Holiday Spice & Everything Nice

by Conn, Claudy

  “Shall we?” He pointed his head in the direction of the doorway.

  “We shall and …” She gave his hand a squeeze. “Marcus, would you mind staying? You don’t need to say anything, and if it puts you in an uncomfortable position being on the board and all, I understand.” She wanted him there. She normally wouldn’t have been so brazen in her request, but she was fairly sure he wanted to be there too. Maybe it was because he disliked Dr. Franklin. Maybe it was because she was a damsel in distress and some guys got off on that. Most likely, Lacey thought, it was because he was just a nice guy.

  “I will stay as long as you desire me to be there. Frankly, if I get kicked off the board for helping someone advocate for their family member, then it’s a board I shouldn’t be wasting my time on in the first place.” The truth in his words warmed her body and soul. He was not on the board to be powerful or to impress people. He was there to make a difference. Why oh why did this guy, this handsome, kind, and dastardly sexy guy have to be her boss?

  “Thank you.” She wouldn’t cry. Lacey was strong and wouldn’t let his kindness turn her into a blubbering idiot. It took all she could to keep all but one stray tear in her eyes. “You barely know me and you … just thank you.”

  “I know you more than you think, sweet, hardworking, loving, independent Lacey.” He gave her a slight peck on the lips. Nothing sensual and everything compassionate and caring. It was official—this man was going to take her heart. Lacey only hoped that when she got it back from him it wasn’t irreparably damaged.

  The walk to the conference room was short and waiting inside were both Dr. Franklin, nervously pacing the side wall, and Nancy, sitting at the foot of the table with mischief dancing across her face. Shutting the door behind them before offering her a seat, all gentleman like, Marcus kept his eyes on Franklin, who had schooled his face and projected confidence.

  “Mr. Northrup.” Dr. Franklin nodded his head in greeting, giving Lacey a pointed look before taking his seat.

  “Dr. Franklin.” His nod mimicked that of Dr. Franklin’s only moments earlier, and he too took his seat right next to Lacey, his hand settling on her bouncing knee. “Ms. Miller asked both Nurse Beckett and I to accompany her to this meeting about her mother’s care.”

  Franklin had to have put the pieces together when they arrived, but hearing them out loud must have pressed his buttons. His eyes squinted, his jaw locked. The little weasel of a man was livid. The hostility seemed irrational for the situation, but not having dealt with the man before, Lacey blamed his ego and what she envisioned to be his micro peen.

  “With all due respect—” Slime. His voice held the quality of slime. No respect intended to be sure. “I don’t think it appropriate for you, as a board member, to be part of deciding patient care.”

  Lacey squirmed in her seat. Maybe it had been a bad idea to have Marcus here. If he weren’t here, she would be pacing in her mother’s room waiting for a seven PM ambush by the jerk just as his shift ended. She wasn’t stupid, they worked seven to seven and there was no way someone as condescending as he had been would give up their time off to have a real discussion.

  “If I were here as a board member, your conclusion would be valid.” He removed his hand from her knee and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “I am here, however, as Ms. Miller’s beau, and in that, your opinion is not requested nor desired.”

  Holy crap on a cracker. Did Marcus just call her his boyfriend and shut down Franklin in one sentence? Dumbfounded, she just sat there and let the entire thing unfold. This was not the day she expected when she woke up in the morning, not at all.

  “You’re her what?” The weasel was stumbling. As if the thought of her being with a man such as Marcus was ludicrous. Maybe it was, but for the moment she was going to embrace it.

  “Boyfriend, Dr. Franklin.”

  Lacey’s head snapped in Nancy’s direction. She had momentarily forgotten that the woman was there. Nancy was having far too much fun with this entire thing. Lacey vowed to find a way to get her an amazing Christmas gift.

  “The word means boyfriend.” Nancy was trying hard not to laugh, but a slight chuckle fell from her lips.

  Dr. Franklin gawked openly at Lacey, disgust oozing from him. Lacey knew her size was an issue for many, but she also had confidence in her beauty. She was no model, but she was far from a troll. No, Franklin’s disgust wasn’t her looks. Lacey conjectured it had everything to do with his perception of her class.

  “Dr. Franklin.” It was time to put on her big girl panties and take over the meeting. It was nice to have people on her side, but this was about her mother. “Shall we begin? You said we needed to discuss my mother.” She swallowed hard. From the moment the phone had rang, her gut told her that this was not good. Now she was going to find out exactly how not good it was.

  “Yes, Ms. Miller.” He was pretending to look at her, but Lacey was no fool, his glance never fully left Marcus. Good. She hoped his presence unsettled the man. “Your mother is no longer improving and we feel she would be better suited for a nursing facility.”

  “Nursing home.” Lacey wasn’t going to play games or allow sugar coated words to let him off the hook. He was saying they wanted to move her to a place with a bed and food and not much else. That was unacceptable. “You mean nursing home.”

  “Yes.” He let out a sigh. “I mean nursing home. A bed just became available in a nice state run facility, and I reserved it for her. Transportation is being arranged, and she will begin tomorrow. We just need you to sign some papers on her behalf.”

  Heck to the no on that one!

  She was seething. Not only had he decided her mother was not improving, which she was, but he wanted to move her just like that. No transition time, no discussion time. Just … boom you’re in a home now. See ya.

  “Let me get this straight …” Nancy’s voice was tight and calm—too calm. She was livid. “You decided she is not improving without talking to the nursing staff?”

  “Nurse, you are out of order.” Sweat pooled on Dr. Weasel’s brow. Nancy was spot on. The jerk hadn’t discussed it with them. He’d just up and decided. And where was the team? The doctors before had always met with her as a team. Something was off.

  Lacey jumped in. “Then I have the same question. Did you?” She wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily, and taking the heat off of Nancy felt like she was doing the woman a favor even if the nurse seemed to like the heat.

  “We looked at the file.” The weasel no longer looked anyone in the eye. He was looking at the wall behind them. Shithead was lying.

  “Looked at but did not read, Doctor.” Nancy pounced at the opportunity to get back in the game. “For if you did you will see multiple notes from the past week indicating improvement.”

  “Nurse, I will not speak to you again.” The harsh clipped words made Lacey’s blood boil. “I am only letting you here out of respect for Mr. Northrup.”

  “Mr. Northrup?” Lacey stood up, hand on the table, leaning forward in her best-you-better-be-shitting me stance. “Did you just say, in front of witnesses, that I, as my mother’s power of attorney and immediate family is less important than my … Mr. Northrup in this meeting?”

  She dared him to deny it. Oh, she would have his head on a platter after this meeting was over. Having a bad bedside manner was one thing. This brought it to a whole new level. She was going to take him down.

  “Mr. Northrup doesn’t owe the hospital and rehab facility close to a million dollars, a debt that is growing daily, Ms. Miller.” He stood up, red faced, copying her pose, vein in his neck throbbing. “You do.” He pointed at her as he said the final words. The bills. They were going to screw her mother over due to her inability to catch up on bills. This was all Lacey’s fault. She slumped into her chair.

  “Please tell me I misunderstood you, Doctor.” Marcus’s hand moved from her shoulder to her back, rubbing gentle circles. Such a contradiction. His tone clear. Each word clearly annunciated an
d forceful. He was rip roaring pissed. “Please tell me you didn’t just suggest that Bethany Miller’s care has anything to do with finances.” The doctor opened and closed his mouth. Marcus had him speechless. Good. He deserved it. “Think long and hard before you answer.”

  Three deep breaths and a brow wipe later, Dr. Franklin began to speak. His voice held a calm his body language did not. “You know as well as I do that the facility isn’t breaking even.”

  “A situation I not only offered a solution for but financed out of my own pocket?” Lacey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Did Marcus just say what she thought he had? Was he the fairy godmother who provided a lawyer, not only for her, but for others in need? It was becoming abundantly clear that the man beside her was almost too good to be true.

  “You avoided my question.” Marcus wasn’t letting the weasel off the hook and Lacey was glad. She was good at holding her own, but when it came to things like this, she would have crumbled. This was her mother’s well-being they were discussing, and the emotional component of that made her both stronger and weaker. Stronger because she would do anything for her mother. Weaker because she would do anything for her mother.

  “I … I … Nurse Beckett, I must have missed your notes. Would you please convey them orally to me?”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  Nancy was not overstating it when she said it would be her pleasure. The smile beaming on her face as she repeated tiny incident after tiny incident where Bethany had improved from pressing the call button when her remote fell, to taking a step without holding onto the walker, to turning her head in response to a question.

  Baby step by baby step, the woman recanted the progress being made, and in the end, the decision was made to keep her mother where she was and increase all therapies from speech to physical therapy to occupational therapy to some Lacey didn’t even understand. Her mother was going to get even better care than she had been getting, and from the sounds of Nancy’s report, things were actually looking up for the woman Lacey adored, not down.

  As the meeting concluded, Lacey wanted to spin in circles like a little girl in a field of wild flowers. There was still lots of work to do and huge bills to pay, but things were on the right path. Better treatment, a lawyer to help with the bills, and friends by her side, something she hadn’t dared to dream for.

  Chapter 9

  Friday morning. How was the week already over?

  After the meeting about her mother, Marcus drove her back to the office, confessing what she had already figured out; he was the one who had hired the lawyer. Not for her, per se, but for all of the people like her suffering daily with the weight of medical bills on their shoulders when help was available, yet just out of reach, very often simply because they didn’t know what paper work needed filing and who to ask for help. He called it a win-win because it helped both the finances of the hospital group and the person in need. She called it magic.

  After a brief kiss in the car, they made their way up to the floor when she watched him take his phone out and power it up. Her heart sung. He had turned it off the entire time they’d been at the hospital and possibly longer. He had made her a priority. She was soaring. Until the phone began to explode and the guilt set in. He was missing all of the important things for her, someone he barely knew.

  By the time they got to her cubicle, he was engrossed in his phone, and she knew something was up. Something work related that needed to come first. He gave her a subtle wave and continued onto his office. Before she left for the day, she had one message from him: Sorry, I need to go out of town to the NYC office. Message me if you want to chat. She hadn’t seen him since.

  She did, however, message him. It turned out the VP who was in charge of the NYC office had had a heart attack. He was going to be all right, but had a long road ahead of him. Marcus went to not only help get the office on track, but also to visit his father’s old friend while he recovered. She had a feeling that was the main reason.

  They texted like a couple of teenagers before actually calling each other and talking well into the night. They talked about their day, their favorite colors, what they were like as children, all of the typical first date stuff. They may have started this, whatever it was, out of order, but it felt right.

  They never discussed what Lacey actually wanted to know. What were they actually doing? He had called himself her beau, and in many ways acted like one in the meeting. But a meeting is a meeting, and it could have easily been to piss off Franklin, which quite honestly was a good enough reason for her at the time. He had so deserved it.

  Looking in the mirror, Lacey checked and double checked her hair and clothing. It was Friday and that meant he was coming back to town. She wasn’t sure when he was arriving, but he had asked her to join him for dinner, so she tried to pull together a look that was both work and play. She stunk at fashion, mostly because she hadn’t been able to afford to do more than snag essentials from the local thrift store, but she had an eye for what emphasized her curves, so she felt beautiful in the dress she was wearing.

  Lacey tried to talk herself out of being too excited for the date. She didn’t want to misconstrue his intentions. He never officially called it a date. At least, that is what she kept telling herself in order to protect her far too invested heart. It wasn’t even the fact that she was intimate with him in a way she hadn’t been with any other man before. It hadn’t even been the way he helped her mother. It was the way he talked about his reasons for hiring the lawyer that had her handing over her heart. The compassion and empathy he had for strangers blew her away.

  As she made her way, she found herself getting giddier and giddier for work. Even in his absence he left her Secret Santa gifts for her, but they had changed. No longer were they naughty or nice. They were just nice. Lacey’s ego would’ve been damaged if he hadn’t asked her to not open the naughty gift she had sitting on her nightstand at home until he could be there with her. No, the nice gifts were just that. Nice, and the best part of them were the messages they entailed.

  As she rounded the corner to her desk, she was a bit surprised to not actually see a gift. Not that she wanted one. She had told Marcus more than once she he had gone above and beyond the call of Secret Santa duty, and he mumbled something about wooing and changed the subject. She was just surprised because it was so unlike him.

  Still not overly confident where she stood with him, of course Lacey went to all of the what ifs. What if he found someone in NYC? What if he decided she had been too easy and not worth his time? What if she annoyed him with her babbling? They flooded her brain as she booted up her computer and got her cubicle ready for the day.

  The morning dragged ever so slowly by. Being Friday, most of the people in her department avoided scheduling any kind of meeting in the hopes of getting out early. She had plenty to keep her busy, but the distraction of a meeting would have been nice. Thankfully, she had a bunch of emails that needed responding and the phone rang fairly frequently.

  “Lacey, a bunch of us are going to get some happy hour drinks and appetizers at six, are you up for it?”

  Lacey looked to see one of the women in her cubicle row, Heather something, looking all excited for the happy hour. Even if Lacey hadn’t had a date, or whatever it was, she would politely decline. Happy Hour wasn’t her cuppa. Half price expensive appetizers were still more than a yummy complete dinner at the local diner, and that just seemed like a waste of finances when money was so tight. If things all worked out with the lawyer, money would be far less tight, but counting your chickens before they hatched, especially when it came to money, was an impoverished idea in every respect.

  “I can’t, actually. I have plans.”

  “Oh, come on, you never go with us.” It was true, not once, and that was not likely to change in the future. The words of her evaluation rang in her ear. No, she would have to suck it up and go after the New Year.

  “Sorry, I really do have plans. But maybe when things g
et less crazy I could tag along?”

  “Change them.” Heather ignored her promise of a future outing and went straight for pushy. Lacey was guessing the woman had a new love interest in her sites and this get together was more than just a way to get half priced beverages.

  “I would find that unacceptable, Ms. Brown.”

  Lacey’s head snapped up to see Marcus. How had he managed to sneak up on her like that? She had been waiting for him all day, watching the doorways like she was on a stake out. He was home and as excited as she was to see him; she was also worried. His face held a smile, but it never reached his eyes, which were missing the sparkle she adored. Marcus looked worn.

  “Ummm, ummm, sorry, Mr. Northrup. I didn’t see you there.” Heather stumbled through her reply, obviously as shocked to see her boss standing there as she was concerned with her chit chatting instead of working might be an issue.

  “I gathered as much.” His chuckle felt forced to Lacey. The poor man must have had a far worse week than his phone calls had indicated. “Now quit trying to pilfer my date.”

  Date. He had called it a date. Lacey watched, bemused, as Heather’s jaw dropped in shock before she quickly recovered. Her date was going to be fodder for office gossip to be sure.

  “Yes, sir.” The woman spun and began to walk back to her cubicle before turning her head back and adding, “Maybe next time.”

  “Bye.” Lacey gave her a quick wave and then brought all of her attention back to Marcus. “I think you scared that poor woman,” she teased, trying to turn his fake smile into a real one, if only for a moment.

  “Hardly. Have a few moments?”

  “Sure.” Lacey tried to come off as cool and calm, but she knew she had failed miserably. She was practically bouncing in her seat.