Silent Night: Vampire Holiday Romance (The Night Songs Collection Book 4)

by Strassel, Kristen

  Once I’d used the toasted bread to sop up every last drop of soup, I placed the plate on the coffee table. I felt bad putting it on top of a book, but it was unavoidable. And I didn’t want to move. Aidan put down his work as well, and crawled to my end of the couch.

  As he started rubbing my shoulders, any thoughts of my day became fuzzy. It hurt a little, in the good way, because my muscles were so tired. He leaned in to kiss my hair, and I pulled it down from the tight bun I wrapped in for work hoping that he would play with it. Picking up on my cue, Aidan got up from the couch and came back with a hairbrush. “You should go to bed.”

  “I want to spend time with you.”

  “You’re exhausted. This is only temporary. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I know.” I turned to him, my whole body warming, realizing that he was mine forever, and had quite possibly been mine forever, but turned my head quickly when I realized looking at him made him stop brushing. “I’m not, either.”

  “Then one night won’t matter.” He kissed my shoulder. “You need to rest.”

  “Come with me,” I insisted. “Bring the book with you. You can work while I fall asleep.”

  He pulled me in to his body. “Do you really think I’ll be able to get any work done when you’re lying in bed beside me?”

  “I’d fall asleep in the middle anyway.” I sighed. “I guess I should go to bed.”

  Aidan stood up, holding his hand out to me and pulling me up off the cushion. I kicked off my sneakers and left them in the living room. Once we reached the bedroom, Aidan helped me out of my scrubs and pulled my pajamas on me. Having someone take care of everything was more than I ever could have dared to hope for.

  I snuggled beside him when he climbed into bed with me. My eyelids fought me so hard, but I won the battle of consciousness, for now. My head rested on his chest, and he put his arm around me, opening the manuscript to where he left off. He no longer had any secrets on those pages, now that I knew them all.

  The words blurred in front of my eyes as he highlighted certain passages for whatever reason. Whole paragraphs got crossed out. Sometimes he sighed and shook his head in frustration.

  “I hate this part of writing,” he said softly, since he probably wasn’t sure I was awake anymore. My breaths were heavy and slow, in preparation for sleep. “I just like telling the story. I hate having to rearrange the words.”

  “Will you read it to me?” I asked.

  He sat up straighter, surprised. “You’d like that?”

  “I’d love that.”

  “Okay.”

  He began to read, his voice rich and words slow, our story from his point of view. It sounded like poetry, and if I hadn’t been there, I would have never believed someone could have felt this way about anyone, especially me. I drifted off, the rhythm of his tale lulling me to dream about Aidan reading to me in a small, dusty room someplace else. A cool breeze blew in through the wall slats and the hay mattress crunched as we moved.

  He was still Aidan, but in my dream, I saw everything through Marielle’s eyes.

  Twenty-Six

  “Do you think you’ll be all right in ICU?” Stephanie asked me as she started to work on the rotation schedule. As I predicted, I’d been separated from the group I’d trained with once we got our regular assignments. I was the only one of that crew who actually wanted to work overnights.

  “I think so,” I told her. I was going to find out.

  “It’s not that bad on the night shift. Everyone’s asleep, so you just have to check vitals and make sure they’re clean. Unless, of course, there’s an emergency, but that could happen anywhere at any time.”

  The last year or so of my life had already conditioned me to the horrors I might see working here. When cancer gets ready to place its victory flag on someone, it doesn’t worry about being nice, neat, or pretty. It was a slow progression, giving me a chance to grow accustomed to the monstrosities it committed against Memere. You wouldn’t believe what you could trick your mind into thinking was normal. Needles? Bodily fluids? I got used to those going back and forth between Matt’s house and the shelter. At Paige’s house, I learned to put on my best game face and act like none of it bothered me.

  And the blood? I craved that. Only from Aidan, of course. I worried, the more we drank from each other if I’d be affected by the sight of any blood, but only his had any magical power over me.

  After all I’d been through with Aidan, I still wasn’t totally convinced he could really be all he said he was. Immortal. Was it really possible? My brain couldn’t totally reconcile it, so I just went along for the ride. Everything else in my life was so much better when he was involved. I couldn’t fight with him on this anymore. If he was just crazy, I could live with that. If he really was a vampire, well, I’d live with that as long as I could.

  Although, I didn’t really understand how he could survive without killing me. But he did it. In some ways, I was drained. I felt tired a lot, but that could be my new job. In other ways, I felt stronger and more alert. All the little details of the job I might not absorb as my old, unaffected self I was able to catalog with amazing precision.

  When my rotation made a swing through the ER, I saw plenty of Matt’s old friends. Some of them talked to me, asked if I’d heard what happened. Others looked at me wide-eyed, almost with fear, like they knew exactly what happened. If they talked, I told myself no one would believe them. They were here on an overdose, or something else drug related that killed their credibility.

  After that, ICU sounded like a walk in the park. Stephanie hadn’t asked me if I could handle the ER.

  On my first night in ICU, I met Stephanie behind the desk. She introduced me to the residents and interns on duty. She’d been right about the workload, after the ER, I was actually kind of bored. Everyone slept as peacefully as they could with tubes and wires poking out of them.

  My body was getting used to the work, I wasn’t so sore from moving patients anymore. And now that I could crawl straight into bed with Aidan when I got home, I wasn’t exhausted every day. I got to read a whole magazine on that first night.

  “This feels so wrong,” I whispered to Stephanie as she swapped magazines with me.

  “Everyone’s all set, and we’re here if they need us,” she insisted. “Believe me, there will be some nights you’ll be begging for a break. Take it when you can get it.”

  I’d checked the mail on the way to work the next night and was thrilled to find the course catalog for Simmons College waiting for me. They had the best nursing program in the city, and I didn’t know if they’d let the likes of me in, but it certainly didn’t hurt to try. They worked closely with our hospital, so that to help my cause somehow. I tucked it under my arm as I met Aidan in the running car, I’d ask the people in my unit where they thought I should start.

  “Did I get anything?” He eyed the large book with curiosity.

  “A couple bills.” I felt guilty handing them over. Now that I was making money again, I’d offered to chip in, but he refused to take my money. “And a romance writers’ thing.”

  “Oh, good. Now I have something to do while you’re at work.”

  “I’m hopefully going to look through this big beast and see what classes I can take next semester.” I flipped through the pages of the book in my lap.

  “A month into the job and you’re already reading at work?” Aidan laughed. “Not a bad gig.”

  I whacked him. “You work in your pajamas!”

  “So, don’t you?” He grabbed a handful of my pants. “They might call them scrubs, but they’re just glorified pjs.”

  “Isn’t it awesome?” I gloated. “I had to wear heels all day at the store. My feet would be throbbing and I had to be nice to assholes. Here, I’m comfortable, and everyone’s practically comatose.” Or actually comatose.

  “And if they’re not, you know where they keep the drugs.”

  We both fell awkwardly quiet after he said that. As a CNA, I didn
’t touch anyone’s medications. As I earned more responsibility, would it ever be a problem? Would I be tempted? Right now, I didn’t think so. I hadn’t even thought about it until he said that. But right now, I had everything going for me. There was no pain to blot out.

  Did Aidan worry about me succumbing to the temptation, too? I didn’t know if I should address it or ignore it. He pulled into the drop off area in front of the hospital, so for tonight, whatever I decided would have to wait.

  Leaning in to kiss him goodnight, I realized that I didn’t want to let him go. My tongue moved softly against his and we made someone behind us impatient, from the way they were laying on their horn.

  I still had a goofy grin on my face when I walked into the break area of the ICU. The locker room was the quietest I’d ever seen it. I still had a couple minutes before eleven, and usually this room was packed at shift change. My mind, still conditioned to mall thinking, immediately went to corporate visit, but that was highly unlikely at almost midnight.

  No one at the desk either. Everyone had gathered in one of the rooms. Shit. A quick look at the computer screens at the desk confirmed the patient in that room with the crowd was in crisis. Interns and residents streamed in and out of the room, and a doctor rushed in.

  “What should I do?” I asked Stephanie, who was standing outside of the room, getting some equipment ready on a cart.

  “Hang out at the desk for now,” she directed, and I immediately felt useless. “Just in case anyone else needs anything. This one just came in, she’s in arrest. If she makes it, I’ll need you to help me clean her up later.”

  I nodded, and before sitting down behind the desk, I peeked into the other rooms. All quiet. One patient’s wife was spending the night as she had done the night before, I waved to her and smiled. She looked thankful for the acknowledgement. I knew how she felt. It was easy enough to get lost in the shuffle when you belonged here. When you didn’t, it felt like a black hole.

  As I sat, I pushed the college catalog out of the way. Now it felt so trivial when people were dying just feet away. Or maybe not. I should plan for the future that person wouldn’t have. My muscles tensed, as the anxiety flooded my system. This was my first brush with death on the job. But all I could think of was the day it was Memere.

  It didn’t matter who it was in that room, it didn’t get any easier.

  Thankfully, one of the other patients rang for a glass of water. Many of our patients weren’t able to talk or even drink, their throats busy with tubes keeping them alive. This was an older woman who’d just had pretty serious surgery. Because I needed to help someone right now, I stayed with her for a few minutes, and she told me that she had a grandson about my age who went to some college that sounded like it was down south. I asked her a few questions about him, not sure if she was just lonely or if she was trying to make a love connection.

  Everyone had returned to the desk area when I was done in her room. Some of them looked pale and tired. Apparently this never got easier for anyone.

  “Is that patient—“ I almost asked if they were okay, but that seemed so inappropriate.

  “She made it.” Stephanie sounded surprised. “But she’s not in good shape. She was hit by a car, and we’re pretty sure she’s under the influence of something, which with the trauma, sent her into arrest. We’re going to have to keep a close eye on her. I’m going to let her rest a little after that ordeal, and then we’ll go in and clean her up.”

  Stephanie dropped the file on the desk before moving on to the next pressing matter of the night. Usually we had a little more time to settle in and get updated on what was happening. But the second shift had their coats on and were on their way out, forty-five minutes later than they should have been, and I felt lost. Maybe Stephanie met with them before I came in, or while I was in with the other lady.

  My eyes fell to the file.

  Bartley, Joanna

  I stared at the name, my mouth open. I looked around to see if anyone saw my reaction, but everyone was too busy to pay any attention to me. Good. It just had to be a coincidence.

  About an hour later, we headed into Joanna Bartley’s room. We needed to make sure all of her heart monitors were still in place after the arrest. Her body was bruised and bloodied, so we had to be very careful not to cause her any pain when bathing and putting a new johnnie on her. I was afraid to breathe when I touched her.

  “She’s probably going down to surgery in the morning,” Stephanie said softly. Joanna wasn’t conscious, but she might still be able to hear us. “Depending on how the tests come back. I’d be shocked if she didn’t, though.”

  I nodded, still softly moving the damp, warm cloth over her skin, and tried not to burst into tears in front of Stephanie and my patient.

  Someone poked their head in, asking for help in another room. Stephanie volunteered herself. “Can you just jot down her vitals, Kyndra?”

  “Sure.” My eyes were locked on the patient for reaction. None.

  I watched Stephanie leave the room, and my body deflated, falling against the bed. I jumped up, afraid I might have landed on Joanna and caused her pain. That was the last thing I wanted to do.

  With my head still on the bed, I ran my hand through Joanna’s hair. “It’s going to be all right, Mama,” I whispered. “I’m going to make sure of it.”

  Twenty-Seven

  If I could be thankful for anything in this situation, it was that my mom and I didn’t have the same last name. We weren’t allowed to care for family members, something that made perfect sense when you read it in a procedure book, but when you were actually faced with the need to do it was a totally different story.

  I had to keep my cool and not let anyone know that Joanna was my mother. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. It took everything I had not to plead with the doctors and interns, to let them know they should pay special attention to this patient. I didn’t know if she’d say anything to anyone, when she could. She was unconscious now, whether that was on purpose or because her body couldn’t keep up with the stress it had endured already that night.

  The rest of the shift, I made every excuse I could to get in there, to make sure she was still breathing, to see if she was awake, if somehow she’d made a miraculous recovery and would be walking out of here with me in the morning, and we could go get breakfast or something that normal mothers and daughters did.

  Not like I would know what normal mothers and daughters did, but so many times I’d wished we had done just that.

  “Are you all right tonight, Kyndra?” Stephanie snapped me out of my daze as I half-heartedly leafed through the Simmons catalog. Part of me wanted to go in and tell my mom all the good things that had happened to me in the last few months, even if she might not be able to hear me. The other part of me knew that somehow, she’d still manage to ruin it for me, even if she was in a coma.

  “Yeah. Just a lot on my mind. I’m sorry.” I’d almost ruined this job once, I couldn’t ruin it again. I ran my hands over my face and then got up to make myself a fresh cup of tea.

  “It’s been a tough night for all of us. You can get used to all the gross stuff, but almost losing someone, that brings it all back.” Stephanie collapsed in the seat next to me.

  “I lost my grandmother last year,” I confessed. “She raised me. It’s all I could think about, when everyone was in that room.”

  Nothing brought it back quite like having your mother teeter on the brink of death on your watch.

  “Were you already doing this for work then?” Stephanie asked. “It’s always harder, when you know everything that’s going on.”

  Did she somehow know that was my mother? I almost blurted it out. Again.

  “No. This is my first CNA job.” I hoped she didn’t think differently after admitting how new I was. “I got this crazy idea that I could just make everything better. For everyone.”

  Stephanie sighed. “Oh, honey, I get it. You can, but you can’t. There’s only so much you can do,
but that little bit is better than nothing. Am I making sense? I’m so tired.”

  “Perfect sense.” I smiled at her.

  “I’m glad that lady lived.”

  “Me, too.” I couldn’t tell her. I felt like I was letting my mom down by keeping this a secret, but it was the little thing I could do to make sure I could do little things for her. I still had another week and a half in this department. She had to be better by then. She had to be.

  “All right, we’ll make one last round, and then I’ll have you do the paperwork tonight and I’ll just check it over. Sound good?”

  “Sounds great.” I was thrilled that Stephanie trusted me to give me any responsibility, since at the store no one had trusted me to do anything. And that was just underwear.

  The sun was already shining when we finished our shift, so I had to take the bus home. Every morning, it felt a little strange to be ending my day when everyone else started theirs, but it made it feel like that much more special to crawl into bed with Aidan. This morning, I needed him more than ever.

  He never woke up when I got home, no matter how hard I tried. It was a little creepy, how truly dead to the world he became. I thought of my mother, lying in that hospital bed, hooked up to all those machines, just as unresponsive. Would they have her go for surgery today? They wouldn’t have any need to tell me what was going on. Would she be there when I came back to work?

  I never felt so helpless in my life. If I called my aunt to ask questions, not only would I blow my cover at work, but then I’d have to explain why I’d shut her out. I had to own what I did. And this way, I’d be a part of taking care of my mother, not an afterthought like I usually was.