One Bright Christmas

by Katherine Spencer

  The women hugged and said goodbye. Lucy quickly walked the rest of the way to her car and headed to her first patient of the day. Rosemary Holmes, a seventy-year-old retired teacher, who was recovering from hip surgery. She lived alone on Ivy Street, a short distance from the heart of the village. Lucy had been visiting her every day since she had come home from the hospital last week.

  Rosemary was an easy client who required little more than a check of her vital signs and blood sugar, plus a bandage change. But Lucy always spent time with her to provide a bit of companionship.

  Strictly speaking, she wasn’t required or even supposed to do that. She had a schedule to keep and other patients waiting. But a big reason she had switched from working in a hospital to working for a visiting nurse service was the one-on-one relationships with the patients. It was the facet of her profession she enjoyed most, and she truly believed her concern and attention contributed as much to the patients’ healing as any of their medications.

  Maybe she spent too much time with her patients. But many, like Rosemary, lived alone and had only a thin safety net of social connections. Lucy couldn’t stop herself from trying to cheer them up a bit and to reassure them someone was thinking of them and cared about their recovery.

  She knew many of her colleagues kept a tight lid on that side of nursing. Some boasted they flew through five, six, or even eight patient visits a day, all in time to pick up their children after school. Lucy knew she would never work that way. She was often in the field until after seven and then worked at home, completing reports for each case. She had never been a clock watcher, which had been a good thing while working at the diner as a waitress for all those years. It was a good thing now, too.

  Lucy valued the years she’d spent at Southport Hospital and had gained a deep knowledge of nursing there, working mainly on the general surgery floor. But last summer she decided to switch tracks and move out into the field. She still did the occasional shift at the hospital if they were short on staff, but she was glad she had made the change. Working one-on-one with a patient in their own home was much more personal and rewarding than hospital nursing, which was so often a hurried business, with her patients coming and going in the blink of an eye.

  She loved to take care of people and to help make them healthy. It was the reason she had been drawn to nursing in the first place. How many years had she fantasized about becoming a nurse? From the time she was a little girl, playing with her dolls and stuffed animals. When she got older, there had been that brief detour into acting. But her first dream, her real calling, had never faded, though she’d dismissed it as too far out of reach—the years of school and training. The expense of it all. One summer, already well into her thirties, married with two little boys and only two years of college to her credit, Lucy had been encouraged by a younger waitress to go for her dream. If she didn’t make it, at least she would have tried.

  Silencing the voice of self-doubt inside had been a challenge. But the biggest hurdle had been Charlie’s objections. He had some very practical reasons. They were already saving for their boys to go to college. Could they really afford to send Lucy, too? And lose her help at the diner? And what about childcare?

  Lucy had to admit that it had all seemed a lot to ask. But still, she persisted, and finally, Charlie came to understand what it meant to her and agreed they would try to make it work. She loved him for that and for how, after making that commitment, he’d stepped up around the house and helped take care of the boys and rarely complained.

  It hadn’t been easy. Far from it. In the end, though, getting her nursing degree had turned out to be not just the hardest won but the most rewarding achievement of her life, aside from raising her children, Charlie Junior—C.J. for short—and Jamie and Zoey, whom she adored. Her husband had been bursting with pride when she’d graduated. Lucy felt the achievement was partly Charlie’s, too. That’s what it meant to be married. They shared in both the challenges and the triumphs and grew ever closer because of it.

  As Lucy considered her patient roster and the day ahead, she knew that all the homes she visited took the Cape Light Messenger. Many if not most of her patients would talk about the movie crew coming to town. Some would even mention Craig Hamilton. He was the most famous star in the cast, and he was a local boy of sorts.

  Lucy readied herself to listen and nod, to offer a smile and the most banal comments on the subject. The movie people would come and go, and no one would ever know what it meant to her. Not Charlie . . . Not even Fran. Who could ever guess how she truly felt about seeing Craig Hamilton again? Despite what she’d told her friend, Lucy knew that even she herself was not sure.

  * * *

  * * *

  Lauren Willoughby relaxed her shoulders and took a slow, deep breath. She stared down at the golf ball and blocked everything else from her mind. Or at least tried to.

  Joe Wagner stood a polite distance away, perfectly in keeping with golf etiquette. But she could still feel his gaze following her every move as she swung her hips to the right and pulled the club back over her head.

  It was a bit unnerving, but as the club swung forward smoothly and struck the ball, she knew in her bones it was a sweet shot—a long drive straight down the middle of the fairway, easily clearing the sand trap and dropping a few yards from the green, an easy chip up toward the hole.

  “Excellent shot, Lauren. Are you going to birdie this one, too? You’re leaving me in the dust.”

  Lauren smiled at his good-natured compliments. “It’s not over till it’s over, Joe. Give yourself a chance.”

  She nearly added, It was just a lucky swing, or some other polite excuse to discount her skill. A female thing to do, especially when competing with a man. But a good shot was a good shot, and it was not only polite but honest of another player to acknowledge that. She was sure he would have said as much if he were playing with a man, and the man in question would not have apologized just to make Joe feel good. So she wouldn’t either.

  Lauren couldn’t recall the last time she had been on a golf course. But her old clubs were still in her mom’s garage, and she’d found a pair of golf shoes there, too. She had still hesitated to accept Joe’s invitation, fearing she wouldn’t play well. But after a hole or two, it had all come back, like riding a bike. It felt good to know she hadn’t lost her touch.

  Joe belonged to the club more for business and social reasons than for golf, he’d explained. He enjoyed the game, but as he struggled with his form and focus, his equipment and outfit fresh from a sports store, it was obvious he was still a newbie.

  She actually liked the way he didn’t take the game so seriously, unlike most players she knew, who often seemed tempted to throw their clubs—or themselves—into the water hazards after bad shots.

  Joe hacked away, happy to trade his stuffy office for the fresh air and lush, peaceful surroundings. They had picked the right day for it, too. The weather was perfect, more like early spring than mid-November.

  As Joe stepped up to address the ball on the fifth tee, she could see he wasn’t shifting his weight correctly. The ball would hook to the right or left and land in the trees. Then he’d stare at it, totally baffled. But he hadn’t asked for help, and she knew it wasn’t her place to correct him.

  She watched the club draw back, then arc forward. His timing was fine, and the head hit the ball with a loud thwack!

  It flew a good distance down the fairway but finally veered into the wooded fringe, as she had expected. Luckily, it struck the trunk of a thick birch and settled in the high grass that bordered the fairway, about two-thirds of the distance to the pin.

  He laughed at his good fortune. “I couldn’t have hit that tree if I’d been trying. At least I won’t be tramping through the woods for an hour looking for the ball.” He stopped and glanced at her. “Or should we call that interference? It must be against the rules, right? We’re not shooting pool.
”

  Lauren smiled and shook her head. “You’re in luck. Bouncing it off a tree is perfectly fine.”

  Lauren was hardly a rule freak, though having played competitive golf in high school and college, she certainly knew the book backward and forward.

  “Play it as it lays,” she said, hoping to strike an encouraging note. He answered with a thumbs-up but still had a hard time chipping out of the thick grass and then maneuvering the ball all the way to the putting green. They finished the hole with Lauren scoring one under par and Joe three over.

  He marked his scorecard and tucked it in his pocket. Lauren avoided his gaze, wondering if his ego felt more battered right now than the golf ball. Most men hated it when a “girl” won.

  But when he looked up, he offered a genuinely cheerful smile. “Onward. Ladies first.” He extended his hand with a gallant flourish; the gesture made her laugh.

  Lauren grabbed her golf carrier and tugged it up the path as Joe followed close behind. “I thought you said you haven’t played for years,” he reminded her.

  “I haven’t. I actually can’t remember the last time I set foot on a course. A few summers ago, maybe? On a visit up here.”

  “I should have known I wouldn’t beat the team captain. Undefeated in our senior year,” he recalled.

  “Nice of you to remember.” Lauren glanced at him over her shoulder and smiled. “The basketball team was pretty good that year, too,” she said, returning the compliment.

  “We were. And I was captain of the benchwarmers. I must have clocked a whole . . . three minutes on the court that season?”

  Lauren had to laugh. Joe’s self-deprecating humor had always put her at ease when they were teenagers. She still found it charming.

  “You were a good sport for getting out there. You had plenty of other accomplishments. Class president? Yearbook editor? Captain of the debate team?”

  “The debate team—how could I forget? A hint of triumphs to come,” he joked. “Though the cases we handle rarely get to court. It’s a lot of negotiating—offers and counteroffers. A lot of letter writing and meetings. And I’m mostly managing the other attorneys.”

  Joe’s firm was tiny, with only three other lawyers on board, compared to the huge firm in New York where Lauren had been working, which had over a hundred on the payroll. But in the local area, Wagner & Associates had a solid profile and was still growing.

  “Do you miss the hands-on stuff?” she asked. They were almost at the tee for the seventh hole but had to wait for a foursome ahead to finish on the putting green.

  “I do, a bit. Maybe I’ll jump back in soon, with Caitlin out on maternity leave. Sorry to seem like I’m nagging you, Lauren. But have you thought any more about helping out while you’re visiting?”

  “Seventh hole. Not bad, Joe. I expected that question by five, or even four.”

  He laughed. Her blunt manner—which put a lot of people off—always amused him. “I was too busy fretting over my hook—and facing the fact that you’re beating the stuffing out of me.”

  Now it was Lauren’s turn to laugh. She knew a large part of this invitation was Joe’s hope to persuade her to work at his firm as a hired hand while one of his key attorneys was on maternity leave. Lauren had come home a couple of weeks ago, in early November. “Just for a visit over the holidays,” she told anyone who asked. “I’m starting a new job soon.”

  Which was actually a massive exaggeration, since it would be a new job she hadn’t found yet. She had been more or less shamed out of her last position after working her heart out at a big, prestigious law firm for years in the hopes of being promoted to partner someday. All of her reviews had been stellar—until the most recent, when she’d been told she was no longer on that track.

  There was no recourse but to resign, and without ever really knowing why or where she’d made a misstep. Had she left a poor impression on a client or some higher-up? Did she not seem sharp enough or tough enough? Or had one of her peers seeded doubt with the senior partners who decided these things?

  Lauren blamed no one. She knew the game was cruel and the competition played rough. She had known the rules going in. No one had forced her to pursue corporate law. The competitive spirit was in her blood. She wanted to play at the highest level. She had believed with her whole heart that she would measure up, that she’d rise to the top of the pile and make the cut. She had won before at every game she had ever pursued. If not at the first try, then eventually. She would go to some other firm and try again. She was only twenty-nine. Most people didn’t make partner until well into their thirties, or even older. The inning had ended, but there was plenty of ball game left for her.

  Persistence was in her nature. On those rare but eye-opening moments when she fell short of a goal, she would brush herself off and tackle it again, twice as hard and twice as determined. This time, though, she’d walked off the field stunned and brokenhearted. Just thinking of the last few weeks of her life in New York still stole Lauren’s breath away.

  “So I guess that means that you’ve been thinking about my offer? You might have an answer soon?” Joe artfully circled back to his objective—pinning down a reply—as a skilled attorney should.

  “Yes, counselor. I will admit to thinking it over.”

  “I’ll take that as a good sign.” He looked encouraged. “We don’t have to talk about it here. That’s not why I asked you to play today, Lauren. Not the only reason.”

  His dark eyes caught hers, and Lauren realized that his looks had improved over the years. Tall and gawky in high school, he’d filled out just the right amount, the rough edges smoothed over by time and maturity, and by fine clothes that fit his position as a young, successful attorney. She knew that most women would find him very attractive. But to her, he was still just her old pal Joe.

  Ever since they had met up in the village soon after she arrived and Joe had found out she wasn’t dating anyone, Lauren had sensed he wanted her to think of him differently—as a romantic possibility. It was certainly flattering that he still felt that way after all this time.

  She also worried about the invitation to play golf and even about the employment offer. Not worried, exactly. More like wondering what she was getting into by rekindling their old friendship, which went all the way back to middle school. Back then, she had always known that Joe Wagner had a crush on her but was happy to settle for friendship.

  He’d been a good friend, too, all through high school, dragging her through trig and physics. He had even asked her to the senior prom, making sure she knew that he knew she only thought of him as a friend. With the ground rules clearly marked and no one else vying for her hand, Lauren had accepted his invitation. She didn’t have romantic feelings for Joe, but their relationship meant a lot to her, and going to prom together “as friends” seemed a fitting way to close their shared chapter before heading off on their new paths.

  But the moment she appeared in her living room in her long dress and fancy hairstyle, she wondered if it had been a good idea after all. Dressed in a black tux, his hair smoothed back, he looked awestruck as he watched her walk down the stairs, his hands shaking as he offered a flowery wristband.

  Lauren knew it was more than her glamorous transformation. As they posed for photos and then walked to Joe’s car, she felt the night was doomed to end in disaster.

  And she had been right. The evening went downhill from there, ending with a confession of adoration that made Lauren cringe and run. Recalling the memory as an adult touched her heart. More recently, it reminded her that at least at one moment in her life, there had been a guy who truly did adore her and had offered his heart and soul.

  Joe never referred to that night. Either he’d buried it in his subconscious or he was still so embarrassed that he preferred to pretend it never happened.

  He only talked about their friendship, then and now. But she wondered what h
e was really thinking. She would be leaving town in January; she had made that clear. Perhaps there was no reason at all for her to be concerned about their personal relationship wandering out of the friendship lane, or even about working for him for a few weeks.

  The foursome in front of them had finished on the putting green and replaced the flag in the hole. One of the men in the group waved, signaling the coast was clear. Joe stood with his gaze fixed on her, waiting for an answer.

  “I’m thinking about it, Joe. I really am. But I won’t be here past Christmas. Maybe you should find someone with a longer shelf life.”

  “I choose quality over quantity every time. New York experience counts for a lot around here, Lauren. You could write your own ticket to any firm on the North Shore, or even in Boston. But here you can have it all—a good career and a life. Are you really sure you need to go back to New York?”

  Lauren knew what he said was true. But she had her own compelling reasons to stick with her plan. “I’ve been thrown off a New York horse, Joe. I have to get back on that one. Not a pony in Boston, or even a donkey in . . . Peabody.”

  “A pony and a donkey, huh? What does that make my firm—a Chihuahua?”

  Lauren felt her cheeks flush. Good work. The guy goes out of his way to make you feel valuable, and even offers you a job, and you insult him. The problem was genetic; her mind worked faster than her mouth. Her mother was the same way. But Lauren also knew she had to try harder to control it.

  Suddenly he laughed and shook his head. “Lauren Willoughby cuts to the chase. No soft soap, no sugarcoating. That’s your brand.” He pulled a three wood from his bag and pointed it at her. “That’s why I want you to work for me.”

  Without waiting for her reply, he stepped up to the tee and prepared to take a shot.