12 Gifts for Christmas

by Various

  James was staring at her. “You don’t like that?”

  Lucy shook her head. “I’ve found an old-fashioned practice to join. In the middle of a city they’re as rare as hen’s teeth. The one that hired me was only taking on another partner because the original doctor is finally retiring at the age of seventy.” She smiled. “I don’t think he’s going to disappear, though. He loves his patients and they feel the same for him.”

  A curious silence fell in the room. Lucy heard something that sounded suspiciously like a sniff from the direction of the winged chair.

  Oh, drat. She’d put her foot in it somehow, hadn’t she?

  Thank goodness Miriam bustled in at that point, carrying a supper tray. The housekeeper beamed at Lucy.

  “I have an idea,” she announced.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “JAMIE should go t’ the children’s party!” Miriam said excitedly.

  Lucy wasn’t quite as enthusiastic, in fact she was a little dismayed by the idea. Jamie was so withdrawn. Surely he needed the security of a few people he could trust around him, not to be put into the middle of a noisy crowd.

  “There’ll be games,” Miriam continued. “And lots of nice food. And a Father Christmas, of course.”

  The sound from Douglas was definitely a sniff this time. Miriam clicked her tongue.

  “Wally’ll do a better job of it this year,” she said firmly. “Eileen’s promised she’ll no’ let him near the drink.” She handed a cup of tea to Lucy. “Eileen’s the one you met in the post office—the one trying to find homes for the puppies.”

  “Boys should have a dog,” Douglas muttered. “You had one, James.”

  “Aye.”

  Lucy could sense the men were relieved that the subject had been steered away from the Christmas party. What was Miriam thinking, reminding Douglas of the role he used to have in the event? She was happy to go along with the change in topic.

  “What sort of dog did you have?”

  “Golden retriever,” James said. “Name of Brie.”

  “Brie?”

  “Aye. She was yellow. You know, like the cheese.”

  Lucy laughed and the tension in the room dissolved.

  “There’s a picture of her on the mantel,” James added. He pointed. “See?”

  Lucy went closer to the fire to where a dozen or more framed snapshots crowded one side of the mantelpiece. Half-hidden behind others, there was, indeed, a picture of a beautiful golden retriever, leaning against a young boy. Lucy found herself reaching for the picture with trembling hands.

  “Oh, my God …” she whispered. “This could be a picture of Jamie.”

  Holding the photograph, she turned slowly to stare at James. He held her gaze only for a heartbeat, but it was long enough to know that he was thinking the same thing she was. That a DNA test would be superfluous. The genetic match was there in plain view. But what wasn’t there was James’s willingness to accept the role of father. He must have seen the resemblance between them from the first, yet he’d never spoken of the boy as his son, or of the possibility that Jamie should stay with him.

  The silence was even more awkward this time. Even Miriam seemed at a loss. She gathered up the supper tray and excused herself. Lucy followed her back to the kitchen.

  “Give it time,” she urged Lucy. “It’s no’ that he won’t do the right thing, lass. It’s just … taking a bit o’ getting used to.”

  “You’ll have to do the right thing,” Douglas growled.

  “Which is?”

  “Raise the lad yourself, of course.”

  “And how can I do that, Dad? He’s still very young. He needs a mother.”

  “He’ll have one.”

  “Who? Miriam?” James shook his head. “He’ll have a better life with Lucy, not someone who’s old enough to be his gran.”

  “So marry the lass,” Douglas snapped. “What’s wrong with her?”

  James closed his eyes. How could he explain that Lucy wouldn’t want to live in a place like Ballochburn any more than her sister had? She had her dream job to go back to. In the middle of a city. Half a world away. There was no point in any of them getting attached; hearts would only get broken.

  Only … maybe it was already too late. His father might be sounding terse and grumpy about everything but he was coming back to life, wasn’t he? He wanted Jamie to stay. He wanted to be a grandfather.

  Was it wrong to feel a flash of hope? There was no denying that his father was right about one thing.

  There was nothing at all wrong with Lucy Petersen.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  IT HAD been the right thing to do, to bring Jamie to the party. And to spend more time with James.

  Despite Lucy’s fears about Jamie being intimidated by the other children, he’d quickly been drawn into a game of musical cushions with a bunch of toddlers from the village and was still with them.

  The party wasn’t going smoothly, however. Miriam was comforting Eileen, who was mortified that her husband was too drunk to be Father Christmas and hand out the gifts.

  “It’s no’ a problem,” Miriam assured Eileen. “I’ll go home and fetch Dr. Cameron.”

  James appeared shocked by her suggestion. “He’ll never do it.”

  “You might be surprised what he’ll do,” Miriam said sagely. “For the wee lad.”

  Miriam headed off to fetch Douglas, and Eileen went to the electronic organ, launching into a round of Christmas carols. Everyone joined in quickly … except Jamie, of course, but he looked happy enough to be sitting in the circle of children.

  Lucy was singing. So was James, though she saw him casting nervous glances toward the door at frequent intervals. She edged closer to him, sharing his nerves. Would it be too much for Douglas to consider doing something that had made him happy in the past? Or would it be the final corner to turn?

  She held out her hand to James and he gripped it.

  They stood together as they sang “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Was James also watching Jamie, as she was, and praying that he might open his mouth and try singing, even if talking was too big a step?

  No. When Lucy turned her head, she found James was watching her. Looking down at her with an expression that made her heart skip a beat. A wondering kind of expression.

  Hopeful?

  Did he have hopes for his father? For Jamie? For himself and … her?

  Oh, yes … He could hope. So could she. She could love this man. Maybe she already did.

  And, in case that wasn’t enough to make her feel the joy of the season, the Father Christmas that arrived at the party just then was, quite obviously, Douglas Cameron. Miriam helped him with the huge sack of gifts and Lucy saw her wipe her eyes more than once as they watched the distribution.

  “I love this,” she told James. “It’s perfect.”

  “The party?”

  “Everything. The whole village. It’s like one big family.”

  “Aye …”

  “Jamie looks right at home.” Lucy bit her lip. “It’s a shame we can’t stay here.”

  He was supposed to say “why not?” To say that it would be good if she and Jamie could stay. To issue an invitation of some kind that would let her know he was interested in exploring the attraction that was growing between them.

  Instead his face seemed to freeze. “You wouldn’t want to,” he said.

  “Why not?” They were supposed to be his words, not hers. Something was going wrong here.

  “Your sister didn’t. Why should you?”

  All of a sudden James had a face like thunder. He wrenched his hand from hers and walked toward his father. Lucy stared after him, shocked. Douglas watched his son approach, clearly disturbed by the expression on his face. Douglas looked at Lucy and then back at James. He shook his head as though defeated, turned and walked out the back door of the hall.

  It was Miriam who looked dismayed then. She rushed after Douglas and it was only moments later that her shrill cry coul
d be heard.

  “Help. Oh, God, help.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  FATHER Christmas lay like a huge red-and-white statue on the snow outside the village hall.

  James ripped away the beard and hat and tilted his father’s head back to open his airway.

  Miriam knelt on the other side, one hand touching the senior Dr. Cameron’s chest, the other pressed against her mouth. Her expression was one of pure anguish.

  Lucy waited only until James spoke in a voice she didn’t recognize.

  “He’s not breathing. There’s no pulse.”

  Lucy sprang into action. “Miriam, call an ambulance. Tell them it’s a cardiac arrest and CPR is underway.” Lucy unzipped the red jacket and positioned her hand well above the broad chest. She brought her fist down with a thump but didn’t wait to see if the emergency action had kick-started Douglas’s heart. She put one hand on top of the other in the center of his chest and began compressions.

  James seemed to be waiting for her to pause so that he could do the breathing part of the resuscitation, but Lucy wasn’t going to pause.

  “Have you got a defib in your car?”

  “Aye.”

  “Get it. Now.”

  Lucy could hear the party still going on in the hall behind her. The door was still a little ajar but the children—

  hopefully Jamie included—were too busy playing with the gifts they’d received to notice what was happening to their Father Christmas now.

  James returned within seconds. Lucy applied the pads from the small “heart start” device and switched it on.

  “No shock required,” came the electronic voice.

  Startled, Lucy pressed her fingers to Douglas’s neck. Sure enough, she could feel the beat of a steady pulse and, moments later, she saw his chest rise as he took a breath again.

  “Oh, thank God …!”

  But they weren’t out of the woods yet. Douglas was still unconscious when the ambulance arrived, though the paramedics were hopeful. And impressed.

  “Must have been your precordial thump that did the trick,” one of them told Lucy. “Good job, Doc.”

  James and Miriam climbed into the ambulance with Douglas and it sped away to the hospital. Lucy managed to convince Jamie to leave the party, and she drove the big four-wheel-drive vehicle back to the empty manse.

  Jamie went to bed without any fuss, holding his tinsel snake in one hand and clutching the red Matchbox car Father Christmas had given him in the other.

  Lucy kept the fire going in the library and sat in the winged chair, horribly afraid of what might be happening in the coronary care unit of the Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary.

  Minutes turned into hours. Lucy heard the clock strike twelve. Christmas Eve had become Christmas Day.

  “Please …” Lucy whispered aloud. “Please don’t die, Douglas.”

  No one deserved another such tragedy, but the thought of it happening to James was just unbearable.

  The flashing lights of the tree and the glow of the open fire were very bright in the otherwise dark room but Lucy had her eyes tightly shut.

  Thinking of James.

  Of the warm look he’d given her when they’d stood side by side singing Christmas carols. When it had occurred to her that she might be falling in love with him.

  She knew the truth now.

  She was in love with James Cameron. She also loved the tenderhearted Miriam, and even the grouchiness of Douglas Cameron because she knew it covered another gentle heart. One that Jamie was drawn to just as much as she was.

  And this old manse felt like … home.

  The pieces of a new dream had just been coming together for Lucy. And now? Were they about to be blown apart?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE front door slammed and Lucy jumped in alarm. James walked into the library, looking tired and haggard. “I got a taxi home.” He flicked on the overhead light. “I’ve just come to collect some things that Dad will need.”

  “He’s … alive?” The relief was too much. Tears gathered and spilled from Lucy’s eyes.

  “Aye.” James sank down on the edge of the couch. He rubbed his forehead with one hand, white with exhaustion. “He’s had emergency angioplasty and a couple of stents put in.”

  “He’s awake? Talking?”

  “Not saying much. He’s holding Miriam’s hand and they’re too busy making eyes at each other.” James let his breath out in a snort of amazement. “Who would’ve thought?”

  Lucy would. The kind of devotion Miriam had shown to this family through the hardest of times could only come from a very real love.

  “He’s going to be all right, though?”

  “Maybe.” James still had his eyes closed. “We’ll have to see, won’t we? When you’ve gone.”

  “What?” Lucy stared at James. “What has this got to do with me?”

  For a long, long moment he was silent. Abrubtly he stood and started walking toward the door, then, just as suddenly, turned and stopped.

  “You … you brought his grandson here,” James said heavily. “You gave him a reason to live again. He must have realized at the party—as I did—that there’s no way you’re going to stick around. You’ll be taking the wee lad out of his life and—”

  “You’re blaming me?” Lucy’s jaw dropped. “I don’t believe this.” Her fists clenched. “Just who decided that I wasn’t going to ‘stick around’? When? How the hell did you know that when I didn’t even know?”

  “Birds of a feather,” James muttered, sounding remarkably like his father. “You’re a city girl just like your sister was.”

  “I’m nothing like my sister.”

  “You said it yourself. You’ve got your dream job to get back to. In the middle of a big city.”

  “It’s not my dream job because it’s in a city. It’s my dream because it’s the kind of—”

  James didn’t let her finish. “Didn’t she tell you at the time? That some stupid country bumpkin GP said he was in love with her, but she could do so much better? She could find someone who was going somewhere with his life?”

  Lucy simply stood there, openmouthed. It sounded exactly like something her shallow, misguided younger sister would have said. The really shocking thing was that James had been in love with Liv.

  Maybe he still was.

  Maybe that was why it was so hard for him to contemplate turning his life upside down for his son. Because it was too much of a reminder that he’d lost the woman he loved.

  Liv.

  Not her.

  The younger, prettier one. Perhaps that’s all James had seen in her.

  Why he’d kissed her.

  Because she’d reminded him. Of Liv.

  Lucy couldn’t say anything now. Her heart was breaking and the tears she was holding back choked her. All she could do was stand there and endure the look of … what, betrayal? … on the face of the man in front of her.

  And then James turned and walked from the library.

  She could hear him moving about upstairs as she sat in the winged chair again, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them tightly.

  The tears wouldn’t come until she heard the sound of the front door closing behind James.

  The real pain would start then. When she knew the dream was really over.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  WHAT had possessed him to say that? James thought as he drove to the hospital.

  Lucy was nothing like her sister. Oh, there was a similarity in their looks, maybe, but Lucy was far more beautiful. More intelligent, too. And responsible. And … and giving. She wasn’t always searching for something better in her life. She was prepared to give up what she already had for the sake of a child.

  His child.

  Had he really thought he’d been in love with her sister? The feelings he’d had for Liv weren’t a tenth of the feelings that Lucy stirred in him. They went far deeper than desire.

  They were huge … terrifying. So terri
fying that he hadn’t wanted to face them and he’d grabbed hold of the idea that she’d never want to stay as a shield to protect himself.

  He’d been a fool. He knew better than anyone how quickly someone you loved could be taken from you, that you had to make the most out of the time you were given, that there wasn’t a moment to waste on fear.

  As soon as he saw his most urgent patients and checked on his father once more, he’d go home and … apologize to Lucy, if nothing else.

  It felt wrong to be in the manse alone.

  The old house had a peculiar stillness about it, as though it was waiting for the people who really belonged there to come home.

  Except they hadn’t. Lucy had waited all morning. She’d tried to make it feel like Christmas for Jamie but the party seemed to have been all the Christmas he’d needed. He eyed the parcel Lucy offered him, but taking it would have meant putting down one of his new treasures—the tinsel snake and the little red car. He stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head firmly.

  Lucy put the other small parcels she had wrapped under the tree. They were only little things but maybe they would be enough to thank Douglas and Miriam … and James. There was no point in taking them with her, anyway.

  It was time to go. The heavily falling snow made it feel far later than it was when she tucked Jamie back into the rental car seat. The weather was making Lucy nervous. The last thing she needed was to end up in another ditch. Maybe it was those nerves that made her turn the wrong way and she found herself in the village of Ballochburn instead of on the main road to Dumfries.

  The square was deserted and the old cobbles were rapidly being covered by snow. The shops were all closed, but there were lights on at the old stone inn. The sign gathering snow on its top advertised that the B&B had a vacancy.

  At least she and Jamie had got out of the manse, Lucy thought. If she waited until morning, maybe the snow would stop and the roads would be clear. It might also give her the chance to say goodbye and a proper thank-you, at least to Miriam.

  James and Miriam arrived back at the manse in the afternoon to find Lucy’s car gone. The only traces of her in the house, in fact, were some small parcels under the tree.