Secret Santa (15 page)

In four minutes and thirty-six seconds precisely, Neil was walking in the front door to Charli’s office. A large squat box sat in the midst of the waiting room’s cheerless blue low-pile industrial carpet, way too big to be the small Christmas tree Neil had ordered for her. A toddler had decided the carton was a great climbing apparatus, and the child’s mother was having little success in talking him down.

“Trey! Get off that thing before you break it! I mean it! I
will
tell your daddy when we get home!” the young mother yelled in between prodigious nose blowing and sneezing.

Marvela propped up on the dividing counter. “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? Did I exaggerate?”

“No, you did not,” Neil admitted. “That’s definitely not just Charli’s tree.”

The reclaimed toddler wriggled out of his mother’s arms once more as she dissolved into a fit of sneezing, and was busy scaling Mount Carton again. Marvela’s brows pulled together and down, leaving her looking like the grouchy receptionist she pretended to be.

“I wouldn’t be so all-fired-up to get it moved, but I don’t want a little kid to get hurt using it as a jungle gym. Where’s your help? The delivery guy had a hand truck, and he struggled with it. With two good arms.”

Marvela gave his cast a speculative look. Just then, the door to the back area opened, and Brian Mulford came out with Charli behind him.

Brian was all decked out in a jacket and twill pants, a sure sign he was spending the day doing interviews. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Prescott—” He broke off as he spotted Neil standing by the carton. “Oh, hey, Neil! How’s it going? Man, you gotta come out strong if you’re gonna get into a fight.”

For a moment, Neil was confused, but then he realized Brian was referring to his broken arm. When he’d driven over to the GBI regional office to see the video, Brian hadn’t been there to notice Neil’s cast. “Oh, I broke it putting up Christmas lights.”

He couldn’t help but focus in on Charli, who stood behind Brian, her hands jammed in the pockets of her lab coat.

But her face, though pale and a little dark under her eyes, betrayed no anxiety. She smiled first at Neil, then waved the mom and the toddler to the back. Neil couldn’t quite hear her words to the pair as the mom gathered the kid up and headed through the door.

“Still making Georgia Power happy, huh, buddy?” Brian slapped him on the shoulder. “Those linemen like the Christmas bonus your light bill provides.”

“I’ll have you know, I’ve already collected over four hundred bucks in donations to the Toys for Tots drive with my Christmas lights,” Neil said. “I fully expect to collect a thousand total this year.”

Charli’s eyebrows skyrocketed. “That much! Wow! I guess I don’t sound like I have much in the way of Christmas spirit with all my complaints, huh?”

“I don’t take it personally,” Neil told her. “I’m here to take the package off your hands.”

“This big old box contains more lights? Where is there any space? And if I get any more illumination through my bedroom windows, I’ll need sunblock and shades.” In way of explanation, she added to Brian, “We’re neighbors.”

Brian shook his head. “Better you than me. Especially from November to January.”

“So?” Charli prompted. “Or... You didn’t buy this for my front lawn, did you?”

“Well...” Neil couldn’t quite meet her eyes. He could imagine what she’d say when she found out that part of the box’s contents were for her. “Part of it is mine. But part of it is yours. Since Rudolph fell and I set him up on my lawn, my roof is looking a little plain....”

She wagged her finger at him. “Nuh-uh. No way. With that arm, you are not climbing up any ladders. Doctor’s orders.”

Brian guffawed. “Oh, listen. You hear that?” He cupped his ear. “It’s all the guys down at Georgia Power boo-hooing over their lost revenue. What is in the box, anyway?”

Neil didn’t take the bait. Brian needled everybody, but he was a big kid himself when it came to the Christmas season. “Well, lucky for me, Brian, what the good doctor tells me, I don’t have to listen to.”

Charli put her hands on her hips and laughed. “Oh, yeah? I never figured you for a noncompliant patient.”

“Remember, I fired you.”

The remark was probably ill advised, because Marvela dropped something with a loud clunk behind the counter, a sure sign she was paying more attention to their conversation than her work. And Brian’s eyes grew round and speculative.

Charli’s fingers came up to her mouth, and her lab coat moved as she took in a sudden breath. She blushed. The most beautiful pink Neil had ever seen.

Brian frowned and started to speak, then broke off, seeming to discard whatever he had been about to say. He scrutinized first Neil, and then Charli. Neil could almost see lightbulbs going off. He could only hope, for now—until he decided whether to tell Brian about his suspicions—that the GBI agent was wondering whether Charli and Neil were seeing each other.

Brian’s mask of professionalism firmly back in place, the GBI agent gave Charli a little wave. “Thanks, Dr. Prescott. I’ll be in touch. Neil. Call me.” This last was a little pointed. Brian nodded to Neil and headed for the door.

Alone—except for Marvela, who hung persistently within earshot—Neil and Charli stood there, not speaking. Neil found himself desperately missing the ability to crack his knuckles.

“Well.” Charli’s breathy one-word attempt at breaking the silence didn’t have the desired effect.

The phone rang in the background, and Marvela made an irritated noise before picking it up.

“What did Brian want?” Neil asked.

“Oh, nothing. He just wanted to go over the same stuff that the chief did. Had I seen anything the night before the donation? Did I notice if the bin was empty?” She waved away the questions.

“Did he mention anything more about it being a woman?”

“No, not really. He just said it was routine to ask witnesses what they’d seen—and I pointed out that I really wasn’t a witness.”

Maybe you’re actually something more. Where did that money come from? And why all the secrecy?

Neil didn’t ask these questions. Instead, he said, “Lige Whitaker called me with some information about your dad.”

Charli’s eyes widened. “What?”

“He’s announcing that he’s renaming the hospital in memory of your dad.”

Neil took in the way Charli’s nostrils flared and eyes tightened, how she covered that flash of anger quickly. Obviously, this wasn’t welcome news to her.

Neil added in the silence that followed, “He told me he’d already let you know. You seem surprised.”

“I—I thought he’d changed his mind.” The words came out flat.

“Did you or your mom suggest it?” Neil asked.

“No!”

Neil was relieved by her strong response.
Maybe I’ve watched way too many Oliver Stone movies. Maybe the two things don’t have anything to do with each other. But why the hostility when I mentioned Lige?
“Oh. I’ll be doing a story on it. Do you want to give me a quote?”

“I—” She rubbed her forehead. “Maybe you’d better hold off. I’m shocked that the hospital board is doing this. It’s not something we asked for, and they may wait. Or change their minds. It could be that the community wouldn’t want to rename the hospital. I haven’t even mentioned this to my mom, and I don’t— I’m really not sure how she’ll take it.”

Her response was as perplexing as Lige’s announcement had been—certainly not the one Neil had been expecting.

“It’s quite a tribute. And I can think of nobody who deserves this more. Your dad gave his life to this town,” Neil pointed out. “Lige made it sound like a done deal—said the hospital was sending over a press release about it.”

Again that flash of hostility at Lige’s name. Charli’s words came out careful and slow. “Yes, it is an honor. But can you wait? Hold off? Let me be the one to tell my mom?”

“Sure. How about I talk to you tonight?” Neil glanced back over his shoulder. Marvela was still tied up with the phone conversation. Now that he didn’t have Marvela eavesdropping, he felt a little emboldened. “So what do you say?” he asked Charli. “Want to help me uncover Santa?”

Charli’s shoulders jerked, and her face went a half shade paler. “Santa!” Then her expression cleared. “Oh! The box. Santa? That’s what’s in the box?”

What are you holding out on me, Charli? You’re a nice woman from a nice family, and I can’t imagine that it could be so awful. But where did that money come from? Tonight, I will ask you. Directly. And I’m not going to take evasion as a response.
“Yeah. That’s the part of it that’s mine. Yours is a tree. Predecorated. Folds up for easy storage. But Santa’s life-size—hopefully not true to scale as far as pounds. He goes on my chimney. The kids will love him.”

“I’m wondering how you plan to get him on the roof, since you are down to one arm these days,” she said.

“Oh, but you told me I needed to use the arm more.”

Her lips twitched at the corners. “But
you
said I was fired, and that you didn’t have to listen to my advice,” she pointed out.

“Touché. So...how late
are
you staying tonight?”

“Really late if I don’t get back there and see the rest of my patients.” Charli wriggled her shoulders as though she were working out some stiffness. “Be careful, Neil, on the roof. Get your buddy Brinson to help you.”

“Worried about me?” Even as he still tried to puzzle out if Charli was indeed the Secret Santa, or knew who was, the idea of her concern sent a buzz through Neil. He liked having someone—not just
any
someone but Charli in particular—care about his well-being. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless. With her eyes all soft and warm, she looked as though she wouldn’t mind if he did. But there was Marvela, and more than that...

Charli wasn’t telling him the truth about her role in the Secret Santa story.

“I worry about all my patients,” Charli said, her mouth curving. “Even the ones who are crazy about Christmas.”

“But I’m not your patient. Not anymore.” It was so easy to be with her when he didn’t think of all she wasn’t telling him.

Her lashes did that slow dip against her flushed cheeks that he’d figured out meant she was pleased but embarrassed.

“I have to go. I’ll...I’ll see you tonight,” she said, tagging on with good humor, “And get that thing out of here. It’s taking up way too much real estate. I might start charging rent.”

“What about the tree? Don’t make me take it, too.”

She looked torn, but finally she nodded. “Let Marvela at it—she’ll put it up here. Thank you—I know you’re trying, Neil. It’s just— It’s hard, okay? Christmas is just hard.”

She didn’t bother to explain. With a flap of her lab coat, Charli beat a hasty retreat.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

O
NLY
A
DRIPPING
FAUCET
and the squeak of Charli’s desk chair broke the silence in her office. The night sky was dark when she lifted her head from the pile of finished paperwork and stretched. Done. She could go home, get some sleep...and do it all over again tomorrow.

And sometime soon, she was going to have to make the complete switchover to computerized charts. But not, thankfully, tonight, or this week.

She had enough worries to keep her brain churning.

Charli knew she hadn’t dived into catching up on all the paperwork Marvela had left for her because of a good work ethic. She’d been procrastinating about facing Neil.

Part of her hadn’t. Neil Bailey was, with those dimples and those eyes, sweet. Okay, so he was still pushing Christmas, but she could tell he would have taken no for an answer on the tree. She could see herself falling for the likes of Neil, the gentle, caring guy who seemed to want her to be happy.

But, she had to remember, that was only half of who Neil was. The other half of him was the reporter who’d been asking way too many questions about the Secret Santa. And she was surely going to slip up and say something if she stayed around him. He would charm a confession right out of her mouth—and that would be the end of any feelings he might have for her.

Grabbing her bag and her keys, Charli headed for the car and for home. On the short drive, she considered what she’d say to Neil.

I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for a relationship now. Maybe later?

Only Charli didn’t want Neil later. She wanted him now.

I’m a lying, deceiving accessory after the fact. You still want me?

I’m bound by ethics not to even muddy the patient/doctor boundary.

Ha. That ship had sailed.

No. She should focus on the essentials, what he might ask her, be on guard and not let his charm wear her down.

The fact that he knew the GBI agent worried her even more. She’d danced around that interview with all the grace of a gorilla doing the waltz. Brian Mulford hadn’t been satisfied with her answers, she knew. Still, Charli hoped Mulford would buy the “sleep deprivation” excuse for some of the dingbat answers she’d floated by him.

And what about Lige going ahead with renaming the hospital? That was the way to put the screws to her. She’d called her mother, only to find out that Lige had already personally given her mom the glad news. Her mom had been over-the-moon happy, and now Charli was loath to jeopardize the renaming plans.

But she wasn’t going to find herself in the same boat her father had been in. Lige must have had something to hold over her father’s head. That’s the only way her dad would have covered up a TB outbreak—and who knows what else that translated into cash payments of a hundred thousand dollars.

Forget it. Deal with what you can. One thing at a time.
The best plan was to avoid Neil.
And don’t dwell on how disappointed you are at the prospect,
she ordered herself as she turned off the highway toward home.

The traffic on their street was thick and clogged with cars. Wow. Neil’s new decorations must have lived up to his hype. Or maybe people really had their minds on Christmas by now?

Once parked in her carport, Charli gave in to the urge to at least look at Neil’s lights...even if she wouldn’t see him. She crossed the strip of lawn to the lighted boxwoods that divided their properties. Neil’s lights
were
a winter wonderland, all sparkles and designs—reindeer bobbing their heads up and down, the silhouette of a trio of carolers lit in red and green, big Christmas ornaments and candy canes, elves and roly-poly miniature Saint Nicks, even a Christmas star.... Everything to do with Christmas.

Huh. No Santa on the roof.

She saw a shape hanging alongside the chimney, but in the shadows formed by the face of the chimney and Neil’s bright-as-daylight illumination, she couldn’t make out what it was.

Oh, no, it couldn’t be!

“Hey! You made it!”

Neil’s voice wrenched her gaze from the roof to lower down, where to her relief Neil was safely on terra firma. He jogged over to the hedge.

“Oh!” Charli’s hand flew to her chest, where she felt her heart pounding under her breastbone. “I thought for a minute— I saw that shadow and I thought you were stuck on the roof.”

“No. I got Brinson to help me, like you suggested. I’ve been waiting on you. I didn’t think you’d ever make it home!” He caught her hand and tugged at it, guiding her through a well-worn break in the hedge.

Her pulse quickened—not just at his touch, but also at his words. Charli had liked the sound of them. It was as though he was making sure she had a soft place to land after a hard day.

“You can thank insurance companies and the government for the delay,” she said. Breathless. She was breathless as he wrapped his arm around her and walked her to a spot in the far corner of his front lawn.

“I don’t want to thank them at all.” He pulled her up against him, her back to his chest, the better to position her in the exact optimum spot for whatever he was going to show her. Neil propped his chin on the crown of her head. “I guess I don’t like sharing.”

Neil’s body was warm against hers as she leaned against him. For just this minute, she could pretend her father was still alive, she’d never found the money, she’d never misled Neil, that he was just a guy, and she was just a girl.

“Okay... So what is it?” She looked up to see his face, which was alight with excitement and anticipation.

Neil took advantage of the moment. His mouth met hers. She turned in his embrace and gave herself to the kiss. It was everything a kiss should be: warm, sweet, hungry. Charli didn’t care how drivers were honking their horns. She didn’t heed the wolf whistles from lowered car windows. She didn’t care about anything except making this moment last.

Neil pulled back. “Wow. That makes up for all the waiting. Can we try it again?”

Charli put her hands to her cheeks. They were flaming hot. “Oh, I— We—”

“Don’t think. Don’t. I’m not. I’m calling a halt to all thought processes—logic and worries and doubts. Let’s have this. Right now. See? I even tied up some mistletoe so you’d have an excuse.” Neil pointed up.

She followed his finger. Sure enough, a bunch of mistletoe, with its pearly white berries, hung from the limb of the birch tree that anchored this corner of Neil’s lot.

From the street, someone yelled, “Kiss the doc again! I’ll donate twenty bucks to the Toys for Tots till!”

“Well, now...” Neil gave her a stern look. “We can’t
not
help the kiddies, can we?”

Gently, he took her hands in his and pulled them away from her face. “Hey, don’t make a one-armed man have to work so hard,” he chided.

Charli took a deep breath and said in as serious a voice as she could muster, “For the children.” Standing on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to Neil’s.

And there she was, on another roller coaster ride. She’d been kissed before, sure. But she’d never been kissed like this, not ever in a way that felt so right, as though she were coming home.

“Buddy, that’s worth a U.S. Grant!” somebody hollered.

The spell broken, Charli stepped back to see children running up the sidewalk to Neil’s Toys for Tots collection bucket, stuffing wadded bills into the slot.

“Wow. We did good tonight,” she said.

“Don’t look so smug,” Neil told her, chucking her on her cheek. “It’s not like you didn’t enjoy it.”

“Oh, no. It was hard work.” Charli burst out laughing, unable to keep a straight face.

“Okay, are you ready to see it?” Neil asked. “Because as much as I want to kiss you some more—for the children, of course—I really think you may have had enough kisses for one night.”

“Yes, we must watch the dosage of kisses very closely,” Charli agreed. “They do seem to be addictive.”

Exhilarating. Intoxicating. Blame it all on those endorphins that are running like mad through my body.

Neil turned her back around. “This baby has a remote control—which is good, because I wouldn’t relish climbing up and down a ladder to turn it on. I’ve been waiting for you so you could be the first to light ’im up.”

Into her hands, he plopped a small rectangular piece of electronics. “M’lady. The honors are all yours.”

“Okay...” She stared at the remote control. “I’m assuming this big red button is the one I press, and that it’s not a self-destruct switch.”

“You assume correctly. Have at it.”

Charli pressed the button, and suddenly, the chimney flared to life. Santa in all his glory looked as if he was about to climb down the chimney with a sack full of toys.

“Well, what do you think? Does he look like he’s checking his list to see who’s been naughty or nice?” Neil asked.

She’d known it was a Santa. Neil had told her that. She’d even looked for a Santa on his rooftop when she’d arrived home.

But seeing the merry figure on Neil’s roof sobered her. Neil’s Santa reminded her of what Neil had called her in the paper—a Secret Santa. Everything came flooding back to her—and suddenly, standing here in this innocent wonderland of lights, with Santa looking down on her, it was all too much.

And Charli knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she would not make Santa’s nice list at all.

* * *

W
HAT
DID
I
DO
?

For the life of him, Neil couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. One minute, Charli had been relaxed and happy.

The next? She’d jumped the hedge as if he’d lit her shoes on fire.

She’d made the flimsiest of excuses and taken off. Her compliments on Santa had been lukewarm. She’d turned him down flat on his offer of hot cocoa. She’d denied that a thing was wrong.

She was tired. It was late. Thanks, but no, thanks.

Neil hadn’t even had a chance to ask her, once and for all, if she was the Secret Santa.

Feeling a little flat, he made his way into the house. His grandmother’s mantel clock was striking nine o’clock when he shut the front door behind him. Outside, the traffic was thinning out, people heading home to put their sleepy, pajama-clad kids to bed.

Will I ever have a kid to share Christmas with?

Neil picked up a framed photo of his mom, eternally young. It had been taken the year she’d died. She was sitting with Neil in Santa’s lap—his dad, he knew now—planting a big kiss on the guy in the red suit’s cheek. Her hand rested on a six-year-old Neil’s shoulder.

It was his favorite picture of his family. To him, it summed up everything about her—her love for his dad, for him, for Christmas.

His dad had waited years to remarry, telling him how once you’d found your soul mate, it was hard to settle for second best. And while Neil’s stepmom was great, she could never be the ebullient grab-life-by-the-horns type of woman his mom had been.

Which was fine, too. His mom might have changed if she’d lived. Probably would have—she’d been so young. He was older now than his mom had been when she’d died in that car wreck.

What wasn’t fine was the longing that Charli had set off in him, a longing to share Christmas—life—with not only the world at large, but with one person in particular.

For the life of him, he couldn’t understand how his emotions were overtaking his logic. He knew—with a reporter’s nose for a story—that she was hiding something, lying by omission at the very least. So how did she make him forget that?

And just when he’d thought she might trust him enough to tell him the truth, she’d turned tail and run.

Something was worrying her. Beyond grief. Beyond overwork. Did Charli blame herself for not saving her father? Did she have bad memories about the holidays in particular?

Or was it this donation business?

Why was she lying? Not just to him, but to everybody? What could possibly be so bad she had to hide it?

Neil put the picture of his mom down. Time for bed. A glass of water and an ibuprofen, and he’d be ready to toss and turn.

In the kitchen, he filled a glass with tap water...and thought about Charli.

I can offer you tap water, or tap water.

Man, but he loved her self-deprecating sense of humor.

Neil tossed the pill into his mouth, washed it down with his water and turned to put the glass in the dishwasher.

A movement outside caught his eye and he leaned close to his kitchen window to get a better view. A truck had pulled up into Charli’s drive. He knew that truck.

Lige Whitaker.

Now what was Whitaker doing at Charli’s this late at night?

The truck’s headlights switched off. Whitaker came around, opened the passenger door and the crew cab door and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

In the big puddle of illumination from the street light, Neil could see two Hispanic men stumble out. One of them, an older guy with salt-and-pepper hair and a moustache, was bent double. The other guy, younger by a good ten years, didn’t look so hot, either, even if he was semiupright.

Lige pushed them up Charli’s drive to her back door under the carport. As he hurried them along, he cast a furtive glance over his shoulder toward Neil’s kitchen windows.

Neil was suddenly glad he hadn’t bothered to turn on the kitchen light.

Lige Whitaker was up to something. That was for certain.

The older Hispanic man nearly fell. Lige picked him up by the collar and nearly booted him the remainder of the way to Charli’s door.

Now Lige was banging on the back door with his fist.

Should he go over and see if Charli needed help?

The door opened. Charli’s mouth fell open, then compressed in anger. She shook her head vehemently.

Lige jabbed a finger at her and then at the two men with him. Charli shrank back. Her headshake this time was more hesitant.

That was it. Neil was going over there to see what Lige was trying to bully her into.

But as he started to turn, to head for Charli’s, he saw her put her hand to her mouth, considering. Then she nodded.