Cynthia Reese - Secret Santa

“Stop looking at me like that.” Charli chopped yet another carrot. “Talk to me. About anything.”

“Okay. How about what I heard from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation today about Secret Santa?” Neil asked.

The knife in Charli’s hand came down at an awkward angle, and Neil could see she’d almost cut herself. He sprang up to check on her, but she waved him off.

“Sorry! I’m all thumbs tonight,” she joked.

“More cutting like that, and you won’t have thumbs at all,” he said. But his comeback was reflexive. What he’d said had surprised her. That was clear.

“So …” Three more whacks and the carrot was history. “What did they tell you? Chief Hawkins didn’t seem to think it would be a high-priority case”

How was it he could still want to kiss her when he was convinced she knew more than she was telling him? Or telling the police?

Dear Reader,

As a kid, I never could understand my mom’s deep loathing of any Christmas lights that weren’t “white and twinkling.” After all, to my six-year-old eyes, our neighbor’s outlandish display of Christmas décor, complete with a Santa, a sleigh and reindeer on his roof, was perfect. My mother? Bless her heart, she’d grind her teeth when she drove by.

Eventually, my mom succeeded in converting me to the “white and twinkling” school of Christmas décor. When I married, though, my husband turned out to be a lot like Neil in Secret Santa—Christmas is his time to shine! Every year it’s a loving fuss over whether we keep my white lights or break out a new set of “real” (his words) Christmas lights. Still, as Neil and Charli discover, the true meaning of Christmas isn’t decorations, but the spirit of giving.

I loved writing Secret Santa … I loved discovering Neil’s wonderful, playful personality and seeing Charli learn to enjoy Christmas, despite some formidable obstacles. As you read their story, I hope you root for Neil and Charli as much as I did.

I’d love to hear from you. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow me at @cynthiarreese, and why not check out all the Heartwarming authors as we blog? You can find us at www.heartwarmingauthors.blogspot.com.

Merry Christmas!

Cynthia

Secret Santa

Cynthia Reese

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CYNTHIA REESECynthia Reese lives with her husband and their daughter in south Georgia, along with their two dogs, three cats and however many strays show up for morning muster. She has been scribbling since she was knee-high to a grasshopper and reading even before that A former journalist, teacher and college English instructor, she also enjoys cooking, traveling and photography when she gets the chance.

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In memory of William, one of my biggest cheerleaders ever. April is surely the cruelest month.

Acknowledgments

This book was a miracle in the making, impossible without my awesome editors Victoria Curran and Laura Barth—thank you, Laura, for all your cheering!

Many doctors helped me with technical and personal insight into the life of a young doctor, including Dr. Lawton Davis, Dr. Misty Poole, Dr. Gary Branch and Dr. Jean Sumner. More technical advice came from Terrance Shulman of The Shulman Center for Compulsive Theft, Spending & Hoarding, as well as Investigator Ron Bivens, who is not at all like the police chief in this story! All errors are mine, and I apologize profusely for any that may be there.

A huge thanks goes to my critique partner Tawna Fenske, to my sister Donna, and to my Twitter cheer squad—Jessica Lemmon, Linda Grimes, Jeannie Moon, Jamie DeBree, Susan Adrian, Deb Salonen, and Patty Blount—as well as to my wonderful Heartwarming blog sisters.

Most of all, big hugs to my wonderful, long-suffering husband and The Kiddo. I couldn’t have done it without you!

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER ONE

“YOU’RE NOT ASLEEP, are you?”

Dr. Charli Prescott snapped to attention from the doorjamb she’d been propped against. “’Course not,” she muttered to her amused-looking nurse, Lainey Edge. “Why on earth would I want to sleep? I’ve had the luxurious amount of two hours of sleep for three straight nights. If those new E.R. guys don’t get in here soon, though, I will be sleeping standing up.”

Lainey laughed and slapped a stack of charts in Charli’s hand. “Good to know, because there’s a broken arm from a ladder fall in Bay 2, and you’ve still got to sign off on discharge for Food Poisoning in Bay 1. Oh, and your dad says Knife Guy in the trauma room can go home.”

Charli had just caught the name of Broken Arm—Neil Bailey—on his chart when Lainey’s last words caught her. “Hey!” she hollered after the departing Lainey. “Knife Guy—” She stopped herself from breaking about a thousand privacy violations and closed the gap between her and Lainey. “I wanted Knife Guy—I mean, Mr. Anderson—admitted,” she told her. “I signed the admission paperwork. At least overnight. He could have sepsis.”

“Yeah, but your dad—”

“Is an old coot who likes to fly by the seat of his pants, and I don’t care if he is my new boss and the hospital’s chief of staff. Both of us are sleep deprived because somebody ran off all the E.R. docs and thought we could handle the E.R. until the staffing service cried uncle. We may miss something, and a twenty-three-hour admit is a good way to be sure we haven’t.”

Lainey looked about as excited at the prospect of getting in the middle of the brewing battle between Charli and Dr. Chuck Prescott as she would about going on a fast. “Look, he’s my boss—and yours, too. So before we put Knife Guy on the floor, can you talk to your dad?”

From behind them, the sounds of Food Poisoning’s retching came through the striped curtains dividing the hospital bays. Broken Arm, next door, called out, “Hey, I think my neighbor might need some help here! If you’re not going to get around to seeing me, could you help him? Please?”

Charli and Lainey exchanged a long weary glance. “I’ll call custodial,” Lainey said. “You sure Food Poisoning’s able to go home?”

“Yeah, not dehydrated yet—just be sure he gets some Phenergan before he leaves. He says he wants to go—that he can throw up at home as well as here. Got some sort of phobia about throwing up in public. I guess he should have thought of that when he ate week-old potato salad.” Charli shook her head to clear the cobwebs and skimmed Broken Arm’s chart. She hadn’t felt this tired since her first few weeks of med school.

“Okay, then, Food Poisoning’s chart’s on the bottom.”