Читать книгу Christmas, Actually: The Christmas Gift / The Christmas Wish / The Christmas Date - Anna Adams - Страница 12

CHAPTER FOUR

JACK STARED AFTER her, his only thought that she shouldn’t be walking on icy streets.

“You know the lady well?” Gary Cook asked.

“We’ve met.”

Sophie had him pegged. Except for one thing—she didn’t know that every time he touched one of those boxes, he heard the echoes of a child’s cry.

He opened the door and went after her. “Sophie.”

She didn’t stop. She didn’t look back. He’d tried to make her see her best choice was to stay away from him. Now that he’d succeeded, he couldn’t let her hurry through icy streets while she was so angry she might forget she was working with a different center of gravity.

“Sophie, let me give you a ride.”

“No, thanks.” She pulled a kind of beanie from her purse and tugged it onto her head.

He caught up with her. “You should be more careful. At least walk on the other side of the street, where the ice has had time to melt.”

She turned. Her anger hit him like a burst of heat, full in the face. She crossed the street, but she wasn’t trying to be safer. She just didn’t want to be near him.

Jack stopped abruptly. He’d succeeded at last. Since the night they’d discovered she was pregnant, he’d had one goal. Make Sophie happy to stay away from him. Make her forget him.

When he’d seen her after the accident, concern had surprised him. Fear had ripped through him, when he’d thought he’d turned off his emotions.

But now he’d made sure she knew nothing had changed. He hadn’t changed.

A car honked, and he discovered he’d stepped into the street. Jack waved at an angry Santa behind the wheel of a vintage VW van, and hurried to catch up with Sophie.

Santa ground his gears and honked again as he passed them. Sophie looked up, as startled to see Jack as she was to be harassed by Santa’s clown horn.

“What do you want?” She tugged at her mittens. “Need these, too? Maybe you don’t feel I should dress warmly, but you can hand out my clothing to your Christmas Town neighbors. I hope they’re not all hypocrites like you.”

“Hardly any of them,” he said. “Except Santa. Will you slow down?”

“I’m cold.”

“You’re pregnant. You might fall.”

She turned her face to his, rage sparkling like ice in her eyes.

Jack held up both hands. “Given the current...situation, the last thing I want to do is take toys to children, but it’s tradition. I can either do it or invite my brother and sister to diagnose me like you’re trying to.”

“That does make me feel like one of the community.” Sophie edged away from him. “I didn’t ask for your company, and I don’t want your help. Go back to putting on a show for the people here—they obviously don’t know the real you.”

“You don’t know me, either,” he said.

“Which works out for both of us, since you want to be alone.” Without another word, she whirled into a store and turned back to close the door in his face.

Sophie was wrong. When he was alone, memories crowded in, sharp-edged, growing ever more dangerous.

* * *

“ARE YOU SURE you’ll make it home for Christmas?” Marisa Palmer asked. Her concern was the first real warmth Sophie had enjoyed all day.

“I’m positive, Mom. There wasn’t that much damage.”

“But you’re sure you and the baby are all right?”

“Absolutely no sign of a problem.”

“You could always ask Jack to drive you home. A few hours in the confines of a car, and you might be able to extract the truth from him.”

“He’ll never explain,” Sophie said, “and I’ve spent too much time trying to understand. Maybe he was just the wrong guy for me, but I’m starting to think he’s definitely the wrong father for my baby.”

“I don’t want to believe that’s true,” her mother said. “He’s been a good man, but something’s happened. Well, keep me updated on when you plan to return, and drive carefully in the snow, okay? We don’t want another accident.”

“Uh-huh.” Sophie stood as a clatter and loud swearing outside dragged her to the window. A man was dusting himself off as someone else righted a fallen ladder. Bystanders were checking on another man, who seemed to be wearing one of the metal-framed Christmas stars that were going up on light poles all over town.

“Everything’s going to be all right. I raised you on my own. You never felt you were missing a father.”

The truth quivered on the tip of Sophie’s tongue, but she held it in. Her mom couldn’t change anything now, and admitting she’d felt abandoned—how much she’d envied her friends who’d casually talked about their dads—wouldn’t help anyone. “I’ll have you, too, Mom. We’re all going to be fine.”

“The three musketeers,” Marisa said, relief in her tone. “Don’t forget your seat belt. I have some research I need to do, honey. I’ll talk to you later. Or tomorrow.”

Her mother was head of the psychology department at Gaudy University, one of Harvard’s sister schools. In Sophie’s elementary school days, her mom had always been working and didn’t have time to join the class trips or show up bearing baskets of cupcakes. But she’d tried to make Sophie understand she could count on herself. She’d reminded Sophie she was loved.

And she would always find time for Sophie’s daughter. Better to be one of a group of musketeers than a lone ranger.

Sophie turned back to the dressing table and tucked her new cell phone and her electronic reader into her purse. She wanted to check on Tessie Blaylock.

* * *

SINCE JACK HAD arrived at the hospital, he’d performed one surgery on a collapsed lung and another to relieve pressure from a subarachnoid hematoma. After consulting with the physicians who’d be taking over his cases when they reached the treatment floors, Jack showered and started his rounds.

He was eager to check on Tessie. She’d be going home the next day, as long as her blood work improved.

Outside her room, Jack heard a familiar voice—light, sweet, melodic. A voice that refused to vacate his mind.

Sophie was asking Tessie a question, and the young woman responded.

“I think I remember you,” Tessie said. “You’re the lady I ran into. You’re a nurse.”

“I should have introduced myself when I came in. I’m Sophie Palmer.” She sounded different. More certain.

“My parents tell me I owe you my life.”

“We don’t need to go that far. Dr. Banning did the real work.”

“But you were there first, because of me, and you saved me anyway.”

Tessie’s tearful voice made Jack pause in the doorway. He couldn’t un-hear Sophie’s estimate of him. She had every reason to hate him, but she’d been professional.

Sophie sat beside Tessie’s bed. She was just pregnant enough that the chair forced her to sit at an uncomfortable angle. Funny, they expected patients’ family members to sleep in those chairs. She pushed one hand behind her back to brace herself, but her attention was on the girl, who was finally regaining her natural, healthy color.

Tessie reached out and Sophie put the girl’s palm in her own. “You don’t have to thank me. Just say you won’t ever text and drive again. Promise you’ll leave your phone in your purse.”

Tessie’s bandage was stark white against her skin, a reminder that she and Sophie had escaped serious consequences. Despite himself, Jack felt the tug of fear.

“I promise I will never touch my phone while I’m driving. I’ve been lying here wishing I could take back that one second when I picked it up, and thought I could type a quick text.”

For a moment, Jack returned to the heat of his own personal hell—possessing only one pair of hands, which couldn’t do half enough work in time to save his friends and soldier comrades.

Sophie let go, and he saw empathy in her eyes. He’d always admired the caring she brought to her work, to her life. “I’m glad you realize how bad it could have been, Tessie.”

His patient nodded, her gaze more somber than any seventeen-year-old’s should be. “I might have killed you and your baby. The police came by. They said they could charge me, because I admitted I was texting. My mom and dad are getting a lawyer.”

“That’s not Sophie’s problem,” Jack said, going into protective mode without thinking.

Sophie looked up, so startled she didn’t even seem angry with him. She reached into her purse, pulled out a silver case—so small and delicate one of Santa’s elves might have crafted it—and plucked out a business card.

“This has my cell number. If you need me to speak for you, I’ll tell them what I believe—that you’re sincere.”

Tessie’s face blanched. “Right now I don’t ever want to get behind the wheel of a car again.” She glanced from Sophie’s stomach up to her face. “My mom said you risked your baby’s life.”

Jack felt pain like thunder in his head. His mouth went completely dry. His spine seemed to lock in place, while his legs protested at being used.

He shot a glance at Sophie, but thankfully, she didn’t notice the perspiration dripping from his temples.

Without acknowledging him or his impulsive comment, she tucked in Tessie’s bedding with a nurse’s economy of movement. “I was in no pain and you needed help. Honestly, if my baby had been at risk, I would have chosen her over you without a second thought.”

A massive, unseen fist squeezed Jack’s rib cage. Of course she’d choose her child. He was counting on it.

Tessie sank against her pillow. “Thank you. That makes me feel less guilty, and I promise I won’t ever forget about the texting thing.”

Sophie took the girl’s water bottle. “I’ll get this refilled,” she said, staring him down.

Jack pushed away from the doorjamb, moving to the computer mounted near the bed. “I need to check your wound, Tessie, when your nurse arrives.”

* * *

SOPHIE MADE IT to the nurses’ station and set the bottle on the counter. “Can we get this refilled?” she asked. In her hospital, there was filtered water available. They must have something similar here, because a woman in green scrubs took the container away.

Sophie leaned on the counter, breathing. She didn’t allow herself to embrace the hope hovering at the edges of her awareness.

Jack’s defense of her had come out of left field, but it didn’t mean he’d changed his mind about being a father to their child. He’d broken a sweat as Tessie talked about the baby.

Was he concerned about their baby? Or any baby? He’d lost an eleven-month-old girl in a surgery in October. That was when the dreams had started.

“Here you go,” the nurse said, handing over Tessie’s water.

Sophie collected herself. No need to get confused about what she wanted, either. Jack might have tried for a second to protect her, but even if he’d meant it, even if he still cared for her, he could abandon her in the next breath.

It didn’t matter, but before she put Christmas Town in her rearview mirror, they both had to be certain what kind of man he’d become. Would Jack be a name on a birth certificate? Or would he come to his senses and understand the magnitude of the unexpected gift he was throwing away?

When she returned to the room, he was finishing Tessie’s dressing. Jack was one of the few surgeons Sophie knew who didn’t turn that duty over to the nurses. He smoothed the tape.

“That should do you, Tessie.”

The nurse gathered up the supplies. “Anything else, Doctor?”

Jack shook his head. “We’re good,” he said. The nurse left the room, closing the door behind him.

“Dr. Banning, my mom and dad are stringing lights on the green tonight. Do you think I could help them?”

He looked at Sophie as if she’d asked the question. “We all help decorate. A few years ago, the town council had to choose between fewer decorations, including canceling the pageant on Christmas Eve, or volunteering in shifts so we could cut the labor budget.” He made his notes on the screen beside Tessie’s bed. “I think you need to stay here another night. We had to transfuse you. We’ll do blood work again this evening and in the morning. If your levels are rising, you can go tomorrow.”

“I hate this place.” Tessie shifted in the bed, but grimaced as her arm pulled, reminding her of the life lesson her recklessness had taught her. “Not that I’m not grateful you fixed me up.”

“But the food is horrible, and you can’t have a nice hamburger or a chicken wrap or whatever teenage girls eat these days.” He touched a button that darkened the monitor. “You’re a week early for Santa’s daily visits, although I hear the nutritionists are lobbying for him to distribute fruit this year.”

“Fruit?” Tessie’s show of disgust betrayed her. She wasn’t a forbearing saint or an adult. The child who didn’t care for healthy holiday goodies lingered inside her.

Sophie laughed, relieved to find a normal adolescent had survived her trauma.

“What do you like, Sophie?” Tessie smoothed her hospital sheet. “At our house, we dip strawberries in dark chocolate. And then we dip everything else we can find in the kitchen. Even bacon.”

A hint of morning sickness rattled Sophie. “Chocolate-covered cherries,” she said. “My mom gives me a beautiful box every year because her parents gave her one. The good ones with cordials and liqueurs, which I will not be enjoying this year.”

“That’s a waste of good chocolate. I’d take the fresh fruit over chocolate liqueurs.”

“Or bacon,” Jack said.

Tessie laughed. Sophie concentrated on not looking startled that he’d try to be funny with her in the room. But putting on a show might be his second best skill.

“You two are finicky,” he said. “I prefer those chocolate oranges my mom used to put in our stockings. You crack them against a table and they separate into slices. I could eat one of those now,” he said.

“I could eat anything.” Tessie sniffed the air. Out in the hall, the rattle of silver and serving trays predicted the arrival of lunch. “Except whatever they’re bringing me.”

“You’ll be out of here in twenty-four hours,” Jack said as Sophie realized she was still holding Tessie’s bottle. “In fact, you can talk your parents into taking another shift on the green tomorrow.”

“I will. I could help when the other cheerleaders do their shift, but I think my parents need me more right now.”

“Or you could do both. You know what they say about idle hands.”

“I know what my grandmother says,” she answered sharply.

“I guess you’re feeling more like yourself,” Jack said. “But please do as you’re told and rest today so you can work on the holiday decorations tomorrow. You’re a lucky girl, Tessie.”

“I know.”

The girl’s guilt touched Sophie. “You have to learn from this, but you don’t have to mourn surviving,” she said.

At the foot of the bed, Jack turned to her with a look of accusation on his face.

“Jack, I took a cab over here,” she said. “Mind giving me a ride back?”

He gave a reluctant nod. “Will you wait while I change out of my scrubs? Tessie, take it easy. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Don’t lose my card,” Sophie told her. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”