Holly looked at Kay and she was touched by Kay’s forthrightness and concern and, yes, she could talk to her. In some ways it would be a relief to tell someone how jumbled up she was feeling. Once she had been able to talk to her mother but those days seemed a long way off right now.
And so she told Kay the truth, well, a small part of it. ‘I didn’t feel sick or faint. I just had to come up with something. I didn’t want you and Anna to take a name because I fudged the Secret Santa.’
‘You what?’ Kay frowned.
‘It was only my name written down,’ Holly explained.
‘So that Daniel would choose you?’ Kay said, smiling as realisation dawned. ‘That’s very ingenious. We’ll have to see what he gets you.’
‘Nothing, I expect.’ Holly shrugged and Kay saw the sparkle of tears in her eyes.
‘I don’t think Daniel’s very into Christmas.’
And Holly didn’t think Daniel was very into her either.
‘He’s leaving, Holly,’ Kay pointed out. ‘He’s made it very clear that he’ll soon be off.’
Holly nodded. ‘I wish he’d gone already.’
‘No, you don’t.’
Kay was right. This morning when she’d seen him, though cross and confused, she’d felt her heart simply leap at the sight of him. And now she had to start back at the beginning of getting over him when the last days had been hell.
She didn’t just like Daniel, it felt like a whole lot more.
More than she’d ever liked anyone in her entire life.
Oh, she was trying so hard not to use the love word, even to herself.
Surely it couldn’t be that?
‘Be careful,’ Kay suggested, and Holly nodded, even if it was a bit late for that. ‘Now,’ Kay added, ‘while I can be terribly indiscreet I don’t break confidences, so you don’t have to worry about that. Daniel’s lovely to chat to but I know his type—all he wants is inside your knickers, not your mind.’ She saw Holly’s pinched face and while she was delivering gloomy verdicts she decided to just get it over with. ‘I’ve finished the Christmas roster. I’d better put it up.’
Holly knew that her cheeks had turned pink.
‘Do you want a sneak preview?’ Kay asked, and when Holly nodded she turned the computer screen around and Holly took a look.
She had been given a half-day on Christmas Eve, which meant that she finished at midday and was due back for a night shift on Christmas night, though she was off for New Year’s Eve.
‘I did my best,’ Kay said.
Kay really had done, because at least there was a chance for Holly to make it home and spend the best part of Christmas with her family. Certainly Kay hadn’t been gentle on herself—she was working all of it, just as she had last year and the year before that.
‘Don’t you ever want Christmas off?’ Holly asked.
‘Not really. Eamon used to get weary of me working it every year,’ Kay admitted, ‘but he’s got used to it now. Next year I’m taking it off, though.’
She smiled that gorgeous Irish smile and Holly smiled back.
Kay’s daughter, Louise, was due to give birth in the new year and Kay would be a first-time grandmother.
‘I’m not missing that baby’s first Christmas for the world,’ Kay said as they walked through to the department.
The off duty had been posted and Holly stood back, chatting with Kay, as all the staff clustered around the computers.
‘Louise might have the baby on Christmas Day,’ Holly commented.
‘God, I hope not,’ Kay said, ‘for the baby’s sake. They never get a real birthday...’
‘Yes, they do,’ Holly said, and would have argued more strongly but she suddenly remembered the Christmas that everyone in her immediate family would rather forget.
Because they’d forgotten her birthday.
Why today did everything make her want to cry?
‘Holly!’
She looked over and saw that a patient was being wheeled in by Karen, a cheery paramedic.
The lady looked to be in her seventies and was very well dressed in a lovely woollen coat and scarf but she was sitting in the wheelchair, holding her arm, which was wrapped in a sling.
‘This is Iris Morrison...’
It was a familiar injury at this time of the year. People were busy and the streets were slippery and when Iris had fallen she had put out her hand to save herself and had, it appeared, broken her wrist.
She was taken into a cubicle and Holly had a look at the wrist. It was causing Iris a lot of pain and she was also very pale, which meant Holly didn’t really want her sitting for ages in a chair, so she decided to put her on a trolley.
The handover was brief. Iris was fit and well and was more cross with herself than anything.
‘I haven’t got time for a broken wrist,’ she sighed when the paramedics had left.
‘I think you’re going to have to make time.’ Holly smiled. It was terribly warm in the department and Iris’s coat would have to come off for the X-ray, but Holly decided to do that after Iris had been given something for pain.
She told Iris she would be back in a moment and saw Daniel looking at another wrist X-ray.
‘I’ve got a seventy-two-year-old lady...’
‘I saw,’ Daniel said.
‘Can she have something for pain before I undress her?’
He nodded and took the patient card from Holly and then followed her in.
‘Good morning, Mrs Morrison, I’m Dr Chandler.’
‘Chandler?’ Iris frowned and then looked up at navy eyes. ‘I used to work for a Marcus Chandler, I’m guessing from those eyes that you must be Daniel!’
‘That’s correct.’ Daniel gave her a smile. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t...’
‘You were about five years old,’ Iris said, ‘so I don’t expect you to remember. We’ve never actually met. I was your father’s secretary for a year. He was a very impressive surgeon.’
‘And you’re a very tactful woman,’ Daniel said, because his father was a very difficult man and he doubted any secretary of his had many nice words to say about him.
Iris laughed but then winced as Daniel gently examined her wrist. ‘You don’t need me to tell you it’s broken?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll get you something for the pain and then we’ll get that coat off and get you straight round—’
‘Actually,’ Holly said, ‘there’s rather a wait for X-Ray.’
‘I’ll see if I can get you squeezed in,’ Daniel said to Iris, and she gave a delighted smile at the upgrade.
Soon the coat was off and because of the strong painkillers she had been given, Holly went to X-Ray with her.
Of course he had managed to squeeze Iris in because, from the way the radiographer was batting her eyelashes, she was another fan of Daniel’s.
The entire female population was, it would seem.
‘Gorgeous-looking young man, isn’t he?’ Iris smiled as they waited.
‘He knows it,’ Holly said.
‘Well, he seems nice with it, though, not like his father. Oh, that man!’ She rolled her eyes to indicate just how difficult Daniel’s father had been. ‘Such a fantastic surgeon but he was the coldest man I have ever come across. I tried to be nice, given that his wife had died, I mean I guessed it must be hard to be left with a five-year-old...’
Holly swallowed.
The thought of losing her mother had rocked Holly’s world for more than a year and she was twenty-eight. Holly just sat there for a moment and tried to imagine a world without her mother in it from the age of five.
She couldn’t.
And neither could Daniel imagine a world with a happy family in it.
* * *
They sort of danced around each other for the best part of the morning. Iris got a plaster on her wrist and was picked up by her daughter. Holly got caught up with a patient who needed to be closely watched as they waited for him to be admitted to the psychiatric unit.
At midday Daniel came out of the changing room to head for home and saw Holly sitting by the patient’s trolley. She was reading a magazine while the patient slept.
‘Still no bed for him?’ Daniel checked.
‘Another hour.’
She barely glanced up and Daniel, who was always so certain where woman were concerned, was less so now.
He didn’t know what he wanted, and even if he did, he wasn’t sure that an offer to catch up would be welcomed by Holly.
She didn’t look happy, when Holly always had, and Daniel was sure he had contributed to that.
‘Daniel?’ Kay was walking past. ‘I’ve just been speaking with Mr Edwards and he said to ask you if there’s any chance you could stay on till five.’
‘Sorry.’ Daniel shook his head. ‘I’ve already got plans.’
‘What plans?’ Kay busied herself with his business. ‘A date?’
‘You could say that,’ Daniel answered without thinking, as Holly did all she could to stop her top lip from curling like the family Labrador’s when someone reached for his bone.
‘Have a nice Christmas, Holly,’ Daniel said.
‘I shall.’
She would!
Holly had spent way too long daydreaming about him.
When her shift ended and Holly raced to the department store where she’d been with Daniel a few weeks before, she found herself watching the glassblower for a little while.
Thanks to her own meddling, she had Daniel to buy a gift for.
Yes, while she would have loved to queue up and buy him a hand-blown Christmas decoration and have the elves write a letter, she had no idea what she’d have them write.
And it was far too expensive.
And it would be embarrassing to reveal just how much he meant to her.
Anyway, he probably wouldn’t be back to claim his Secret Santa present, let alone deposit hers.
And so instead of pouring her heart out in a tiny letter that would never be read she headed to the men’s floor and tried to decide on a more appropriate present for him.
Yes, she exceeded the strict Secret Santa budget, but not by a ridiculous amount. Holly bought him a lip balm for when he went skiing. It was a very nice lip balm, in fact, and as close to his lips as she’d allow herself to get again.
It was a nice little gift—personal but not too personal, and useful as well.
It wasn’t a gift from the heart—Daniel had made it very clear that her heart was something he didn’t want.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DANIEL HEADED STRAIGHT from work to Maddie’s school but his mind was on Holly.
She was nothing like his usual type yet he had liked her on sight and that feeling had not just remained, it had grown.
The more he knew her the more he wanted to know, and for someone who did his best not to get too involved it was the oddest feeling.
It was also a very new feeling and one he’d done his best not to properly examine.
He knew that she liked him. And that wasn’t arrogance speaking, that was concern. After all, Daniel knew his own reputation.
Then he got out of the car and knew that it was time to focus on Maddie. He was cross with both his father and Amelia for not being here today.
His mother had always made the effort to be there for stuff like that, Daniel thought, and as he did so he suddenly halted.
All these years later memories seemed to be coming in and he felt floored anew by each and every one of them. As he took his seat in the audience he remembered standing on a stage with a towel on his head and his father’s tie, and looking out and seeing his mother nod and smile to him.
And so he did the same for Maddie as she came out.
She was dressed as an angel and had a silver tinsel halo and didn’t stay in character at all because she smiled and waved to him when she was supposed to be being serious.
Daniel smiled and waved back.
It was actually rather good!
Joseph’s front teeth were missing and there was a worrying moment when he nearly dropped baby Jesus and he and Maddie shared a little yikes look but apart from that it went well.
‘Which one’s yours?’ a woman beside him asked and nodded towards the stage.
‘The loud angel,’ Daniel answered, so glad with his decision to delay his trip just so that Maddie could have a family member in the crowd.
Afterwards, in the playground, she ran to him.
‘You were fantastic!’ Daniel told her.
‘I know.’ Maddie beamed. ‘Did you see when Thomas nearly dropped the baby?’
‘I did.’
‘Where are we going?’ she asked with all the confidence of a sister who knew she would be getting an extra treat from her brother.
‘I thought we might go to the movies.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’ He told her what they would be seeing but instead of her eyes lighting up they were suddenly worried.
‘I wanted to dress up when I saw that!’
‘I thought that you might,’ Daniel said, and handed her a bag he had brought with him. It was her princess costume that he had picked up from Jessica, the nanny, on his way back from work.
He waited as Maddie dashed off to the facilities and came out a few minutes later in all her finery and wearing a tiara, with her friends all oohing and ahhing as she paraded about.
‘I love it when you pick me up from school.’ Maddie said as he took out the booster seat from the boot of his car.
‘I enjoy it too.’
He did.
‘Why don’t you do it more often?’ Maddie asked as she jumped onto the booster seat, which Jessica had also given him, and strapped herself in.
Daniel didn’t answer.
It wasn’t picking Maddie up from school that was the problem, it was dropping her off and avoiding being asked in.
Maddie didn’t notice his silence. As they drove off she did the royal wave to her friends from the back of the car.
‘If you marry a prince do you definitely become a princess?’ Maddie asked.
‘Not necessarily,’ Daniel said. ‘You might become a duchess or a countess...’
‘What’s the point, then?’ Maddie sighed.
Oh, she was her mother’s daughter, but, unlike Amelia, Maddie made him laugh.
She was so cute and had the same navy eyes as he had and, for a five-year-old, was very good company.
‘How is school?’ Daniel asked as he drove.
‘I love it,’ Maddie said. ‘How is your work at the other hospital?’
‘I love it too,’ Daniel said.
He did.
He’d liked working at his old hospital. He had been through medical school there, had worked his way through the ranks and had a strong network of friends. Yet for some reason working at The Primary felt right.
It wasn’t about Holly, he wasn’t that shallow. It was maybe that at The Primary he wasn’t Marcus Chandler’s son. There were no expectations. If anything, given that he was a locum there was the expectation he’d need his hand held and then an element of surprise when he shone.
Back to focusing on Maddie!
Except, even as Daniel parked his car, he rather wished Holly was here, for he had no idea what to do. He knew this wasn’t going to be a quiet evening at the movies but there was an endless stream of little girls all dressed the same as Maddie and the queue for tickets was incredibly long.
For a moment he considered taking out
his phone and booking on line—the nice seats where you had food brought to you—but he knew that wasn’t the treat his little sister needed. Instead, they chatted with several other families as they waited to buy their tickets.
‘How old is she?’ a woman asked.
‘Five.’
‘Are you giving her mum a rest?’
Daniel gave a noncommittal nod—it was clear that again the woman thought that Maddie was his child and he certainly wasn’t about to enlighten a stranger, or tell her that giving Amelia a rest was far from being the reason he was here.
‘Is it nice to be out with your dad?’ The woman smiled at Maddie.
‘I don’t get to go out with my dad very often!’ Maddie pouted and the woman gave Daniel a cool stare and then turned away, no doubt assuming it was an access visit.
‘Maddie,’ he warned.
‘Well, it’s true. Me and Daddy hardly ever go out, he’s always working. And when we do...’ She blew out a breath that sent her fringe flying into her tiara. ‘I hate it when he takes me to his club, it’s so boring.’
Daniel said nothing but he thought of the long afternoons he had spent at that bloody club, sitting with a colouring book and pencils as the adults carried on outside.
He had hated it too.
Still, they were a world away from a stuffy club this afternoon. Instead, it was all about a bucket of popcorn and two large icy drinks and just a couple of hours checking out of the world.
The place was bedlam.
Children were cheering and singing along to the film.
One little boy was so overexcited and overfed that he vomited.
‘Should you say you’re a doctor?’ Maddie checked.
‘I don’t think his mum needs a doctor to work out what’s wrong.’
Maddie smiled and got back to enjoying the movie.
It was fun, it was light-hearted and it was exactly what big brother and little sister needed. All too soon though it was over and they were headed for home.
After a few hours of easy conversation as they sat in a line of traffic making its slow way out of the car park, suddenly Maddie was quiet.
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