The Surgeon's Christmas Wish

by Annie O'Neil

  “Not a problem, Tara.” Fraser waved off her concerned expression. “I’m sure there will be some lonely ski bunny I can lure off the slopes for a bit of hot toddy and some pumpkin pie. Don’t you worry about little ol’ me.”

  Any trace of Tara’s smile vanished. “Right. Well, that’s everyone’s Thanksgiving plans taken care of, then.”

  She’d been a fool to think she could trust Fraser MacKenzie to be anything other than a typical ski-season Dr. Don Juan. What an idiot to have been so weak-willed as to even entertain the tiniest bit of pleasure at his James Bond looks. Her conscience gave her a sound rap on the knuckles. No more eyeing up Fraser as if he were a delicious piece of Christmas candy! She was here to work, to save lives, to settle down. Alone. Stick to the mission, Tara.

  Suppressing the volley of emotions she was experiencing, Tara knew her only option was to go to her usual hiding place—her work. “Liesel, I think I’m going to man the clinic for a bit. Mr. Jones deserves a bit more attention before he’s off to the hospital and I’d like to catch up on some paperwork. Would you be so kind as to acquaint Dr. MacKenzie with the wonders of Deer Creek?”

  After hearing the expected “Sure thing!” in response, Tara riffled through the papers on the desk, not daring to look Fraser in the eye. Talk about taking the express lane to getting under my skin.

  “Surely you know a joke when you hear one, Tara.”

  The frustration in Fraser’s voice forced her to meet his gaze, his eyes snapping with something deeper than irritation. “I don’t know what you expected from me—but I’m here to work. That’s it. It would be nice if the work environment was a bit more ‘user-friendly’.”

  Tara tried to smile at his comment, but knew she hadn’t fooled him. “The environment was perfectly delightful before you blew in off the slopes, Dr. MacKenzie. Just bear in mind Deer Creek is a community. This isn’t a love-’em-and-leave-’em sort of town. We take care of each other here.”

  Uh-oh. Too much information again. Why hadn’t she just let the whole thing go? Perhaps there truly was more to his suave veneer than she was giving him credit for.

  “I’ll be sure to remember that, Dr. Braxton. Thanks for the social etiquette tips.”

  Stinging from the exchange, Tara watched as the pair quietly left the clinic after a minute or so of silent coat gathering and boot lacing. Her terse tone had affected everyone’s mood. Not to mention the fact she’d betrayed her golden rule: keep your game face.

  She’d done everything but break down in tears in front of the man. How mortifying. No doubt the whole of Deer Creek would know how she felt by sundown. Which was what, exactly? Like a giddy princess who thought she’d just met her Prince Charming, only to discover he was a frog?

  Tara rested her head on the reception counter and closed her eyes. She felt like such a fool. Not to mention a poor loser. How could she have thought, even for a moment, that a man in the exquisitely gorgeous form of Fraser MacKenzie would be anything less than a ski-season Lothario? She was usually smart enough to see through that.

  All the signs had been there. Never stayed anywhere longer than a season, flirty banter with Marian, with her. And she’d fallen for it! Hook, line and sinker. At least her body had. Now her head was in a tailspin, not knowing if she was in the right or wrong. Tara scrubbed her fingernails along the counter. What a nightmare.

  It was so frustrating to feel this vulnerable to Fraser’s charms after all the hard work she’d put in at building herself back up from nothing. Finally allowing herself to become the woman she’d always known she was. Strong. Fun-loving. In charge of her own destiny.

  It was a far cry from the year-long relationship with her ex. Tara had done everything he had wanted. It made her fingers curl to think of it now, but she’d been young and so bewitched by his status at the university. Her parents had both recently passed away in a horrific car accident. It had always just been just the three of them and suddenly, whoosh, she had been all alone in the world. Their deaths had fuelled her to work even harder in medical school, where her persistence and drive had won her the best grades in her course. Then suddenly the Great and Mighty Professor, renowned orthopedist and research maverick, had not only wanted Tara to be his intern but also had wanted to be with her romantically. From chief bookworm to object of affection. Tara had been completely overwhelmed. And naïve.

  At his behest, she’d attended all the research conferences alongside New York’s medical elite, put in ridiculous hours and stayed in the lab well into the night, week after week. A fat lot of good it had done her.

  Her trust in him had been so true, so blind, she had been oblivious to the fact all her hard work had only been so that he could steal her groundbreaking research.

  Being single, she didn’t mind. Having had her ex take the credit for all of the advances she’d made in orthopedic surgery? That had been the deal-breaker. And the end of her ability to trust anyone fully with romantic intentions.

  After working at a couple of other labs, Tara had thrown caution to the wind and taken the job here at Deer Creek. She’d entered the community cautiously at first, but had then realized, as long as she kept her wits about her, this was the perfect place to heal. To grow. To close the doors on romance and fill all the voids with her passion for medicine.

  And look at her now.

  All wobbly-kneed and hot under the collar after less than a full workday with Fraser MacKenzie. Great. Just great.

  Tara scanned the empty clinic and huffed out a sigh as she sank into an office chair. Blocking out the fact that tomorrow was Thanksgiving wasn’t the only thing on her new to-do list. She also faced a day of sitting alone in the ski clinic with little more than a mug of lukewarm coffee and a stale packet of mint cookies, figuring out a way to clean the slate with Fraser and start again. What fun! If time travel were an option, she’d fast-forward to spring. If she stuck to her plan she’d own the clinic outright by April, Fraser would be gone and she’d be back in control again.

  Tara opened up the packet of cookies, took a tentative sniff then pushed them to the far end of the counter. This was ridiculous. She shook her head and marched herself into her office.

  Snap out of it, Tara! She had worked too hard to let herself wallow in self-pity. Mr. Jones and all the other patients she had seen and would see over the season were her priority—they were where her heart lay. If Thanksgiving came in the form of a microwave turkey dinner and a couple of old cookies, then so be it. And if Fraser MacKenzie couldn’t take it as much as he dished it, too bad.

  *

  “I seem to rub Dr. Braxton the wrong way.” Fraser put the comment out into the crisp, wintry air, wondering if Liesel would confirm his assessment of the situation.

  Liesel gave Fraser a sidelong glance and let out a good-natured laugh. “Well, I haven’t worked with Tara that long. Just a few months. Let’s just say I haven’t seen her dander rise up quite so quickly before. You seem to have made quite an impression on her.”

  “Not really the impression I was hoping to make.” He tried to put on a goofy grin but it felt strained. Sucking up wasn’t his modus operandi. Problem-solving was. He had signed a contract so, for better or for worse, he was going to be here for the next few months. The last thing he wanted was to spend his days squabbling with Tara. Life was too short.

  “From what I do know about her, she’s pretty private. She’s probably a bit stressed because she only has a few months left to pay off the rest of her loan to buy the clinic from the lodge. If I were you, I’d stick to medical issues. That’s what seems to keep her happy.”

  Quite a commitment from someone who had to be in her early thirties at most.

  “Does she have family out here?” Fraser took a stab at the only thing he could think of that would get someone to unpack their suitcases and stay put.

  “Not that I know of. She’s never mentioned any family at all but, as I said, she keeps herself to herself.”

  He knew that feeling. He hadn’t
mentioned his family since the day after his brother’s funeral. His past he kept locked firmly away, where it belonged. Out of sight. Everyone was better off that way.

  Fraser turned to face Liesel, his hands firmly squaring her shoulders to his, suddenly fuelled with the need to put things right. Whether or not he stuck around was a different issue, but he was not in the business of making other people’s lives a misery. Not any more. “Let’s not make this a tour of Deer Creek. Let’s make this a tour of Tara’s Deer Creek and see what we can discover about why she loves this place so much.”

  Liesel crinkled her nose in confusion, “I’m not sure I follow you. I don’t think Tara would be so keen if we starting poking around her—”

  “No, no,” Fraser enthused, “this is to help us—help me—survive the season. It’ll be like a treasure hunt, only...I’m not sure what the treasure is just yet.”

  The nurse laughed again, infected by his energy. “I’m still not entirely sure I know what you’re talking about, Dr. MacKenzie, but I’m more than happy to join in. Although the chances are pretty high that everything you’re looking for is behind the doors of the clinic.”

  Fraser linked arms with the redhead. “I’m quite sure there’s more to Dr. Tara Braxton than the clinic.” He turned towards Marian’s bakery on the small main street. “Come along, Liesel, I think I know the perfect place to start.”

  *

  Tara gave a short wave to the EMTs as they drove off with Mr. Jones safely secured in the back of the ambulance. His pulse and heart rate were stabilized. For now. But further extensive tests were required to ensure he didn’t need bypass surgery, and they were more complex than she could carry out here at the clinic. Luckily, the Valley Hospital was equipped to do most major surgeries. Denver wasn’t too far along the road if something truly complicated came their way. She had seen a couple of rescues that had involved airlifting the patients to Denver but, fingers crossed, nothing so far this season.

  Refocusing her energies into her work had proved to be good medicine. Patient care was something she valued and the last thing she was going to allow her new hire to do was compromise her career. It had happened once, and it most certainly wouldn’t happen again.

  As the morning wore on and the steady stream of patients ebbed away, Tara felt back on her game. Composed. In control. The morning’s cases had been fairly easy—a fractured wrist, a severe nosebleed and an early case of stomach upset from over-indulgence. Just enough busy work for Tara to almost squeeze images of the dark-haired Scot from her mind.

  Almost.

  Sending Fraser out on a tour of Deer Creek, a small resort village compromising a lodge, a few ski chalets and a tiny town center was hardly going to keep him out of the clinic for long. She could feel herself return to her old habit of chewing on her lower lip. This man was not bringing out the best in her.

  Technically, Fraser hadn’t been contracted to start work until the following Monday. It hadn’t even occurred to her to hire someone to start work over the holiday. When she’d found out at the last minute that Tom Brady was heading to Banff, instead of renewing his contract in Deer Creek, she’d made a few phone calls. Soon enough she’d felt she had covered all her bases for the holiday weekend. There were plenty of locals who helped out with search and rescue teams if required, and the team at the fire station were all trained in first aid, not to mention the ski patrollers, who were always rostered on. Bar anything truly horrible happening—she gave a quick subconscious knock on the wooden doorframe—everything would be okay.

  “Anybody home?” Liesel quipped as she entered to Tara’s knock.

  “Just little old me!” Tara smiled at the nurse, whom she now counted as a good friend. “Sorry about earlier.” She winced apologetically. “I must’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

  “Mmm...could be that,” Liesel mused. She leant forward and teasingly poked Tara in the arm. “Or it could be that someone has a crush on the handsome new Highland doctor.”

  Tara playfully slapped away Liesel’s hand. At least she hoped it seemed playful.

  “Do not. I don’t have time for silly crushes.” How humiliating.

  “Are you saying my crush on Eric is silly?” Liesel persisted in taunting her boss.

  “I would hardly call dating someone for several months and being invited to their family home for Thanksgiving as having a silly crush.”

  “True.” Liesel dropped her backpack on the floor behind the reception counter and flopped into the wheeled chair, lazily swinging herself from side to side.

  “Where did you leave Dr. MacKenzie, anyway?” Tara wished she could’ve bitten back the words as soon as they’d left her mouth. She was pretty sure they betrayed a bit too much interest as to his irritatingly magnetic whereabouts. Too much interest for her own liking anyway.

  Seemingly not having heard her, Liesel turned to Tara with a big grin. “This will be my first Thanksgiving, you know.”

  Tara smiled warmly at her pixie-haired friend. She deserved all of the happiness she received. From the sound of it, Liesel’s heart had been picked up at the beginning of a number of ski seasons and soundly dropped at the last ski lift run at the first sign of spring. She was a kind, trusting woman and, from the sound of it, was reaching a point where traveling from resort to resort had lost its luster. “It’s homey here, isn’t it?”

  “Where, the clinic?” Tara laughed. The clinic was nice, but not nearly as welcoming as one of those little craftsman houses with all-weather porches tucked away on the hillside. Too bad her finances didn’t stretch far enough to include a house.

  “No, silly. Deer Creek. I could really see me staying here a while.” She let out a wistful sigh.

  Tara slipped into the chair next to her, joining in the rhythmic swinging of chairs from side to side.

  It was nice here. Especially when there was someone to share it all with.

  CHAPTER THREE

  COULD THE RECEPTION area stand up to a third run with the mop?

  Tara scanned the immaculate room.

  It was Thanksgiving morning and so far she had helped a whopping single visitor on a quest for a handful of cotton balls. Full marks for keeping everyone fit and healthy on the holiday, zero for keeping her mind occupied.

  She felt her shoulders slump a bit as she scanned the empty room. She wondered what Liesel was doing. No. She didn’t. She knew exactly what Liesel was doing. Enjoying the early phases of the holiday with Eric and his family. An involuntary sigh escaped her lips.

  It wasn’t the lack of patients that was sapping her good spirits. It was the absence of a certain Scottish doctor. No. That wasn’t quite right.

  Tara pulled on a dark curl and chewed her lower lip. It had been a long time—if ever—that someone had made such a full-force impact on her. Talk about setting your senses on fire! She stifled a yawn, knowing full well she’d kept herself up all night doing little re-runs of the previous day. Taking a little memory-lane trip along those well-defined cheekbones, stopping for a moment to enjoy the salt and pepper temples before making a quick turn towards those eyes of his. Mother Nature had come up trumps when it came to Fraser MacKenzie.

  Tara shook her head and laughed. How high school was she? Then again, Tara had never really had crushes on anyone in high school. This was all brand spanking new. She shook the lingering image of Fraser’s Pacific Ocean blue eyes from her head. He was all man and had her responding to him like a giddy teen.

  Tara flopped down onto the over-stuffed leather sofa that had somehow found its home in the clinic waiting room and toyed with a loose cushion button. If this was what having a girly crush was like, she was going to have to quadruple her suppression skills.

  He was, she reminded herself, not unique. She’d been doing perfectly well on her own for well over a year here in Deer Creek and the arrival of a new colleague—admittedly in a six-foot-plus to-die-for package complete with thick espresso-brown hair and piercing blue eyes—was hardly going
to make her lose focus. Too much trust would be involved to let someone make that much of an impact. Besides, it was hardly as if she needed Fraser MacKenzie around to have a good time.

  As if to prove it to herself, Tara flicked on the clinic’s music system, spinning the radio dial to find something cheery. Something she could dance to. A couple of runs up and down the FM stations and she heard the opening strains of a dance-till-you-drop pop song.

  Perfect! She was alone, no one was watching, it was the ideal time to have a little boogie. There was no harm in it.

  Tara cranked the volume up. It was, after all, a holiday.

  She began to sway her shoulders from side to side in rhythm with the music. The beat picked up. Her feet joined in. Soon she was leaping around the reception area, singing along with the radio.

  See, Fraser MacKenzie? I’m not just a run-of-the-mill fuddy-duddy. I’m still footloose and fun-loving! Unable to resist a dramatic run and slide through the swinging double doors into the examination hall, Tara felt a burst of exhilaration. Do I know how to step it up, or what? For good measure, Tara thought she had better try out her new move again—quick slide on the tiled floor, dramatic entrance through the door into the lobby... “I’m falling, I’m falling in loooooOOOOOOOVVVE— Oh, no!”

  Tara felt and heard the simultaneous crunch of door on human. She fell through the swinging doors, rapidly losing her unexpected battle with gravity. The band kept on singing, oblivious to the fact she had crash-landed directly onto Fraser MacKenzie’s prostrate body. It was only a matter of seconds, but the full body connection, the cradle of his hips, her breasts pressing into his taut chest, legs tangled together, ripped through her in a sensory overload. A far too close for comfort sensory overload.

  Tara leapt up in a wave of mortified apologies, switched off the radio and whirled around, only to realize Fraser remained silent. She could hear deep breaths as he clutched his hands to his face, blood pouring from between his fingers.