Marta Perry - The Doctor's Christmas

He digested that. “But you’re not really related.”

“No.” She shrugged. “Folks round here take care of each other when there’s trouble, blood kin or not.”

The white frame church was just ahead, its primitive stained-glass windows glowing with the light from within. A chord of music floated out on the chilly air, followed by a burst of laughter.

An urgency he didn’t understand impelled him. “What kind of trouble?”

Aunt Elly stopped just short of the five steps that led up to the church’s red double doors. He felt her gaze searching his face.

Then she shook her head. “I ’spect that’s for Maggie to tell you, if she wants to.”

She marched up the steps, and he had no choice but to follow.

The small church had a center aisle with pews on either side. At a guess, the sanctuary probably seated a hundred or so. Plain white walls, simple stained glass, a pulpit that had darkened with age but had probably never been beautiful—he couldn’t imagine a greater contrast to the Gothic cathedral-style church of his boyhood.

The atmosphere was different, too. There, he recalled the hushed rustle of women’s dresses, the soft whisper of voices beneath the swelling notes of the organ. Here, laughter and chatting seemed acceptable. More than half the people in the church were children, and they trotted around as comfortably as if they were on the playground.

“Okay, come on.” Maggie, standing by the piano at the front, had to clap her hands to make herself heard over the babble of voices. The deep red sweater she wore with her jeans brought out the pink in her cheeks.

“Let’s have a look at everyone who wants to be a wise man,” she announced. “Come up front, right…”

The end of that sentence trailed off when she saw him. Fortunately, the thunder of small feet would have drowned it out anyway.

Maggie’s eyes narrowed as she looked from him to Aunt Elly. Irritation pricked him. She had no reason to look as if he didn’t belong here. He’d been invited.

He’d have slid into the back pew, but Aunt Elly grasped his arm and marched him down the aisle to near the front. Their progress was marked by murmurs.

“There’s the new doctor.”

“Young, ain’t he?”

“Hi, Doc.”

He nodded to those who greeted him and tried to ignore the other comments. He slid into the pew after Aunt Elly with a sense of relief. Then he glanced toward the front and found Maggie still watching him.

She blinked as their gazes met and turned quickly toward the children, but not before he saw her color heighten.

“Well, that’s great.” She seemed to count the small figures who bounced in front of her. “I think we need to narrow this down a bit.”

“Can’t we have more than three kings?” one of the kids asked.

It was Joey, he realized. The boy’s face shone with scrubbing and his blond hair had been plastered flat to his head.

So the little monster wanted to be one of the magi. Grant would have expected a shepherd or a donkey was more his speed.

“I don’t think—” Maggie began.

Some mischievous part of his mind prompted him. “The Bible doesn’t actually say there were three wise men,” he pointed out. “Only that there were three gifts.”

“That’s right.” The man in the pew in front of him turned, smiling, and extended his hand. “Welcome. You’d be Dr. Hardesty, of course. I’m Jim Michaels.”

Pastor Michaels, to judge by the Princeton Theological Seminary sweatshirt he wore. Grant tensed as he shook hands, and had to remind himself to relax.

“Sorry, Reverend. I didn’t mean to start a theological quarrel.”

“Jim, please.” The young minister had a wide smile, sandy hair and a faded pair of jeans to go with the sweatshirt, which looked new enough to suggest he hadn’t been out of school long. “Discussion, not quarrel.”

“I think we’ll stick with the traditional three kings,” Maggie said firmly.

She frowned at him, and he smiled back, unrepentant. This was different enough from the church he remembered that it didn’t bring up unhappy memories. And he enjoyed watching take-charge Maggie being ruffled by a crew of rug rats.

“Three kings,” she repeated, in response to a certain amount of sniveling. “But the rest of you get to be angels or shepherds. Won’t that be fun?”

As she went on with the casting, he had to admit she seemed to have a talent for making people happy. Even the most reluctant angel was brought around by the promise of having a gold halo.

Pastor Jim kept up a quiet commentary about the pageant, which Maggie seemed to tolerate with an amused smile. Unlike the look she’d darted at him when he’d intervened, he noted.

Well, presumably Pastor Jim was her friend, along with everyone else in the sanctuary. He thought again about the bombshell Aunt Elly had dropped on their walk to the church. The trouble in Maggie’s family must have been fairly serious for her to be farmed out to a neighbor at that age.

He studied Maggie’s face as she announced the parts for the pageant. Did that uncertainty in her childhood account for her fierce protectiveness toward these people? Maybe so. He knew as well as anyone the influence a childhood trauma could have on the rest of a person’s life.

“Let’s finish up with a carol before we go downstairs for dessert.” Maggie glanced toward Pastor Jim, who obediently seated himself behind the piano.

“What will it be?” he asked, playing a chord or two.

“‘Away in a Manger,’” several children said at once.

“You’ve got it.” He began to play.

Grant tried to open his mouth, to sing like everyone else.

Away in a manger, no crib for his bed.

But something had a stranglehold on his throat, and he seemed to see his brother’s face, his eyes shining in the light of a thousand candles.

He’d thought he could cope with this, but the old anger and bitterness welled up in him so strongly that it was a wonder it wasn’t written all over him.

Maggie had her arms around a couple of the children as they sang. She glanced at him, and apparently his expression caused her to stumble over a phrase.

Maybe his feelings were written on his face. All he could think was that the moment the song was over, he was out of there.

The expression on Grant’s face when the children began to sing the old carol grabbed at Maggie’s heart and wouldn’t let go. Dr. Grant Hardesty, the man she’d thought had everything, looked suddenly bereft.

She couldn’t have seen what she thought she’d seen. That glimpse into his soul shook her, rattling all her neat preconceptions about who and what he was.

The last notes of the carol still lingered on the air as people started to make their way to the church basement and the homemade pies. Grant looked as if he intended to head straight back the aisle and out the door.

Aunt Elly didn’t give him the opportunity. She grabbed his arm as soon as they stood, steering him toward the stairs at the rear of the sanctuary.

Maggie followed, shepherding the flock of children along the aisle. She was close enough to hear Aunt Elly as they reached the back of the church.

“Come along now.” She hustled him toward the stairs. “You don’t want to get last choice of the pie, do you?”

Grant was out of Maggie’s sight for a few minutes as they started down. By the time she and her charges had reached the church basement, he had resumed his cool, well-bred expression. That brief moment when she’d glimpsed an inner pain might have been her imagination, but she couldn’t quite make herself believe that.

The children scattered, some racing for the table, others searching for their parents. She hesitated. Should she go up to Grant and introduce him around? She hadn’t brought him. That was clearly Aunt Elly’s idea.