Secret Santa Read Online Free PDF Page B

just what her mother needed—but it was torture for Charli.
    She’d escaped out the back door at a near-dead run, accepting the stack of Tupperware containers filled with goodies from one of her mother’s friends just so she wouldn’t be delayed by an argument. Charli hadn’t even had the courage to say goodbye to her mother. She’d go back. Later. She’d call. Later. But for now, she simply needed some quiet.
    At that exact moment, Gene Autry started belting out “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Charli banged her head against knuckles that gripped the steering wheel. Neil and his blasted Christmas lights. All they did was remind her that this Christmas was going to be the absolute worst Christmas ever, in a long, long line of horrible Christmases in the Prescott family history.
    That wasn’t entirely true. Neil’s Christmas lights reminded her of that. But Neil himself... He’d been so sweet. He’d hung right in there with her and her mom the night her dad had died. He’d come by her mom’s every day, and Charli was so grateful for the way he’d made her mom smile in those early moments.
    At the funeral, Neil had waited patiently for the many, many people to greet them at the graveside. There, under the green tent the funeral home had provided, he’d gripped Charli’s hand in a tight comforting squeeze and assured her she could ask for anything she needed. The man had a kind heart—she could tell that.
    So maybe if she walked through the gap in the hedge and asked him for this one night if he could forego the music...he might.
    She hoisted herself out of the car on legs that still felt wobbly. As she approached the hedge, she saw Neil, his back to her, happily tinkering with a snowman’s lights, adjusting the display with his good hand.
    She cleared her throat, but the music drowned out the sound. Somehow it seemed too intimate to watch him without him knowing of her presence as he fiddled with the lights, completely engrossed in his task. His attention to detail rivaled some of the surgeons she’d trained under, and he could have no greater focus to his task than her favorite chief resident.
    “Neil?”
    The name got his attention. He turned around. A smile lit up his face and warmed her, despite the raucous rendition of “Rudolph” in the background. “Hey! You’re home! How’s your mom?”
    “She’s—she’s okay.” Charli’s throat closed up on her as she thought about her mom and how much she’d loved her dad. All her mom had ever wanted was to make her dad happy. And now the main purpose of Violet Prescott’s life was gone.
    Neil crossed the lawn to where she was. He stood there, smiling, his eyes full of energy and merriment that the music seemed to fuel. Suddenly Charli thought it way too much to ask him to cut off the Christmas carols—would he think she was some sort of Scrooge? And he got so much joy out of the display.... Would she get that amount of joy out of anything ever again?
    “I’ve got some hot cocoa if you’d like,” Neil offered. “Or I could scare up an omelet.”
    She shook her head. “No, no, thank you. My mom’s friends have all conspired to make sure I don’t starve to death for the next century. I’ve got a carload of Tupperware filled with food.”
    “Oh, okay. Yeah, every time I went to visit, it was always packed with people—the funeral home, your mom’s house....”
    Charli felt tears burn her eyes. She turned her head, embarrassed that a week after that awful night, she still had to be on guard against her emotions. She was a doctor. She couldn’t be falling apart every minute of every day.
    Neil touched her sleeve. “I—I’m sorry.”
    For a horrifying moment, she thought she wasn’t going to be able to keep back the tears. His voice was so kind, so gentle, as if he understood exactly the depth of the pain she was going through. She was certain that if she looked Neil straight in the face, she’d surely lose it.
    But the will that had