Their Christmas to Remember

by Amalie Berlin

  “Don’t open it,” he said quickly. “I want you to wait to open it until you’re ready. But when you’re ready, I’ll have words to say too.”

  Another promise, in case she hadn’t quite understood the first one, or maybe in case she hadn’t quite believed it. Not leaving anything to chance.

  She nodded, kissed him and asked again, “Take me home?”

  Late that night, long after she should’ve reported for her shift—which Alberts had amiably canceled for her in exchange for rescinding her resignation—she opened the box while Wolfe lay beautiful and bare, stretched out asleep on the bed beside her.

  Inside sat a gorgeous square diamond on an intricately carved band, glittering more than the Christmas tree she’d been pleased to see he’d finished on his own.

  Placing the small box on his chest, she leaned in to whisper into his sleeping ear, “I want you to say your words.”

  He came awake immediately, a smile on his sleepy face, arm around her shoulders contracting to keep her against him.

  He spoke of his hopes for their future—children, triumphs and holidays in the snow—but he also spoke about what worried him, so open and unfiltered it sounded like poetry to someone who knew far too much about surviving bad times alone. The promise of someone to survive bad times with, to share grief with, was beautiful, and brought a kind of peace she’d never even known existed.

  It also carried the promise of this being a Christmas to remember, even if neither of them knew what they were doing.

  “I want to keep doing all the things until Christmas gets here.” she said.

  His brows popped up, but he smiled. “After Santa comes are you going to wear the elf costume for me?”

  “I thought I just got a promotion to Mrs. Claus?”

  “Okay, okay. Wear the elf costume for me later though.” He wiggled his brows before tugging her in for a kiss. “I was promised lots of amazing, crazy sex.”

  “I didn’t say crazy.”

  “Elf sex.”

  “I didn’t say elf sex.” She laughed at the fool. “Well, okay. But I get kilted Highland warrior sex since my stitches are out.”

  He chuckled and rolled, “I’ll get my kilt.” His warm, firm length pressed her into the mattress on the side with her good knee and stopped all their silly bartering with a much more serious kiss that would last until dawn.

  * * * * *

  Look out for the next story in the Scottish Docs in New York duet

  Healed Under the Mistletoe

  And if you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Amalie Berlin

  Back in Dr. Xenakis’ Arms

  The Rescue Doc’s Christmas Miracle

  The Prince’s Cinderella Bride

  Dante’s Shock Proposal

  All available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Healed Under the Mistletoe by Amalie Berlin.

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  Healed Under the Mistletoe

  by Amalie Berlin

  CHAPTER ONE

  NURSE PRACTITIONER YSABELLE SABETTA signed the last page of her employment paperwork and slid the bundle back across the desk.

  No matter how many times she did it, her first day in a new facility always filled Belle with a mix of excitement and anxiety. She did it a lot, in fact, since she had only worked in contracted, short-term positions since she’d been accredited, first at home in Arizona, and then in neighboring southwestern states. This time the process was different: she’d taken the position straight out, and still wasn’t sure why she’d done that. Once the signings were complete, she’d be a full-time employee of a Manhattan hospital.

  Her sister would’ve approved of this move, living in New York, a city they’d always felt linked to by their grandmother, who’d been born and raised in Queens, but followed to Arizona the injured soldier she’d fallen for while tending him in Korea during the war.

  After a lifetime of Nanna’s stories about magical New York Christmases, the girls had vowed to make it there for the Christmas season so many times, but Belle had only made it after Noelle died.

  She was never supposed to be there alone. But she was. She’d been there three days and although she was able to keep clear-headed most of the time, sometimes the world around her seemed to have sped up or she’d slowed down, as if she was out of pace with not only the city, but reality. The world didn’t spin, but the sensation was there deep in her chest, as if her inner gyroscope were broken and everything around her were spinning.

  Nothing good could come from dwelling on it right now. Not on her first day. Really not on her first day in the biggest city she’d ever visited, let alone moved to—a place that might be too big for her, too much for her.

  She had no idea what she might encounter, aside from the sort of situations depicted in horror-story documentaries about life in the ER, and sexy television medical dramas. Which narrowed expectations down to removing some bizarre item from a place it should’ve never been stuck, and a sexy rendezvous in the supply room with an arrogant ladies’ man who saved lives in between supply-room romps.

  Or maybe she’d be taken hostage by an injured criminal who somehow had gotten a disposed syringe from the sharps container, filled with a mysterious cleaning fluid, and stabbed her in the neck while threatening to fill her carotid with something caustic and deadly if they didn’t give him a helicopter and a million dollars in untraceable bills. Anything was possible.

  What curdled this morning’s coffee was more terror-tinged anxiety than excitement, mixed with the nitroglycerin-like certainty that she’d made a terrible mistake. That New York was too big for her, even outside work. She’d always been the timid twin—Noelle could stare down a dragon and Belle had once been cowed by a grumpy chihuahua.

  “I hope you’ll enjoy your time at Sutcliffe Memorial, Ms. Sabetta.” The woman handling her paperwork smiled, showing no teeth and no warmth. A smile with too much knowing in it to inspire confidence, as if she could read anxiety in Belle’s penmanship.

  She peered at her signature, half convinced she’d see the same shakiness that had seeped into Nanna’s penmanship near the end.

  Once again, Ms. Masterson went over the guidelines of the probationary period, delineating the date where she’d become officially an employee of Sutcliffe, and the restrictions. Belle initialed where appropriate, and kept up the polite conversation expected of her. “I’ll look forward to that date and...”

  Muffled alarm bounced off the closed office door, stalling her words and kicking her pulse up a notch.

 
Raised voices.

  A woman’s voice. Maybe the assistant who’d seen her in earlier. What had she said?

  She twisted to look at the door, muscles tense, ready to run one way or another, then turned again to Masterson. It was her office. If she should be alarmed by the commotion, as the prickling sensation on the back of Belle’s neck argued, Masterson would show it.

  People shouted in hospitals more than one would think. People in pain couldn’t be faulted, but that wasn’t the only reason people lost control. Emotions ran high where life-and-death decisions happened. People got angry. Sometimes people were delusional and not capable of controlling outbursts. Sometimes, even more sadly, outbursts were prompted by mind-altering substances.

  But this office was nowhere near treatment facilities. It was an office at the end of a hallway packed with other offices.

  Masterson’s calm, slow head tilt didn’t clarify whether Belle’s alarm was unfounded, but the shift of her gaze over Belle’s shoulder to the door behind her said enough. Paying extra attention to a commotion? A distinct reason for alarm.

  Unable to help herself, as the voices continued—now with a deep, clipped masculine voice breaking through—Belle twisted back to watch the door in case a madman burst in.

  “Should we check?”

  The sudden swing of the door, combined with that hyper-alert prickling of her skin, launched her from the chair. She whirled to face the coming danger, every muscle balled and ready to do...something.

  A tall, broad-shouldered man in scrubs strode in, a sheet of paper held in one hand—not a weapon. He glanced at her, but she clearly wasn’t who he’d come to see, as his glacial blue eyes returned to Masterson, still in her chair, far more at ease than Belle.

  Past him, she could see the assistant hovering in the doorway, looking apologetic and worried.

  “I’m not doing it,” the man said without preamble, giving the paper a flick to send it fluttering onto Masterson’s desk. “I’ve told you twice, I’ll not be dragged into this holiday madness. I’m not my brother—he can be Administration’s puppet.”

  He had an accent, there but slight, and the man projected such unpleasantness, she didn’t want the little thrill his accent stirred. Didn’t want to examine it.

  It reminded her of a person who’d spent their first ten years in another country but moved early enough to nearly lose their original accent. However, the clipped, perfectly enunciated words were like another language entirely; fluent irritation was the strongest accent she heard, strong enough it was impossible to miss.

  “Your brother isn’t a puppet, Dr. McKeag,” Masterson said, reaching for the paper to read it.

  The fact that Belle had leaped from her seat as one might a burning building went blessedly unacknowledged, but that did nothing to diminish the creeping sense of foolishness inching down her spine. Still standing out of the way of an irritated, paper-wielding doctor? All remnants of her nurse’s pride bristled.

  He was just so close to her chair. Returning to it felt like sitting on a snake’s rattler but moving farther away would look as if she was every bit as intimidated as she felt, especially when he looked at her and those ice-shard eyes shouted at her.

  I see you.

  I know I’m interrupting.

  I don’t give a damn.

  It wasn’t that he reeked anger, but she couldn’t imagine anyone missing the cold, disdainful irritation that put him above, somehow. It was almost how she’d picture an angry king, forced to communicate with his lowly, and possibly scabby, subjects. Superior. Arrogant. Bothered.

  If the universe had any affection for her, this would be her only interaction with him. Ever. Even if she was intrigued by the accent. And his shoulders.

  “Isn’t Wolfe doing enough of this nonsense with Conley? I suppose it’s somewhat suiting to Pediatrics, but it’s beneath the other departments. This is Manhattan, not the North Pole Hospital.”

  “I’m sure your inclusion was a mistake, Dr. McKeag,” Masterson said, looking a little bit bored. “And there’s no need to be sarcastic.”

  Hands free of the offending paper, now propped onto his narrow hips, drawing her attention again to the breadth of his shoulders. The black scrubs stretched tight across his chest, defining everything. Impressive torso: one more shallow mark in his favor. Also, as inappropriate of her to dwell on as the man’s other attributes. Like his haircut: a strange mix of a carelessly natural, longish top and neckline razored to perfection. His hair should not matter.

  “I’m a Scot. It’s genetic.” He said this so precisely she wanted to believe him. She could see the title of the imaginary medical journal article now: Sarcasm Gene Discovered in Ancient Scottish Burial Site.

  The deadpan way he delivered it said he wasn’t done, no wrap-this-up inflection to his words, even though he’d just won. Masterson’s words were both admission and apology. The argument should be over. He should be going. Belle would like to get back to the business of finishing her paperwork, so she could get to the Emergency Department and get on with being out of her depth and out of her mind to take this position in the first place.

  “Good.” He looked at her again and the curiosity she didn’t want to feel bloomed into life, a sign Belle should sit back down so he would be out of her line of sight and less inclined to sexually harass him in her mind—something he’d surely see on her face if he had any intuition or experience with women, which he certainly did, looking like that.

  He wasn’t her type anyway, even if his attractiveness could counter his personality. Belle tended to date the kind of man who never stormed anywhere, outside video games. And, generally, only had the broad-shoulder thing happening in the avatars they selected. They were kind, quiet, intelligent and introverted, like her. Storming anywhere besides a digital castle to fight an electronic troll would never, ever occur to them.

  The mental comparison conjured him in a set of armor, a battered iron helmet, with a broadsword, and was somehow less laughable than she would’ve hoped. Instead, it made her think of the sexy Viking book she’d read the other day.

  Whatever. She was going to sit. Not stand there and stare at the man.

  Pretend he wasn’t standing close to the chair she was foolish to continue avoiding when he wasn’t a threat, just exceedingly cranky about a Christmas molehill. Irritating. Not dangerous. She’d moved to New York City and had to act like it. Have some gumption. Decide he could just take his impressive torso, enviably square jaw, and step to the side to avoid standing close to her.

  Yeah! Lie to herself. Might as well. Vigorous denial got her through everything else in her life, let her pretend she wasn’t the last Sabetta standing.

  She sighed before she could stop herself, but Masterson’s glance pushed those thoughts aside.

  She was usually better at putting away the misery she’d been avoiding for over a year, but since she’d arrived in New York her subconscious had waged a near constant assault.

  She took a breath, stepped right back to the chair and sat, keeping him and his dark, foreboding shoulders out of view.

  But not far enough away that she couldn’t still feel him, looming like a thundercloud in his black scrubs.

  She glanced down into the bag still sitting beside her chair where she’d stashed the three sets of departmental scrubs she’d been provided. The black scrubs.

  Her stomach dropped.

  Damn. He was from Emergency, and this rude showdown wasn’t even related to the job. Nothing to do with patient care. She liked to think of all medical professionals having the guts to go to the mat for their patients, but all this was about Christmas activities?

  One glance over her shoulder confirmed the sharp set of his clean-shaven jaw was not that of a happy man. The dissonance between his reaction to the event and the importance of it clanged like a gong in her ear.

  If anyone understood
dreading the holidays, it was her. Thanksgiving had been bad enough the past couple of years, but Christmas was worse.

  Although her family had a history of service—starting with Nanna exchanging her white cap for fatigues to serve in the Korean War, continuing with Dad, a Scottsdale policeman until his death, to Belle becoming a nurse—Noelle had started her career as a flight attendant, then secured flight training and become one of the few female pilots in a major commercial airline. Her life had been flying around the world, gone most of the time, but she’d always come back home for Christmas. At least for long enough to fetch Belle for their traditional adventure.

  They were always together for Christmas, and that now made the season about two months of misery.

  Yet, even she—with her impossibly good reasons to dread the season—couldn’t drum up this level of irritation at being included by someone.

  The muscle at the corner of his ridiculously square jaw bunched and flexed, bunched and flexed, and could be doing nothing but gritting and grinding his back teeth. Not irritated. Angry.

  “Emergency, of all departments, is too busy and too critical for this kind of nonsense to take up space in anyone’s head. Lives are on the line.”

  This was him holding back? Boggled the mind.

  “This is a hospital. Lives are on the line in all departments.”

  “And in Emergency, the line is much narrower than most other departments. It’s the front line. People need to be focused, not distracted by and gossiping about orchestrated, compulsory...festivities.”

  The pause that lingered before he uttered the word festivities spoke to this civilized visage he projected to cover some of his anger, but her mind supplied several less civilized words that better expressed his vibe, and Nanna’s mantra sprang to mind right behind it: People who hurt others are suffering too. Suffering.

  No. Nope. Not thinking that today either. She didn’t have space left in her head to worry about a random, cranky doctor on her first day in a job that was probably too big for her anyway.