Secret Santa (13 page)

“Okay,” Charli said at last. “You’d tell me if you were in trouble, right? If you felt like things were slipping?”

“Oh, sure, honey.” Her mother’s smile was wide and easy, tinged with a little indulgence. “But you don’t have to take up where your father left off. He didn’t want you to have to worry about me. That’s why he set up this elaborate allowance thing with Jed. Besides, me being accountable—well, that’s what support groups are for, too. I won’t stop going to the meetings. Aren’t you proud of me? A credit card holder for the first time in years!”

Laying aside the lemon on the cup’s matching saucer, Charli framed her words carefully. “I am proud of you, Mom. You’ve really seemed to settle in the past few days.”

“It’s hard.” Charli’s mother’s fingers tightened on her cup. “I miss him terribly. I know you do, too.”

“I do. Sometimes at the office, I think I’ll go crazy. I keep wanting to run down the hall, stick my head in his office door and ask him what he thinks about something,” Charli admitted.

Her mom let out a long sigh. Her forehead puckered with faint worry lines. “Are
you
all right, honey? You’re working so hard, and you’ve had so much stress.”

Tell me about it. Lige—I can’t believe Lige. I thought I could count on him.

Her face must have given her away. Her mother pounced. “Something
is
worrying you! Is it work? Is something wrong at the hospital?” her mother asked.

“It’s just that—everybody expects me to be
him.
Everybody expects me to be just like Dad.” Charli blurted out the first thing that didn’t have to do with money or donations or Lige Whitaker. Well, not directly, anyway.

Her mom set her cup down, took Charli’s from her and wrapped her in a rare hug. Charli stood stock-still, not daring to move for fear of breaking the spell. The fierce, quick embrace made tears well up in Charli’s eyes.

As her mother pushed her to arm’s length, Charli could see it had affected her mom in a similar way.

She stroked her palm against Charli’s cheek. “Don’t try to be your father, Charli. You be you. If I’ve learned anything through all that counseling, it’s that you have to be true to yourself.”

“Who am I? Who was Dad? I hear so many things—I keep thinking that maybe I didn’t know him at all.”

Her mom stepped back, got her cup and took a sip with fingers that shook. “Who am I, Charli? Who’s anybody? I don’t think we know those answers. He wasn’t perfect, but who is? Your dad was a good man, a good husband, a good father, a good doctor who did a lot for this town. But you know that, don’t you?”

Charli started to tell her mother about the money, about Lige. Her mom stopped her by saying, “Oh, listen to us, all down in the dumps.” She sniffed back a tear, laughed and said, “I guess we are tired. Go on. Get some sleep. I’m fine, Charli. Really. But thank you for worrying.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

N
EIL
TOLD
HIMSELF
Rudolph needed some additional staking to be sure he didn’t blow over. Not to mention the extra set of lighted netting he’d bought to stretch over his boxwoods.

Okay. So he was coming along really slow on stretching that netting, and those boxwoods were the hedge that divided his property line from Charli’s. And yes, he could have done it before dark.

But while he was out here, there was no harm in checking every once in a while to see if Charli’s car was in her drive.

Even if
every once in a while
meant every five seconds.

He’d seen the video. Despite the GBI’s magic, the quality was still blurred and grainy, and the dark night hadn’t helped. Plus, the Secret Santa had been determined not to show her face.

Yes.
Her.

It couldn’t be Charli, could it?

Sure, the figure walked a little like Charli, but it couldn’t be her. But then, just for a second, the video had captured a flicker of something long and flowing. In the video, as grainy as it was, it was almost unidentifiable. Unless you’d seen it.

And he had.

One of Charli’s scarves. One of a kind, practically speaking, because he’d not seen anyone else in town wearing Violet’s creations—not even Violet herself.

Brian had noticed his interest in the flicker. He’d badgered Neil about it, but Neil had stood firm. Until he was sure—absolutely sure—he wasn’t going to say anything to anybody.

And to be sure, he had to talk to Charli.

He heard a car turn onto their street and willed himself not to look up. It wasn’t her. She was working late or at her mother’s or—

It was her. Suddenly, Neil went all thumbs in his good hand. He plucked at the netting on the hedge like it was a banjo and he was playing at a square dance. The car stopped midway up her drive, even with him, and her passenger window slid down. She leaned over.

“Hey,” she called. “My apologies for abandoning you to Darius and Miss Olivia. What’s my penance?”

“Hmm.” Neil pretended to contemplate her question. He tapped his chin in what he hoped was a good approximation of judicious consideration. “I think you owe me a cup of hot cocoa. To smooth over my hurt feelings.”

“Sure—but I haven’t had supper yet. What about this? I have about three sacks of really healthy stuff one of my patients guilted me into buying from the IGA. How about I cook us a quick supper?”

Neil was surprised at her offer. “Sure...”

“Oh, wait. It’s practically nine o’clock. You’ve probably already had supper. You’re a normal person.” Charli’s face fell.

“No, actually, I had a late lunch, so I hadn’t really gotten around to eating.” Neil buried his fingers in the hedge and crossed them. No point mentioning the slice of convenience store pizza he’d scarfed down on his way home from the paper. “Well, nothing healthy, anyway,” he amended.

“Great! Let me get this unpacked and put away—”

“I’ll help. Many hands and all that.”

Groceries unloaded, and supper preparations under way, Neil found, when push came to shove, he could tear lettuce and turn the chicken she was grilling. She’d taken away the knife when she’d seen his clumsy attempt at cutting tomatoes one-handed.

He kept trying to figure out a way to bring up the video. Tonight, though, Charli seemed brittle and superficial and resisting any sort of serious conversation. He found himself wondering if she’d actually wanted him to accept her invitation.

But she had looked disappointed at the prospect of him having already eaten.

When he offered yet again to try to chop something, Charli shook her head firmly. “I’m being completely selfish,” she told him. “The last thing I want tonight is another patient.”

So he pulled up a chair. “How shall I sing for my supper, then?” Neil asked.

Her lips curved and those golden eyelashes fluttered his way, for the briefest of seconds, before she went back to slicing a carrot.

“I thought I was supposed to be providing some sort of community service,” Charli joked.

“Ah, yes, that. Darius is going to be the death of me one day. If I come into your office completely bonkers, you can diagnose me as Darius-overdosed.”

“I was going to ask you...” The knife blade speeded up, and Neil wondered if she’d picked up her expertise from wielding a scalpel or from cooking lessons. Charli used the back of her forearm to push a strand of hair from her forehead.

“Ask me what?” Neil’s stomach tightened. Was she going to bring up the donation? Would she confess that she was the Secret Santa?

“Er...” The strand of hair had fallen into her face again. Charli laughed and tried to toss it back.

Neil rose from his seat and gently tucked the silken strand behind her ear. She froze, the knife still in her hand, her face angled toward him. Those pretty pink lips had parted ever so slightly.

He should just blurt it out, just ask her once and for all if she was the Secret Santa, and if so, where on earth she’d gotten the money.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t take his hand away, instead letting it trail along her jawline. Somehow, this touch felt more intimate than the kiss on the Ferris wheel.

Charli let out a breath that sounded shaky to him. He could see her throat work in a nervous little gulp. The pulse at her jawline pounded away—matching his.

“Wow,” she whispered. “You sure know how to distract a girl. You won’t ever get your supper at this rate.”

“You know, I don’t think I’m hungry, after all,” he murmured back. He lowered his mouth toward hers, slowly, slowly—

And then, just as their lips met, Charli jerked away. “Oh, no! The chicken!”

The knife fell from her hand with a clatter against the wooden cutting board, and she leaped for the pan of chicken. Snatching up the crispiest one with a pair of tongs before it turned to complete charcoal, she practically threw it on the plate.

“Here, let me turn the unit down.” Neil leaned over and adjusted the flame under the skillet. “I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I was supposed to be watching the chicken, and I was, um, otherwise occupied.”

Her face was flushed—more from embarrassment than the heat of the stove, he thought. She’d never looked prettier to him.

“So much for my cooking abilities.” Charli put the last piece of chicken on the plate and surveyed the damage. “Are they even edible?”

“Sure. I like my chicken blackened.”

She closed her eyes and blew out a breath of exasperation. Opening them, she stared down at the chicken. “This is the reason I’m not a natural in emergency medicine,” Charli told him. “I can’t multitask well enough.”

“Hey, if you’d been able to multitask during that moment, you are not the girl for me,” Neil tossed back.

“Well, yeah, about that...” She squared her shoulders. “I probably shouldn’t be kissing my patients.”

“Fine. You’re fired.”

She did a double take, her face suddenly the color of chalk. “What?”

“I meant—I was trying to joke.” Neil shoved his good hand into his pocket and wished he could do the same with the other one. “I’ll find another doctor. Because...well...because...I wasn’t able to multitask, either.”

“I don’t know if it’s that simple.” She was nibbling on her bottom lip again, clearly not realizing how crazy that drove him.

Focus. She’s sweet and she’s got that vulnerable yet strong thing going. As Dad would say, she’s cute as a speckled pup. But you’ve got to ask her about that video.

The blasted words wouldn’t come. But he did manage to step back and give himself some breathing space.

Charli promptly closed the gap. She laid a hand on his chest, turned those beautiful blue eyes up to meet his and said, “I have a lot on my plate right now.”

“I’ll say.”

His doubts about what she might be keeping from him must have spiked his words with sarcasm, because she jerked back. When she would have turned from him, he pulled her around, gently.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just—this Secret Santa business. It’s got everybody in a froth. Folks are expecting me to unmask Santa. To reveal the identity of whoever left that money.”

“Not everyone, surely.” Charli said. She turned back to the vegetables and once again began chopping them. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Maybe you should respect Santa’s privacy. If he’d wanted to have his name attached to the donation publicly, he could have done so. Chief Hawkins told me it wasn’t a crime to donate the money, even that much money.” The bell pepper fell into neat little strips of green under her knife, which rocked back and forth with unrelenting accuracy. In one quick and efficient move, she piled them atop the carrots. The chicken came under assault next.

“Santa picked the wrong town if he wanted to remain anonymous. The whole community is buzzing about it. Ida at the Gas-n-Go says they’ve got a pool already on likely suspects.”

Charli carefully sliced away the blackened edges of the grilled chicken and swept them into the trash. She turned her attention back to the salvaged chicken, lining it up precisely before she started running her knife through it and answering over the thump of the blade against the cutting board. “But what about Santa’s wishes? He must have had his reasons, right?”

He? He is a she. Unless the GBI’s tech folks are mistaken.
“Okay,” Neil said aloud, knowing he was stringing Charli along if she was the Secret Santa. “I’ll bite. Why all the cloak and dagger business? Why not give the money to the clinic on the condition of anonymity?”

Charli shrugged. She picked up another carrot and peeled it with quick, strong strokes. “You got me. But I’ll bet the reason seemed good to Santa.”

Okay, now Neil was needling her. He knew it. But she knew something about where that money had come from. Had she been a messenger for the money? Had it been her dad’s dying wish to donate something to the clinic?

And why couldn’t he have done that publicly? Or at least, if he wanted to do it anonymously, in the usual manner, not sticking it through a mail slot.

“You know...the GBI has been digging through the evidence,” Neil told her.

The knife in Charli’s hand came down at an awkward angle, and Neil could see she’d almost cut herself. She waved him off as he sprang up to check on her.

“Sorry! I’m all thumbs tonight,” she joked.

“More cutting like that and you won’t have thumbs at all,” he said. But his comeback was reflexive. What he’d said had surprised her, that was clear.

“So...” Three more whacks and the carrot was history. “What did they tell you? Chief Hawkins didn’t seem to think it would be a high-priority case.”

How was it he could still want to kiss her when he was convinced she knew more than she was telling him? Or telling the police?

“For one thing, there were no usable prints on the money.”

Did her shoulders slump? And was it relief or disappointment?

“Yeah?” She scooped up the carrot and tossed it into the bowl of lettuce, then started in on another bell pepper. She didn’t seem to be paying attention to the level of vegetables in the bowl—just chopping mindlessly to keep her hands busy.

“Yeah.” Neil shifted in his chair to get a better view of her face. From the side, it was perfectly calm, no hint of anxiety.

Maybe you’re imagining things, buddy.

“And they analyzed the video tape. Very interesting,” he said in his most casual tone. Did Charli’s chin jut out? Her lips had compressed, but was it the conversation, or was she concentrating on her chopping?

“Videotape?” She asked it calmly enough. “So did they catch him in the act?”

“Yeah. About that.” Neil’s heart rate went into overdrive as he was about to deliver the next piece of information. He wanted to see her reaction. “The GBI doesn’t think it’s a him at all. They think it’s a woman.”

Charli’s tongue darted out and touched her upper lip. She brought her forearm up to her face again, but there was no irritating strand of hair this time.

“A woman?”

“Yeah. In a trench coat. With an umbrella.”

“How could they determine that? Some sort of CSI reflection analysis?” The pepper would be pureed, the way Charli was going after it.

“No, measurements. Based on comparisons—her height compared to the door, and the proportions of her hips to her waist. Plus...there was a scarf.”

“Wow. They can do miracles with videotape. Next you’ll be telling me they have a picture of Santa’s—well, Mrs. Claus’s―face.”

“Nope. No picture. No clear shot of her face.”

Neil held his breath as he waited for her to respond. She didn’t. She concentrated on using the knife to scrape up the pitiful bell pepper slices into a pile and toss them into the bowl.

“Charli,
were
you—”

She cut him off with the most beautiful, dazzling smile. “Hey, enough shop talk for you. I think I’ve got this. All that’s left is for me to toss it together and get out the salad dressing. Mind putting some ice in the glasses? Oh, and we’ll need plates and flatware. Try that cabinet over there. And then I’ll tell you about
my
day.”