Christmas and Forever

by Delilah Hunt

  He stepped into the office and looked back. “I’ll see you on Monday. Perhaps it’s best if we put this incident behind us. You’re a good worker. Let’s leave it at that. We’ll both forget this incident, yes?”

  She exhaled with relief. That was one victory for the day. Sighing, Liya plodded outside into the night. Maybe she was looking at her situation with Aidan from the wrong angle. Maybe what she was starting to feel for him wasn’t romantic in the least. What if he was right and it was pity? She lowered her head dramatically so that her chin brushed against the top button of her coat. And maybe Santa Claus was real. She was doomed, for the holiday and possibly forever. For the first time in her life she was on the crest of experiencing love, and naturally it was with the wrong man. Or perhaps it was just the other way around. She would always be the wrong woman for him. Aidan wanted his old life back, and the woman he loved. The one Christmas gift Liya would never be able to give him.

  ****

  “Did you and Liya get into it?”

  Aidan propped his leg on the maplewood desk. He’d just arrived at the hospital minutes earlier and within mere seconds of settling into his office in the cardiology unit on one of the upper floors, the first words out of James Northrop’s mouth were about that insufferable girl. Or,woman, as she’d been keen to remind him, hours before. He despised the way his colleague worded the phrase. You and Liya. It made it seem as if they were an entity.

  “Ms. Emerson is an efficient worker.”

  James chuckled and adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. “I know that. The girl is the only one who can get more than two words out of you these days. Did you notice that?”

  He had. Not that he wanted to discuss any of it with James or anyone. He hated even thinking about it. And that was strange, since it was hard not to think of or notice everything about Liya. It was almost as if she purposely went out of her way to make herself noticeable. The tightly wound corkscrew curls with streaks of auburn highlights that made her dark smoky eyes radiate, when they should have appeared lackluster to someone with a fondness for grassy green eyes like Sarah’s.

  From the beginning, Aidan had tried hard not to spend too much of his time analyzing and dissecting why he hadn’t fired Liya after numerous opportunities. Or for that matter, why he had even given her the damn job. When she opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong with his leg, he knew she wasn’t going to dodge or skirt around him like everyone else. Was that the reason for his reluctance to see her gone?

  “No I haven’t,” he lied. Aidan snapped a folder closed and lowered his leg, dismissing the biting pain.

  “That’s your problem, isn’t it? Your hand is damaged and I know that leg is shot to pieces from the accident too. As for your eyesight, there’s not a thing wrong with it.”

  Aidan shuffled in his chair, knuckles tightening. The hell if James was hinting at what he assumed. “Have you been talking to Liya?”

  James smirked. “How, when? That poor little girl is too busy trailing after you, making sure ‘Dr. Keegan’ is okay. You’re turning a blind eye on too many things. Too many people, Aidan. I know this might sound like a fucked-up thing to say, but life keeps going, man, and you’re in the thick of it. You’re here for a reason. I just don’t want you to wake up one day and realize you let too many things slip away.”

  Slip away? The familiar pang of anger and envy worked its way through him. How easy it was for James to dole out advice. He had a wife and four children tucked in safe and warm at home, waiting for him. James had also just successfully performed his last surgery for the night. His life was intact and thriving. Slip away. He wished. Everything he had cherished and wanted to protect had been ripped from him, snatched away at the summit of his life.

  “How many times did you sit beside your wife as she gave birth?” Aidan asked suddenly, wishing to drive the point home.

  Shades of scarlet raced up James’s cheek. “Aidan, come on, let’s not—”

  Underneath the desk, Aidan stretched his leg. The shooting pain doubled, then increased tenfold in the span of a few seconds. He didn’t doubt the effects were heightened by the turn of conversation. “Don’t ever mention ‘losing’ anything to me. None of you knows what that feels like. And please don’t bring up Ms. Emerson to me again. She is a child who knows even less about tragedy. The most tragic thing she’s ever dealt with is probably her hair not turning out the right shade of highlights.” He knew he was being unreasonably harsh, but someone like Liya threatened his sanity and all the promises he had made to himself and Sarah.

  “She doesn’t deserve that,” James stated, toying with the stethoscope around his neck, “and I’m sure you already know it. I’m headed home, but I hope you don’t forget what I said. “You can start over, Aidan. Cut yourself some slack. No one expects you to be a saint about this.”

  Aidan scowled. “I thought you said you were leaving?”

  James paused at the doorway. “I am. Our little heart-to-heart almost made me forget what I originally came here to ask you.”

  “I’m listening. What is this…request?”

  “A couple of us were wondering if you wouldn’t mind hosting a little holiday get-away at that cabin you keep locked up in Bear Ridge.”

  Aidan lifted his brows. “A couple. That’s quite vague, isn’t it? How many? Also, why would you of all people be interested in spending Christmas isolated up in the mountains?”

  James blinked in surprise for a second as if he was caught off guard. “Well, I—I’m not going. Never said I was. The others. Hendricks, Wilcox and a few more.” James coughed into his fist and averted his gaze.

  He wasn’t surprised. Although he was partially to blame for distancing himself from the people he once considered friends, they too had altered their behavior when he was around. They were uncomfortable, and their laughter hushed as he entered the room. It was as if they were afraid whatever ill omen afflicted him would somehow scourge its way into their peaceful and contented lives.

  “You’re a messenger now, Northrop? They’re adults. If they wish to secure the use of my property why couldn’t they come forward?”

  “That’s not fair, Aidan. You shouldn’t come down so hard on them. You’re not the easiest guy to talk to these days. In fact, it would be better if you didn’t say anything to the others about it. Might get a bit uncomfortable, you know. So, is the place free or not?”

  Unless wolves had taken up residence, yes. He hadn’t driven up the mountain passage in years. The last time was to ready the cabin for their first Christmas, just the two of them. He’d bought the decorations, rolls of tinsel, lights and ornaments.

  Decorations that hadn’t made it out of their packaging, also thanks to the drunk bastard who collided into them, driving southbound in the northbound lane. Everything happened in a flash. There just hadn’t been enough time to see it coming. The worst part was, the criminal had died on the spot, without ever seeing the faces of the people whose lives he had lacerated.

  For three days after the crash, Sarah suffered, trying so damn hard to maintain a grip on her fragile thread of life. And within those gruesome days of her body hemorrhaging, doctors also tried everything medically possible to save their daughter, who died hours after she was delivered by cesarean section. The familiar pain clutched at him, held him in its rigid grip, refusing to lessen.

  Those tiny hands he had touched for just a few minutes had felt so warm, filled with promises never to be fulfilled. The anguish ate at him, burning into his lungs and leaving him raw. He should have died with them. There was nothing fair or worthwhile about his continued existence. It wasn’t even as if he could say he had a role in helping to save the lives of others. That part of his life was also history, alongside the eroded nerve endings. So no, he didn’t blame everyone for keeping their distance…if only Liya had the same common sense and self-preservation.

  “It’s free. The cabin is unoccupied.”

  James continued to regard him strangely, with a sudden glea
m entering his eyes. “You should go, too. It’ll be good for you, Christmas with your friends. Or rather, people who want to be your friends again. You can make some good memories there, Aidan. Trust me.”

  That was out of the question. “You know I always spend the holidays with Sarah’s parents.” Silently he added, and each and every year it’s getting harder to be around them. If he was still in mourning, those two already had their lower halves in the ground with their daughter and grandchild. He even felt he had to wear black when visiting them, a color that depressed him even more.

  “Understandable, but you were in love with their daughter, not them. You don’t owe them your soul.”

  He took exception to James’ use of the past tense in regard to his love of Sarah, but decided to let it pass. That was the problem with everyone. They assumed that just because Sarah wasn’t here that his love for her had diminished, that he didn’t love her as much as the day of the accident and each day before that. It was unthinkable. Such emotions as strong as his did not die a quiet death. His promise, on that cold, sorrowful night as he’d sat by her bedside, assuring her that he would not give his heart to anyone else, had been easy to keep. Nothing and no one challenged his pledge, until Liya, and he wasn’t sure if he hated or liked her all the more for it. The simple fact that it did feel good to have that glimmer of hope, even if it felt like it was being dangled on a string light years away that only he was able to see, was a new wave of torment.

  “I know I don’t owe them, but the fact remains I’m their last connection to Sarah and the baby.” As the words tumbled from his lips, Aidan knew there was no way he could bear another holiday with them.

  “So then it’s a no-go for you? Cross your name off the list?”

  Definitely, a ‘No’.

  “Maybe.” Oh, hell. Now why had he said that? He must truly be desperate for companionship for his brain to launch such a traitorous resolve, contemplating a weekend with his co-workers in a place he’d abandoned.

  Aidan frowned as another thought assailed him. The names of the doctors James had mentioned were the ones who, alongside himself, volunteered services to the clinic he had organized. His body grew taut. Liya. She was staff too. Had James invited her also? The idea of spending time around her outside the working hours of the clinic was almost enough to send him into a panic.

  When James issued a hurried goodbye, he barely registered the sound above his brain’s own machination. For the rest of the night as he reviewed the standard paperwork ensuring that all protocol had been adhered to on his unit and in between bouts of pain ricocheting through the lacerated muscles below the numerous layers of scar tissue on his leg, Liya ran, giggled and danced through his mind.

  Aidan scoffed. He almost felt sorry for the girl. Her concerns were wasted on him in spite of the deadened part of his heart, which slowly awoke each time she uttered his name in that husky southern drawl with a girlish undertone, smoldering each syllable.

  Sometime around nine p.m., Aidan stepped out of the hospital and pulled the lapels of his jacket together, bracing against the rush of Arctic breeze that bombarded his face. He blew out a breath and shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat as a light cloud of frost floated upward and away in the dense winter air.

  Shifting his weight to the right, he carefully ambled down the sleet-slickened sidewalk. He didn’t mind the walk to his apartment, only a five-minute’s jaunt from the hospital. A small group of children led by a woman in an angel costume, complete with a flowing dress, golden halo and wings rushed down the pavement across the street. Laughter and chatter fluttered in their wake. His gut tightened. He didn’t think any of the children were older than six years old. The same age Isabella would have been had she lived.

  Head down, he continued the trek unable and unwilling to watch the display of festivities as they stopped in front of a pharmacy and began the opening to O Holy Night. Fatherhood was a reward he would never get another chance to partake in. No. He hadn’t been impaired physically in that respect, but God forbid he did have sex with another woman, one thing was for sure: he would make certain a child would never result from the union. There wasn’t a single woman on earth who could replace Sarah, neither could another baby replace the daughter he’d held for two heavenly minutes.

  And as Aidan thought of the family he had lost, subconsciously in his mind flashed an image of Liya with her dark, almost ebony-colored skin. His cock jerked in response, his balls heating and growing heavy despite the outside temperatures. Aidan lowered his gaze and glared. That disgusting thing between his legs knew nothing of loyalty. Liya was the complete opposite of every woman he had been with. The complete opposite of his quiet wife, who was slender with straight reddish-brown hair, milky white skin with a smattering of freckles dotting her nose. Liya was average height, curvy and full figured. Yet, even with the differences that should have prevented him from giving her a second look, it was those very things that he found himself more often than not picturing. His cock twitched again. Aidan gritted his teeth against an image of holding Liya’s soft flesh and seeing just how far he could sink into her before he lost the pitiful remnants of his sanity.

  I want you to call me if you ever want to talk.

  God in heaven, he could actually hear her voice; and more frightening, he did want to make the phone call, even if it was just to test the merit of her words and see if it made her uncomfortable having to speak with him about more than frivolous issues. Doubtful. The girl…woman was shrouded in steel armor. Nothing he did seemed to vex or ruffle her.

  So what if he called her, Aidan mused; what would he say? Tell her how much he abhorred the holidays because it reminded him of how lonely he was? That the winter season in general made him feel twenty years older than his age because of his leg, and as a matter of fact, he was looking forward to just getting home and massaging the ache away, something he’d have to live with the rest of his life? Liya would pity him even more. Right. If he let her into the recesses of his mind, the next thing would be for her to skip over to his apartment with a mug of warm milk to help him fall asleep. No thanks.

  She was just a child playing at being a grownup. He had to remind himself of that. Had to remind himself that it was only the woe induced by an overblown holiday that seared the imprint of her breasts straining against the fabric of her sweater this morning into his mind. Aidan shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. He might not love Liya, unsure even how much he liked her, but at this point it went without saying. Aidan Keegan was a faithless man, lusting after his young receptionist. At the same time a squall of wind blustered, slashing his face and causing his coat to billow at the ends. Aidan sighed. It seemed even the elements were in accordance with his self-assessment. He shoved his hands deeper into the coat pockets and carried on through the dusk.

  Chapter Two

  Monday morning, Liya arrived at work, greeted by an empty slush-filled parking lot. There was no sign of Aidan’s black BMW sedan. Although it was her obligation to open and ready the clinic for the day ahead, Aidan took it upon himself to arrive first or at least within minutes of her arrival. Winding toward the entrance, Liya reflected on the situation. Maybe it was for the best Aidan hadn’t shown up as yet. For starters, she could no longer tease him that he made a horrible and obvious stalker as he drove up beside her each morning, to which he always rolled his eyes and in a dry tone asked if she was ready to get serious with work.

  Key in hand, Liya grasped the doorknob, pausing at the sleek lull of an engine rolling to a halt. Aidan. She zeroed in on the car, slightly annoyed to see Dr. Northrop exiting the Land Rover, his glasses fogged. Liya frowned. Usually the man showed up later in the week at the clinic, administering to the patients in Aidan’s absence when his presence was a necessity over at Mansfield General. Her heart plummeted all the way below her now-wobbly knees and onto the muddy snow. Did this mean something happened to him? Her questions and comments had angered him. Oh God, had she plunged a knife deeper into hi
s wounds? Liya’s hands felt clammy, and the metallic taste of fear clung to her taste buds, burning the moisture from her mouth. What if Aidan had hurt himself…on purpose?

  “Good morning, Liya.” A smile broadened Dr. Northrop’s face. No outward sign of ill tiding. Her shoulders sagged in blessed relief and her heartbeat trotted to a steady pace.

  She extended a hand. “Morning, Dr. N. If you’re here to see Aid— I mean Dr. Keegan, I’m afraid he’s not here yet.”

  The man chuckled, clearly amused that she had almost referred to Aidan by his first name. Blood raced up her spine. The last thing she needed was for anyone, let alone a colleague of Aidan’s, believing she had anything less than utmost respect for him as a professional.

  “It doesn’t matter to me what you call him,” Dr. Northrop interjected. “Aidan’s not the one I came here to talk to. It’s you, young lady. I have an invitation for you.”

  “Me?”

  Dr. Northrop grinned in a patient manner. “Yes, you. A couple of the other doctors are gearing up for a holiday weekend up at Bear Ridge. We have a cabin all ready to go. You’re a member of the team, so how about it?”

  Liya blinked. This was unexpected. She had already started her preparation for a holiday alone, which basically meant doing nothing at all. Sure, her two best friends had invited her to their family celebration, but as always she had declined the offer, not wishing to be relegated to third wheel on such an important holiday. As Dr. Northrop’s words sank in, excitement bubbled then deflated like a popped balloon just as quickly. Aidan. He was the problem. These people were his colleagues, if not friends. If he were going to be there, surely her presence would be out of the question.

  “Will Dr. Keegan be there? I’m not sure it’s a good idea—”

  “Aidan has other plans. He won’t be there.” Dr. Northrop’s brows shot up to his temple. “Why?”