Christmas Duet: A Big City, Small Town Christmas Romance Bundle

by Gina Robinson

  "Grandpa! Grandpa!" Tara reached him first and scrambled up the snow pile to the light. She took the lantern from him and held it over him as she evaluated the situation.

  Beads of sweat stood on Harry's forehead in the frigid twenty-degree weather. Not good. So not good.

  "I got dizzy. So danged dizzy. And it felt like the roof pitched and I tumbled off into the snow," Harry said.

  "The roof is pitched, Grandpa."

  He gasped for breath. "The weight. My chest feels like Santa's fully loaded sleigh is sitting on it and the reindeer are doing a tap dance." He clutched his chest. "Danged reindeer. I can't breathe."

  "I'll tell Santa to get his team under control." Tara patted his shoulder and tried to smile at him. "You're too old for jumping from roofs, Grandpa." She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "Can you move? Is anything broken?"

  "Hard to tell." Harry moved his arms and legs and wiggled his fingers. "Doesn't seem so. The snow"—he wheezed—"cushioned my fall."

  As Tara pulled her cell phone from her pocket, headlights swung into the parking lot.

  Ryan! Her heart leaped.

  Her relief and joy were short-lived. Ranger Rick Dempsey was arriving for his morning cup of coffee in his park service pickup truck.

  She squeezed Harry's hand again. "Hang on, Grandpa. You're going to be all right. I'm calling for help." Tara frantically dialed 911. While she waited for them to pick up, she called down to Gram. "Get some blankets and Grandpa's nitroglycerin."

  The emergency dispatcher picked up. "9-1-1. What's your emergency?"

  "This is Tara Clark from Echo Bay Resort. My grandfather Harry Jansen just fell off the roof. I think he's having a heart attack. He has a lot of pressure in his chest and is gasping as he breathes."

  Rick Dempsey jumped out of his truck, waded through the crowd of guests that had gathered outside, and scrambled up the snow pile beside her with an emergency blanket and a first-aid kit in his hand. "How's the patient?"

  Tara shook her head and put a finger to her lips. As she talked to 911 and relayed information, Rick wrapped Harry in the blanket and spoke reassuringly to him while performing a quick triage check.

  Tara was relieved first-aid-trained Ranger Rick was there.

  Rick leaned in and whispered to her. "Nothing appears broken. I think he's having a heart attack. We need to get him to the hospital. Now."

  Tara nodded and spoke to the operator. "Send an ambulance and the paramedics." She turned to Rick and relayed the news. "They say the roads are so bad it will take at least half an hour to reach us."

  He motioned for the phone. "Tell them you're putting me on."

  She handed it to him and spoke to Harry. "You picked a fine time to fall off the roof." She patted his gloved hand. "The roads are tricky, but we're going to get you help, I promise."

  "Yeah, I have an extended cab service vehicle equipped with snow tires, chains, and a plow blade. Uh-huh. Okay. We're on our way." Rick hung up and handed Tara her phone. "They said to give Harry an aspirin and his nitroglycerin. Then they want us to take Harry in my truck to the hospital in town. They'll assess and stabilize him there and call for a life bird if he needs more serious care than they can give him."

  Beside them, Harry gasped for breath, a heartbreaking, painful, scary sound that spurred Tara into action. She was not going to let her grandfather die two days before Christmas. Not on her watch.

  "Margie can ride along." Rick looked Tara directly in the eye. "You'll have to drive so I can keep an eye on our patient here. Think you can do that, city girl?"

  Right then Tara would do anything. "Can I do it? I've been driving these roads since I was a kid. Stay with him. We'll need help getting Grandpa to the truck."

  Tara kissed Harry on the forehead. "Hang with us. I'll be right back."

  She slid down the snow bank to where Margie was waiting, standing outside in her lightweight cardigan sweater with Harry's heart medicine and a bottle of water in her hand. The sight of her almost made Tara cry. Margie looked just like she had when Tara had arrived to spend the holidays. Tara loved her gram even more in that vulnerable moment. Gram had been strong for her when Chad died. Tara would be strong now. Gram needed her.

  Tara explained the situation and hugged her. "911 said to give Grandpa some aspirin, too. Do you have any?"

  Gram nodded.

  "Good. It'll be okay. It will." Tara actually had no idea if that were true, but she was going to do her best to make it so. She would not let another Christmas tragedy haunt her family. It would kill Gram, too, and devastate Tara's mom.

  Tara turned to the crowd of guests. "I need volunteers to carry my grandfather to Rick's truck. And someone to run into the lodge for aspirin."

  The harrowing half-hour trip to the small hospital in town took both an eternity and a blink. Tara lowered the blade on Rick's truck and plowed their way out through ten miles of small, twisty, snow-laden, two-lane roads to the main highway. So much snow lined the roads that the plow blade had a hard time throwing the snow out of their way.

  On either side of them, the trees in the forest stood like weary white soldiers and groaned with the weight of the snow. The always-narrow road had shrunk to barely a lane and a half. Each time Tara met a car she pulled to the side and prayed they wouldn't get stuck in the snow banks lining the road.

  When they reached the highway, it wasn't in much better shape. The lanes were rutted with snow and ice and narrow with towering piles of snow piled in the center. Even with snow tires and chains, Tara had to take it slow while her heart hammered out a rhythm urging her to hurry, hurry, hurry.

  Gram sat in the seat next to her. In the backseat, Rick spoke reassuringly to Harry and monitored his vitals. Tara whiteknuckled the steering wheel and tried to block out the sounds of what could be her grandpa dying as she appealed to God to save him.

  Not this Christmas. Not another one.

  If Harry died now, during the holiday season, Tara would not come back to Echo Bay again.

  In town, the roads were crowded with skiers and boarders heading to the mountain and the going was even slower. Tara laid on the horn and worked her way through them.

  "Turn on my yellow light." Rick gave her instructions as he texted the hospital to expect them within minutes.

  The flashing yellow light helped, but only marginally. People didn't move out of the way for park service vehicles with the same speed and urgency they did for police and fire.

  At last the hospital loomed ahead in the breaking gloom of a snowy dawn. As Tara pulled into the lot, her heart went wild, beating so fast she almost couldn't breathe. She'd never wanted to come back here. She had no faith in here.

  The paramedics took Chad to this very hospital after his accident. He hadn't died here, not technically. His brain was dead, but life support kept him going for a while longer. The old wounds suddenly felt as fresh as they'd been after they'd happened. The memories were not any comfort to Tara as she pulled into the entrance for Emergency and came to a stop.

  As a team of orderlies rushed out and unloaded Harry, Tara texted Ryan the news, including how Harry had fallen off the roof. She wasn't being malicious. Ryan deserved to know. He'd want to know. And right now, every part of her ached for him to come to the hospital and hold her and tell her things were going to be okay.

  Gram held his hand as they strapped Harry onto the gurney. "You hang on, Harry. Do you hear me? It's only a couple of months until our fifty-fifth anniversary and you promised me you'd make it."

  As Tara watched her grandma, a lump formed in her throat. Her grandparents had been together for nearly fifty-five years. Tara could have had a shot at making it to a fifty-fifth with Ryan if she'd married him as they'd planned when they were in college. Now the odds of making it to even a fiftieth with anyone seemed long.

  Her grandma was still gently scolding Harry as she helped tuck the blankets around him. "I told you not to go up on that roof. You should listen to me, Harry. But make it through this, and I p
romise not to hold it over you." She bent down and kissed his forehead.

  Tara thought she heard her grandma whisper that she loved him just before the orderlies wheeled him away. Tara put her arm around Gram as they walked into the waiting room, almost as much to steady herself as Gram. Rick was right behind them, quiet and sympathetic.

  The hospital was bright and modern inside, obviously remodeled in the years since Chad died. But the layout was basically the same and the emphasis was obvious. County General was set up to care for broken bones, fractures, sprains and strains, and head injuries. Ski posters and posters about how to care for sprains and breaks covered one wall. This hospital was a mere way-station for anything serious, a place to stabilize and prepare patients for transport. So they could die in a big, fancy hospital elsewhere. That had been Tara's experience.

  Even wrapped in a large down coat, Gram felt frail and small beneath Tara's embrace.

  A Christmas tree sat in the center of the lobby in the same spot it had been when Tara had waited there for news of her brother. Different tree, different decorations, covered with tags to take to buy presents for different needy children. Still too eerily familiar. Color crayon drawings of Santa and his reindeer by local schoolchildren covered the bulletin boards and the wall opposite the ski posters. A plastic Santa sat in the corner, and Santa in a grass skirt, placed by someone who wasn't the fan of winter most of the town's guests were, did a hula on the counter of the admittance desk. A TV tuned to a national talk show hung above the plastic Santa. A weather forecaster was predicting more snow for North Idaho.

  Tara blocked out his jovial comments about what a jolly white Christmas they were going to have as she led Gram to the desk.

  Gram seemed stoic and in control until the nurse at the desk began asking questions. Then Gram fell apart and started to gently sob.

  "I'll take care of it, Gram. Don't worry." She hugged her, thankful to Rick when he took charge and took Margie by the shoulders.

  "Come with me. Let Tara handle this." He led Margie to a chair in the waiting area while Tara answered questions and the woman behind the desk entered her responses into the computer.

  Can this really be called paperwork, anymore? Tara thought as she answered question after question and caught herself glancing at the door to the outside every time it opened, hoping it was Ryan.

  Just as Tara finally finished with the admittance registration, the outside door did open up, followed by a cold blast of air, and a Sanders breezing in. Just one problem—the Sanders was Laura, Ryan's mom.

  Laura caught Tara's eye too quickly for Tara to look away. Laura shook her head just slightly. Her eyes snapped with both compassion and anger. She was a mama bear defending her cub, Ryan. As angry with Tara as Harry was with Ryan.

  Tara had once been close with Laura. She'd spent inordinate amounts of time at the Sanders' house when she was young. She'd hoped to see Laura again under better circumstances. She was grateful Laura had come despite the tension between them.

  Laura hurried to Margie and put her arm around her while Tara railed inside at Ryan for being too much of a coward to show up. He sent his mother instead. Laura had worked as a maid at Echo Bay Resort for many years. She and Gram were close. She'd be good comfort for Gram, but that didn't make Ryan any less cowardly.

  Rick stood and greeted Laura, whispered something to Margie, and walked over to Tara. "You look like hell. Have you eaten anything today?"

  Tara stared at Margie and Laura. "No, but what does it matter? I should go to Gram."

  Rick put a hand on her arm to stop her. "Let them talk. Let Laura take care of Margie. Come to the cafeteria with me. I haven't had my coffee yet and you need something to eat."

  "You're very kind," she said to Rick. "But you don't need to stay."

  "I absolutely need to stay." Rick took her arm and propelled her down the hall toward the cafeteria. "They'll be okay. It will be a while before we get any news about Harry."

  In the cafeteria, Rick maneuvered her into line. "What looks good? Breakfast is on me."

  Tara just shook her head and shrugged. "I'm really not hungry—"

  "Protein, then. And coffee." He grabbed a tray and filled it with fruit, a couple of pastries, two plates of eggs, and two cups of coffee. "Cream? Sugar?"

  "Both."

  He paid at the register and led her to a table by the windows that looked out on what would have been a view of the mountain if it hadn't been obscured by cloud cover. The sun was up fully now. Or rather, it was light out, but snowing heavily.

  Rick set a plate of eggs and a pastry in front of her and handed her a cup of coffee. "Eat. You need your strength."

  "You don't think—"

  "No, I don't think. Harry is a tough old bird. He'll survive this out of sense of orneriness if nothing else. He's going to want bragging rights about falling off that roof at seventy-nine and surviving."

  She smiled weakly. Rick certainly knew her grandfather. "You're right about that. It will give him bragging rights." She took a sip of coffee and a bite of eggs, and then she couldn't help herself—she held the steaming cup in front of her on the table with two hands and teared up. "I can't take this, Rick. This is a repeat of ten years ago and it's all my fault again."

  "Good to know," Rick said. "Next year, or the next, when we're having a warm winter with little snow and the ski area's in trouble, we'll know who to call."

  "Of course I didn't make it snow—"

  "You mean you pushed Harry off the roof? Guess I'd better call the sheriff."

  "Stop it." She couldn't help smiling through her tears. "Ryan and I did this. Again. Like we did to Chad. If we hadn't been fighting, Chad wouldn't have taken off down the slopes and crashed. If we hadn't been fighting now, Ryan would have come over and cleared the roof and Harry would never have been up there."

  Rick pursed his lips, let out a deep breath, and blew on his coffee before speaking. "Tara, you don't control fate. Harry was ripe for a heart attack. If not on the roof, then while he shoveled the walk, or took a shower, or slept in his bed.

  "Being on the roof, the fall he took, none of that is responsible for the condition he's in. And neither are you.

  "You have to stop taking responsibility for the stuff that just happens in life. This is life. People get sick. They die in accidents. They get old and get heart disease. Ease up on yourself." He paused. "And Ryan."

  She sighed and tried to smile at him. "When did you get so smart?"

  He grinned back.

  Laura was still sitting with Margie, chatting quietly with her when Tara returned to the waiting room with Rick.

  "We should call your mom," Margie said as Tara sat down.

  Tara was dreading calling her mom. She and her mom had had the same bad feeling about Christmas since Chad's accident. Her mom was even worse about it than she was.

  Tara sat down beside Margie and patted her hand. "We'll call Mom once we know something definite. Until then, there's no reason to worry her."

  "Yes." Margie nodded. "You're right. Of course you're right." She smiled weakly at Tara.

  The doors to the surgery area opened and a middle-aged male doctor in scrubs strode out. "Mrs. Jansen?"

  Margie stood. "Yes."

  Tara stood with her and squeezed her hand as she gauged the doctor's demeanor. After Chad's accident she'd gotten pretty good at determining when medical professionals had bad news to deliver. This doctor didn't look worried.

  "Harry's had a mild heart attack," he said. "Nothing too serious. He should be fine. We performed an angioplasty and cleared the blockage. No damage done to the heart as far as we can tell.

  "And there's more good news—he didn't break anything in the fall. No internal injuries. Just some bumps and bruises. He'll be stiff and sore, but he should heal quickly."

  Tara put her arm around Margie.

  Her grandma slumped against her in relief. "Thank goodness."

  The doctor smiled. "I'm going to keep Harry in the hospital f
or a few days to keep an eye on him. It's standard procedure. But he'll be home in time for Christmas Eve."

  Gram asked the doctor a few more questions, but Tara was so relieved she barely heard them.

  "You'll be able to see him when he comes out of recovery in about an hour. Until then, relax." The doctor took Margie's hand and squeezed it while she thanked him.

  "I guess we can call Mom now." Tara smiled through her tears of relief.

  Rick had been standing so quietly beside them that Tara had nearly forgotten he was there. When he spoke, he startled her.

  "You'll want to stay to see Harry when he gets to his room. I have some business in town I may as well take care of while I'm here. But I'm at your disposal. Stay as long as you like and I'll take you home when you're ready."

  "That's so kind—" Tara started to say.

  Laura interrupted her and spoke to Margie. "I'm sure you'll want to be near Harry tonight. We're right here in town and we have an open guestroom. We'd love to have you stay with us. We insist. We can take you home tomorrow or whenever you're ready." Laura paused. "You too, Tara."

  The last thing Tara wanted to do was spend the night with Ryan's parents. "Gram, you stay. But someone needs to get back and check on the lodge and I'm happy to do it."

  Gram agreed, looking grateful that Tara was taking over. Someone needed to get back and deal with the roof and the leaks and all of it.

  Tara turned to Rick. "I'll text you when I'm ready?"

  "Sounds like a plan." Rick said his goodbyes and left.

  Margie excused herself to use the ladies' room, leaving Tara abruptly alone with Laura Sanders. If Tara had been the suspicious type, she would have thought Gram did it on purpose. In fact, Tara was suspicious. Gram probably had.

  They sat in silence until Gram disappeared down the hall.

  "Thanks for coming," Tara said. "I appreciate it. And I know Gram does, too."