Secret Santa

by Cynthia Reese

  “Buddy, that’s worth a U.S. Grant!” somebody hollered.

  The spell broken, Charli stepped back to see children running up the sidewalk to Neil’s Toys for Tots collection bucket, stuffing wadded bills into the slot.

  “Wow. We did good tonight,” she said.

  “Don’t look so smug,” Neil told her, chucking her on her cheek. “It’s not like you didn’t enjoy it.”

  “Oh, no. It was hard work.” Charli burst out laughing, unable to keep a straight face.

  “Okay, are you ready to see it?” Neil asked. “Because as much as I want to kiss you some more—for the children, of course—I really think you may have had enough kisses for one night.”

  “Yes, we must watch the dosage of kisses very closely,” Charli agreed. “They do seem to be addictive.”

  Exhilarating. Intoxicating. Blame it all on those endorphins that are running like mad through my body.

  Neil turned her back around. “This baby has a remote control—which is good, because I wouldn’t relish climbing up and down a ladder to turn it on. I’ve been waiting for you so you could be the first to light ’im up.”

  Into her hands, he plopped a small rectangular piece of electronics. “M’lady. The honors are all yours.”

  “Okay...” She stared at the remote control. “I’m assuming this big red button is the one I press, and that it’s not a self-destruct switch.”

  “You assume correctly. Have at it.”

  Charli pressed the button, and suddenly, the chimney flared to life. Santa in all his glory looked as if he was about to climb down the chimney with a sack full of toys.

  “Well, what do you think? Does he look like he’s checking his list to see who’s been naughty or nice?” Neil asked.

  She’d known it was a Santa. Neil had told her that. She’d even looked for a Santa on his rooftop when she’d arrived home.

  But seeing the merry figure on Neil’s roof sobered her. Neil’s Santa reminded her of what Neil had called her in the paper—a Secret Santa. Everything came flooding back to her—and suddenly, standing here in this innocent wonderland of lights, with Santa looking down on her, it was all too much.

  And Charli knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she would not make Santa’s nice list at all.

  * * *

  WHAT DID I DO?

  For the life of him, Neil couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. One minute, Charli had been relaxed and happy.

  The next? She’d jumped the hedge as if he’d lit her shoes on fire.

  She’d made the flimsiest of excuses and taken off. Her compliments on Santa had been lukewarm. She’d turned him down flat on his offer of hot cocoa. She’d denied that a thing was wrong.

  She was tired. It was late. Thanks, but no, thanks.

  Neil hadn’t even had a chance to ask her, once and for all, if she was the Secret Santa.

  Feeling a little flat, he made his way into the house. His grandmother’s mantel clock was striking nine o’clock when he shut the front door behind him. Outside, the traffic was thinning out, people heading home to put their sleepy, pajama-clad kids to bed.

  Will I ever have a kid to share Christmas with?

  Neil picked up a framed photo of his mom, eternally young. It had been taken the year she’d died. She was sitting with Neil in Santa’s lap—his dad, he knew now—planting a big kiss on the guy in the red suit’s cheek. Her hand rested on a six-year-old Neil’s shoulder.

  It was his favorite picture of his family. To him, it summed up everything about her—her love for his dad, for him, for Christmas.

  His dad had waited years to remarry, telling him how once you’d found your soul mate, it was hard to settle for second best. And while Neil’s stepmom was great, she could never be the ebullient grab-life-by-the-horns type of woman his mom had been.

  Which was fine, too. His mom might have changed if she’d lived. Probably would have—she’d been so young. He was older now than his mom had been when she’d died in that car wreck.

  What wasn’t fine was the longing that Charli had set off in him, a longing to share Christmas—life—with not only the world at large, but with one person in particular.

  For the life of him, he couldn’t understand how his emotions were overtaking his logic. He knew—with a reporter’s nose for a story—that she was hiding something, lying by omission at the very least. So how did she make him forget that?

  And just when he’d thought she might trust him enough to tell him the truth, she’d turned tail and run.

  Something was worrying her. Beyond grief. Beyond overwork. Did Charli blame herself for not saving her father? Did she have bad memories about the holidays in particular?

  Or was it this donation business?

  Why was she lying? Not just to him, but to everybody? What could possibly be so bad she had to hide it?

  Neil put the picture of his mom down. Time for bed. A glass of water and an ibuprofen, and he’d be ready to toss and turn.

  In the kitchen, he filled a glass with tap water...and thought about Charli.

  I can offer you tap water, or tap water.

  Man, but he loved her self-deprecating sense of humor.

  Neil tossed the pill into his mouth, washed it down with his water and turned to put the glass in the dishwasher.

  A movement outside caught his eye and he leaned close to his kitchen window to get a better view. A truck had pulled up into Charli’s drive. He knew that truck.

  Lige Whitaker.

  Now what was Whitaker doing at Charli’s this late at night?

  The truck’s headlights switched off. Whitaker came around, opened the passenger door and the crew cab door and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  In the big puddle of illumination from the street light, Neil could see two Hispanic men stumble out. One of them, an older guy with salt-and-pepper hair and a moustache, was bent double. The other guy, younger by a good ten years, didn’t look so hot, either, even if he was semiupright.

  Lige pushed them up Charli’s drive to her back door under the carport. As he hurried them along, he cast a furtive glance over his shoulder toward Neil’s kitchen windows.

  Neil was suddenly glad he hadn’t bothered to turn on the kitchen light.

  Lige Whitaker was up to something. That was for certain.

  The older Hispanic man nearly fell. Lige picked him up by the collar and nearly booted him the remainder of the way to Charli’s door.

  Now Lige was banging on the back door with his fist.

  Should he go over and see if Charli needed help?

  The door opened. Charli’s mouth fell open, then compressed in anger. She shook her head vehemently.

  Lige jabbed a finger at her and then at the two men with him. Charli shrank back. Her headshake this time was more hesitant.

  That was it. Neil was going over there to see what Lige was trying to bully her into.

  But as he started to turn, to head for Charli’s, he saw her put her hand to her mouth, considering. Then she nodded.

  Opened the door wider.

  Let the men in.

  Looked out just as furtively as Lige had a few minutes before.

  Then slammed the door shut.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHARLI YANKED THE BELT of her robe tighter around her waist. She surveyed the two men who’d collapsed into her kitchen chairs and whirled around to face Lige Whitaker.

  “What exactly do you expect me to do here at my house?”

  “Chuck always kept stuff at his house. I’d take sick ones by his—”

  “No.” Charli swallowed hard. She didn’t want to hear how she’d been snookered into doing the exact same thing her father had done. “No. These men, if they’re as sick as they look, they need to go to
the E.R.”

  Lige put one hand on a hip and eyeballed her. “They’re illegals.”

  Good grief.

  “The hospital can’t turn them down based on their status. You of all people should know that.”

  “Sure. But maybe I don’t want some nosy triage nurse to know my business and who I’ve got working for me. All it takes is one busybody do-gooder to put a call in to immigration, and suddenly I’ve got a raid on my hands. Then even the legal ones scatter.”

  This man couldn’t be for real. She worked her jaw to keep from yelling at him.

  In as even a tone as Charli could manage, she bit out, “Hospital. Now. I’ll treat them in the E.R., like I’m supposed to.”

  “You could have already seen to ’em in the time we’ve spent arguing.”

  The sickest man made a retching sound. Charli snapped her head in his direction to see him turn a shade greener. He grabbed his abdomen and moaned something in Spanish. Poor fellow. A pawn in Lige’s army. He needed to be on a nice, clean hospital bed, getting pumped full of IV fluids. It angered her that Lige was delaying their care simply to yank her around.

  Charli turned back to Lige. “And you could have already had them at the E.R. in the time it’s taking you to attempt—and fail, I might add—to persuade me to treat them.”

  “Oh, you’re gonna fix ’em up. You’re bought and paid for. A hundred grand’s worth. You can suck it up, and the hospital won’t have to. Save the taxpayers money. Plus, your mama already thinks the hospital will be named after her hero.” With that, Lige yanked a chair from the table, spun it around and straddled it, resting his arms on the back.

  When he mentioned the money, nausea to rival the sick migrant worker’s welled up in Charli’s stomach. “No,” she said. “You paid my father. That has nothing to do with me.”

  Lige sneered. “I like the way my money’s getting me a buy-one-get-one-free.”

  Charli decided she’d call his bluff. “You can’t reveal anything about that money without revealing why you paid it. I think that’s called a standoff.”

  Lige raised an eyebrow. “Who said anything about talking about the money? It’s easier to fire you. Suspend your privileges at the hospital. Evict you from your office. With no privileges, you’re going to find it hard to keep your patients—oh, I mean, your daddy’s patients. And I’ll make sure no other hospital around here takes you on.”

  She drew herself to her fullest height and wished desperately he had not caught her in her robe. Something about bare legs and the thin pajama shirt she wore under the robe left her feeling defenseless and vulnerable. “On what grounds? I’ve done nothing wrong—”

  “Pshaw. I don’t have to go to much trouble. You’re peer-reviewed at the hospital. Somebody won’t mind doing me a favor.”

  Charli folded her arms across her chest. The man was a snake. “Then whoever you’d get to do that favor? Why don’t you dial him up to help you out of this jam?”

  Lige scratched his chin. His tobacco-stained nails made a rasping sound against his salt-and-pepper whiskers. “Who else do I have such prime leverage on? Not just that business with your daddy—and you want to protect his memory, don’t you? You don’t want people asking questions. But I know for a fact you were the one who donated that money. So all I got to do is start a whisper about how you were the one who donated it. Suddenly, people are going to wonder where you got all that cash. People are funny about cash. Especially big piles of it. They tend to jump to conclusions. And then when I say, ‘I had to suspend her privileges for the good of the hospital,’ well, they’ll be ready to believe the worst.”

  “Do it.” She made her voice firm, hard. “I won’t repeat my father’s mistakes. I’ll start over somewhere else. Your reach can’t extend that far. I’ll dig ditches to pay my student loans back. Plus, I’ll make sure people know why you really fired me.”

  He threw back his head and roared with laughter. The man’s teeth were as yellow as his nails.

  How could I have ever thought he was my father’s friend?

  Lige’s raucous laughter dribbled to a chuckle. He wiped a tear from one eye and shook his head. “Oh-ho, aren’t you high and mighty on those fine principles of yours. First off, who are people going to believe? You’ve got an honest face, I’ll grant you that. But I have a lot of credibility in this town, and a lot of people owe me favors. Plus, you’ll be trashing your daddy’s memory and stressing out that mother of yours. And you still won’t have a job.”

  Charli was on the brink of telling him she’d take her chances and dialing 9-1-1 when he smiled.

  In the blandest of tones, he asked, “Why not think about it like this? If you won’t do it to protect your own backside, then think about your mama. How much trouble would the IRS make for her if I just happened to anonymously report all that income?”

  The sickest Hispanic man dashed for Charli’s kitchen sink and retched into it. She gagged at the smell, but went over to him, patted him on the back. The man looked at her with desperate eyes. He muttered something in Spanish in a pleading tone.

  Poor guy. He’s caught in the middle of this, and all he wants is someone to help him feel better.

  Charli rinsed out the sink, walked him back to his chair. The man settled and gave her a grateful look; she turned and pulled a gallon jug of bleach out from under her sink cabinet. A generous glug of chlorine cut the odor and began the disinfecting work.

  “Don’t bring my mother into this—” she began.

  “Yeah, well. She’s got other fish to fry besides the IRS. She’s already come to me, asking me for a quiet little loan. I guess she’s run up some credit card debt, and that Jed Cannady, your dad’s attorney, he’s not letting loose any of your dad’s money.” He chuckled. “I do like a predictable woman. Too bad you gave away all the money you could have used to solve her little problem. So, what’s it gonna be?”

  Hot anger boiled up inside Charli. How dare her mother put her in this position? There was no money. Jed had been crystal clear that the terms of the will specified that the annuity would come in regular payments, that he would pay the household bills out of the annuity, and then whatever was left was her mother’s allowance.

  And Charli? With her own student loans and bills, there was no way she could help her mother out of a jam.

  Charli had asked her mom if she was having trouble—and she’d smiled and told her she was just rebuilding her credit. How could Charli have been taken in by her mother’s reassuring lies?

  But Charli’s anger was tempered with a flash of pain and guilt. She knew exactly what had happened. Her mother had wanted to give the perfect gifts for Christmas—just like she always had—and she’d spent all of her allowance. And then she’d done what she’d always done—found a way to buy something right now, and left it to her family to figure out how to pay for it later.

  I hate Christmas.

  Charli steadied herself against the doorframe, stared at the tableau before her and came to the decision that seemed all but inevitable.

  Is this how her father had felt twenty years ago? Had her mother put him in a similar position?

  Lige regarded her with complacent satisfaction, and a tad of impatience. “Well, okay, then. You getting with the program, or what?”

  “We’ll have to go to the office,” Charli told him in a low voice.

  Lige cupped his hand around his ear. “What’s that? I don’t think I quite heard you.”

  He’d heard her. Sadist that he was, he wanted to twist the knife.

  She grimaced, bit back bile that had risen in her throat. “I said, we’ll have to go to my office. I don’t have anything here but my first aid kit. You drive them. I’ll follow in my car. When did they get sick? And do they speak any English?”

  * * *

  CHARLI HEARD A TAP on the front door of t
he office. She ignored it, rolling over and burying her head under her father’s pillow. She breathed in the last vestige of her father’s cologne from his couch.

  You did it to save Mom, didn’t you, Dad? That was the only reason someone with your integrity would have gone along with a cover-up. You did it for the same reason I did. For Mom. But then once Lige had you he wouldn’t cut you loose. You couldn’t bear to spend the money—except maybe to help people out.

  The two migrant workers were gone now. She’d patched them up and pumped them full of IV fluids, exactly what she would have done at the hospital.

  Well, no. At the hospital, she would have had access to a full lab that would have given her quicker results. Drawing blood here and using the stool samples they’d given her, she’d have to wait for send-out lab results.

  Tonight, she had been flying by the seat of her pants. Vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps...sounded like a garden-variety stomach bug, albeit one on steroids. From what she could understand in their broken English, they were the sickest of their families. Bad meat? Poor refrigeration? Could be anything.

  At least they were gone―asleep, presumably, in their beds.

  But most importantly, Lige was gone, too.

  Man, she wanted a shower, both a literal one and a figurative one.

  The tapping came again, louder, more insistent. It had to be the security guard who patrolled both the hospital and the offices across the street. Charli shoved back her shirtsleeve and saw that it was half past two. Great. Four hours and she’d be due at the hospital for morning rounds. Should she even bother going home to bed?

  Straightening up, she stuck her feet into the flats she’d shoved on earlier. Might as well tell the security guard she was alive and well and then she could at least head home to grab that shower and change clothes.

  The man at the door, however, wasn’t a security guard.

  It was Neil. And he didn’t look happy.

  Perfect. Coming up with explanations on the fly during the wee hours of the morning was exactly what she wanted to do. This day had gone from a zero to a negative five on the jubilation scale.