His Christmas Angel: A Sweet YA Holiday Romance (Christmas Snow)

by Kylie Key

  It made me recall the time Mom had asked me to babysit the twins on a Saturday afternoon, and I said I couldn’t because I’d made plans to go mountain biking. Nene had to give up her croquet afternoon to do it. That wasn’t the only instance. Other times I’d been unavailable because ‘I had things to do and places to go’. Yep, Chase Masters was number one in his world. It was a sobering thought.

  Mrs. Borelli had another job for me. She wondered if I might write up the name tags for the children’s gifts that she’d been wrapping all morning. She said her handwriting was a bit shaky these days, and she had to finish making up the goodie bags for the kids who were putting on the show.

  She had the presents all lined up on a table with a label of what was in it and who it was for. There were colored markers and card and ribbons, so she encouraged me to be creative. “Like you did with the tree,” she said. Yes, she actually said it. My cheeks flushed red, but I was too chicken to say anything. I mean, these people thought Chase Masters was a ‘lovely boy’, and ‘your parents must be so proud of you’. They didn’t know he’d almost burnt down his friend’s house to impress a girl.

  There were eleven children on the ward, but there were extra gifts as it was possible new arrivals might come in overnight, illness, accidents or emergencies might crop up. They always tried to get as many children back to their homes as possible, as nobody wanted to be in hospital at Christmas time, May said. I assumed the ones who were in were very ill. It was kind of heart wrenching to think these young kids couldn’t be with their families. It made me feel lucky that Annalise and Karolina were healthy, and apart from that broken arm, I’d never been sick.

  A boy called Bristol was getting a train set, so I drew a train on his card. A girl called Carlotta was five so I imagined she liked the same things as my sisters—I drew rainbows, unicorns and teddy bears on her tag. There were rocket ships and planets for a boy called Jae, who was getting a telescope. Then I came to a gift for a girl called Angel. A flowering plant had been wrapped in cellophane and tied with a bow. I presumed she must be older, because no-one would give a little kid a plant for Christmas. And her card would be easy—flowers. But that seemed a little simplistic, and because her name was Angel I drew an angel in the center, trying to visualize the one that was at home on the top of our tree. It was new this season. I knew this because the girls had made a point of showing me her pretty pink wings. I gave my angel a halo and long brown hair and pink wings.

  Once again time flew by, and the next thing Mrs. Lark was telling me that the concert was about to start and could I help with greeting people at the door and ushering them in. Me? Greeting people? There were only four rows of chairs, surely they could find their own seats. But then I realized why. A young boy, maybe about ten years old, was being pushed in a wheelchair, his left leg in a cast, his face downcast and unimpressed. I quickly scanned the room, and raced ahead to move a couple of chairs so the nurse could push him through.

  “What happened to him?” I asked the nurse, one who’d been in the lunchroom earlier.

  “Why don’t you ask Jordan yourself?” she said, raising her eyebrows in a friendly way, but it made me feel stupid. Making conversation with random kids wasn’t my thing. Jordan’s gift was a baseball set so I presumed he must be sporty. I had drawn all sorts of sports balls on his tag.

  “Hey, what happened to you, buddy?” I said, the words sounding awkward.

  “I fell off my bike,” he said sheepishly.

  “Wow, you did some decent damage,” I said, putting my hand up for a high five. His face was visibly grazed in several places, but it lit up and he grinned.

  “It broke in two places,” he said proudly.

  “Ouch,” I said. “That must’ve hurt. Where did that happen?”

  “Do you know Cooper’s Hill?” he asked.

  “Sure do, I go mountain biking out there.”

  “I was mountain biking!” Jordan excitedly told me how he’d hit a stone and flew off over his handlebars. I got a detailed report on how he got taken away in the ambulance, and we talked about our favorite parts of the trail, but I had to cut him short as more people arrived.

  “Talk to you later, buddy,” I said, giving another high five. It was great to see him smiling. A girl pulling an IV pole needed a place to sit, so I escorted her down to the end, allowing room for it beside her. Maybe she was twelve or thirteen. I had no idea what could be wrong with her. Checking that her IV line wasn’t tangled, I looked back to the door to see Mrs. Borelli hugging the Christmas lights girl. Inexplicably my heart rate accelerated and a weird feeling came over me, an excitement but laced with nervousness. Usually I wasn’t the type to get nervous, unless maybe facing a steep mountain slope, but a cyclone was churning in the pit of my stomach, flipping and flopping, unfamiliar and uncontrollable.

  Her brown hair was tied back in a short loose ponytail, and she had reindeer antlers on top of the woolen hat she was wearing. She wore a red Christmas sweater with a big green tree on the front, at least two sizes too big, and she had the same reindeer socks from yesterday. I applauded her bravery on wearing the whacky clothing choice out in public.

  Mrs. Borelli released her, saying, “Find a seat, darling,” and she scanned the room.

  Her eyes stopped on me. For a millisecond it was like we were stuck in a moment in time, chaos around us, but her round gray eyes were holding me spellbound, golden flecks glinting through them, her pale skin enhanced by a splash of pink on her defined cheekbones. Palpitations surged through my heart, and a surplus of oxygen was building in my lungs, and I wasn’t sure what was happening. Forgetting that I looked dorky in my Santa hat, my lips curled upwards, sure that we had a connection, that this was one of those magical moments that belonged in the movies.

  Her eyelashes fluttered several times, and just as I thought she was about to return my smile, her lips pressed into a straight line, her brow furrowed, and she swung around sharply like I was the devil himself.

  She immediately moved along the opposite row of chairs and sat down on the first seat.

  My heart dropped with a jarring force—she had rejected me! Outright rejected me! Me!Chase Masters!

  Dumbstruck, I froze. I mean, there had been a moment, hadn’t there? When we’d looked into each other’s eyes, where time had ceased to exist, where the universe had brought us together...

  “Chase? Chase!” Mrs. Borelli’s voice brought me crashing back to reality. “Could you take Aria up by her sister please? In the front row.”

  I smiled at the young girl with her two front teeth missing, nodded and guided her to a girl wearing a red robe. A sideways glance saw that the volunteer girl had her head down, her reindeer antlers jiggling as she scrolled on her phone. It must have been a mistake that she’d turned away—I’d never had trouble charming anyone.

  I passed back by her row, my eyes drawn to her. I paused for a moment, willing her to acknowledge me, and I could see her eyes blinking rapidly. But stubbornly, she focused on her screen as if I didn’t exist. The sweet looking girl with the oversized sweater was brutal, refusing to look in my direction.

  And for some reason, this intrigued me more than ever.

  Chapter 4

  ANGELINA

  MY HEART SHUDDERED, and I gasped as I took hold of the back of the nearest chair and slunk into it. My face burned as I inhaled deeply, searching not only for a calming breath but for acuity, because at that point I was beyond flustered.

  What on earth was I thinking?

  There he was, right in front of me. I was face to face with the cute boy with the ocean blue eyes, two deep dimples, perfectly shaped lips and gleaming white teeth. Okay, that was an overly specific description. And okay, I’d been thinking about him overnight, since he’d ordered me to untangle the strands of fairy lights, but his eyes hadn’t been that blue yesterday, his eyelashes that long and he hadn’t revealed his dimples either. And I hadn’t known he was the mayor’s son.

  Not that it mattered, but
I had been curious when Nurse May wheeled me back to my room. He was volunteering over the winter break, she’d said. I assumed that meant he was interested in studying medicine, or perhaps he needed an extracurricular activity or was logging up college recommendations. Beats me why I was so interested in his motivation; he hadn’t exactly been friendly, or enthusiastic about decorating the tree.

  Which was why I was trying to fathom what had just happened.

  Because something had happened.

  So, why had I blatantly turned away when he’d smiled at me—why, Angelina, why!

  Being in the middle of chemo treatment, it was feasible that my accelerating heart beat and breathing were due to the medication. But since when did chemo make my cheeks burn? That had never been a side-effect! And when had I ceased to be a kind, compassionate human being? Ignoring someone wasn’t part of who I was.

  I clenched my hands into tightly formed fists and willed myself to regain composure. He was somewhere behind me, that I knew. I had to sit still and quieten my racing heart. The show was due to start at any minute.

  I was under no illusion that leukemia was a game changer. It had turned my life upside down, made me rethink my goals, my life, my future. I’d tried to keep up with school work, and being able to study at home had made life a lot easier. But that came with sacrifices. I missed my friends and teachers. At this stage there were no immediate plans for me to go back to Ferndale, the small private school I’d attended. In the small town of Worsford, which was twenty miles from our farm (in the opposite direction from Snow Ridge), Mom and Dad both agreed the daily travel was something my body didn’t need. Day by day was how we took things.

  That was another thing I’d had to rethink—my career. I’d been leaning towards environmental studies, or maybe biology or botany. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Maybe I’d take a gap year and work on the farm, stay close to my family, make sure I beat this disease once and for all. Then perhaps I’d save up to travel the world, visit places I’d read about in books. That was the hard part, thinking ahead, planning. Because you didn’t know what the future had in store for you.

  So, there was really no merit in smiling at the blue-eyed boy, was there? Even when he paused next to my seat, a zap of energy alerting me to his presence mere inches away, the air sizzling, my skin tingling, my breathing faltering. Yeah, better to keep my distance. A few more days and I’d be going home anyway. Not that it was an excuse for being rude.

  A tambourine shook and a triangle chimed, and he moved on. I released a pent-up breath when a group of children came bounding in. They played instruments, danced and sang for us, a wonderful distraction from the real reason we were all here. Though it was difficult to forget that Chase was somewhere in the back of the room.

  Fortunately, I didn’t have the nerve or the energy to look behind. I’d had another intravenous dose of chemo this morning, and there was one more planned for tomorrow. Lucky me, what a Christmas gift.

  Self pity wasn’t an attractive trait and I wasn’t usually so down on myself. For the sake of Mom and Dad and my brothers, I’d tried to keep positive through the whole ordeal. Mom and Dad worked so hard on the farm, and I hated that my illness was demanding all of their attention.

  I’d boasted when I went into remission in the sixth week of treatment, telling them I was a star patient —leukemia wouldn’t beat Angelina Smith. Praying gave me hope and kept me strong, though it was probably being away from my family that was making me overly emotional. I had to suck up the fact that I was in the hospital, and appreciate that I was having treatment, that I had access to hospital care, that the staff were kind and supportive. Maybe other children didn’t have that. I thought about the little boy Austin, three years old, who hadn’t survived heart surgery. How heart-broken his parents must be. Yeah, there were so many kids who were worse off than me. Leukemia was a beast, but it was one I intended to battle with all of my being.

  The children on stage all bowed and the applause ran on and on, my own clapping coming to a halt as I swallowed a wave of nausea. I sat still, breathing it away, hoping it would pass. Yesterday had been the same, but I hadn’t thrown up.

  I waited until the room had emptied before standing. But I did it too quickly, and my head spun. I steadied myself by holding the back of the chair and inhaling deeply. It didn’t seem fair that sitting for forty minutes could exhaust you.

  “Are you going to stack those chairs?” The tone of Chase’s voice was one of undisguised impatience. He held a chair in his hands, about to load it onto another one. The blue eyes now stung with an icy arctic chill, and there was no sign of his dimples.

  Well, I probably deserved it for the way I’d treated him. It was a situation I didn’t know how to handle. Even with four brothers I wasn’t experienced with talking to boys, and certainly not cute ones who made my heart beat erratically. With my head down in embarrassment, I nodded. My arms struggled with the weight of the chair, but with the efficiency that he was stacking them, I made myself reach for another one. A wooziness made me sway.

  “I’ll take this lot down,” I heard Chase saying, and Nurse May replied with, “Thanks so much. You’re a sweetheart.”

  Then a hand grabbed my shoulder. “And what do you think you’re doing, my angel?” May’s soft voice brushed against my cheek, a whiff of her trademark vanilla scent surrounding me.

  “I was...I’m just helping out,” I stammered.

  “Not necessary,” May said, her eyes focused on mine. “Chase is in control here, and I can see a girl who needs to rest.”

  “I should help,” I said feebly. The irritability in his voice had been evident, and I really should’ve explained that I didn’t mean to be rude, but my twisting stomach made me retch and I scurried out the door to the nearest bathroom, kneeling over the toilet bowl waiting to regurgitate my lunch.

  Nothing came out, but the dry heaving exhausted me, and May led me back to my room. With a sip of water, I curled myself into a ball, May’s tender touch removing my reindeer antlers and hat and stroking my hair.

  “You rest now, young lady,” she soothed. “It’s a big day tomorrow.’

  “Tell Chase I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.” I heard the words come out of my mouth, but I wasn’t fully comprehending their context. A haziness engulfed me, my mind losing clarity. “I’m not usually like that.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” May said, smoothing the blanket over me, “But Chase is quite capable of tidying the room. We don’t need our Angel getting in the way.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” I whimpered, trying to fight the fog. “May, I wanted to help, but...”

  “There, there,” May cooed, “Rest, sweet girl. Rest now.”

  May’s voice faded away, and as sleep was about to claim me I was haunted by a pair of eyes as cold as ice.

  Chapter 5

  Chase

  I SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED that she wouldn’t be there when I arrived back at the lounge to take the second stack of chairs away. I mean, having a girl brush me off was uncharted territory but I hadn’t realized my ego was so pathetically fragile until I’d snapped at her, “Are you going to stack those chairs?”

  I regretted my tone the moment the words left my mouth, and admittedly I couldn’t blame her for not acknowledging me but she made an effort, at least while I was watching. A sudden thought hit me that maybe she’d heard about the fireball antics and had dismissed me as a jerk. Or maybe she was upset that I’d left her to sort the lights on her own. Or was she mad that I’d been given the accolades for the tree?

  Actually, it was a relief that she’d gone. Girls were hard to understand—they could be so up and down, sensitive and dramatic at the same time. And it was kind of humiliating that the Chase Masters charm was completely ineffective, but at least May Taylor had become a fan. And the Borellis. In their eyes I was the best thing since sliced bread. After the chairs had been cleared and the lounge restored to order, Mrs. Borelli insisted on fee
ding me again. All that activity up and down the stairs had to have made me hungry and thirsty. There was no sense in saying I was all hot chocolated out—easier to have my third cup of the day and more cinnamon cookies.

  The day had gone by quickly, and surprisingly I’d not been bored one bit. Saying I’d enjoyed myself might be stretching it, especially when I’d been shunned by a girl, but on further reflection I had been pretty blunt with her the night before.

  “I think I’ll sleep like a baby tonight,” Mrs. Borelli said, smiling as she cleared the table.

  “Hey, I’ll finish up here,” I said, leaping to my feet. “You two should go. You’ve been on your feet all day.” I was pretty sure they weren’t doing mandatory hours.

  Mrs. Borelli protested. “I have a few beverages to make for patients first. I’ll just—”

  “No, really,” I said adamantly. “You guys have a big day tomorrow and I’ve got thirty minutes before I finish, so I can make the drinks.” Before you go thinking that I’d turned virtuous, I have to admit my intentions were a little selfish. If the Borellis were gone and May Taylor was busy, I might be able to slip away without anyone noticing the time. It was at the forefront of my mind that I had shopping to do for my sisters and Nene.

  Mrs. Borelli wrote down the names and room numbers of the children who needed milk or hot chocolate. Their names were familiar because I’d written their cards out—Carlotta in 3b, Jordan in 4a and Angel in 8a.

  With hugs all around, the Borellis finally left and I prepared the drinks and put them on the tray. Carlotta’s parents were with her, so I handed them her cup of warm milk and moved to the next room, Jordan’s. He was playing a video game on his tablet, so I sat on the bed and watched as he tried to hide from monsters in a castle. I cheered and we high-fived as he made it through without being caught.

  “Okay, better pause it for now and drink your milk,” I said, “and I should get a move on or this hot chocolate for Angel is going to get cold.”