The Nurse's Christmas Wish

by Sarah Morgan

‘Yes, and you’re probably thinking that it was stupid of me to go out,’ Alice fretted, glancing helplessly at Louisa. ‘I should have stayed indoors but I needed some last-minute presents. The annoying thing is that I didn’t even get round to buying them.’

  ‘Don’t worry about the presents,’ Mac said calmly, examining the wrist with gentle fingers. ‘Are you tender here?’ He moved his fingers. ‘What about here?’

  ‘No, not particularly.’ Alice watched as he checked her pulses and finished his examination.

  ‘All right. That’s fine for now.’ He reached for the X-ray form that Louisa had already started filling in and signed it. ‘We’ll check your X-rays and then take it from there.’

  ‘I can’t stay in hospital,’ Alice said firmly. ‘I’ve got my sister to look after. She can’t manage without me.’

  Mac frowned slightly and stood up. ‘Let’s see what the X-rays tell us and then we’ll worry about that.’ He looked at Louisa. ‘Give me a shout when the films are back.’

  She nodded and watched as he strolled away, the bright lights of the A and E department glinting off his dark hair, his shoulders impossibly broad.

  He wasn’t her type, she told herself firmly.

  He might be shockingly handsome but he was remote and distant and not at all tactile.

  When she finally fell in love, it was going to be with a real family man. Someone who wanted a noisy, crowded home, just as she did, with hordes of children and several dogs.

  Not someone like Mac who was self-contained and kept himself apart from others.

  Did he even like children? she wondered.

  ‘We’ve all worried about him since his wife died,’ Alice said wistfully. ‘Such a tragedy. We’ve been longing for him to find someone else but he only has time for his work. After she died we all mucked in, you know—made him food, tried to get him out and about, but he wasn’t having any of it. Spends time with his surfboard and that playboy brother of his with the wicked smile.’ She made a clucking sound with her tongue. ‘What a waste. He’s such a handsome boy.’

  Louisa chuckled. ‘He’s the senior consultant and in his mid-thirties at a guess. I don’t think he’s a boy, Alice.’

  As far as she was concerned, he was all man. Every delicious, intimidating inch of him.

  ‘When you’re ninety, he’s a boy,’ Alice said dryly. ‘Now, shall we take that trip to X-Ray?’

  Louisa smiled. ‘Good idea. Let’s get a closer look at those bones of yours.’

  * * *

  ‘Well, it’s not displaced so she can just go to the fracture clinic and have a back slab,’ Mac muttered, studying the X-rays carefully, his broad shoulders brushing against Louisa, who stood next to him.

  This close he could smell her perfume and it played havoc with his senses. He wasn’t even sure if it was perfume. It could have been shampoo or just Louisa. But whatever it was, she smelt amazing.

  He sighed and closed his eyes briefly, reminding himself that he wasn’t interested in women. Once or twice he’d tried to rekindle that part of himself after Melissa had died, but women always wanted more than he was willing or able to give. He wasn’t interested in a relationship. He was better off on his own.

  ‘I expect we ought to write to her GP. This sort of fracture is very common in women with osteoporosis. He ought to arrange a DEXA scan.’ Louisa frowned at the light box, oblivious to his scrutiny. This close he noticed that her nose turned up slightly and was dusted with freckles. She never seemed to stop smiling. She turned to look at him. ‘Don’t you think?’ Didn’t he think what?’

  He searched his mind for the last thing she’d said. ‘DEXA scan. Good idea. I’ll write to the GP.’

  ‘I gather she lives down the road from you.’ Louisa handed him the notes and he took them, wondering what his response was supposed to be. ‘With her sister.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘She told me she used to cook for you sometimes.’

  Mac looked at her. ‘The two of them kept checking up on me after my wife died. Every time I came home one of them would be on my doorstep with a cake or a casserole.’

  She smiled. ‘How kind.’

  Mac inhaled sharply. ‘I prefer my privacy.’

  ‘That’s what I heard.’ There was a hint of reproach in her voice and he bit back an impatient remark.

  ‘Living in a village comes with disadvantages, Louisa,’ he said grimly as they walked back towards the treatment room. ‘One of those is a total lack of privacy. Not everyone wants to be surrounded by people discussing their business all the time, and I’m one of them. I’m better off on my own.’

  ‘Why?’ Her gaze was clear and direct. ‘What’s wrong with knowing your neighbours, Dr Sullivan, and allowing them to know you?’

  He sighed. Somehow she managed to make him feel in the wrong. Which was ridiculous, because he gave enough of himself to his patients. He had a right to privacy. ‘In case it’s escaped your notice, I have a busy job. I give everything I have to the hospital. I don’t have time for anything else.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘That’s what I thought. But what about you, Mac? Who gives to you?’

  He frowned. ‘I have everything I need.’

  ‘Maybe you don’t know what you need.’ She took the X-rays from him. ‘This is going to cause Alice a problem. She looks after her elderly sister. Does everything. Shopping and cooking. She can’t do that with a broken wrist.’

  Mac gave a brief nod, impressed that she’d discovered that so quickly. ‘Good point. We’ll give Social Services a ring. Get them some help.’

  ‘I’m not sure that they’re the sort to accept help easily. They’re obviously very independent.’

  ‘Well, if there’s no family to step in, what’s the alternative?’ Mac asked patiently, and Louisa chewed her lip thoughtfully.

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m working on it.’

  ‘Don’t tell me.’ His tone was dry. ‘Your interfering personality again?’

  ‘Probably.’

  She looked so worried that Mac gave a sigh. ‘She’s a sweet lady, I grant you, but it isn’t our job to care for her until her bones heal.’

  She lifted an eyebrow. ‘That’s a cop-out.’

  He inhaled deeply. She was doing it again. Making him feel guilty. ‘What do you expect me to do? Move in with all my patients?’ His tone was testy but he couldn’t help it. ‘Our job is to patch them up, Louisa. Someone else has to sort out the other stuff.’

  ‘But I don’t believe the ‘‘other stuff’’, as you call it, can be so neatly separated,’ Louisa said calmly, tucking the X-rays under her arm. ‘A patient is so much more than just a broken wrist.’

  Mac’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re too idealistic. This is the real world, Louisa. Too many patients, too few staff. If we mend the broken bones then we’re doing well. We certainly don’t have time to sort out the rest of people’s lives.’

  She gave him a smile designed to melt the heart of the most hardened cynic. ‘You’re working too hard, Dr Sullivan. You’ve developed tunnel vision. These patients of yours are human beings, not bones. And Alice is your neighbour.’

  ‘You can drop the ‘‘Dr Sullivan’’. If you’re going to abuse me, you may as well use my first name,’ he said dryly, and she chuckled.

  ‘All right, but I still think you’re working too hard. Someone needs to reintroduce you to the world.’

  ‘And you think that’s you?’

  She grinned, undeterred by his cool tone. ‘Maybe.’

  They walked back to Alice who looked at them anxiously. ‘Well?’

  ‘We’re going to put that wrist in plaster,’ Mac said briskly and Alice gave a gasp of horror.

  ‘But it’s Christmas! How will I cook?’

  How the hell did he know? Mac stared at her, bemused and totally at a loss to know how to answer the question. Then Louisa intervened, slipping her arm round the old lady and giving her an impulsive hug.

  ‘Don’t worry, Alice,’ s
he said firmly, ‘we’ll work something out. You’re just down the road from us and we’re having a massive turkey so there’ll be plenty over. I’ll cook it and Dr Sullivan here will drop it round to you both. A thank you for all the times you cooked for him.’

  Mac felt his jaw drop.

  Alice’s face brightened. ‘You two are living together? Oh, that’s lovely.’

  Mac spread his hands and stifled a sigh of exasperation. ‘Mrs Ford—’

  ‘Please, call me Alice, dear.’

  Mac blinked. No one had ever called him dear before. ‘Alice—’ he tried again ‘—we are not living together.’

  ‘At least, not in the biblical sense,’ Louisa said cheerfully, giving Alice a saucy wink. ‘I’m just doing his shopping and cooking and generally sorting out his house. Everything a wife would do with none of the perks.’

  Mac closed his eyes.

  ‘Well, that is good news.’ Alice chuckled. ‘I can’t wait to tell Vera.’

  Great. Now he was going to be the talk of the village once again. Just when he’d managed to get them off his back.

  ‘I’m off duty in ten minutes,’ Louisa was saying, ‘and as soon as you’ve had your wrist plastered I’m going to take you home via the shops so that I can pick up those presents of yours. You can wait in the car. Do you have a list?’

  Mac opened his eyes and stared at her in disbelief. It was one thing to worry about what happened when a patient was discharged, quite another to offer to cook her lunch and do her Christmas shopping. He ran long fingers through his dark hair. ‘Louisa...’

  She smiled at him, her brown eyes twinkling. ‘Calm down, Dr Sullivan, or you might burst something important. I’ll just take Alice to the fracture clinic and then I’ll take her home. One of the perks of living in the same village.’

  Alice gave a sniff. ‘You’re a kind girl,’ she said gruffly, and Louisa shook her head.

  ‘No, I’m just naturally interfering.’ She gathered together the old lady’s belongings and handed them to her. ‘Hang onto these and don’t forget to dig out that list. I might add a few things to it myself. I haven’t even started my shopping yet. You can help me decide what I should be buying. And I probably ought to order a turkey while we’re at it.’

  * * *

  Louisa arrived home two hours later to find the house still empty. Clearly Mac was still at the hospital. Didn’t the guy ever come home?

  She dropped six bulging carrier bags on the hall floor and set to work.

  First she went through the pile of post she’d retrieved from his bin the day before. Then she rummaged about in the bags for the ribbon she’d found in the market and found herself a pair of scissors.

  An hour later she’d fastened even lengths of red ribbon to the hall wall and carefully attached all the Christmas cards.

  Once the cards were displayed, she wandered into the garden and attacked the holly bush. What was the point of having a house like this one if you didn’t make the most of it? she reasoned, admiring the clusters of scarlet berries that nestled among the shiny green leaves.

  She worked quickly, snipping and arranging, occasionally pausing to stand back and admire her handiwork. Finally she was satisfied.

  And her stomach was rumbling.

  * * *

  When Mac walked in, hours later, he was hit by delicious smells wafting from the kitchen.

  His stomach rumbled and he gritted his teeth.

  It was all part of her ploy to persuade him to let her stay and interfere in his life. And he wasn’t falling for it.

  He’d already decided that she had to leave. And he’d found her a room in the nurses’ home.

  Closing the front door, he shrugged off his coat and stopped, his attention caught by the total transformation of his hallway. It had been plain magnolia when he’d left the house that morning. Now it was anything but plain.

  Somehow she’d managed to bring the garden inside the house. Prickly bunches of holly were artfully arranged around the large mirror, long sticks of twisted willow had been teased into two tall glass vases and now sparkled with tiny lights. Rows of Christmas cards fastened to strips of red ribbon fell from the picture rail and candles flickered in the window recess, sending out a scent of cloves and lavender.

  The doors to his sitting room had been opened and a fire burned merrily in the hearth, casting shadows across the room.

  The effect was warm and cosy.

  And Christmassy.

  Something lodged in his throat and refused to budge. For a brief moment the cloak he’d drawn over his emotions slipped aside and he felt a shaft of pain stab through him.

  This was somebody else’s Christmas.

  This wasn’t what he did.

  He gritted his teeth and shrugged his broad shoulders out of his wool coat just as Louisa strolled out of the kitchen.

  ‘You’re so late—you must be totally knackered.’ Her dark hair had been scooped into a ponytail and her cheeks were pink. He assumed she’d been standing in front of the Aga again.

  He looked at the glass she was holding out to him. ‘What’s this?’

  She grinned. ‘Alcohol. I thought I’d butter you up so that you don’t shout at me for decorating your hall and throwing open your living room. It has such fabulous views across the beach, we should be using it. The tree should go in there. We could—’

  ‘Louisa!’ He interrupted her sharply, ignoring the glass. ‘Louisa, I don’t want a tree. I never bother with a tree.’ He waved his hand around the hall. ‘Or any of this. And I don’t want a drink.’

  ‘Go on—it will relax you.’ She forced the glass into his hand. ‘I go for chocolate myself after a hard day, but I know that’s a girl thing so I thought you’d prefer wine.’

  Left with no choice, he closed his fingers round the glass and looked back at his hall wall, staring at the Christmas cards neatly clipped to ribbon. ‘Where did those come from?’

  ‘Your bin. It was full of unopened cards. Don’t you ever open your post?’

  ‘Only the bills.’ Deciding that maybe he did need a drink after all, he lifted the glass to his lips. ‘I don’t have time for anything else. I never hang cards up.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s just something else to clear up after Christmas,’ he admitted wearily, and her gaze drifted to the wall, now covered in cards.

  ‘Do you send any cards yourself?’

  He gave a flicker of a smile. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’re a man who shuts everyone out and thinks about nothing but his job,’ she said softly. ‘And it isn’t good for you. Lots of those cards were full of kind messages—everyone is obviously worried about you.’

  He tensed and sucked in a breath. ‘I’m fine. And I’d rather people didn’t worry about me. I certainly don’t expect them to.’ He caught her gaze. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  It disturbed him.

  ‘Because I don’t think you’re fine. I don’t think you’re fine at all, Dr Sullivan. I think you bury yourself in work because it stops you feeling or having to spend any time here, and when you eventually come home you’re so exhausted you just drop into bed.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Because you’re blocking life out instead of building a new one.’

  ‘This is my life, Louisa,’ he said coldly, ‘and it’s the one I want to live. Preferably without interference.’

  She nodded, her eyes warm and gentle. ‘I can understand why you feel that way. Josh told me about your wife. It must be difficult to pick yourself up again after that sort of loss. It’s hard enough finding the right person once. How could you expect to do it twice?’

  She had no idea...

  Every muscle in his body tensed. It wasn’t something that he intended to discuss with her.

  ‘Are you always so direct?’

  ‘Yes, usually.’ She was unapologetic, her gaze clear and sympathetic. ‘I think it’s better to talk about
the way you feel. But I suspect you don’t agree. You don’t like talking about your feelings, I can see that,’ she said conversationally. ‘Like most men, I suppose. You don’t need to feel bad about it.’

  Mac gritted his teeth. ‘I don’t feel bad about it. I just prefer to handle things my own way.’

  ‘By burying yourself in your job.’

  He stared at her in exasperation. ‘Louisa, this isn’t going to work.’ He took a deep breath and dragged a hand over the back of his neck. ‘I’ve found you a room in the nurses’ home. You’re a obviously a great nurse and I don’t want to lose you, but I don’t want you in my home.’

  She went still and the colour drained from her face. ‘The nurses’ home?’ She sounded so shocked that he found himself frowning defensively.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with the nurses’ home,’ he said testily. ‘It’s a perfectly nice building. The rooms are great. You’re looking at me as if I was suggesting you sleep rough.’

  There was a look of horror on her pretty face. ‘It’s just that I’m not that great at institutional living. Especially not at Christmas.’

  He sucked in a breath.

  He wasn’t going to feel guilty.

  ‘It would be better for everyone.’

  She shook her head. ‘Not for me.’ Shadows flickered across her eyes and for once there was no sign of her usually merry smile. ‘I was hoping to spend Christmas in a house, with people.’

  Mac clenched his fists.

  He was not going to feel guilty.

  ‘What about your own family?’ He stared at her in exasperation, wondering why this was turning out to be so hard. ‘Aren’t they expecting you home for Christmas?’

  He’d arrange for her to have the day off if that was what it took to get her out of his life.

  There was a long silence and then she cleared her throat. ‘I don’t have any family, Mac.’ Suddenly she sounded weary. Defeated. ‘It’s just me. Me on my own.’

  He saw the loneliness shining out of her eyes and felt something twist inside him.

  Damn.

  He felt guilty.

  ‘You must have someone. Everyone has someone.’ He jabbed his fingers through his hair. ‘Heaven knows, I have trouble getting rid of people. Every time I turn round I trip over someone checking if I’m all right.’