Carol Marinelli - Playboy On Her Christmas List

‘You’re preaching to the converted,’ Daniel agreed.

‘Are you not a fan of Christmas?’ Kay asked.

‘Nope.’

‘Nor me,’ Kay agreed. ‘It brings out the worst in everyone. You should see this place on Christmas night.’ She got back to the staring at the computer screen, though she carried on chatting with Daniel. ‘Are you going to the emergency department Christmas party tonight?’

‘Nope.’

Kay laughed at his truculent response but then she frowned. ‘How come you’re still here? I thought you were just doing a few locums until your friend got married. The wedding was last week, wasn’t it?’

‘It was.’ Daniel nodded and carried on writing.

He had finished up his role at the Royal at the end of September and had just been killing time until his best friend Rupert’s wedding had taken place. Soon he would be taking a year off. First he would hit the ski slopes in Switzerland and then...well, he’d see what happened when it happened.

‘Why didn’t you just start your travels and fly back for the wedding?’ Kay asked.

‘Oh, no...’ Daniel shook his head. ‘Once I’m gone, I’m gone for good.’

‘That sounds profound!’ Holly was back, minus tinsel and snowmen. Her hair had been scraped back into an even tighter ponytail but was now dotted with glitter. She had a worried expression aimed at Kay because she really needed Christmas off this year.

Holly knew that, if the roster had to be changed, she didn’t really have a leg to stand on—around this time last year her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Then, despite Holly being rostered to work Christmas and New Year, Kay had been wonderful, giving Holly ten days off so that she could have some family time.

The trouble was, a cancer diagnosis didn’t follow a specified timeline with a neat conclusion to signal the end.

The last year had been a fraught one, with Holly taking her little red car up and down the motorway every chance she could and wrestling the off duty around her mother’s treatment. Esther had recently had to have a second round of chemotherapy, and while the news was a whole lot better Esther really wanted her family home for Christmas.

And lately, what Esther wanted, Esther got!

Holly blew out a tense breath. She loved her family dearly but things had been a bit difficult lately, to say the least.

While she hoped that Kay would understand when she came to make the necessary changes Holly needed to be sure. ‘Kay, could I have a word?’

‘If it’s about the Christmas roster, the answer is no. Your request has been noted. And, yes,’ she added. ‘I do know it’s also your birthday.’

‘Were you a Christmas baby, Holly?’ Daniel asked.

‘Why do you think I’m called Holly?’

‘Because you’re so prickly.’

It was a small joke—Holly was the least prickly person. She was happy and sunny and that they could tease each other about such things without having to explain they were joking, well, it was sort of where they were at.

‘So,’ Daniel asked, ‘do you miss out on your birthday?’

‘No.’ Holly shook her head. ‘My parents always make sure that both are celebrated.’

‘Of course they do, Polly.’

She got the Pollyanna insinuation and gave him a sweet smile. ‘Better than cynical. So,’ she asked, returning to the conversation she had walked in on the tail end of, ‘why didn’t you just fly home for the wedding?’

‘There was the stag night to organise,’ Daniel explained. ‘Actually, there were two of them.’

‘You could have just flown back for a couple of weeks.’ Holly repeated Kay’s assumption but Daniel shook his head.

‘Rupert had a highly strung bride-to-be who was worried that I’d be a no-show if I left the country. She was actually right to be concerned—as I said, when I’m gone, I’m gone.’

Holly didn’t like that.

Daniel had worked quite a few shifts now and she was getting used to having him around.

Or rather she was starting to get used to the feeling that an egg beater had been set at full whisk in the middle of her chest.

Daniel was, for want of a better word, gorgeous.

Yes, yes, he was tall and had thick black hair and a scent that had her toes curl, he had all of that but it was his eyes that had first sent Holly’s world spinning.

Absolute navy.

It was as if the artist had meant to get back and add silvery flecks and little dots of aqua but had forgotten to. Yet he was no unfinished masterpiece. Those eyes were just this delicious navy rimmed with a halo of black and, at first look, Holly had been unable to stop staring. She had wanted to apologise, to explain she was looking for said silver specks and dots of aqua, but instead she had stared.

And so had he.

At green eyes that had appeared startled.

‘Is everything okay?’ he had checked.

‘I have an abdo pain...’ Holly had attempted to explain that she had a patient she would like him to see in Cubicle Four but she had been so flustered that it had come out all wrong. ‘And vomiting.’

‘Then go and lie down and let me take a look at you.’

His voice was snobby, his humour hers, and she had been tempted, almost, to call his bluff and do just that. Instead she had smiled. ‘I’ll see you in Cubicle Four.’

Holly’s abdo pain had turned out to be a twenty-year-old with query appendicitis. Daniel had walked in to where Holly had been holding a bowl for the patient and he had given her a tiny smile to insinuate he had rather hoped she had been lying in wait for him.

‘Pity,’ he’d said.

Yet a little flirt, though huge to Holly, was just a walk in the park for him. He was suave and from what she gathered he dated a lot, and, in truth, neither was the other’s type.

Except...

‘What was the wedding like?’ Holly asked. She was curious to know more about the reason for delaying his trip.

‘Like all weddings are,’ Daniel said, as Holly jumped up and sat on the bench beside where he was trying to write his notes. ‘Long.’

‘What did the bride wear?’ she asked.

‘From memory, a dress,’ Daniel said. ‘Possibly it was white.’

‘I love winter weddings,’ Holly sighed. ‘Especially if it’s snowing.’

‘The church was freezing,’ Daniel told her, and from his voice it was clear that he had a rather less dreamy take on things. ‘And then it poured with rain for the photos.’

‘Who was your plus one?’ Kay asked, without turning her head from the computer screen.

‘I never take a plus one to a wedding.’ Daniel shook his head. ‘Well, I haven’t for a long time. I learnt the hard way that if you bring a date she assumes that it must mean you’re serious. Anyway, I was the best man for this one so all that was expected from me in that department was to get off with the chief bridesmaid.’

‘And did you?’ Kay asked.

‘That would be telling,’ Daniel said. ‘And I never do.’

He looked at Holly then—just an itsy-bitsy look that told her she’d be in very discreet hands.

God, he was forward!

Yet she smiled at the tiny flirt behind Kay’s back.

‘Anyway,’ Daniel continued, ‘I wanted to do the right thing by Rupert. He was very good to me when...’ He didn’t finish, or rather he just didn’t continue with what he had started to say. ‘He’s a very good friend.’

‘So how come you weren’t out on the first flight after the wedding?’ Kay pushed.

‘Just...’ He gave a small shrug and it was there that the conversation ended.

Daniel simply didn’t answer—he did that a lot.

He might be forward with his flirting but when a conversation veered too close to personal he simply halted it.

Daniel got back to his notes and, interlude over, Kay carried on staring at the off duty, but finally she gave in.