by Annie O'Neil
Despite himself, Finn laughed. There was no point in acting the fool in front of Charlie. He dropped onto the bench next to where Charlie had wheeled his chair. “All right, then, O Wise One. What do you prescribe to make sure I don’t follow old patterns?”
Charlie leaned back in his chair and stroked an invisible beard. “Listen, my son, to the wise man who has been married many years. To win this woman’s heart, you must be there.”
“Be there?” Finn had been prepared for a half-hour lecture on understanding the finer points of a woman’s psychology, but this was clearly all he was getting.
“That’s the one.” Charlie nodded, the idea of a beard clearly growing on him as he continued to “stroke” it, waiting for the light bulb to ping on with Finn.
Finn scrubbed a towel over his head and draped it across his shoulders.
Be there.
Charlie was right. Naomi had not only lost her family and boyfriend that day. She’d lost her home town. Her country. Her birthright.
No wonder it was hard to commit to him. Falling in love with someone so different, so far away from the life...the light bulb went on...the life she’d thought she’d have. To fall in love with him, Naomi would have to let go of every single childhood hope and dream and allow herself to believe in a new Naomi. A new life. A new set of dreams. All at the expense of everything she’d ever believed would be true.
He snapped Charlie with his towel. “Who made you so wise?”
Charlie gave his invisible beard a final stroke then grinned. “A really good friend saved my life once. Puts a lot of things into perspective.” He popped a wheelie in his chair. “That. And I married a woman who told me if I so much as thought of checking out on her when the going got tough I was going to wish I was dead once she’d got through with me!”
They laughed.
“You got a good one,” Finn said.
“And so is Naomi. I could tell that the moment I set eyes on her.”
Finn gave him a how-the-hell-did-you-know-it-was-Naomi? glare and Charlie guffawed. “Mate. Your face was puppy dog from the moment she entered this sports center. You are a goner.” He wheeled around him and pointed at him. “But not in the real sense. Remember. Be there. That’s the most important thing.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DESPITE ALL THE confusion knocking around her head about Finn, Naomi couldn’t help but feel a growing fizz of excitement over the Christmas party at the hospital today.
Evie had seriously outdone herself. She had stayed with Naomi for two extra hours at the hospital last night to sort out some of the final decorations. Naomi had watched, transfixed, as she’d handed over her precious little one, Grace, to Ryan with a thousand words of warning on how to care for her. He’d laughed and kissed her, reminding his future bride he was a doctor and, as a pediatric heart surgeon, had a rough idea how to care for infants.
Naomi pulled on the silly Christmas jumper Evie had given her last night in thanks for helping. When she pulled on the ivory top, edged round the sleeves, hem and neckline with holly-berry-red stitching, she had to admit, she’d drawn the lucky card.
Where other doctors were being doled out jumpers complete with blinking lights or designs that made them look like miniature elves or pot-bellied Santas, hers was almost elegant. A pair of gold antlers was stitched into the fabric and “floated’ above a perfect red nose.
She considered her reflection in the mirror, twisting this way and that, only stopping when she realized she was being this vain because she was wondering what Finn would think.
Her heart was already telling her. Finn was looking to the future...a future with her...if only she would take his hand and join him.
Had he spelled it out? No. Had she seen it in his eyes each time she’d dodged his attempts to talk? Without a doubt.
This was up to her now. She looked into the mirror again. Without having even noticed, she’d woven her hands together in front of her heart as if they were providing some sort of shield. But what was it she really wanted protection from? Happiness?
It seemed ridiculous and yet... Allowing herself the true happiness of falling in love and all that could follow in true love’s wake, was that bigger than living with the constant fear that she’d never be entirely present? That part of her would always be in Africa?
Her phone buzzed on the little table by her front door.
Evie. She was already down at the hospital, wondering if Naomi fancied coming along to help get the ball rolling.
* * *
A few hours later and Evie finally admitted there was nothing left to be done, apart from have the actual party.
The small green in front of the hospital had been utterly transformed from a frost-covered, plain expanse of grass to a winter wonderland.
“All we need is snow,” Naomi sighed.
“That,” agreed Evie,” would be the icing on the cake.”
Together the pair of them looked up at the sky then took in the party scene spread out before them. A bouncy castle shaped like an ice palace was nestled in amongst about a dozen stalls all giving away warm, spiced apple juice or hot chocolate. Others had platters filled with amazing glittery cake pops shaped like miniature Santas and snowmen. There were star-shaped cheese crackers and even a huge Christmas-tree-shaped vegetable platter with a pretzel “trunk” surrounded by all sorts of tasty-looking dips. An enormous tray of reindeer-shaped sandwiches was already doing the rounds with curly pretzels standing in as antlers and a perfect roundel of red radish taking the role of the nose. At the far end of the smattering of stalls hosting games for the children was a carousel! Where on earth Evie had magicked that up remained a mystery. Whenever Naomi asked, Evie would just tap the side of her nose and say, “I’ve got love on my side. Anything’s possible when you’re in love.”
Anything except changing the past.
It felt discordant to have such a gloomy thought when everything about her was all sparkles and glitter and twinkling magic. Maybe a bit of Evie’s “love magic” would rub off on her.
Only if you let it, you numpty.
And she wasn’t ready to let go. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“Want a gingerbread man?” Evie held out a cheerily decorated biscuit to Naomi, dancing it toward her with a zany jigging movement. She looked every bit as excited as the children who were starting to arrive from the main entrance of the hospital, all bundled up in their warmest winter clothing, with nurses, parents and scores of others.
Naomi laughed and took the biscuit, holding it slightly aloft as Evie shot past her to attend to a red baubles or silver baubles crisis while Naomi went through the age-old conundrum of deciding whether to bite the gingerbread man’s head off or start with his foot.
“I bet you go with the foot first. Then he’ll look like me.”
Finn’s deep voice crackled like a warm hit of electricity along her spine and, despite the urge to run away, Naomi forced herself to turn around and smile. She couldn’t imagine him making a joke about his leg a few weeks ago.
A few weeks ago she hadn’t been able to imagine him being nice to her, let alone setting her entire body alight with a single brush of his hand. The least she could do was afford him a festive smile. She made a show of biting the hand off, knowing it was a contrary move, but he was disarming her. His gray eyes seemed to hold an extra luster today, jewel-bright against the dark clouds gathering in the distance. He was wearing a scarlet-colored hat that made the dark curls peeking through seem even more mahogany rich than they did without it.
He had what looked like a hand-knitted scarf, dark blue, wrapped round his neck and was wearing a light blue jumper with...gold antlers and a single red nose.
“We match.” Finn stretched out his jumper as proof.
Oh, yes, they did. In so many ways.
A warmth lit up her belly as her body took its time
remembering just how much they did match.
Unable to hold his gaze, her eyes flicked away from his, scanning the large green, hoping an excuse to run away would jump out at her.
“This is all looking pretty spectacular.”
Finn reached out and put his hand on the small of her back as a woman led an immaculately groomed Shetland pony past them and toward a small trap that had been reconfigured to look like a sleigh.
A part of her was desperate to bolt and seek refuge somewhere quiet and solitary, while another part of her wanted to feel that lovely, large hand of his touch her back until the end of time. Despite the layers of fabric between them, heat radiated from the spot where he held his hand and it took all the power she possessed not to lean into it. Heck. It took all the power she possessed not to go up on tiptoe and throw her arms around him and tell him she knew she was being strange, but she was scared and her fear was her problem and hers alone.
“Naomi.” Finn shifted round so he was facing her. “I know things have been a bit awkward between us since...” His eyes flicked down toward the river with enough meaning in them to indicate the night they’d spent in his houseboat. “What do you say we start again with a clean slate?” He performed a courtly bow. “Would you do me the honor of coming to this afternoon’s party with me as my date?”
Her heart skipped a beat at the invitation. The warmth in his eyes told her so much. He was willing to take it slowly. Go at her pace. Be there for her. That someone could be so kind, so generous threatened to change the cadence of her racing heart. It was a risk she simply found too terrifying. Patients came and went. That she could cope with. But loving and losing again?
Is it worth losing him without having even let yourself try loving him?
The ache in her heart threatened to tear her in two. She simply didn’t know and choosing to be alone seemed the safest option. Always had been. Always would.
“I’ve got to go and get Adao,” she finally said apologetically, when the intensity of Finn’s gaze became too much. “I promised him I’d be his date.”
A flash of something all too easy to read shot across Finn’s eyes.
Hurt.
It twisted her heart so tightly she could barely breathe. “Excuse me.” She gave his arm a quick squeeze then set off at a jog toward the hospital entrance, weaving in and out of the crowds of children, their parents, their doctors and nurses, all wreathed in smiles and bathed in laughter as they saw the magical world Evie had created for them.
Questions assaulted her with each step she took.
Why couldn’t she let that joy into her own heart?
Why couldn’t she allow Finn to shine some light into her world after such a very long time of living cloaked under the weight of guilt and sorrow?
Because they were your family and you left them behind.
“Oops. You going in or coming out?” Alice Baxter was wheeling a child out of the front door.
“In. To get a patient,” she hastily explained, stepping out of the heavy flow of traffic heading out to the green. From where she was standing, there was already a queue forming at Santa’s grotto.
“Have you seen Marco?”
Naomi smiled. She knew Marco Ricci was the one who had put that non-stop smile onto Alice’s face.
“I’m pretty sure I saw him with a set of twins. Twelve-year-old boys, both of them on crutches.”
A slip and fall on the ice hockey rink in a spat over a home goal, if she remembered correctly. They were both scheduled to come in to have some physio when their casts came off.
“Excellent. See you out there!” She dropped Naomi a quick wink as she passed. “With any luck, I’ll find Marco under the mistletoe!”
Wow. Everyone seemed to have sunbeams shooting out of their ears today.
Little wonder.
Alice was in love.
Evie was in love.
Obviously the same was true for Marco and Ryan.
It was as if the mistletoe fairy had come and sprinkled her fairy love dust over the whole of Hope Children’s Hospital...
Was there anyone in this place who wasn’t in love besides...?
Her shoulders drooped as her spirits plummeted to the bottom of her boots. You could be too if you let yourself.
She gave herself a quick shake and slipped through the traffic coming out the main door.
Adao.
She needed to get Adao and spend the day with him. That would keep her nice and distracted. No more thoughts about love or tall, gorgeous, ex-servicemen turned surgical geniuses needed here. Especially not ones with hands that drove her body wild when—
Naomi pressed her lips together hard and jabbed the elevator button so hard it hurt.
Served her right.
For everything.
Her focus should be on Adao. And after that there’d be another patient and another and another until... How long would she have to keep paying penance for something she couldn’t have changed?
Fourteen more years?
Never?
Forgiveness came in many forms. She’d said that once to a parent chastising themselves for taking their eye off their child who had fallen and broken their arm.
Forgiveness comes in many forms.
The question was, would she ever be ready to forgive herself? Until that happened, she would always be alone.
* * *
Finn lifted the three-year-old off the carousel and gently deposited her in her mother’s arms.
“Have a lovely afternoon.”
What the hell? He sounded like one of his mum’s friends after they’d popped round for tea.
“Thanks so much.” The mum smiled and whirled around, both her and her daughter’s cheeks pink with a combination of the fresh winter air and the exhilaration of the afternoon. If they were giving out medals today, Evie deserved a gold. No doubt about it. The party was a through and through success.
“Oops. Easy there, Adao.”
Finn whirled round at the sound of Naomi and Adao’s voices.
“Need a hand getting onto the carousel?”
Naomi’s dark eyes flicked up to meet Finn’s. He hated seeing the panic in them when she saw it was him.
“Yes, please, Mr. Morgan,” Adao piped up. “May I ride the black one?”
Finn smiled down at Adao. It was nice to see the little guy up and about. Apart from the rumored smile when he’d received the picture of his parents, he remained as somber as ever. His arm was healing nicely and within a few days he should be fitted for the prosthetic that was being made at a special factory that supplied them.
“Absolutely. We just need to let it come to a stop so we can get you safely up there and then you can have a ride. Sound good?”
Adao nodded as if he had just agreed to accept responsibility for Finn’s most prized horse.
Finn enjoyed watching Naomi interact with the little boy. Kneeling down when she spoke to him so they were eye to eye. Assuring him that “proper riders” only used one hand for the reins.
When the carousel came to a halt again, Finn helped Adao up and onto a glistening ebony stallion, avoiding jogging his arm as much as he could. The stallion’s mane was painted a shimmering gold with a saddle painted on in shades of deep reds and oranges.
Naomi walked round to the far side to help offer Adao support if he needed it, but for now he was holding on tight to the stallion’s reins, his face serious as the carousel began to turn and the horse began to “gallop” up and down.
Still avoiding eye contact with Finn, Naomi began to jog in place, pretending to try and keep up with Adao as his horse “galloped’ forward.
“I’m just about there! I’m coming to get you.”
The corners of Adao’s mouth began to twitch as Naomi carried on with her jape, dropping her hands to her knees to pant for
a moment then straining to “catch up” as the horse leapt and dipped with the rhythm of the festive music.
Finn watched, delighted, as, at long last, Adao’s face lit up with a genuine smile. His smile spread like sunshine and lit up Naomi’s features as well. He knew it had only been a few days since he’d seen her share a genuine laugh with someone, but it felt like it had been weeks.
Naomi leant in to ask Adao a question.
He didn’t quite catch what she’d said, but the words “Christmas” and “wish” leapt out at him.
He could’ve told Naomi in a second what his was. But this was Adao’s time so he watched as the young boy’s expression grew very still as he considered his options.
The music began to slow, along with the movement of the carousel, just as Adao seemed to make up his mind.
“For Christmas,” he began, “I would love to see my parents. And I would love to see snow.”
Tears sprung instantly to Naomi’s eyes when Adao mentioned his parents. It was a wish neither of them could grant. And no doubt was doubly painful for Naomi to hear, knowing she would most likely never know what had happened to her own family.
As for the snow... He looked over his shoulder at the gray clouds moving in from across the fens. He looked straight up to heaven and threw in a silent request that at least one of the boy’s two wishes could come true. As for Naomi...he needed her to know the truth about him. See how far he’d come before she completely wrote him off. He was living proof that life was full of second chances.
“Let’s get you off there, mate.” Finn lifted Adao up and off the horse, noting how light he was, and how receptively he responded when Finn pulled him in close for a bit of a hug before he put him down.
