The Nightshift Before Christmas

by Annie O'Neil

  His lips sought and found a bit of exposed shoulder in the wide V-neck of her scrubs. Mmm...just as he’d remembered. Silk and honey.

  Katie rolled over to face him, eyes still closed, an arm slipping round his waist. He couldn’t tell if she was still asleep or not. When they had been together, the night had always found them tangled into one pretzel shape or another. Just so long as they were connected, everything had been all right.

  A little sigh escaped her lips and he couldn’t resist pressing his own lips to that beautiful mouth of hers.

  She responded. Slowly, sleepily at first, but with growing intent as their legs began to tangle together in an organic need to meld into one.

  He felt Katie’s hand slip onto his hip and under his scrubs. Their kisses deepened. He couldn’t believe how good it felt to feel her hands on his bare skin. Especially, he realized with a smile, when the cool silver of her wedding rings intermingled with the warmth of her fingertips.

  Her fingers slid along his hip and up his spine, causing him to jerk back sharply when her fingers hit his scars. She didn’t need to know about the accident. Not yet.

  “Josh?”

  Katie remained where she was but he could feel her heart rate escalating.

  “Are those—?”

  “It’s nothing.” It had been huge.

  “It didn’t feel like nothing.” Katie’s eyes blinked a couple of times before refocusing more acutely on him. He could almost see the wheels whirring in her mind to make sense of what she’d felt.

  “Merry Christ— Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry!”

  Josh felt Katie shoot out of bed at the sound of Michael’s voice and a blast of light. For a moment he couldn’t understand why the intern looked so embarrassed. He was too busy trying to figure out how to explain to Katie what she’d discovered.

  “I’ll just—leave you to it, then... Uh...” Michael wasn’t moving, so why on earth was he—?

  Wow. Did twenty-eight-year-old men still blush?

  “Merry Christmas, Michael. You’re up with the lark.”

  Katie was tugging her scrubs top down along her hipline. Ah...the slow dawn of recognition began to hit him. No one knew they were married. No one knew Dr. McGann was Katie West. His Katie.

  “Not really, Dr. McGann. It’s nine o’clock.”

  “What?” Katie shot Josh a horrified look.

  He just grinned. He hadn’t slept until nine o’clock since... That wasn’t a tricky one to figure out.

  “My shift started at seven. Why didn’t you page me?”

  “Oh...” Michael began awkwardly. “Jorja said you looked really tired last night, so I left a note with the morning shift to let you sleep in.”

  Michael nervously shuffled his feet, still unable to connect his gaze to Katie or to Josh, who thought he might as well stand up and be counted.

  “Right. I see...”

  Katie didn’t really seem to know what to do with the information. Or how to explain being discovered in the arms of a man she wasn’t meant to know.

  “Well, let’s get going, shall we?”

  “Merry Christmas, Michael,” Josh contributed merrily. If he was going to fake it about having been critically injured, he might as well go the whole hog and rustle up some fake Yuletide jolliness.

  “Uh... Merry Christmas...”

  Katie steered Michael away from the room without a backward glance.

  Josh huffed out a mirthless “Ho-ho-ho...” and plunked back down on the bed. Merry Christmas, indeed. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Shouldn’t hurt so much. A psychiatrist would have a field day with them. No fluid Seven Stages of Grief for the Wests! No, sir. Just a tangled mess of How-the-Hell-Did-We-End-Up-Like-This?

  He scrubbed at his thickly stubbled jaw. It had been a long time since he’d thought of himself as a plural. They had both been bulldozed by shock. At least they’d done that by the book. He’d skipped the next few stages and gone straight to testing. Testing limits. Pushing boundaries. Trying his best to show Katie there was still so much life to be lived and all along only succeeding in pushing her away. Making her more fearful than he had ever thought she could be.

  From everything he’d seen, she was still sitting pretty in the snowcapped Village of Denial. As long as she didn’t see him, everything that had happened could be her own little secret, locked away wherever it was she locked things up.

  His heart ached for her, and at the same time he wanted to roar with fury at how fruitless blocking out the past was.

  Hmm...good one. Anger.

  Okay. He’d probably hit that one a few times, too. Depression? Didn’t really compute. He simply wasn’t that kind of guy. There were too many good things in life to counterweight the sorrows. Otherwise—what was the point?

  Bargaining?

  Maybe that was what being here was. If he won Katie back then his life would feel complete again. Just like in these last few precious hours. The first time he’d held his wife in his arms for two years. The first solid sleep he was guessing either of them had had since the split. The first time he’d let himself really believe they might be together again.

  If he didn’t believe...?

  Nah. He wasn’t there yet. No point in accepting things you didn’t know the answer to.

  * * *

  “Dr. West! Good of you to finally join us.”

  Katie was back to her crisp efficient self. Surprise, surprise.

  “Granny dump in Four.”

  She handed him a file without a second look. Wow. Talk about terse! Even at her most efficient Katie was never rude. Her heart normally bled for the elderly people families dropped off in the ER on Christmas Day so they wouldn’t have to look after them on the holiday. It happened a lot in the city. Had to be pretty rare out in these parts.

  He watched her reorder a few files, the crease between his eyebrows deepening. Katie knew exactly how Josh felt about caring for the elderly, given he had been near enough raised by his grandmother, with his parents so busy on the farm. He clamped his teeth together to bite back a snarky comeback. He’d expected more from her. Maybe she had changed and he was the last one to see it. The last one to accept the truth. They were different people now.

  He shook his head. This sat wrong. At the very least she should have opted to tell him the condition the so-called “dump” was for.

  He glanced at the chart.

  “Peripheral edema.” The notes went on to say the patient was complaining of swollen ankles and feet. Could be anything. Ankle sprain, obesity, osteoarthritis—and so the list went on, all the way up to congestive heart failure. That would have to be one cold family to drop their grandmother off at the ER, without so much as grandchild in tow.

  “And what have you got this fine Christmas morn?” Josh asked Katie, thinking he’d make a stab at civility. It wasn’t like they’d spent the night wrapped in each other’s arms or anything.

  “New bride having a panic attack.” Her eyes flicked to his. “Trying to live up to unrealistic expectations.”

  He turned and went to Exam Four. She was obviously in a mood. He’d already opened up about his expectations. She’d felt his scars. Thought the worst. Maybe this was her way of saying all bets were off.

  He stopped just before entering his cubicle and turned, catching a glimpse of Katie’s hand as she went into the cubicle beside him.

  Ha! He just resisted throwing a punch up into the air. She still wore the rings. Hadn’t sent him to the scrap heap just yet.

  A grin lit up his face. Maybe it was going to be a merry Christmas after all.

  “Now, Mrs. Hitchins, is it? I’m Dr. West. I understand you’re not feeling at your best?”

  * * *

  “I don’t think this is working.”

  The young woman s
itting on the exam table lowered the paper bag she’d been breathing into when Katie entered.

  “Is she going to be all right? Is she having a heart attack?” asked the young man beside her, presumably her husband. His face was laced with anxiety.

  Katie pulled her stethoscope from around her neck and gave the couple as reassuring a smile as she could muster.

  “I understand you’ve got your in-laws visiting for the first time, Mrs. Davis?”

  “My family. Yes.” Her husband answered for her. “Emily had just put the roast in the oven and then my mother, who has always made our Christmas dinners in the past, started asking about what Emily’s family ate for Christmas. The next thing I knew, she was hyperventilating, saying she could hardly see... My mother kept offering to take over in the kitchen, and that’s when Emily really took a turn. Is she going to be all right?”

  Katie took Emily’s vitals while he spoke, gently encouraging the twenty-something newlywed to return the paper bag to her mouth, assuring her husband they would do everything they could to help his wife.

  She could hear Josh merrily chatting away with the woman next door. He was obviously bringing out the best in her from the sounds of their joined laughter. She would have expected nothing less. He had a wonderful way with grandmothers. Everyone, really. Why had she been so sharp with him? He didn’t deserve to be sniped at when all he’d done was show her kindness.

  What were those scars all about?

  She forced herself to tune back in to her patient’s husband.

  “I’m happy to call my mother and tell her to take over. My mother does a perfect Christmas dinner. Doesn’t she, Ems?”

  Emily’s breathing suddenly accelerated, and her eyes dilated as they darted from her husband to Katie.

  “Deep breaths, Emily. Keep the bag up. Deep breaths. Mr. Davis—do you mind if I have a moment with your wife alone?”

  “Are you sure there’s nothing—?”

  “Absolutely. If you could just take a seat in the waiting room, I’ll be with you in a few moments.”

  After her husband had dropped a nervous kiss on his wife’s head and left the cubicle, Emily’s breathing changed. Lost its harsh edge. Katie rubbed her hand along Emily’s back as she might a small child and kept repeating her mantra.

  “Breathe slowly. Deeply. Count to three...count to five...deep and slowly...”

  It was what had got her through her first few attacks after she’d left Josh. Part of her had actually been shocked that she’d done it. It had been so out of character! She’d checked into a hotel when her car had all but run out of gas and had just sat at the end of the bed and shaken for who knew how long?

  She gave her head a little shake. This wasn’t about her. It was about Emily and a mother-in-law whose son seemed to have problems letting go of the apron strings.

  “First holiday meal for the in-laws?” Katie asked gently, lowering herself into the seat beside the exam table and making a Christmas-tree doodle on the corner of the chart.

  Emily just nodded. Tears springing to her eyes.

  Katie tugged a tissue out of the packet she always had in her lab coat and handed it to her.

  “Would it be safe to say this is the first time you’ve ever experienced these symptoms?”

  Another nod and a sniffle. A tear skidding down her cheek.

  Katie stood and patted the empty space on the examination table. “Mind if I join you?”

  Emily shook her head and Katie scooched up onto the table, her feet crossed at the ankles.

  “I remember making my first—my only—Christmas dinner for my in-laws. I was a wreck!” She laughed softly at the memory. “My husband’s family loved their food and they were happy slaves to their long-established Christmas traditions. And, of course, there was Gramma Jam-Jam’s unbelievably perfect cooking to contend with. What I didn’t realize was that most families don’t buy the entire meal in from a fancy grocery store and heat it up.”

  She laughed again before going on, pleased to see Emily’s breathing was becoming more regular as she spoke.

  “I mean, I obviously knew people made Christmas dinner—it was just that my family never had. And when I volunteered to cook for my husband’s family, I didn’t realize what I’d gotten into until they started sending me emails about how they liked three-peak dinner rolls, whatever they were, homemade cranberry sauce—but only if there was orange zest and no orange pulp—mashed potatoes—but made with a ricer, which made no sense at all. And lots of butter—salted.”

  She held up her fingers and added another memory. “A big enough turkey so that there’d be enough leftovers for sandwiches to see them through at least the next week. There I was, a grown woman, and I’d never so much as peeled a potato, let alone mashed one.”

  “At least they ate the same thing!” Emily cut in. “David’s family don’t eat a single thing my family does. Beef instead of turkey, because they feel the one at Thanksgiving is enough. Roasted potatoes instead of mashed. Which is just wrong.” She reeled off a list of her family’s specialties before giving Katie a wide-eyed look. “What’s Christmas without turkey and stuffing?” She spread her hands out wide in a what gives? gesture. “I mean—I’ve never, ever had Christmas without turkey and stuffing! It’s like a sign that this whole marriage was never meant to happen!”

  “Hey,” Katie soothed. “Marriage involves a whole lot of things we don’t think about when we say our vows. But you can do this! Think about your guy. Maybe he’s been pining for beef each Christmas he’s spent with your family? Embrace the changes as learning opportunities. Doesn’t mean they have to be your things.”

  She took both of her patient’s hands in her own and gave a decisive nod. “How ’bout this? When your in-laws leave, why don’t you make a turkey for New Year’s? Just the two of you. Stuffing. Mashed potatoes. The whole nine yards.”

  Emily sniffled, swiping at her tears to reveal a hint of a smile, giving Katie a nod to continue. Not that she would have been able to stop her. She was on a roll now. Her own marriage might be in tatters, but she damn well wasn’t going to let this pair of young lovers fall to bits over a piece of roast beef!

  “Have your own traditions! My husband and I made ours. Pancakes on Tuesdays after a double shift. Grilled cheese sandwiches with pickles and tomato soup on Valentine’s...”

  Katie felt a flush of pleasure begin to color her cheeks at the memory of the goofy traditions they’d made up through the years, then sobered. She was at work here—not on a magical trip down memory lane.

  “You know what, Emily? If your mother-in-law is so desperate to cook...let her! Have your husband drive you home via a restaurant and get a to-go bag filled to the brim with turkey sandwiches—then put your feet up and enjoy letting someone else cook dinner. I bet you’ve spent days making the house and everything just perfect?”

  Emily nodded, the light shadows under her eyes offering the proof that Katie wasn’t just making a stab in the dark. “I do feel pretty tired.”

  “Okay! Why not go home, play the sick card? Put your feet up and enjoy the day with your husband. Play a board game and enjoy the aromas wafting from the kitchen. And in a few days...when they’re gone...pull out your apron and make exactly what you want—just for the two of you. It sounds to me like you know how to cook! That’s more than I could ever do!”

  “The grilled cheese sandwiches?” Emily grinned at her.

  “Burned at the corners, gooey in the middle. My specialty.” Katie smiled back, giving her patient’s knee a knowing pat. Family life could be tough. And the holidays could make it tougher.

  “Don’t give yourself such a hard time, Dr. McGann.”

  Katie started when Josh poked his head into the exam area, with his own patient grinning up at him adoringly from her wheelchair.

  “I have it on good authori
ty that your husband thinks your cooking is fantastic.”

  He dropped her a wink and pushed Mrs. Hitchins away, leaving Katie at a loss for words.

  “He’s cute. If your husband is anything like him...” Emily gave a low whistle of appreciation.

  Katie briskly jumped off the exam table. Her husband was nothing like the Josh who’d just strolled past as if they hadn’t just spent the past two years apart. This guy seemed reliable, steady...present. Someone she could trust not to scale sheer cliff faces or zip wire across the Grand Canyon. That was the Josh she knew. This guy...? He might have some scars she didn’t know anything about...but he was here for her exactly when she needed him and she hadn’t even known it.

  “So!” Katie picked up Emily’s forms. “I’m going to make a note that you were suffering from mild hyperventilation. Effectively you had an in-laws-induced panic attack—but we won’t put that down,” she added conspiratorially. “It is not uncommon this time of year. If you like, you can tell your family it was exhaustion. But you know how to fix it now...right?”

  “Step back, take a look at the big picture and remember I married the guy I love?”

  Her words bull’s-eyed Katie right in the heart.

  She’d never done that. Taken a step back from it all. The grief. The sorrow. She’d never remembered to take in the big picture. She’d just pushed Josh away as hard as she could. Even put a mountain range between them!

  Images of her heart soaring over the Rocky Mountains with a goofy pair of fairy wings pinged into her head.

  For a smart woman, she was feeling like a first-class ding-a-ling.

  How could you hide from what was alive in your heart? Especially if it was love? Had time finally given her the perspective to see the situation for what it had been? Awful, awful luck.

  “Exactly.” Katie forced a smile. “You married the guy you love. Now, get out there and go hunt down some turkey sandwiches!”

  Emily gave her a tight hug and all but bounded out of the cubicle, tugging on her jacket as she went to find her husband.

  The unexpected flush of emotion at their encounter made Katie pause. Whoo! She needed a few extra seconds for private regrouping.