She felt herself grinning at his retreating back, and then chuckling because that look of abject horror? Yeah, that was the stuff littler sisters lived for.
But then she remembered Gabriel, and it got a lot less funny. She didn’t want to have crazy jungle gym sex with some strange bar guy, but she could easily be talked into that with Gabriel. Though he’d never have a jungle gym. Not that he needed one.
And just like that she felt guilty about the whole thing again. Not just that she’d made up a silly story to Zac, but that she’d lied to him in such a way as to make him as uncomfortable as she was to push him off the subject. She’d never felt bad about messing with him before so she was going to blame this one on the baby. Her judgy, judgy baby.
With a sigh, she stashed her tumbler in a cabinet where it’d stay warm for hours and went to find Zac. It was time for her shift to start anyway.
She buzzed into the department from the east, and after a check of the board headed off in the direction she hoped to find Zac, and nearly ran right into Gabriel with Lawson, wheeling a patient in on their gurney.
“Hey.” She scrambled back, but then looked at the patient—a man with a rod of rebar piercing his right shoulder. It took her a moment to get a grip. “Did you call in to get him assigned?”
Gabriel nodded over her shoulder and she turned in time to see Zac and Dr. Ella Lockwood scuttling toward them, along with a team bringing up the rear. She wasn’t needed here, so she stepped back out of the way and let them go past.
As they returned to wheeling their obviously pained patient past and Gabriel started reporting the full situation, he locked gazes with her for just a second, but didn’t pause either his steps or his words.
He just looked like...
I see you.
I wish you were in the air with me.
Are you okay?
She saw all that, and only had time to smile, and then her own comm was buzzing and it was time for her to go the opposite direction, and babysit a tachycardic patient to Imaging with a cardioversion machine, just in case. Not as dull as being on the floor could be, but subdued enough that she was glad she had this Gabriel business to think about so she wouldn’t keep imagining herself yelling “Clear!” and performing chest compressions.
The day dragged on for years, and by the time Penny got home she was only moderately proud of not having vomited at work. Moderately, because she knew she might not have been playing show and tell with the day’s menu, but she still wasn’t at her best. She was tired. Tired in a way that she’d been hoping would pass. Tired in a way that left her wondering if the wonderful terrible pills were the culprit or if it was just a new fact of life for the next several months.
Her apartment was dark and empty, just as she knew it would be but had still secretly hoped to be surprised about.
But who actually did that kind of thing? Besides someone who had a key to get in? Even if he had, he couldn’t be not only over-the-top romantic but also telepathic enough to know she wanted it when she hadn’t told him. If he had been there, without a key, without an invitation, she’d tell anyone else it was time for a restraining order. Instead, she was fantasizing about being stalked.
Because, no matter what she’d been saying about not wanting to be in a relationship, they were already in a relationship. Some kind of relationship. And she liked it. More than that, she looked forward to seeing him in a way that meant every second she spent in a corridor in Emergency was a second she spent looking up and down, hoping to see his broad shoulders and long stride, eating up the floor.
She missed him.
Fishing out her phone, she wavered between calling him and texting.
Texting felt safer.
Again with the courage deficiency. Run toward the scary thing. Run toward it.
She dialed Gabriel’s number, and just before hitting the little green button to actually call she lost her nerve.
She texted instead.
You busy tomorrow night? Thought we might do something.
* * *
Gabriel rang the bell to Penny’s door twenty minutes ahead of when he was due to arrive. It had only been two days since he’d been there, but it felt much longer. At the same time it didn’t feel like long enough.
That kiss had crossed a line. At no time since all this had started had he felt like he was in control of anything. And he didn’t know what to do with any of it. He also didn’t know whether this was a date or just a meeting to discuss responsibilities.
He hoped responsibilities. She already made him feel too good, her apartment felt too good. Too relaxed. Too inattentive.
As unlikely as it was, if she just married him he’d feel so much better. He wouldn’t have to doubt her sincerity about the baby. He’d have the law on his side too. Yes, he was rushing things, but as much as he trusted her with his life every day in the chopper, he couldn’t find it in himself to trust her with his child. Even if his gut told him that fear was somewhat silly.
She wouldn’t do anything on purpose to cause it harm, and she’d said she wanted him involved, but...
Nila.
Nila. Nila. Nila.
Where was she?
He pressed the bell again, and seconds later heard thundering feet inside the cavernous loft.
Well enough to run. Good.
“Hey,” she greeted him before she even had the door fully open, and her bright smile said she was happy to see him.
“Sorry I’m a bit early.” He saw she had on full make-up, which was unusual for her, and didn’t seem to be dressed yet. “But I dressed warmly, as you said.”
“I see. I need to get dressed still and do something with my hair. Probably braid it so it will go under a knit cap. Otherwise I’ll freeze. But I got you something.” She gestured him inside, and darted to the kitchen counter to pick up a tiny gift box, which she held out with a smile so wide he could’ve counted all her teeth.
Outdoors. Probably ice skating or a walk in Central Park... Both of which were dates. This was a date.
A date with a gift. After closing the door, he turned back to eye the box and her bright, shining smile, and carefully took the slim, white, bowless box. “Why did you get me a gift? What is it?”
“It’s a car,” she deadpanned, then just shook her head. “Open it. It’s not like I went out and paid a gazillion dollars for something. It’s a... Oh, goodness. Do you have an aversion to surprises? I didn’t throw it at your face this time.”
When he moved his hand, something hard inside the box slid into the side wall with a thunk, and he shrugged through the weirdness to open the lid.
Inside sat a key with a pewter stethoscope keyring. On the inside bottom of the box was a series of numbers written in purple ink.
“It’s for the door. I know how close you were to breaking it down that first day I missed work. The code is for the security system. You can change it if you want to, but I just...” She stopped as he pulled the key from the box, brows up, and he could see a shadow of anxiety there in her beautiful blue eyes.
What could he say? The little keyring was thoughtful, but the key? The key was two inches of shining, silvery hope. “I was seconds from putting my shoulder into it, though now that I’ve seen the thing from the inside, I’m fairly certain all I could’ve accomplished was hurt my shoulder.”
“I probably should’ve waited until later to give it to you, but we don’t always end things on an even keel, do we? I wanted to make sure you knew that my heart was in the right place. I know we both have all this...baggage, and your wife wasn’t on the level with you, but I need you to know that I am,” she said, her voice softer than before, tentative even when she typically charged forward with such energy. “It’s not an engagement ring, but it is an invitation.”
Now he really didn’t know what to say. He
looked at the numbers she’d written down. Six digits in sets of two, separated by hyphens. It was a date. Two months ago. His chest tightened as the implication hit him. That was the date they’d spent in the motel. Not just numbers to dial in but an acknowledgement that these particular numbers were important. It was a promise.
“Thank you.” His voice sounded creaky to him, and the words wholly inadequate.
He’d taken so long to talk, she’d already reached the stairs to go and finish getting ready, but she stopped with her foot on the first step to look back at him, and held his gaze.
“What do you mean by invitation?”
“To move in.”
Three words, and then she left him there with it, jogging up the stairs to get dressed.
Move in.
His heart began to pound, and he walked to the sofa to sit. It wasn’t marriage, it wasn’t security, it wasn’t legally binding, but it was a step. Tonight was a date, but it was also to be a discussion about the future. Not just having fun outdoors. She was trying to meet him halfway.
By the time her feet sounded once again on the stairs, he felt more like himself. He’d threaded the keyring onto his own keys and familiarized himself with the security panel again.
She had braided her hair in pigtails that came from beneath either side of a thick, wooly hat, and had on jeans, boots, a coat, scarf, a bag slung across her torso, and had gloves in her hand. “Are you ready? We have to get a cab to Rockefeller Center, there’s a children’s choir singing tonight near the tree. Then I thought we could grab something to eat, if all is going well in belly-land.”
He should say some words before they left but just didn’t know where to begin. To keep her from getting away, he caught her hand before she wiggled it into her glove and stepped closer. The times he’d touched her face, she’d stopped dead in her tracks, so that would have worked, but it also seemed to short-circuit her brain in a way that felt like conniving to abuse, especially right now when it felt like they were suspended over Fifth Avenue on a tightrope.
“Do you want me to move in? Is that what your invitation is, or is that your way of saying I’m welcome, whatever is going on with us?”
His little chatterbox didn’t answer for long enough he knew words were as big a struggle for her on this, but she did open her fingers to lace them with his and tilted her head back so she could look him in the eye. When she did speak, her voice was soft. “I think we have to name this whatever is going on with us a relationship at this point. I didn’t want it, you didn’t want it, I get that. But it just is... Isn’t it?”
“It does seem that way,” Gabriel said, then nodded toward the door. “Children’s choir, eh?”
Penny couldn’t tell whether that abrupt transition meant anything. There should be a relationship manual for idiots to read.
“Linda’s grandson.” She went with it, naming one of the women in Dispatch, and tilted her head up to him, still uneasy, hungry for some sign on his face of his thoughts. All she knew for sure was that his hand felt good in hers, she’d missed having him around, and this was the most nervous she’d felt in years. Even more uneasy than she’d been when she’d made the decision and boxed up the key earlier. Now that the words were out there, this all became something that could snap back on her and make her regret. “But we can just stop by there and then go have something to eat. I haven’t been to see the tree yet this year, and it’s there...”
He shook his head then placed one slow, warm kiss on her lips, just enough to make them tingle, just enough to make her smile, and then pulled the key out of his pocket. “I’ll get the door.”
“Wait,” she said, a playful spark igniting in all the intense tingles. “If we’re in a relationship, can I do that anytime I want to?”
The look he gave her was cautiously amused, but he nodded.
Permission given, she reached for his scruffy cheeks and drew him back down for another kiss. This time deeper, mouths open, hungrier. And entirely too short. He lifted his head, smile still in his eyes, emboldening her.
“What about sex? Do I get sex anytime I want it now?”
Then he laughed, “You really are new at this. People usually start out relationships a little slower.”
“So that’s a no?”
“We’re going to be late.”
“Fine!” She groaned in melodramatic fashion and armed the security panel, then stepped out of the loft so he could lock it up.
Him with his keys. Did all this mean he was going to move in? Was he thinking about it? The words were already in her mouth, ready to break free, but Gabriel did things at his own pace, and if sex was off the table, that might be too far too. If this was going to work out—if she was going to show him that they could be together, and be a family, and let things flow naturally without labels and flower arrangements in churches—she had to let him get there at his own pace. Even if hers said, Hurry. Settle it now.
Like it was even possible to hurry up and make things flow naturally.
Despite sweet kisses, or the hungry kisses they’d shared, neither of them knew what to do when alone together in the back of a cab. Should she offer him her hand? Should she sit near him? People in relationships did that stuff. She did the best she could and scooted closer so that only the width of a skinny thigh separated them, and silently berated herself for this indecision. The other day she’d had no trouble hugging him. She’d had no trouble even cuddling up to him to go to sleep, but that had been before she’d discovered they’d somehow ended up in a relationship. Now everything felt weird. Good, but weird. And something was bugging her, she just couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Or what they were. It could be many things, for all she knew.
They made small talk about nothing, cases he’d been on that week without details, and soon enough the car stopped at the corner of Forty-Eighth and Rockefeller Plaza, and they climbed out.
On the way around the block to the tree and ice rink, they stopped at a deli for steaming cups of cider and sandwiches, and finally made it to the plaza just after the children started singing. From their position at the back of a crowd she could see the tree—naturally—but not over the crowd separating them. “Let’s sit.”
She gestured to a bench close enough to hear the music and far enough they could still speak, and Gabriel went along with it well enough.
“Is it weird for us to eat dinner while kids are singing?” Gabriel asked.
“Not unless they’re singing ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’ and the answer is crunching,” Penny answered, mostly because she was actually hungry for the first time in a few days, and her ham and cheese was calling her name.
He grinned, and though it didn’t look like he knew how to do this any more than she did, he turned slightly on the round planter benches so he could see her better, and from the return to his sober, thoughtful expression she could see he was chewing on more than his sandwich.
The kids began singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and Penny tried to find her way back to banter, that was something they’d always done well before all these feelings had got involved. “Have you ever noticed how many Christmas songs start with ‘O’ something?”
“‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’?” Gabriel played along.
“‘O Holy Night.’”
“‘O...’ What else?”
“‘O Come Emmanuel...’” That was the last one she could think of.
“Is that it? Four songs is all we could come up with? The way you put it, I thought we’d have some kind of measurable percentage here. There are probably thousands of Christmas songs out there. I bought wholesale into the notion of you being a Christmas carol librarian,” he teased, and she could see happiness crinkling the corners of his eyes. Unshielded, uncontrolled, and the sweetness of the sight of him almost choked her up.
“You’ve go
t me confused with the internet. But if you get your phone out to check right now, somewhere an angel will...I don’t know, fail to get his wings?” With effort, she kept the playful teasing going, wanting things to stay light and happy. Relationships should probably start that way but theirs hadn’t, and she truly wanted him to be happy, whatever happened. “Oh, there should be an ‘O Gabriel’ song. He’s an angel, right? I bet he had some job during Christmas night.”
“Gabriel was the one who announced the birth,” said the man named for an angel, but who was as sexy as the devil...
And who gave her an idea on how to talk to the rest of the world about their new relationship. “Me and God have this in common, I think.”
He looked over his sandwich, brows up, definitely not following her clearly insane segue.
“Someone’s going to have to announce that this baby thing is happening. Because, oh— Oh! That reminds me. Did anything happen the other day when you gave your rebar patient to Zac and Ella Lockwood? They were having a tense discussion later when I stumbled over them, and I think I saw Ella give Zac the stink-eye. Then I felt even more guilty because when he caught me earlier taking my antiemetic I lied about why I needed it.” Penny blurted out a bunch of words, and then stopped and made a little circle in the air with her finger. “That started out one place and then kind of came back to that place, which was the place where I don’t know what to tell people about being pregnant, but a little more got wedged in there in the middle.”
Gabriel could usually keep up with her sudden changes in conversation, though, so he only grinned as the choir drifted into a sober rendition of “What Child is This?” Naturally. “I noticed you went off the rails. One, I’m not announcing this to your family. Two, yes, I did notice something there. Neither of them wanted to give up the patient, so when I left, there seemed to be a showdown brewing. Three, what did you tell him?”
The Rescue Doc's Christmas Miracle Page 8