A Family for Christmas Read online

  He’d tend to his patient, and then he’d send her on her way. Without alerting anyone to her presence.

  From there, she was on her own.

  And so would he be.

  Just as he’d planned.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CARA SWALLOWED THE water held to her lips. Whenever the doctor was in the room, she mustered up the wherewithal to speak as though nothing was wrong. Years of practice protecting Shawn—but mostly she had been protecting...

  No, she couldn’t go there—had honed her ability to continue on through the pain. As though it didn’t exist.

  Sometimes she wondered if pain was just a figment of the imagination. Thought a lot about the power of mind over matter.

  She could deal with living in a body that hurt with every move she made.

  It was the emotional stuff that she wasn’t so sure about. Wasn’t even sure she wanted to try anymore.

  What was the point?

  Except that...she wasn’t dead. Shawn had left her for dead. As she’d traipsed through the Nevada wilderness, hungry, hurting, nearly freezing to death at night until she’d found a ditch to huddle in, finding not even a path on which to walk, she’d accepted that she was going to die.

  Had come to peace with doing so.

  So why wasn’t she dead? Why was she lying on a nice mattress under a soft comforter, wearing a makeshift hospital gown?

  The doctor had cut the sleeves off a man’s shirt and instructed her to put it on backward, buttoned only halfway up. He’d said nothing about her undies, and though she’d have liked a change, she’d left them on.

  She’d shuddered a time or two as he ran his practiced hands over her body, feeling for breaks, discussing his findings. Her ankle was a little swollen—her doing. As was the bruise on her knee and the bit of swelling on her right wrist. The cuts on her arms and face—all of which he’d carefully cleaned, covered with some kind of ointment and then bandaged where applicable—were compliments of Shawn. The arm abrasions had come when she’d held them up to protect her face.

  He’d tended to the bruises and cuts on her legs, too. Left there by the steel-toed tips of the boots her husband wore when he wasn’t surfing. Since moving to the West Coast he’d begun to fancy himself as some kind of cowboy surfer dude.

  In the beginning, she’d thought he looked damned cute in his tight jeans and Western shirts unbuttoned to the navel. But somewhere along the way, everything about Shawn had ceased being a turn-on.

  According to him he was the one who’d brought joy back to her life, which had been something she hadn’t felt since before her mother got sick and life had become a series of doctors. With her father’s contacts, there’d been a never-ending stream of them. Over and over he’d put her mother through examinations and treatments. All he’d really done was deliver them boatloads of dashed hopes. And...

  No, she knew better than to open a door that she’d spent years nailing shut.

  Funny, here she was, ready to go herself, and she’d been rescued by a doctor, of all people.

  What did that mean?

  “Get some rest...” Dr. Walsh had finished tending to her and was pulling the sheet and comforter up to her chin. She’d practically choked getting down the antibiotic and painkiller he’d given her.

  A huge believer in accountability and in Karma, Cara decided against thinking for the next few hours. Just long enough to sleep.

  Sleep brought clarity, which she needed to figure out what her still being alive meant.

  It had been so long since she’d really slept. Without senses on alert. Without fear.

  She had nothing else to fear now.

  And she really just wanted to sleep.

  For as long as he’d let her.

  * * *

  HE WOKE HER in the late afternoon. Checked her vitals. Shone the light in her eyes again. Gave her more to drink. Cara complied with words of thanks. Hoping to slip back into the forgetfulness of sleep.

  “You need to eat.”

  Her burning throat was barely handling the liquid, not that she wanted him to know that. “I’m not hungry.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to have an appetite,” the doctor’s kind voice came back at her. “But you’ve gone over twenty-four hours, at least, without sustenance, and I have no way of starting an IV here. So...you eat...or I make a call.”

  “You call, I die.” Without forethought she played on the guilt he’d exposed earlier. Men sometimes gave you tells.

  Still, her words were thick. She was groggy. She couldn’t believe she still had fight in her. Probably just habit. It would dissipate.

  Dr. Simon Walsh was trying to save her life.

  She had no life to live. No intention of walking back into the world again. Ever.

  Odd that, having made that determination, Karma had seen fit to deliver her up to a doctor. There was that fact staring her in the face again. Even after sleep. Did fate have a shadow side?

  Or a twisted sense of humor?

  Of course, she didn’t really believe that this doctor, if he was one, which, based on his care, she was pretty sure he was, was really on vacation. He’d said he’d been there a month already. Doctors—especially surgeons—didn’t take off that kind of time. And he obviously wasn’t planning on leaving in the next little bit, since he’d had no problem with keeping her there with him for as “long as it took.”

  He couldn’t handle a death on his conscience. Pretty obvious he already had one there.

  Ha! What if Karma had delivered her up to a doctor who was also a murderer? That one fit better. More like Fate and Karma were working together.

  Which was always how she’d thought life worked. Until she’d learned that it didn’t. That no matter how good you were, how kind, how many good deeds you did or how hard you tried, love didn’t win in the end.

  “I’ve got canned soup—pretty much any kind you’d want. I’d suggest starting with chicken noodle.”

  She didn’t want any soup. Nourishment would only prolong things. But she didn’t want to be delivered back to Shawn, either. She’d much rather Walsh killed her. Inject her with something and be done with it.

  Now, that would be good Karma. So maybe her good deeds wouldn’t go unpunished...

  Lord knew, a needle and drifting off to sleep would be better than being locked up in a jail cell. Which was what she deserved.

  If she could only wrap her mind around that truth.

  “’Kay.” She’d eat his soup.

  So he could get on with things. Even if, for now, it was just to go away and let her get back to sleep.

  * * *

  IT WAS DARK outside when he woke her again. Ironically, this time Cara felt hungry. Probably because of the whole bowl of soup he’d spooned into her mouth before. She’d had to keep her eyes closed while she swallowed, lest he see the tears that the resulting pain brought to her eyes. She couldn’t risk him figuring he’d have to call someone to do something about it.

  It would go away in a few days. It always did. Her throat muscles just needed enough time to heal from Shawn’s strangling grasp. He never went far enough to do actual damage. Only enough to instill fear. And pain.

  Which was why, once she’d known there was no reason to stay with him any longer, she’d had the idea to fake alarming symptoms. He’d been so careful to make certain she never really needed medical attention. Which told her he was afraid of her needing medical attention. She knew him well. Had pegged it right.

  Up until the part where she’d been found out in the middle of nowhere by a surgeon on extended vacation with someone’s soul on his conscience...

  He put water to her lips. She drank, her throat muscles throbbing with pain at every swallow. Took another pain pill. The antibiotic, he’d said, was only twi
ce a day.

  “You need to use the restroom?”

  She shook her head. Not badly enough to get up. Or have him carry her there then wait around while she did her business.

  Though why she should care made no sense, either.

  Still, she’d go when she could get there by herself. She’d once held it for thirty-six hours when Shawn had been on a particularly brutal bender and she’d had Joy safely hidden in the dog house that Shawn had later torn down. Joy, poor little thing, had had to wear torn pieces of Cara’s clothes as diapers until her father had sobered up.

  Then he’d bought them both new wardrobes. And reminded her, with tenderness, that as a respected business owner, he would be believed when he told people the fight had been her fault. If she said anything. Reminded her, too, the hell he’d rescued her from. How he’d supported her. How he still provided for her and Joy—everything either of them could ever want. He’d been wonderful for over a year after that time...

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  The doctor had taken her vitals. Shone the light in her eyes again. Must have been satisfied. She supposed that was fine. If he knew she was on her deathbed, he’d make his damned call.

  “No, thank you.” Her parents had been sticklers for manners. She had to be polite. Even at the end.

  Denying her hunger felt right.

  It was dark out and the doctor was wearing sweats. Another flannel shirt. She wondered if it was the middle of the night. Wondered where he was sleeping.

  Wondered if he’d set some kind of timer to check on her. Figured by the spike in his short hair and the stubble on his chin that he must have.

  What a nice thing to have done.

  Santa Raquel, California

  THE PHONE WAS RINGING. Lila McDaniels, managing director of The Lemonade Stand, a unique women’s shelter on the coast of California, sat straight up in bed. Being awoken in the middle of the night wasn’t an oddity in her line of work. It also didn’t often happen to her at home, in her condo. Her sacred space.

  It was her cell phone. Only a few people had the number. Heart pounding, she grabbed it before she could get her glasses on to see who was calling.

  “Hello.” Her tone was all business. It was all she knew how to be.

  “Lila? I need your help.”

  Edward. Her heart gave a little leap of a different kind—yet just as unsettling—when she recognized his voice. She’d known him over a month. Had spent a lot of time helping him with his granddaughter. It was not outlandish that she’d know his voice.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, already out of bed and pulling on a pair of brown pants. With her career—tending to the needs of abused and at-risk women and children—she was always ready to go.

  “Joy’s crying and I can’t get her stop. She keeps asking for her mother. Wants to know where Julie is. Asking me if Hunter’s home. Obviously she wasn’t ready to stay with me. I’ve tried rocking her. Talking to her. Gave her some warm milk. Turned on the TV. Nothing’s working. Can I bring her back? Please?”

  She’d worried that it might be too soon for Edward’s new-to-him seven-year-old granddaughter to spend the night in his hotel suite—a night away from The Lemonade Stand where she’d been living since she’d seen her father beat up her aunt and then cart her mother away.

  But he’d been granted temporary custody and would be given full custody in the event that his daughter’s body was found. Sara, Joy’s counselor, had felt that the sooner the little girl found security within her new family unit, the better. Especially since her father’s arrest.

  Shawn Amos had been the last one seen with his wife. Beating her. Hauling her away from their house by her hair. The same day he’d beaten his sister to death. The man was in jail on charges of first-degree murder. His wife, Joy’s mother, Cara, was missing—and the man claimed to have no idea where she was. Police were actively searching for her, but many assumed the worst. That they were seeking a dead body, not a live one.

  Especially after days had passed since Shawn Amos’s arrest and Cara hadn’t turned up. If she were able, she’d certainly have sought help. By all accounts, she’d lived for Joy. Nothing would stop her from getting back to her daughter. If she was able.

  “I can hear the tension in your voice,” Lila said, having pulled the phone away only long enough to slide the beige turtleneck over her head and step into low-heeled brown shoes as she grabbed her jacket.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Edward, a general practitioner from Florida, said. “I love this child more than I thought possible. I’m blowing it already...”

  “If I can hear the tension in your voice, so can she,” Lila said, keys in hand. “Ask her if she wants to come back to The Lemonade Stand. Talk to her like she’s one of your young patients. I’ll hold.”

  She could hear Edward call Joy’s name. Hear his impersonal yet kind tone as he did as Lila requested.

  Lila heard no response. But no crying, either.

  “She nodded.” Edward came back on the line.

  “Don’t bother changing her out of her pajamas,” Lila said. “Wrap her in a blanket and carry her down to the lobby. Call for your car first. Talk to her. Doesn’t matter what about. Your voice will be reassurance. Your body warmth gives her a sense of security. Make sure she’s buckled up. Drive carefully and I’ll see you there.”

  She didn’t have to go in. She could call Lynn Bishop, the full-time nurse who lived on the premises. Lynn would get Sara in. Lila could handle the rest in the morning. Any other time, with any other resident under these circumstances—no lives at risk—she would have done so.

  But she didn’t. For the first time since she’d come to The Lemonade Stand she’d let something get personal.

  Edward needed her.

  And damn her for needing to be there for him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Prospector, Nevada

  CARA SLEPT FOR two days. Two days in which Simon knew moments of peace, of pleasure, and moments when he sank into pure hell. Tending to a patient again—yeah, of course there’d be moments of pleasure. He was a doctor. Doctoring was all he’d ever wanted to do. From the time he was in junior high he’d known his course.

  Peace...now, that had surprised him a bit. Sitting in that cabin in the evening, with the light down low and a book in his lap...and upon first waking in the morning, knowing that someone was in the next room, having to keep a schedule, having something to do at a particular time...had brought peace. He should have known. Should have been able to figure out that he needed structure. Human Nature 101.

  And sinking into hell—well, that had pretty much been the rest of the time that he wasn’t climbing his way back out of it.

  His patient, on the morning of her third day with him, woke him when she moved quietly through the body of the cabin to the restroom she’d visited a few times in the previous two days, with him right behind her in case she felt weak. On those occasions, he’d left her at the door. She’d called out to him when she was ready for him to come get her.

  When he’d seen her underwear hanging wet and obviously cleaned on the far towel bar the previous morning, he’d taken it out to dry in the sunshine after he’d seen her back to bed. Everything had been right where she left it when she’d made her next trip, and had disappeared from the bar right after.

  She’d consumed three cans of soup. Half a cracker. And a couple of glasses of orange juice. Along with more than a quart of water. The previous evening he’d removed the makeshift butterfly bandages he’d put on her face and was encouraged by the pink skin surrounding her worst abrasions. Her skin had been cool to the touch since day one. She was healing nicely with no sign of infection.

  Pretending to remain asleep on the pullout as he listened to her cross the floor, move down the short hall and close the bathroom door
behind her, Simon considered what the day would bring. She was able to get up, move about without any slowness of step or obvious signs of dizziness. It was time for her to resume minimal activity. Another full day in bed was not going to be good for her.

  A woman up and about his cabin, needing another day or two of rest, but no longer requiring the direct supervision of a physician, was not good for him.

  As a patient, she’d either been asleep, answering his questions or following his orders. He’d kept his questions strictly professional. And his orders—a couple more bites, deep breath, please—even more so.

  He needed her gone so he could get back to the business of getting back to his life. Getting back out in the woods. Challenging himself more than closing one eye indoors would do. He hadn’t worn the eye patch since he’d found her.

  She had no idea she was dealing with a one-eyed man, and he had every intention of having that state of affairs remain just as it was. But with that, his right eye could grow weaker, letting the left eye do all of its work. Not wanting to leave her alone in the cabin—not completely sure she wouldn’t bolt on him—he’d had to settle for closing his left eye and watching the old television set that worked only with the DVD player attached. He’d kept the sound low, so as not to disturb his patient, and was pretty sure that the time he’d thought he’d seen a shadow move across the screen had not been a brain trick brought on by the fact that a female voice in the movie had just said come here. He was pretty sure he’d seen that shadow.

  And was antsy to get outside in the daylight and test himself.

  Just as antsy as he was to have the woman out of his house.

  Wanting to no longer have a patient to care for...well, with his usual self-honesty, he had to admit that he wasn’t eager for that part of this little time warp to end.

  Simon was sitting up, in the sweats and flannel shirt he kept by the couch to put on when he had to tend to his patient during the night, with the bed already folded away by the time Cara came back through the front room. He’d been keeping the place toastier at night, in deference to his patient, but even if he hadn’t been, he was a sleep-in-the-buff guy.