‘Are you tired?’ Daniel asked looking in the rear-view mirror, where she stared ahead.
‘No,’ Maddie answered. And then, as only five-year-olds could, she asked a question. ‘Why aren’t you going to be there at Christmas?’
Daniel took a moment to answer. ‘I’m going away on a trip, it’s been planned for a long time.’
‘But it’s only ten more sleeps until Christmas...’
‘Maddie!’ His tone told her to be quiet and he sounded like his father so he changed tack. ‘I don’t know exactly when I’m leaving.’
But it wasn’t just Christmas that was troubling her. ‘I don’t want you to go.’
She broke into noisy sobs and Daniel stared ahead, not really knowing how he felt himself, let alone what to say. He could point out that it was just for a year. But a year was for ever when you were five years old.
He wasn’t about to change his plans because his little sister kicked up. He was thirty-two, for God’s sake, he was hardly going to stick around because his father had decided to attempt to parent...
Only it wasn’t about his father.
‘I hardly see you any more,’ Maddie said.
‘We’ve been out tonight,’ Daniel pointed out.
‘Only because you’re saying goodbye. I don’t see you so much any more.’
Daniel hadn’t seen much of Maddie for the first couple of years of her life.
He and his father had barely been speaking when Maddie had been born. Daniel didn’t really approve of his father taking such a very young bride. In turn his father was furious that Daniel had decided he didn’t want to be a surgeon. When Maddison had been born, he had been pretty much told to stay back and that Amelia and Maddison were his father’s family now.
At first it had suited him fine. Daniel wasn’t exactly into babies and he’d just dropped off a birthday present or stood at the christening and things. But then Maddison the baby had become Maddie the two-year-old, with a smile and a cheeky personality that had soon endeared her to him.
And she was his family now.
Daniel didn’t want to be some distant figure so he had started to factor her more into his life.
Till last Christmas when Amelia had come on to him.
Daniel’s intention had been to be as far away as humanly possible this Christmas, to just stay out of his father’s life, only it wasn’t proving that easy.
‘Look,’ he said as the car pulled up at the picture-perfect house. ‘I don’t know what my plans are yet. I’ve got a lot of things going on now, Maddie. Grown-up stuff.’
‘I hate grown-up stuff.’
‘So do I.’
He really did.
‘Please can I see you for Christmas?’
Daniel wanted to be able to just say no. To go home and hop on the internet and choose a flight and hotel. He looked over at what had once been his family home and though there were few happy memories of his time there, it didn’t have to be that way for Maddie.
No, he would not stay for long but, yes, he could drop in and make a five-year-old happy on Christmas Day.
‘I’ll come around on Christmas Day to bring your present.’
Maddie gave a little squeal and smile and then climbed down from her seat, which Daniel collected, along with her school uniform.
Jessica came to the door and Daniel explained they’d had a good time, but that Maddie had just got a bit teary on the way home.
‘She doesn’t want you to leave.’ Jessica nodded.
‘Well, I’ll be there for a little while on Christmas Day.’
Jessica opened her mouth to say something and then changed her mind and just gave him a smile. ‘That’s good,’ she said.
Both knew that he was just delaying the inevitable—Maddie was going to be very upset when it really came time for him to leave.
His phone buzzed as he got back into the car and it was the agency he had signed up with, offering him various shifts. He was about to decline and point out that he had finished up.
Yet, given to what he’d agreed to for Maddie, he was here for at least another week.
‘Are you available to work Christmas Eve, nine a.m. until till four p.m., in Outpatients at The Primary Hospital?’
‘No,’ Daniel said.
‘Well, there’s a night shift on New Year’s Eve at the Royal.’
‘No, thank you!’ His response was a little sarcastic. There was no way that he’d work a night on New Year’s Eve, and especially not at the Royal, he had seen in way too many there. He was about to explain that he was no longer available when she offered him one more shift.
‘Well, you can’t blame me for trying. What about Christmas Eve in Emergency at The Primary?’
And maybe this shift was the one he had been holding out for and perhaps the reason he hadn’t taken himself completely off the books.
‘What time?’ Daniel asked.
‘Seven a.m. until four.’
Holly would be on that morning, Daniel knew.
But even though she sprang to mind first, it wasn’t just Holly that drew him back to The Primary. He liked the department and vibe there. He thought of Mr Edwards and Kay who had come to see him a valued part of the team, and he wanted to know how Nora’s husband was going.
There were worse places to spend Christmas Eve, Daniel reasoned.
One more shift and he could find out all that had been going on and see how Holly was doing and hopefully he could manage a much better goodbye than the tense, stilted farewell they had achieved today.
‘I’ll take it,’ Daniel agreed.
And so, if he was to be working on Christmas Eve, it meant that he needed to shop and so on the Saturday before Christmas, possibly the busiest shopping day of the year, he found himself back in the department store he had been to with Holly.
If he was going to stick to the Secret Santa budget then here really wasn’t the place.
Except he knew what to get Holly, and so Daniel spent three very long hours thinking of what to put in a tiny letter.
But where to start?
Given he was standing here weeks after the event, yes, it had been more than a one-night stand.
And yet he was leaving.
It was getting harder and harder to do that.
There was family, namely Maddie, who needed him, a potential consultant’s position at The Primary, which he was coming to love.
And there was Holly.
Yet there was so much more that he needed to sort out. His whole life had been spent failing to live up to his father’s expectations, and falling off the chosen path.
Daniel knew he needed to sort out what it was that he wanted, and to do that he needed to get away.
‘Your turn.’
Daniel looked down at a very harried and angry-looking lady dressed as an elf.
‘What do you want written?’
‘I haven’t...’ Daniel could feel the impatience in the people behind him. It had been more than a three-hour wait and he hadn’t yet made up his mind.
And then he decided and took a little seat and told the lady what he wanted to be written.
She started typing on her mini-keyboard.
‘That’s it?’ she checked.
‘That’s it,’ Daniel agreed.
‘Anything else?’ she checked, clearly less than impressed with Daniel’s attempt at expressing himself.
‘No.’
‘Well, I think you can do better than that.’
‘I wasn’t made aware that the letters got graded,’ Daniel told her.
‘The elves have all been trained—’
‘Stop!’ Daniel said. ‘We both know you’re not a real elf.’
She pursed her lips but after a
brief standoff finally she hit ‘send’.
‘You can move down the line and watch your letter arrive.’
‘Thank you.’
Daniel moved along the line and waited by the magic chute, scarcely able to believe he was doing this. He pressed cynical lips together as he thought of the computer and printer beneath the festive arrangement and then out it came—his letter to Holly.
He was asked to verify that it was indeed his letter and Daniel peered through a magnifying glass and read it.
Despite the fake elf’s misgivings, Daniel worried that it actually said too much...but he nodded in agreement and then watched the glassblower work his magic.
It had cost a fortune.
It wasn’t the money, or the time it took to make it, it was the fact that it was the closest he had come to sharing what was in his heart.
It was stay or go.
And staying felt harder.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHRISTMAS EVE HAD always been special to Holly, whether or not she was working. The last-minute preparations, the excitement and anticipation and a certain sense of panic all seemed to combine to make it a truly magical day.
Last year, finding out that her mother was so unwell had had meant that it had been busy and fraught rather than exciting.
This year...
Holly looked around the bedroom and there was no sense of panic because everything was already done. Her presents were all wrapped and under the tree, last night she had gone and got petrol and now all she had to do was load up the car, drive to work, do her morning shift and wait for that once familiar, excited feeling to arrive.
Last night, for the first time, she had let herself cry properly over Daniel.
Determined to just let it all out so she didn’t rot up everyone’s Christmas, Holly had had a very good cry over a man who...
What?
She couldn’t be angry because he had done nothing wrong. Daniel had been open and honest from the start. It was she who had taken it all too seriously and had kept looking for deeper meanings to everything. And so she had cried because she was simply sad that he was leaving.
Possibly he had already gone.
Half-heartedly she opened up number twenty-four on her Advent calendar and tried not to remember the time she and Daniel had done the same in this very bed.
It was a very nice-looking truffle, and when she bit into it there was a decadent shot of chocolate mousse.
Holly smiled because it was true—chocolate always helped.
A bit.
And there could be a chance that she would still see Daniel. Maybe he’d stop by with her Secret Santa present today, Holly thought, because there had been nothing under the tree at work last night.
And then she stopped.
Holly just stopped with hoping and wishing that things could be different between herself and Daniel and decided that she was being greedy and asking for too much. Last year, despite a rather dire diagnosis, she had prayed for a Christmas miracle and that her mother would still be here next year.
Esther was.
And so Holly got out of bed and showered and pushed all dark thoughts aside and refused to give her favourite time of the year over to a man who refused to embrace it or even bother to celebrate it.
Holly pulled on black jeans and boots and a red jumper for the commute to work. Her hair was particularly wild this morning but she just ran her fingers through the curls and decided to tie it back once she got to work. Red lipstick might be a bit much for the emergency department but it went with red earrings that flashed and she refused to be miserable today.
It was Christmas Eve after all!
* * *
Daniel wasn’t in the least miserable.
He woke early and found that he was still looking forward to his shift at The Primary.
Breakfast was coffee, along with the most amazing chocolate truffle that he had ever tasted. Once showered and dressed he went and got Holly’s present from the cupboard where it sat beside Maddie’s and also presents for both his father and Amelia.
It was looking a little more like Christmas in his flat than it ever usually did.
But even if he was in a good mood Daniel spent the drive to work worrying that the present he had got for Holly was far too much and she might end up reading more into it than there was.
Still, he wanted her to have it, even if it just served as a nice memory of the wonderful night they had spent.
It had meant something.
She finished at midday, Daniel knew. That meant he could give it to her on her way out.
But even so...
He’d play it by ear, Daniel decided as he parked in the staff car park and got out. He had a small satchel that held his laptop and things and he placed the decoration carefully in there and went to make his way over to Emergency.
‘Daniel!’ The shout went up almost as soon as he’d got out of his car. He’d know that voice anywhere and he turned to see Kay frantically waving and standing next to Holly.
‘We need a hand,’ Kay called out to him in urgent tones.
‘Okay.’ He nodded.
‘Hurry!’ Kay called, and Daniel moved faster, wondering if someone had fainted or, from the way Kay was urging him, been run over, or...
‘What?’ he asked when he got there to find that nothing seemed amiss.
‘I don’t think Holly should leave all her family’s presents in the car in case they’re pinched, so if you could help us to carry them in...’
‘I thought someone was hurt!’ Daniel scolded.
‘Why would you think that?’ Kay asked as she handed him several Christmassy-looking bags that were all crammed to the brim with gifts. ‘I just don’t want to be late.’
He and Holly smiled and it was the first time that they had shared a proper smile since, well, since that night and the morning after.
Things had been awkward between them but felt a little less so today.
‘How’s Paul?’ he asked as they started to walk.
‘Don’t ask.’ Kay shook her head but Daniel wasn’t going to be fobbed off.
‘I just did!’
Holly answered for Kay. ‘They’re going to try and get him off the ventilator this morning. If not, he’ll have to go to Theatre for a tracheostomy. He’s been very up and down but mainly down.’
‘It’s been more than three weeks,’ Kay sighed.
And both Holly and Daniel looked ahead because, yes, it had been a little more than three weeks since their night together also.
Hope was fading for all concerned.
‘We’ll put them in my office.’ Kay suggested.
‘Okay.’ Holly nodded. ‘I’ll drop these off and then go back for the last lot.’
‘There’s more?’ Daniel checked.
‘Yep.’
‘Give me those,’ he said to Holly, unable to believe just how many presents she had. ‘Go back and get the rest.’
Holly passed all her bags and parcels to him and Daniel staggered inside. Kay dropped the few she was carrying by her desk and then dashed off to grab a quick drink before handover, and Daniel realised that he suddenly had a chance to hide the decoration he had bought for the Secret Santa.
He went into his satchel and took out her gift.
It was too much, Daniel knew, and would cause loads of gossip if she opened it in front of everyone as she would surely know, straight away, that it was from him.
Yet he wanted her to have it and he wanted her to know how he felt.
But only once he had gone.
And now he could see the way to do just that, and so he slipped it into a bag that had a picture of a smiling snowman on it. So Holly! he thought as he headed for the staffroom.
‘Did you bring your Secret Santa gift?’ Kay checked, and Daniel pulled a face to indicate that he had forgotten.
‘Oh, come on, Daniel,’ Kay said. ‘I’ll see if I’ve got something you can put out.’
There was time for only a very quick drink but they all took it.
‘Morning,’ Trevor said, placing a beautifully wrapped present under the fake Christmas tree in the staffroom.
‘And a delicious, delicate chocolate mousse truffle morning it is,’ Kay said, and everyone laughed.
Daniel included.
They actually made him laugh, Daniel thought.
They found the happy in the smallest things and then watered it till it grew.
‘That Advent calendar should be illegal.’ Daniel joined in the conversation. ‘I’ve been to three discount stores now but they’ve all sold out.’ He looked up to see that Holly had come in.
‘We’re all worried,’ she said.
‘Worried? About what?’
‘That the same work-experience student that made the ones on the fifteenth was let loose again and that the big day shall disappoint.’
‘It never disappoints,’ Kay said.
Holly, as she glanced under the Christmas tree and saw that Daniel hadn’t added to the pile, rather thought that this year it might!
‘So this is your last shift?’ Kay asked Daniel as they all headed into the kitchen to drop off their mugs before their shift started. ‘He’s like that rock star...what’s-his-name?’
‘I have no idea,’ Holly muttered as she rinsed her mug.
‘The one who keeps doing his sell-out farewell tour and then a year later comes back and does it all over again.’
Kay allocated the staff and Holly was to work in the main section, which was where Daniel would mainly be, unless he had to go into Resus.
Holly was conflicted.
Though she had thought she wanted to see him, now that he was here it was proving hard.
Happy!
Holly kept reminding herself that it was Christmas Eve and that soon she’d be on the much-awaited and hard fought-for drive home!
Yay!
The patient who had just arrived, though, looked as grumpy as she felt.
‘Leave me alone,’ he told the paramedics as he was moved over onto the trolley. ‘I don’t want to be here!’
Playboy On Her Christmas List Page 8
