‘HAPPY CHRISTMAS, HOLLY.’
With just an hour left of the big day, and only a couple of patients trickling through, he found her standing at the nurses’ station, pulling up some antibiotics that weren’t even due yet, and he said what he wished he had said this morning.
Holly was very glad that he hadn’t wished her a happy Christmas then, only because she’d have flung it back at him and said he’d ruined it.
Twenty-three hours into Christmas Day she was ready to hear it.
‘Thank you.’ She smiled. ‘And to you.’
It had been a happy Christmas, Holly thought as she tapped the little air bubbles out of the syringe.
Despite the tears to come and the hurt yet to heal, it had still somehow managed to be the best Christmas and birthday she’d ever known.
‘Was Santa good to you?’ he asked.
‘He was,’ Holly said, wishing he would leave her alone, because it was hard to chat and play friends, but she tried. ‘And Secret Santa was very good to me.’ She looked into those absolute navy eyes, and there was still no silver, no little aqua dots, and she knew she loved him. ‘Though he went way over budget...’
‘Count yourself lucky. I got a lip balm.’
‘The crème de la crème of lip balms,’ Holly corrected him.
‘Was I to think of you when I applied it?’ Daniel asked, and it was he now who looked for a deeper meaning.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It was my I-am-so-over-you present. A bit nicer than I’d have got for others but certainly not in the chocolate stocking category.’
‘What’s wrong with a chocolate stocking?’ Kay asked as she bustled in to get her bag and finally go home.
‘Nothing,’ Holly said.
In fact, a chocolate stocking was a whole lot less confusing than Daniel, and his romantic gifts and come-to-bed eyes, followed by the silent treatment the morning after.
Aaggh!
She wanted to scream but she didn’t and no way, no way would she ask what was in the letter.
‘Did you get any presents, Daniel?’ Kay asked.
‘I got a wallet from my father and stepmother,’ Daniel said, ‘and a popcorn-maker from my sister. We had a good day.’
‘You stayed for dinner?’ Holly frowned.
‘I did.’
‘Don’t you get on?’ Kay asked.
‘Not really,’ Daniel said. ‘Though it’s my stepmum that’s the problem at the moment. Still, I do have a young sister...’
‘How old is she?’
‘Five,’ Daniel said.
‘And so how old is your stepmother?’ Kay exclaimed in her less-than-tactful way.
‘Twenty-seven.’
‘Dear God!’ Kay was stunned. ‘That would be hard.’
‘Actually,’ Daniel said, picking up a file for the next patient, ‘it’s not. Much to Amelia’s disappointment.’
Holly and Kay looked at each other as Daniel went to walk off. Holly could not believe he was finally being open about it, and as for Kay...
No, she wasn’t subtle and she was also very, very shrewd.
‘Did she come on to you, Daniel?’
Holly held her breath, wondering what his reaction would be.
‘Last year.’ Daniel nodded.
‘And did you respond in kind?’
‘Kay!’ Holly admonished. Kay just went too far at times and Daniel clearly agreed because he turned around.
‘No, I did not!’ Daniel was all snobby and angry but it would seem Kay wasn’t being nosey, she was just being very, very honest.
‘I did!’ She went purple in the face. ‘Why do you think I work every Christmas? I’m trying to keep away from Eamon’s twin?’
She was Irish, she was funny and it was Christmas night.
‘One year his fecking mother made the same jumper and gave it to them for Christmas and so they were both wearing it...’
Holly watched a smile inch over Daniel’s face as Kay proceeded to tell her story in the way only the Irish could.
‘Well, I had everyone at the Christmas table, they were all getting on with their starters, and, given I had to get things ready, I ate mine quickly. I went into the kitchen to sort out the main course. I was taking the foil off the turkey and then Eamon came up behind me and he pinched my bottom and then we had a kiss, as you do...’
‘Indeed,’ Daniel said.
‘It was quite a kiss actually,’ Kay elaborated, ‘but I told him that I needed to get on with dinner and that I’d deal with him better later and I gave it a little squeeze...’
And Holly laughed as Daniel’s eyes popped a little.
‘Then I walked through with the turkey and there was Eamon, sitting where I’d left him, and his brother was walking behind me... I knew I’d just got off with my husband’s twin.’
They laughed so much!
Just laughed and laughed because somehow all families had their dramas and tales, all families were a little crazy.
Especially at Christmas.
‘Did you tell Eamon?’ Holly asked, when she had remembered how to breathe.
‘Of course not,’ Kay said. ‘I mean...’ She stopped talking in mid-sentence and looked over Holly’s shoulder, and Kay’s expression was so stunned that both Daniel and Holly turned around to see what had halted Kay in her tracks. ‘Louise!’
It was Kay’s daughter, accompanied by a very nervous-looking young man whose arm she was clinging onto.
‘I was going to call you from Maternity...’ Louise started to explain to her mother and then stopped as clearly another contraction hit. ‘I don’t think I’m going to get there.’
And Kay, the most competent, the most experienced, the utter glue of the department and, Holly guessed, her family too, just stood there not moving, like a tree in the middle of a field.
‘Come on, Holly.’ It was Daniel who moved.
He went over, shook the man’s hand and found out his name—Gilbert—and then he guided Louise into a cubicle and Holly followed them all in. ‘Let’s help you up onto the trolley...’ Daniel started, but Louise held onto the metal edges for dear life and started to bear down.
‘Why don’t we let the maternity department know?’ Daniel suggested.
‘I just have,’ Kay said. She was present now, though not fully recovered from the shock of her daughter’s arrival, but her voice was very deliberately steady and calm. ‘They’ll send someone just as soon as they’re able to.’
Kay had brought in a delivery pack and Holly and Daniel were getting Louise up onto the gurney as she spoke on. ‘They’re very busy up there and, given we’ve got a registrar and,’ she added, ‘I’m also a midwife...’
‘We’ll be fine,’ Daniel said in his composed, deep voice just as he had the night Paul had come in.
And he was calm, though not so aloof now, for he gave Kay’s shoulder a little squeeze.
It was everything that was needed now.