Secret Santa

by Mina Carter

  She kicked out at him, trying to stamp on his toes as they’d been taught in the self defence classes they all attended as a matter of course. But the oxygen in her blood was depleting and her struggles became weaker and weaker.

  “I told you you’d never escape me. I don’t care if you get every court in the land to order me to keep away. You’re mine Jo and if I can’t have you… no one will,” James told her, his breath hot on her neck as he planted an almost tender kiss on her neck.

  Tears filled her eyes. No one was going to help her. Everyone would be outside, and it would take them a while to realise she was missing. More than enough time for James to choke the life out of her then escape through the confusion.

  Then, just as she accepted her fate, that she was going to die at the hands of her violent ex, just another statistic of domestic abuse, then all hell broke loose. The curtain behind them was ripped aside, another voice growling in anger. “You take your hands off her you spineless bastard and pick on someone your own size!”

  *

  It didn’t take Drew long to find Jo. The department was deserted now in preparation for the fire crew to come in and give it the all clear. The fire which had set the alarm off had been found and dealt with, a minor blaze in the waste bin of one of the outer offices. The Security teams had managed to put it out with fire extinguishers but procedure demanded the Fire Service conduct a visual inspection as well.

  The sounds of a struggle drew him straight to Jo and her attacker. His low, hate filled words registered in Drew’s ears with chilling clarity, the words filtering through the rage colouring the edges of his vision. This was her ex. Her ex had his hands around her throat, choking her.

  He snarled another threat as he launched himself across the intervening space. His large hands clamped on the other guy’s shoulders, wrenching him away from the petite woman pinned under him on the trolley and slamming him into the wall.

  Never in all his life had Drew been so angry.

  His lip curled back as he looked James up and down, contempt dripping from his voice as he spoke. “You want to get your rocks off beating someone up, you try it with me.”

  James’s eyes flicked from Jo, still gasping for breath on the bed, back to Drew. “Oh, isn’t it cute Jo, your fancy man’s come to your rescue. A real knight in shining armour,” he sneered, reaching into the pocket of his bomber jacket. Metal glinted as he withdrew it, a flick of his wrist opening the knife. “Guess I’ll have to teach him a lesson about messing with what’s mine. Say goodbye Jo.”

  Drew went still, all his attention focused on the madman with a knife in front of him. Jo screamed but he couldn’t afford to look at her. If this guy got him, Drew held no illusions about Jo’s fate. No way was he letting psycho here get to her.

  “Come on then Rambo. Let’s see what you’ve got.” His voice was calm, as though being threatened with a knife was an everyday occurrence. Which it wasn’t. Just every week or so, making it common enough for an A&E doctor like Drew to have been trained how to disarm someone.

  James grinned, slashing out in front of him with the knife. Cocky, that was the only way to describe him. Drew watched his every movement, waiting for the right time to strike.

  “When I’m done with you, there won’t be enough left to stitch together again.” James raised his arm, knife slicing down towards Drew in a vicious arc. The overhead light caught the vicious edge of the blade, an ominous shimmer along its length as it descended towards Drew’s unprotected abdomen.

  Drew wasn’t there, sidestepping and catching James’s wrist. He wasn’t a martial artist, not by a long stretch but he’d had this move drilled into him so many times he could do it in his sleep. And that one move, practised so many times, had all the speed and strength of a black belt.

  He stepped to the side, twisting James’s arm into a lock and slammed his hand into the back of his elbow. There was a meaty crunch and a squeal of pain as James dropped the knife. On automatic Drew kicked it away, using James’s damaged arm to drive him face first into the bed.

  He looked up, seeing Jo’s wide eyes on his face. Fear, relief, concern… for him all clearly visible. “Honey, I need you to go out and get the security guys for me. And get someone to call the police, ok?” He said, his voice gentle but firm, bringing all her attention onto him rather than the whimpering excuse for a man he held in an arm lock.

  She nodded and hurried away. Drew leaned down, his mouth on a level with James’s ear. “Let me give you one word of advice my friend. Never piss about with a doctor. I know more than enough about the way the human body is put together to take you apart piece by piece if you ever come near my fiancée again. Do I make myself clear?”

  *

  Jo was waiting for him when the police were done with him, sat behind the desk at the nurses’ station. Her dark eyes fixed on the door of the room they were interviewing him in. They’d already spoken to her, endless questions about her relationship with James, when she’d last seen him and about the break in at her house. Now Drew was going through the same, maybe worse since he’d not just restrained James, he’d injured him.

  The door opened and Jo was on her feet without thinking, crossing the hall in the blink of an eye to throw herself in his arms.

  “Thank you Doctor Carson, we’ll be in touch.” The police officer behind him said, nodding to Jo. “Might I suggest you take your fiancée home now? Sounds like she’s had a full day.”

  Drew smiled, his arm snaking around Jo’s waist. “Thank you constable, I fully intend to.”

  Fiancée? Jo frowned, her questioning gaze on Drew’s face as the police left. “Did he just say-”

  “Fiancée. Yes, he said fiancée,” Drew replied, turning to pull her into his arms. Absently she noted the small crowd gathering around them. The other nurses, the security staff… in fact the whole department. But the only thing Jo had eyes for was the man who held her in his arms.

  “Jo Micheals, I think you need to put me out of my misery. I’ve been stranded in a blizzard with you, I’ve nearly been stabbed over you. I think you should do me the honour of agreeing to be my wife, don’t you?”

  The room held its breath, all attention on Jo, waiting for her answer. She smoothed her hands over his shirt, ironing out the wrinkles as she pretended to think. But she couldn’t contain the surge of love and joy filling her heart, a broad smile breaking over her lips as she nodded.

  The whole A&E erupted into cheers as Drew pulled her closer, his lips a bare whisper away from hers as he whispered, “Good, because Santa didn’t just buy a pair of earrings. He brought a ring to match. Just in case.”

  Collision on 550

  By Doug Brown

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright© 2008 Doug Brown

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  Doug Brown is a writer who works as a programmer in South Carolina. He is in the fiction certificate program at Gotham Writers' Workshop and is married to his high school sweetheart. You can learn more at doug-brown.net

  Gavin hurried down the hall, the present knocking his ankles in the overly large department store bag. The woman at the desk told him it was all they had, Christmas time was good for that sort of thing, and put his size small box in a sack big enough to park a car in. Now he was cursing himself for not depositing it in the trash outside of the mall.

  The hospital was buzzing. Visitors sulked through the halls and bumped elbows with over-caffeinated nurses and techs. Gavin looked like one of them, his wrinkled scrubs clinging to a muscular frame he earned playing college football before breaking his knee in three places. Now it was a sh
ell of the pro athlete he was going to be, not the OR assistant he was. His cheeks were peppered with wiry stubble, his hair a thick black shock atop a charming face.

  One of the administrators came up with the ridiculous idea of throwing the entire hospital’s staff into the pot for secret santa drawings. There was a new face in the upper echelon, and they unanimously agreed it was a great way for the staff to get to know each other cross-department. He got an e-mail with an attached form, filled out with a nameless female’s favorite favorites. He wanted to vomit. Instead, he waited until the day before he was supposed to drop his gift off on the fifth floor to go shopping.

  The elevators opened on a bustling fifth, filled with more zombie visitors. He pushed through a pack that was motioning to ask him something, the giant bag and present almost getting stuck, and propped himself on the nurses’ station.

  “Hey, where do we drop these off?”

  A plump woman with bloodshot eyes and a crooked nose looked up from her chart, narrowing on him. “You got a secret santa gift?”

  He paused, took a quick breath, and nodded. Stupid questions ranked pretty high on his pet peeve list.

  “On the 560 hall.” She blurted, going back to her chart immediately.

  Gavin nodded and gathered the sack for a better grip. He turned to read the hall numbers and the woman from the pack of visitors flagged him. He pointed her to the nurses’ station, feigned a terribly busy look, and scurried toward the 560’s.

  He was almost there, crossing the 550’s, when the blur of a woman in a jog collided with his right side. The pro athlete Gavin would’ve instinctively rolled away and prepared for a long pass. The OR tech Gavin hit the floor tangled in the bag, the woman, and whatever she was carrying.

  They stood and smoothed their clothes. Gavin bent to retrieve her neatly wrapped gift he nearly fell on and straightened to hand it back to her. When he stood his chest locked, his face flushed, and he suddenly forgot where he was headed. Standing before him was Kelly Riker, his girlfriend of three years. He hadn’t seen her since pro athlete Gavin went in to the hospital.

  “Gavin?” Her eyes widened, and he recognized them instantly. They were deep blue in the center, iced on the edges. He saw the way they looked at him back then. He saw late nights in the theater parking lot. He saw a dark green prom dress that fit her like a glove.

  “Kelly! Wow…” He could feel the blood in his cheeks, the back of his neck was on fire. His throat felt like sandpaper. He tried to think of something to say, his mouth moved a few times. Nothing came out.

  “How long have you been working here?” She smiled when she said it.

  His mind was a blank. Her hair was pulled back but still blonde. Her frame had widened, but he thought it was an improvement. He tried to look for her left hand, but it was under the present. The question finally hit him.

  “A year or two. Since, well, since I came in for my knee I guess. Couldn’t stay away.” His lips formed a weak smile. He was warming, but not as quickly as athlete Gavin would’ve. “What about you?”

  “I started last month. On the tenth.”

  The eleventh was their anniversary. He couldn’t believe he remembered, but when he did it hit him like a ton of bricks. Somehow he had managed to block her out, forget that part of his life and focus on school and therapy. Now it was like a flood, feelings pouring out he hadn’t felt in ages. His gut tingled, his mind raced.

  “The tenth? Wow. How was the first month?”

  “Good. This is my floor actually.”

  “Really?” He glanced around. “Cardiac?”

  “Pulmonary.”

  “Right, I knew that.” He fumbled with his hands, then bent to pick up the bag he’d forgotten all about.

  “So what floor are you on?”

  He gathered the bag, rolled it in hands a few times to hide the excess, and stood.

  “Me, I’m on third. OR tech.”

  “Gavin King, saving lives. I never would’ve thought.” She winked as she said it, her eyes dancing even in the fluorescent light. She looked younger then, like she did when he met her.

  In high school, during Gavin’s senior year, he had a small locker on the English hall. Directly below it was one of a lighter color, belonging to a junior he didn’t know. Each day during the changing of classes he passed a pretty blonde haired girl in the crowd waiting to get to the locker wall. He wanted to speak to her, but the crowd was always pushing and shoving and he never had much time to track her down. Besides, he didn’t have much trouble with finding a girl back then. Every Friday night the stands were full of scouts, and his backseat held the cheerleader flavor of the week.

  One day, when he got to his locker, a neatly folded note sat on top of his textbooks. His name was printed on the front, a heart where the dot on his ‘i’ would go. There was no name on the note, but somehow he knew it was from her. Three more followed, and the next week he stopped in the crowd and took hold of her hand. He asked if she would go to dinner with him, and her face lit up like the lights on a football field.

  They were inseparable until he broke his knee. His sophomore year in college the pro scouts had their eyes on him, but he skipped practice more than a few times to visit Kelly at the Community College back home. The day before a blitzing linebacker ruined his life, he was out shopping for an engagement ring.

  Athlete Gavin blamed the injury on himself and the object of his focus. He hardly spoke to her in the hospital, watched her leave crying more times than he could count. Disappointment and resentment made him cold and lonely. When he went home with a huge brace and a set of crutches her visits dwindled to once a week, and then stopped altogether. The pain medicine made it all easy to take, easy to forget. She left a note and his class ring on the table the last night she was there. He never read it.

  A different Gavin stood before her now, confronted with the feelings of athlete Gavin for the first time in years.

  “Well, it’s good to see you. I need to go turn this in-” She started to go around him, down the main hall, and he sidestepped to stop her. The action was involuntary, and her look of surprise mirrored his.

  “Kelly, listen. I…I feel terrible about what happened.”

  Her eyes went to the gift, then behind him, then to the floor. Everywhere but him.

  “I don’t know what happened to us.” He didn’t know where that came from, but it made his eyes burn. A knot formed in his throat.

  “You don’t know what happened? You happened Gavin. You and your inability to deal with your knee!” She looked at him then, her stare reddening and her face stern. “Three years and now you want to talk about what happened? Now you want to apologize?”

  She tried to go around him again. He stuck his arm out, held her shoulder. He could feel her choppy breathing.

  “You don’t understand Kelly. That wasn’t me. I don’t know who that was, but I know it wasn’t me.” He dropped the hand from her shoulder slowly. She wiped a tear from her left eye before it could fall. He saw she wasn’t wearing a ring and felt immense relief. Her face reddened, her lip twitched.

  “I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “Gavin, don’t. Don’t do this. I’m dropping this off and I’m heading back to my desk. I’m not going through this with you again, one time was enough.” She took a step back then, her glare communicating more than her words, and went around him.

  He stood, looking at the floor, thinking about what she said. He had no idea these feelings could be so strong, that he even still had them. Now he couldn’t get away from them, everything he had said to run her down and make her come back. Make her understand. He turned, but she was just out of reach. Ten, fifteen steps away.

  “I never dated anyone else. I never wanted to.” He had to say it loud for her to hear, turning a few passing heads. She stopped for a moment, but didn’t look. He waited, counted every second, but she kept going. She turned the corner on the 560 hall and was gone.

  He hung his head, the knot in his throat tr
ying to move up. He wouldn’t let it, choked it down by gritting his teeth and trying his best to push the thoughts away. He’d done it before, he could do it again. He looked at the bag and tried to remember where to take it.

  When he looked up, she was standing in the middle of the hall with a tear streaking down her cheek. He was there in an instant, wrapping his arms around her as she shook. He lowered his head and took a breath of her, the same smell she always had, and let his own tears finally fall.

  A faint clapping sound hit them, and when he turned he saw the plump woman at the nurses’ station and the woman that tried to flag him down giving them twp thumbs up. He smiled, turning back to her and pulling her in tight.

  When they finally pulled apart, he looked at her and gave her a sly grin. It looked like something athlete Gavin might have used, but it wasn’t quite his.

  “How’d you like to have dinner with me tonight?”

  Her eyes, still puffy, only wavered for a moment.

  “I’d love to, but I’m not sure I can take another break.”

  “That’s ok, I know this great place on the first floor. Cold burgers under a lamp, dry chicken and gummy vegetables. The patients say it’s fantastic.”

  “Your patients must be ordering out then.” She smiled and found his hand with hers, lacing her fingers in slowly.

  They walked down the 560 hall, hand-in-hand, like athlete Gavin and Junior Prom Queen Kelly. He felt as new as a peeled apple, as happy as he could ever remember. She still sniffed a few times, wiped at her eyes, but he was sure she felt the same way. After dropping the presents off, they took an elevator down to the cafeteria and ate in the corner of the large room alone. They talked about old times and new, about work and life. Mostly they just laughed and smiled, filling the gap between them faster than water fills a channel.

  The next day, the day before Christmas Eve, the secret santa gifts were passed out. Gavin got his at the station on his floor, Kelly did the same. When he picked it up he checked twice to make sure it was his because he recognized it immediately. It was the one Kelly was carrying, the one he nearly flattened when they ran in to each other.