Charli was caught up short by the cashier’s words. It occurred to her, too late, that despite not feeling like one at all, she was now a role model. Great. Something else to live up to. Fresh veggies and inspirational tidbits? Forever? She didn’t feel worthy of the frank admiration in the girl’s gaze.
Especially when, a few days earlier, Charli had wiggled out of a police interview by plying her skills with ingrown toenails. “Good for you, Jen!” Charli told her, and scurried for the automatic doors.
A cold gust of wind cut through even the wool coat Charli was wearing. The groceries would be okay for a few minutes while she drove by and checked on her mom. It was cold as a refrigerator out here, after all.
The lights at her parents’ house were dim. A few low lights from the living room lamps filtered out.
It looks so different now. When her father was alive, every light would be on at this time of night, and by this time of year, at least according to Neil, her father would have turned it into a twinkling fairyland of Christmas lights—tasteful tiny white lights, not resembling Neil’s over-the-top display one whit, she suspected.
Funny how Neil’s lights were growing on Charli.
Growing up, the holidays had been a stressful time for Charli. Too many fights about money, too many times her mother had blown scads of cash for just the right present. Her father had wanted to ignore the holiday—and that suited Charli just fine, then and now.
Charli pushed away the sadness that welled up inside her and hurried to the front door. She could see the glow of a computer through the study window at the front of the house. As she climbed the front steps, through the living room windows, Charli could make out her mom’s figure glide through the room. She rang the doorbell.
The door opened. “Why, Charli.” Her mother’s eyes darted from Charli’s face to somewhere over her shoulder, then back to Charli. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
Weird how her mother didn’t seem all that happy to see her.
“I hadn’t heard from you all day.”
Her mother’s lips pursed in annoyance. “You’re always saying I should let you work.”
Can’t win, can’t win, can’t win. Charli stifled the urge to scream with frustration. “I appreciate that, Mom. I was just...worried.”
Violet opened the door wider with slow, dragging footsteps. “I suppose you’ll want to come in.”
Okay. This is officially the Twilight Zone. My mother always wants company. If she doesn’t want me to come in, I definitely need to.
Inside, nothing outwardly appeared to have changed. The house was still neat as a pin, with every knickknack dusted and in its prescribed place. Charli followed her mom to the kitchen, where beside a beautifully decorated, uncut chocolate cake lay the makings of a cup of tea. Her mother’s favorite porcelain china cup, lemon, tins of herbal teas and sugar were out on the granite countertop of the island.
“Want some?” her mother asked. “This is my test sample. I just got finished decorating it. I’m practicing some new designs for the cake I’m donating to the Christmas bazaar.”
“Sure.”
While her mother busied herself with slicing the cake and preparing Charli’s tea, Charli nosed around as unobtrusively as possible. She was lucky her mother remembered her preference for Darjeeling and insisted on digging it out of the back of her cupboard.
Sidling over to the basket of mail under the phone, Charli took a sneak peek.
There it was, a corner poking out from under the power bill. A credit card logo. Charli’s heart skipped a beat. A quick look told her that her mom was still busy with finding the tea. Charli took a finger, slid the power bill aside enough to see what it was.
Congratulations on your new Chase credit card! Please keep this—
“Charli! I said, do you want honey or sugar?”
In confusion, Charli blurted out, “Honey?” and her mom took that for her answer. Crossing the kitchen to the island, Charli accepted the cup her mother offered her. She tried to think of a way to broach the subject of the card with her mom.
Directly. That was the way to go. No beating around the bush.
“Mom, you’re not having trouble, are you? With shopping?”
“Me? Oh, no. Charli, why do you think that?” Her mother took a long sip from her cup. “Oh. You must have seen that credit card paperwork. Jed thought I should build up some credit. But don’t worry. It only has a thousand-dollar credit limit on it. I can’t get into any trouble with that.”
Charli picked up a wedge of lemon and squeezed its juice into her tea. Should she demand to see the paperwork? Should she call Jed?
It makes sense. Mom does need some credit history. And a thousand-dollar credit limit is small enough.
“Okay,” Charli said at last. “You’d tell me if you were in trouble, right? If you felt like things were slipping?”
“Oh, sure, honey.” Her mother’s smile was wide and easy, tinged with a little indulgence. “But you don’t have to take up where your father left off. He didn’t want you to have to worry about me. That’s why he set up this elaborate allowance thing with Jed. Besides, me being accountable—well, that’s what support groups are for, too. I won’t stop going to the meetings. Aren’t you proud of me? A credit card holder for the first time in years!”
Laying aside the lemon on the cup’s matching saucer, Charli framed her words carefully. “I am proud of you, Mom. You’ve really seemed to settle in the past few days.”
“It’s hard.” Charli’s mother’s fingers tightened on her cup. “I miss him terribly. I know you do, too.”
“I do. Sometimes at the office, I think I’ll go crazy. I keep wanting to run down the hall, stick my head in his office door and ask him what he thinks about something,” Charli admitted.
Her mom let out a long sigh. Her forehead puckered with faint worry lines. “Are you all right, honey? You’re working so hard, and you’ve had so much stress.”
Tell me about it. Lige—I can’t believe Lige. I thought I could count on him.
Her face must have given her away. Her mother pounced. “Something is worrying you! Is it work? Is something wrong at the hospital?” her mother asked.
“It’s just that—everybody expects me to be him. Everybody expects me to be just like Dad.” Charli blurted out the first thing that didn’t have to do with money or donations or Lige Whitaker. Well, not directly, anyway.
Her mom set her cup down, took Charli’s from her and wrapped her in a rare hug. Charli stood stock-still, not daring to move for fear of breaking the spell. The fierce, quick embrace made tears well up in Charli’s eyes.
As her mother pushed her to arm’s length, Charli could see it had affected her mom in a similar way.
She stroked her palm against Charli’s cheek. “Don’t try to be your father, Charli. You be you. If I’ve learned anything through all that counseling, it’s that you have to be true to yourself.”
“Who am I? Who was Dad? I hear so many things—I keep thinking that maybe I didn’t know him at all.”
Her mom stepped back, got her cup and took a sip with fingers that shook. “Who am I, Charli? Who’s anybody? I don’t think we know those answers. He wasn’t perfect, but who is? Your dad was a good man, a good husband, a good father, a good doctor who did a lot for this town. But you know that, don’t you?”
Charli started to tell her mother about the money, about Lige. Her mom stopped her by saying, “Oh, listen to us, all down in the dumps.” She sniffed back a tear, laughed and said, “I guess we are tired. Go on. Get some sleep. I’m fine, Charli. Really. But thank you for worrying.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NEIL TOLD HIMSELF Rudolph needed some additional staking to be sure he didn’t blow over. Not to mention the extra set of lighted netting he’d bought to stretch over his box
woods.
Okay. So he was coming along really slow on stretching that netting, and those boxwoods were the hedge that divided his property line from Charli’s. And yes, he could have done it before dark.
But while he was out here, there was no harm in checking every once in a while to see if Charli’s car was in her drive.
Even if every once in a while meant every five seconds.
He’d seen the video. Despite the GBI’s magic, the quality was still blurred and grainy, and the dark night hadn’t helped. Plus, the Secret Santa had been determined not to show her face.
Yes. Her.
It couldn’t be Charli, could it?
Sure, the figure walked a little like Charli, but it couldn’t be her. But then, just for a second, the video had captured a flicker of something long and flowing. In the video, as grainy as it was, it was almost unidentifiable. Unless you’d seen it.
And he had.
One of Charli’s scarves. One of a kind, practically speaking, because he’d not seen anyone else in town wearing Violet’s creations—not even Violet herself.
Brian had noticed his interest in the flicker. He’d badgered Neil about it, but Neil had stood firm. Until he was sure—absolutely sure—he wasn’t going to say anything to anybody.
And to be sure, he had to talk to Charli.
He heard a car turn onto their street and willed himself not to look up. It wasn’t her. She was working late or at her mother’s or—
It was her. Suddenly, Neil went all thumbs in his good hand. He plucked at the netting on the hedge like it was a banjo and he was playing at a square dance. The car stopped midway up her drive, even with him, and her passenger window slid down. She leaned over.
“Hey,” she called. “My apologies for abandoning you to Darius and Miss Olivia. What’s my penance?”
“Hmm.” Neil pretended to contemplate her question. He tapped his chin in what he hoped was a good approximation of judicious consideration. “I think you owe me a cup of hot cocoa. To smooth over my hurt feelings.”
“Sure—but I haven’t had supper yet. What about this? I have about three sacks of really healthy stuff one of my patients guilted me into buying from the IGA. How about I cook us a quick supper?”
Neil was surprised at her offer. “Sure...”
“Oh, wait. It’s practically nine o’clock. You’ve probably already had supper. You’re a normal person.” Charli’s face fell.
“No, actually, I had a late lunch, so I hadn’t really gotten around to eating.” Neil buried his fingers in the hedge and crossed them. No point mentioning the slice of convenience store pizza he’d scarfed down on his way home from the paper. “Well, nothing healthy, anyway,” he amended.
“Great! Let me get this unpacked and put away—”
“I’ll help. Many hands and all that.”
Groceries unloaded, and supper preparations under way, Neil found, when push came to shove, he could tear lettuce and turn the chicken she was grilling. She’d taken away the knife when she’d seen his clumsy attempt at cutting tomatoes one-handed.
He kept trying to figure out a way to bring up the video. Tonight, though, Charli seemed brittle and superficial and resisting any sort of serious conversation. He found himself wondering if she’d actually wanted him to accept her invitation.
But she had looked disappointed at the prospect of him having already eaten.
When he offered yet again to try to chop something, Charli shook her head firmly. “I’m being completely selfish,” she told him. “The last thing I want tonight is another patient.”
So he pulled up a chair. “How shall I sing for my supper, then?” Neil asked.
Her lips curved and those golden eyelashes fluttered his way, for the briefest of seconds, before she went back to slicing a carrot.
“I thought I was supposed to be providing some sort of community service,” Charli joked.
“Ah, yes, that. Darius is going to be the death of me one day. If I come into your office completely bonkers, you can diagnose me as Darius-overdosed.”
“I was going to ask you...” The knife blade speeded up, and Neil wondered if she’d picked up her expertise from wielding a scalpel or from cooking lessons. Charli used the back of her forearm to push a strand of hair from her forehead.
“Ask me what?” Neil’s stomach tightened. Was she going to bring up the donation? Would she confess that she was the Secret Santa?
“Er...” The strand of hair had fallen into her face again. Charli laughed and tried to toss it back.
Neil rose from his seat and gently tucked the silken strand behind her ear. She froze, the knife still in her hand, her face angled toward him. Those pretty pink lips had parted ever so slightly.
He should just blurt it out, just ask her once and for all if she was the Secret Santa, and if so, where on earth she’d gotten the money.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t take his hand away, instead letting it trail along her jawline. Somehow, this touch felt more intimate than the kiss on the Ferris wheel.
Charli let out a breath that sounded shaky to him. He could see her throat work in a nervous little gulp. The pulse at her jawline pounded away—matching his.
“Wow,” she whispered. “You sure know how to distract a girl. You won’t ever get your supper at this rate.”
“You know, I don’t think I’m hungry, after all,” he murmured back. He lowered his mouth toward hers, slowly, slowly—
And then, just as their lips met, Charli jerked away. “Oh, no! The chicken!”
The knife fell from her hand with a clatter against the wooden cutting board, and she leaped for the pan of chicken. Snatching up the crispiest one with a pair of tongs before it turned to complete charcoal, she practically threw it on the plate.
“Here, let me turn the unit down.” Neil leaned over and adjusted the flame under the skillet. “I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I was supposed to be watching the chicken, and I was, um, otherwise occupied.”
Her face was flushed—more from embarrassment than the heat of the stove, he thought. She’d never looked prettier to him.
“So much for my cooking abilities.” Charli put the last piece of chicken on the plate and surveyed the damage. “Are they even edible?”
“Sure. I like my chicken blackened.”
She closed her eyes and blew out a breath of exasperation. Opening them, she stared down at the chicken. “This is the reason I’m not a natural in emergency medicine,” Charli told him. “I can’t multitask well enough.”
“Hey, if you’d been able to multitask during that moment, you are not the girl for me,” Neil tossed back.
“Well, yeah, about that...” She squared her shoulders. “I probably shouldn’t be kissing my patients.”
“Fine. You’re fired.”
She did a double take, her face suddenly the color of chalk. “What?”
“I meant—I was trying to joke.” Neil shoved his good hand into his pocket and wished he could do the same with the other one. “I’ll find another doctor. Because...well...because...I wasn’t able to multitask, either.”
“I don’t know if it’s that simple.” She was nibbling on her bottom lip again, clearly not realizing how crazy that drove him.
Focus. She’s sweet and she’s got that vulnerable yet strong thing going. As Dad would say, she’s cute as a speckled pup. But you’ve got to ask her about that video.
The blasted words wouldn’t come. But he did manage to step back and give himself some breathing space.
Charli promptly closed the gap. She laid a hand on his chest, turned those beautiful blue eyes up to meet his and said, “I have a lot on my plate right now.”
“I’ll say.”
His doubts about what she might be keeping from him must have spiked his wo
rds with sarcasm, because she jerked back. When she would have turned from him, he pulled her around, gently.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just—this Secret Santa business. It’s got everybody in a froth. Folks are expecting me to unmask Santa. To reveal the identity of whoever left that money.”
“Not everyone, surely.” Charli said. She turned back to the vegetables and once again began chopping them. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Maybe you should respect Santa’s privacy. If he’d wanted to have his name attached to the donation publicly, he could have done so. Chief Hawkins told me it wasn’t a crime to donate the money, even that much money.” The bell pepper fell into neat little strips of green under her knife, which rocked back and forth with unrelenting accuracy. In one quick and efficient move, she piled them atop the carrots. The chicken came under assault next.
“Santa picked the wrong town if he wanted to remain anonymous. The whole community is buzzing about it. Ida at the Gas-n-Go says they’ve got a pool already on likely suspects.”
Charli carefully sliced away the blackened edges of the grilled chicken and swept them into the trash. She turned her attention back to the salvaged chicken, lining it up precisely before she started running her knife through it and answering over the thump of the blade against the cutting board. “But what about Santa’s wishes? He must have had his reasons, right?”
He? He is a she. Unless the GBI’s tech folks are mistaken. “Okay,” Neil said aloud, knowing he was stringing Charli along if she was the Secret Santa. “I’ll bite. Why all the cloak and dagger business? Why not give the money to the clinic on the condition of anonymity?”
Charli shrugged. She picked up another carrot and peeled it with quick, strong strokes. “You got me. But I’ll bet the reason seemed good to Santa.”
Okay, now Neil was needling her. He knew it. But she knew something about where that money had come from. Had she been a messenger for the money? Had it been her dad’s dying wish to donate something to the clinic?
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