“Sounds great.”
David followed her into the kitchen, looking over her shoulder while she went through her refrigerator, freezer, and pantry. They finally settled on canned chicken soup and salad. Meredith chopped vegetables for the salad while David stirred the saucepan of soup. She had to admit she liked the cozy feel of working together in her kitchen.
Her face heated. Don’t get used to it. Temporary is David’s middle name. After their meal, Meredith rose from the table and put their dishes in the sink.
“Do you have to work tomorrow?” he asked.
She nodded. “I go in at six-thirty.”
“Then I better let you get some rest. You need more sleep than a catnap.”
She smiled. She walked David to the door, half-afraid, half-hoping he would kiss her.
His hands remained at his sides as he regarded her with a bemused expression. Meredith reached out for the door handle, then paused. Before she could analyze the wisdom of her actions, she reached up and wrapped him in a fierce hug. David hesitated only a moment. His arms slid around her waist and he returned her embrace. Lowering her arms from around his neck, she stepped away. “Thanks, David. For everything.”
His gaze searched hers for a moment. “Happy Birthday.” He opened the door and went outside, turning to wave as he walked to his Jeep.
She waved back, already bereft.
***
The following week, Meredith sent flowers and a card to the patient’s family, continually keeping them in her prayers. The news back from the Medical Examiner that the boy had a pre-existing congenital heart defect which contributed to his death seemed like a moot point. The knowledge had come too late.
Work was difficult. Meredith felt paranoid about every abnormality in her assessments of her patients, and worried she’d overlook something that could have ill effects on a child. She spent extra time double-checking everything, her mouth going dry at the thought of losing another one. It didn’t matter if reason said it was a rare occurrence. It had happened once. It could happen again.
In the evenings, Meredith nibbled on the chocolates from David. He was right. They were a poor substitute for the real thing. More than anything, she craved the comfort of his embrace. As much as she’d like to think things were developing between them, she knew better. She’d gone around and around in her head about him and nothing ever came out any different. David was David, and she was…just Meredith. Good for a few laughs—and a few kisses.
Meredith worked through Thanksgiving, which suited her just fine. David had to work, too. He had all those football games to cover. The holiday in the Peds unit was a trifle forced. The nurses always felt bad for the kids being stuck in a hospital when they should’ve been at home with their families. Each of the nurses brought a potluck dish to contribute for a meal. Celeste, her new Charge Nurse, brought in a roasted turkey, and all the food was shared with anyone interested, parents and patients alike.
When Meredith went home later in the day, she sat down and paid bills, took Bitsy for a walk, and watched an old black and white movie on television. Her last thought before falling asleep that night was when she might get to see David again. She prayed it was soon.
***
A loud pounding sounded on Meredith’s door the next morning. Bitsy went ballistic, racing around the house barking furiously. Meredith struggled from the bed and trailed to the front door. She glanced at the kitchen clock. Six o’clock in the morning!
Leaning her forehead on the front door, she yelled, “Who is it?”
“It’s David. Open the door!”
Meredith let out a squeak of alarm. “What are you doing here so early? And no, I will not open the door!” She pulled the folds of her robe around her throat. I look hideous! He’s nuts if he thinks I’ll let him see me like this.
“Open the door, Merrie. It’s cold out here.”
Meredith peeked out the window and saw lots of sunshine. The outside thermometer visible from the window read fifty-six degrees. Cold indeed. She heard David stomping his feet and rubbing his hands together for emphasis. Meredith bit back a smile, her melancholy fleeing just at the sight of him.
“You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” she called through the panels of the door. “It’s my day to sleep in and you woke me up!”
David rattled the door handle. “I’ll tell you when you let me in.”
Meredith groaned. She went to the mirror in the living room and ran her fingers through her wild mass of hair in an attempt to control it. No luck. There was no way she’d open that door to him.
In the reflection of the mirror she saw the front door swing wide open. David stepped inside the house holding up a key. “You really should hide your spare key in a better place. I had no trouble finding it.”
She spun around, letting out a faint scream. He grinned when he saw her. “Nice bathrobe, Merrie.”
She wrapped her arms around the ratty folds of her bright purple bathrobe embroidered with garish yellow daisies and lifted her chin. “Why are you here exactly?”
“It’s the day after Thanksgiving!”
“And?”
“Let’s go get a Christmas tree!”
Meredith sank onto one of the living room chairs and put her head in her hand. “You can’t get a tree the day after Thanksgiving,” she said slowly as if humoring the mentally insane. “They get all dried out before Christmas, the needles fall off, and they become a fire hazard.”
“But it’s the tradition. Hurry up and get dressed. I have to be in to work in a few hours.”
She peeked up at him. He had no right to look so hale and hearty this early in the morning. She got to her feet and hurried to her room, shutting the door with more force than necessary.
Since she showered the night before, Meredith worked on taming her hair into a respectable style. She eventually gave up, instead just tying it back with a deep purple ribbon. She scrubbed her face, brushed her teeth, and applied enough make-up to mask her sadness and fatigue.
Slipping into a pair of black jeans and blue cotton sweater, she yanked on her leather boots and grabbed a coat from her closet. When she emerged from her bedroom, she found David sitting on her couch, looking at one of her high school yearbooks.
He grinned at her. “So I was a ‘foxy babe’, huh?”
Face flaming, Meredith remembered the mushy sentiments she’d written around his picture. She marched over and plucked the yearbook from his hands. “I was sixteen at the time, with the maturity level of a five year old.”
David pressed his hand to his chest. “Ouch.”
She raised her brow. “Now that you got me up, can we get this show on the road?”
He jumped off the couch. “Let’s go!”
In his Jeep, Bitsy pranced around in the back seats, alternating poking his nose out each of the back windows. David wouldn’t hear of having him confined to a dog kennel. She noted he didn’t seem to be too concerned about the cold now.
He told her he was driving to a Christmas tree farm on the outskirts of town. They stopped at a house with a small yard enclosed with a chain-linked fence. About twenty or so trees grew inside. She understood now why many of the Christmas trees were shipped down from Oregon and Washington. These trees were pitiful.
As they got out of the car, Meredith grimaced. “I think we’re at Charlie Brown’s tree farm.”
David hushed her when the owner met them in the driveway. The man glanced pointedly at his watch. Meredith blushed. It was barely seven in the morning.
David smiled. “We’re here for a Christmas tree!”
The man shrugged and led them through a gate and into the yard. “Did you bring your own saw?”
He shook his head.
“I’ll go get one. Be right back.”
Once he was out of earshot, Meredith tugged on David’s arm. “You’ve got to be kidding. These aren’t trees! They’re scrubby bushes!”
“C’mon, Merrie. Where’s your Christmas spirit?”
; “Still asleep, like I wish I was,” she grumbled.
David linked her arm through his and led her over to the tallest tree in the yard. “What about this one? You can tell it’s a fighter, defying all odds.” He gave it a considering look. “You’d have to put that side against the wall.”
She giggled. “Look at it. You’d have to put it in a small hexagonal room. Every side is bad!”
“Shh. Here comes the owner.”
“Find anything you like?”
David gave her arm a warning squeeze. “We’ll take this one.”
“That one’s a beauty. It’s fifty bucks.”
Meredith sputtered in shock. David slapped her on the back. “You choking on something, Honey?”
“Just the price,” she hissed.
The man had begun to cut the tree with a chain saw and didn’t hear her. A few minutes later, the two men had the tree roped to the top of David’s Jeep. After David paid the man, they got back into the Jeep and drove away.
She shook her head. “You got snookered. Big time. That tree will be dead within the week.”
“Have a little more faith, Merrie. It just needs some TLC.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Why do you want a tree? Are you even going to be home?”
“No, I volunteered to work on Christmas. No sense in giving a single guy the day off when there are people there with families. Besides, the tree is not for me. It’s going in at your house.”
For a split-second, Meredith admired David’s kindness in volunteering to work on Christmas. It was short lived when he mentioned the tree and her house in the same sentence. “No way. It’s a fire hazard. And I’m working on Christmas, too.”
“Well, let’s just resolve to enjoy it while it lasts.”
She gave him a startled glance. Was there a double meaning in his words? She looked down at her hands. Double meaning or not, there was truth to his statement.
When they returned to her house, Meredith felt self-conscious with David dragging a glorified twig through her door at eight in the morning. What would the neighbors think?
“Do you have a tree stand?” David asked when he got it into the living room.
She shook her head. “I usually just decorate a tree outside with stuff for the birds to eat.”
“How about an empty coffee can?”
Meredith went to the kitchen and returned a short time later with a can. David got some rocks from outside and together they got the tree upright, using the rocks to wedge and balance it in the can.
While David stood admiring the effect, Meredith went to the hall closet and came back with a threadbare blanket. She spread it out around the base of the tree. Then, she snapped her fingers and went into the kitchen. She came back with a paper star cut out of yellow construction paper. Meredith taped the star to the top of the tree and spread out her hands with a flourish.
“It’s perfect,” she breathed. “It now looks exactly like Charlie Brown’s tree.”
David pretended to pout. “Why do I get the feeling I’m being mocked?”
“David, look at it! Any minute it’s going to sag and lose half its needles.”
“Where do you keep your music? We need a little Christmas cheer.”
She motioned to a small antique cabinet. David opened the doors and rummaged through her CD collection. In a few minutes the voice of Doris Day singing Silver Bells filled the room.
He went into her kitchen. “Hey, do you have ingredients for hot cocoa?”
His enthusiasm was infectious. She entered the kitchen. “Do you want the real thing? Or should we make the pre-fab stuff in the envelopes in honor of the tree?”
David grinned. “The real thing. By the way, where do you keep your ornaments?”
“In the garage. You’ll see a labeled box. But I really don’t have that many. Mostly just some old stuff from when I was a kid.”
David disappeared while Meredith heated whole milk in a pan. I’m getting too much out of this. She remembered what he said about enjoying the moment. Why can’t I just loosen up and have a good time while it lasts? After all, nothing lasts forever. Right?
She took a deep breath, resolving to take pleasure in David’s company for a few hours and leave it at that. So what if they didn’t live happily ever after? At least she’d have some memories to keep her company in the long spinster years ahead. Meredith grinned at her dramatic thoughts. She added extra chocolate and sugar to the cocoa.
A few minutes later, she loaded a tray with two steaming cups of cocoa and a plate of cookies from a package in the pantry. She found David on the floor in the living room next to the tree, just opening the ornament box. She set the tray down on the coffee table and joined him by the box.
They spent the next hour sipping cocoa and hanging ornaments on the tree. At the bottom of the box, David found a handmade ornament. It was a picture of him cut in an oval shape and bordered with red glitter. A hole had been punched into his head and threaded with a green piece of yarn. He held it up to Meredith, his brow quirked.
“I’m starting to see a trend here. I’m glad you cared.”
Meredith knew her face was as red as the glitter on the ornament. “It was at that maturity thing I mentioned earlier.”
“Ah,” he said. He turned and hung it on the tree with the greatest deference. “Now it’s perfect.”
She had to admit the tree had improved somewhat in appearance. The colored lights glowed among the gangly branches and a myriad of old-fashioned and homemade ornaments helped to fill in the empty spaces between the limbs. David reached out and took her hand, pulling her to his side. When she came near, he wrapped his arm around her and gazed into her eyes.
“Thanks for humoring me, Merrie. I had a lot of fun.”
Meredith laid a tentative hand on his chest and smiled up at him. “I had fun, too.”
When she saw that he was going to kiss her, she didn’t stop him, reminding herself to enjoy each moment with him. She closed her eyes and returned his cocoa-flavored kiss, matching his gentle fervor.
His watch alarm sounded. David groaned against her lips and raised his head. “I have to go. I set the alarm so I wouldn’t lose track of time and be late for work.”
“Oh,” Meredith said, desperately disappointed.
Before releasing her, he grazed her cheek with the back of his hand. “The station is having a Christmas party on the twelfth. Will you come with me?”
Without hesitation, she nodded. “Yes.”
David’s smiled broadly. “Good.” He pressed his lips once more against hers and released her. Grabbing his coat off the side of the couch, he waved and disappeared out the front door.
She went to the window and watched him go, her lips still tingling from his kiss. She could admit she’d loved every moment with him this morning, however temporary—but in the end, would it be enough?
Eighteen
Saturday afternoon, Meredith wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and answered a knocking on her door. “Rosa!”
The brunette grinned and entered. “Sorry I didn’t call first. I wanted to pop in and say hi.”
“I’m glad you did.”
Rosa walked over to the Christmas tree. “Wow, I can’t believe you already got your tree.” She gave her a quizzical look. “Have you ever put one up in your house before? I can’t recall you doing that.”
Meredith sighed, knowing she’d have to part with some information before Rosa left. “Not for a few years. I went to get it yesterday.”
“Alone?”
She shook her head.
“The plot thickens. Did you go with anyone I know? A certain sports broadcaster, perchance?”
Meredith twisted the towel in her hands and shrugged. “Maybe.”
Rosa walked back over to where she stood, peering up into her face. “Sounds like things are getting serious.”
She gave a humorless laugh. “If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that David Steller is never serious.”
“Well,�
�� Rosa drawled, “things are getting serious with me and Gino.”
“More serious than getting married? Should I be praying for you?”
“Droll. Very droll, Mer. No, silly, we set the date. Valentine’s Day. Are you available?”
Meredith was shocked by how soon they wanted to be married. What was the rush? Hoping Rosa hadn’t noticed her reaction, she spoke with a teasing voice. “Let me check my social calendar.” She stared up at the ceiling and said with affected surprise, “Oh, what do you know? I’m free then and every day before that.” She remembered the party. “Except for December twelfth.”
“And what is December twelfth?”
“A Christmas party I’m attending…at KVL.”
Rosa’s brows shot up. She tapped her finger on her chin. “Ya goin’ stag?”
“Nope.”
“Didn’t think so. Sounds like you’ve been busy, Miss.”
“Well, you’re not around to keep an eye on me anymore. Apparently Gino has more appeal than me.”
Rosa laughed, not contradicting her. “What are your plans for the day?”
Meredith shrugged. “To take my dog for a walk?”
“I came over to ask if you wanted to go look at wedding dresses with me. But we can look for something for you to wear to the ball…I mean party,” she said with a wink.
“Actually, I have nothing to wear. So I’ll take you up on your offer.”
***
An hour later, they arrived at a large mall in Cedar Hill, which featured a bridal boutique. Rosa insisted they shop for Meredith’s dress first, urging her to enter a small dress shop. Rosa started pulling dresses off a rack.
“What kind of look are you going for?” she asked from under an armload of garments.
Meredith grimaced. “I don’t know. I just don’t want to end up with something that looks ridiculous in hindsight.”
“Kinda like bridesmaid dresses?”
She laughed. “Exactly.”
“Don’t worry,” Rosa said, “I won’t make you wear anything ugly to my wedding.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Dearly Loved Page 17