One Great Christmas Love Story

by Kaylee Baldwin

  He looked down at his hands, and she knew he regretted saying anything. But Jack Shay was not the kind of person to back down from a question. “I was in a dark place after the accident. Dallon was—well, besides my daughter, he was the only good person I had in my life. I knew he’d want me to watch over you, and it gave me purpose. A reason to get up in the morning and to keep living.” He looked straight at her. “Whenever I wanted to give up or give in, I thought of you, and I could get through another day.”

  Holly swiped her unexpected tears away. “I didn’t know any of that.”

  “I’ll never understand why I lived and he didn’t. He was the better person. The world needed him more.”

  Holly sat back in her seat, all the wind blown out of her, the camera mostly forgotten. “I’m glad you lived.” She tried, for only a moment, to imagine what life would be like for her if they had both died. It made her ill to even contemplate. But not once had she asked herself why Jack lived and Dallon hadn’t. She’d been a doctor long enough to know there wasn’t order to these kinds of events. An eighty-year-old man could survive the same kind of heart attack that killed a forty-year-old woman with five children.

  “I’m so glad you lived,” she repeated fervently, taking his hand to emphasize what she said. “He was a good man, but so are you.”

  “Are you going to edit this out?” he asked.

  She laughed. She’d worn waterproof mascara out of habit (the love stories often had a way of making her tear up), but no amount of makeup would cover her red eyes. “We’ll see. I can’t believe you made me cry. This is supposed to be a fun, lighthearted Christmas episode.”

  “Sorry,” he said, his tone too serious. “I’m really very sorry.”

  “You have nothing, nothing, to be sorry about. I mean it.” She stared at him, and he stared back. Some of the heat from earlier started to burn low in her belly again. She still held his hand, didn’t want to let it go, but she had to.

  He relaxed into his seat and motioned toward the camera. “Take two?”

  She shook her head with a smile she couldn’t keep from her face if she tried. She turned back to the camera. “As you can see, Jack is my favorite person in the whole world, and I would love nothing more than for him to have his one great love story. Jack, can you tell the viewers a little about yourself?”

  “Sure. I’m a radiologist. I have a daughter. I like to watch One Great Love Story.” From here, his words cut off, and it took a beat of silence for her to realize he was done.

  “You have nothing else to say?”

  He shrugged. “That’s pretty much my whole life right there. Plus hanging out with you.”

  Okay, this was going to have to be less of an interview and more of a monologue about Jack’s good features. So she turned to the camera. “Ladies, listen up. The first time I met Jack was in med school. My husband and I had just started dating when he brought over this guy from his study group: Jack Shay. I recognized him immediately from one of my classes. And who was Jack Shay? The very guy who had interrupted my comment in class and corrected my answer in front of everyone.”

  He uncharacteristically ran his hand through his hair. “I was so obnoxious. Is that why you didn’t like me?”

  She cringed. She knew she hadn’t been subtle about it, but they’d never actually talked about how they’d clashed through medical school. She’d been glad to see him take residency at a different hospital from her and Dallon, so they only saw him a few times a year, until they all took jobs at the same hospital to be close. By then, Jack was married to Rebecca, who was about the most unpleasant person Holly had ever met. She was ashamed to admit that at the time, she’d thought they were perfect for each other. How wrong she was. Wrong about so many things.

  “Do you remember in med school when you grabbed all of my note cards from the table?” Jack turned to the camera now. “There were hundreds of them, and you threw them in my face. It took me hours to straighten them up.”

  She covered her mouth to hide the quick burst of laughter. She couldn’t remember what he’d said or done to spark such an impassioned response out of her, probably something arrogant. Dallon had been upset with her over it, and she’d apologized to Jack—through her teeth. Dallon was always calling her out for letting Jack get under her skin when she could brush off when anyone else would do or say something to her. She didn’t act like this with anyone else, but Jack’s know-it-all ways and outright rudeness made her want to take him down a peg or ten. She’d always promise to do better, but then Jack would provoke her again, and she’d end up dumping her soda in his lap or “forgetting” to grab his order when it was her turn to do a food run.

  “We got off on the wrong foot,” she explained to the camera.

  Jack hooted, something she’d never heard him do before. “The wrong foot? More like the wrong everything. I would provoke you to see what you would do in retaliation.”

  “Are you serious?” She turned to him. “You were doing it on purpose?”

  “Of course.” He smiled like he was fondly remembering the best times of his life.

  “You used to make me so mad!”

  “I liked seeing the fire in you. You were so stressed at school, spun up in worry and studying, and we wouldn’t see your head emerge from your books for a week, so I’d make an obnoxious comment or correct you in class—even if you were right, I’d come up with something more right—and it was like you’d come out of a fog and some of the fire was back.”

  “I can’t believe you provoked me on purpose,” she said, still shaking her head. She had to admit that when she thought about medical school, the memories that stood out the most, besides falling in love with Dallon, were all the schemes she’d dreamed up to get back at Jack. Most of the time, though, she’d been reacting on a whim, and those were the ones that got the messiest. “Did you enjoy having me throw soda on you, or get you locked out of lab, or all of the things I did to get back at you?”

  “It was a challenge. I didn’t love having to put all those note cards back in order, but I deserved it. I did love seeing your satisfied smile, though. Every single time.”

  She covered her face for a moment, her entire past realigning and resetting into this new place. She had been happy every time she got him back, and if she was being completely honest, she always got some sort of high from Jack’s attention—but then she’d feel guilty for stooping to Jack’s level and disappointing Dallon. It had been a constant war.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” she said pointedly, “but the viewers don’t need to know our entire complicated history. I’ll just say we’ve both matured greatly since this time.”

  She waved at the camera to signal that she was moving on. “Jack got married while doing his residency, and though things didn’t work out, he does have the sweetest daughter from it. Now, Jack spends most of his time working as one of our top radiologists and donates time to the free clinic run by the foundation my late husband started for the underprivileged and disabled members of our community. What else can I say?” She glanced over at Jack. “He’s kind, funny, crazy smart, and has come a long way from the days when he’d drive me absolutely nuts. I don’t know if I could make it a day without him. He’s a rock.” She looked back to the camera. “A total catch.”

  His smile was unreadable.

  “What are you looking for in a woman, Jack?”

  Jack turned from the camera to look directly at Holly. “Someone who is smart, smarter than me. Someone kind, with a big heart. Someone so beautiful she makes my breath catch. Someone who understands my humor but will call me out when I need it. Someone who, when I wake up every morning, I think about her and I look forward to seeing her, and my days are better because she’s in them.”

  There was silence between them then, only broken by the faintest sound of “Silent Night” playing. She hadn’t even realized the Christmas music from outside had started back up again.

  Holly blinked, realizing she’d been holdin
g her breath, grateful for the distraction. Oh my, but Jack was going to make some woman very, very lucky. She went to speak but found she couldn’t. She cleared her throat. “So there you have it. If anyone deserves their one great love story, it’s Jack. So what I’d love for you to do, if you’re watching this and you think you or someone you love would be a good fit for him, email me a video by next Monday of why you’d like me to set you up with Jack.”

  She closed out her show and stood, feeling a little light-headed for reasons she couldn’t pinpoint. “I’ve got to edit this and get it uploaded in the next couple of hours.” She snagged his coat and handed it to him.

  “Text me when it’s up.” He dragged a hand over his mouth. “I don’t know why I agreed to this.”

  “To make up for all the grief you gave me in college,” she said. “This is my final revenge.”

  He laughed, but it wasn’t quite as light as usual.

  “Do you want me to edit anything out?”

  “Nope. Better to weed out people right away by showing them the real me.”

  “Stop.” She paused. She wanted to do this, really wanted to do this, but not at his expense. “Hey, I wasn’t kidding about not doing the show. You can still pull the rip cord on this.”

  He shook his head and shrugged on his coat. “Nope, let’s do it. I don’t think I’m going to find my true love, but at least you won’t get in trouble with your sponsors.”

  She hated that he was so down on love, but no amount of words from her were going to change his mind. He’d have to experience it himself.

  Chapter 11

  Jack didn’t know if it was all in his head, or if people were actually looking at him strangely. People kept swiveling toward him as he walked past, then whispering to their companions. He finally slipped into the restroom to make sure he didn’t have a clothing malfunction—hole in his pants, pant leg tucked into his sock. All seemed fine.

  He walked purposefully back to his office in the free clinic, determined to ignore anyone and everyone, and paused to speak to the receptionist. “All images pass by my desk today,” he reminded her. Sometimes the visiting doctors wanted to read their own scans, but more than one mistake had been made that way, so when he was working, everything went through him.

  “Saw your show last night.” She gave him a coy smile and leaned forward in her chair.

  “My show.” He had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what she was talking about.

  “With Dr. Whitacre. Everyone’s been forwarding it around the clinic.”

  “So you’ve all seen it.” That explained the strange looks from earlier.

  “We’ve got a running list of people who want you to consider dating them.”

  He scowled. “We have work to do. If I see anyone watching a video today—of me or otherwise—they will be fired. Can you forward that message?”

  Her smile dropped and she sank back into her chair.

  He walked back into his office, annoyed at how messy one of the other doctors he shared it with had left the desk. In his softest moments, he’d admit he liked working at the free clinic, that it was rewarding, and work like this was what had interested him in being a doctor in the first place.

  But sometimes it also felt like living in a small town he couldn’t escape.

  “Jack!”

  He turned to find Holly in the hallway behind him later that day. He loved days when they both had clinic hours at the Bridger Cares Foundation. The clinic building was across the parking lot from the hospital, but it might as well have been in an entirely different world. It was quiet, for one, and Dallon had somehow convinced the hospital to update the suites with new carpeting, tile, lighting, and in some cases, in a few new machines.

  “Busy morning?” he asked.

  “I let them squeeze in a few walk-ins, so it’s been nonstop.”

  No matter what he said about people needing to plan ahead and their procrastination not constituting her emergency, she would continue to take the walk-ins. She had a soft spot for people and their stories; there was always a reason they’d been unable to make an appointment.

  “So, have you checked the MyHeartChannel views?”

  He shook his head. He’d done his best to forget it since his talk with the receptionist this morning. He’d received a few more furtive looks from people, but at least no direct comments. And no one had dropped off a list of potential dates—which was lucky for them.

  “You’ve gone viral.” She pulled out her phone to show him that they had over a million views.

  He groaned. Even more people had seen it than he feared.

  “What?” She knocked into his side. “This is good news.”

  “The receptionist is compiling a list of people who want to go on a date with me.”

  She laughed, and he smiled in response for a moment before frowning again. Nothing about this was funny.

  “Sorry, but really? Who was brave enough to tell you?”

  “The third-floor receptionist, Carrie. I threatened to fire her,” he reluctantly added, which made Holly laugh even harder.

  “You don’t even have the authority to fire her.”

  “She doesn’t know that.”

  Finally catching on that he wasn’t finding this nearly as amusing as she did, Holly rearranged her features into a more serious expression, although she couldn’t completely eradicate the humor shining from her eyes. “I haven’t had time yet to check my email, but I’m betting there are some great potential dates in there.”

  Jack’s pager went off, and he glanced down at it. There must be another image waiting for him. Some of the doctors hadn’t been too pleased with his decree, but he’d already caught one mistake and it wasn’t even noon yet.

  “Lunch?” Holly asked, walking backwards, away from him as he waited for the elevator to take him up to his medical suite.

  He frowned. “Can’t. I’ve got a meeting.”

  “Good luck, then. And Jack?” The elevator dinged; the doors opened. “I’m going to set up your first date for tomorrow night.”

  The doors closed between him, and he couldn’t help but feel there was something she wasn’t telling him. But maybe he was projecting, because there were so many things he wasn’t telling her—like that he was meeting with the director of Denver Central Medical Center for lunch, at the director’s insistence, to see if he was a good fit for this new job.

  Chapter 12

  Holly had a few minutes before her next patient would be ready to see her, a rare luxury. She sat in the comfortable desk chair she’d splurged on for her office and opened her One Great Love Story email account on her phone to see if anyone had messaged her about Jack. She’d expected more than her usual handful of emails since this one had gone viral already, but it was even more than she imagined.

  Over five hundred emails. As she sat there, marveling, another three more came in.

  She fell back in her chair as if the wind had been knocked out of her. She was going to have to rethink her policy of responding to every email. She randomly clicked on an email with the subject heading of Pick Meeeeee! Something told her this woman wouldn’t be the one for Jack, but she was going to try to not let her abundant use of the letter E prejudice her.

  But she would let the nearly nude picture do it.

  “Ugh,” she said, deleting the email. That one was not getting a response. She randomly clicked on a few more, but they were hardly any better, full of innuendo, racy photos, and embarrassing grammar and spelling errors. (Which she knew was the kind of thing that drove Jack crazy. He appreciated brevity, but mechanically correct brevity, not the replacement of letters for numbers and such.)

  She took a deep breath, all of her protective instincts flaring up. What in the world had she gotten Jack into? “They can’t all be like this,” she muttered, her eyes scanning the screen.

  She clicked to the very first email and read the subject heading: You Two Are So Cute! She half-closed her eyelids just in case. As a doctor, she�
��d seen plenty of nude bodies, yes, but she definitely did not appreciate pictures of them being emailed to her.

  Hi, Holly and Jack! I’m a huge fan of your show! I’ve seen every episode.

  Holly paused. Yes, this woman really enjoyed her exclamation points, but maybe that indicated she was a happy person. Holly wanted Jack to have a happy person, so this was good. She continued.

  This is my favorite episode yet! You and Jack are so cute together! So obviously in love! I think you should go on a date with him yourself instead of setting him up with someone else! Obviously, I’d love to go on a date with Dr. Hot, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned on this show, it’s not to stand in the way of true love!

  Holly felt her brows draw together. What? Clearly this lady was completely crazy. Her overuse of exclamation points evidenced that. Holly and Jack? She was seeing things that weren’t there.

  Holly clicked on the next email and was dismayed when it had the same theme: Holly and Jack were adorable together.

  She clicked on a few more emails where the subject heading said something like Cute! Or Perfect Together! Or Jack and Holly Forever. Some included screenshots, capturing the exact moments Holly and Jack had looked at each other in almost intimate ways: when she looked at him with tears in her eyes, while his gaze was filled with heart-wrenching pain (she definitely should have edited that out), the smiles they shared, making eye contact when they were talking about their pasts (they were reminiscing! Of course they looked connected!), and when he’d stared at her with his heated look while she was talking about his good qualities (well, that one was a little harder to explain). One had even zoomed in on the hand hold.

  “I was comforting him! Haven’t you heard that touch heals?” she growled at the email.