only call the warm fuzzies.
He’d not been simply being polite when he’d told her how much fun he’d had with her, and he had two big problems with that situation. First, Angel was off-limits, and that all felt like a date. Undoubtedly more so because he’d even stopped trying not to flirt with her, for reasons he couldn’t quite understand this morning, past the pleasure of it. Especially when his mouth had run off and he’d teased her at the end just to watch those delightfully freckled cheeks turn even pinker than the chilly night air made them.
Not dating at work was important, not a decision he’d made on a whim. It had been the only decision to make after a lifetime of dating had taught him he was utterly incapable of sustaining a relationship. He liked the start of relationships. Hell, he loved the start. Nothing was serious at the start, it was just chemistry and fun, and sex, and what was not to like about all that? All that was great. The problem was his inability to evolve past it.

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