“Sure, sure.” He nodded. “I guess you’re pretty wiped out—those E.R. hours must be killing you. I’m really sorry that Rudolph took a dive. It’s gonna take about an hour to deflate him....”
Charli’s face crumpled. She looked a lot like Neil’s four-year-old niece did when she’d gone without a nap and was late for bed.
“Tell you what,” Neil started. “Why don’t you leave me your keys, and go on inside? I’ll get Brinson over here. We’ll deflate ol’ Rudolph a little and move him at least out of your driveway. Maybe over closer to the hedge?” He pointed to the small stretch of lawn between the concrete drive and the boxwoods. “We’ll pull your car in, and tomorrow when it’s daylight, I’ll retrieve Rudolph.”
Charli appeared to be ready to argue for a moment. Maybe she was debating whether he had an honest face and could be trusted not to abscond with her car.
But then she shrugged her shoulders, went back to the idling car, switched it off, slammed the door and handed him the keys. “Sold. You wouldn’t sweeten the deal with a pair of room-darkening blinds, would you?”
From her weak smile, he saw it was an attempt at humor. “Sure, anything to keep a neighbor happy.”
But Charli wasn’t lingering. She skirted around Rudolph, who was swaying back and forth in the night’s cool breeze, and stumbled up the steps to her back door. In the blink of an eye, the doctor was out of sight.
With a sigh, Neil looked from the keys in his hand to Rudolph. Time was a-wasting, and Jill was only going to get madder the later he called Brinson to help him out of this jam. With that, Neil fumbled for the phone in his pocket to call in the cavalry.
* * *
CHARLI KEPT RUNNING out of wrap, and Neil Bailey wouldn’t hold still. Every time she’d get his arm splinted, he’d move or the spool of bandage would be inexplicably empty. Finally, she snapped at him, “Just what is your problem?”
And he grinned at her. “I’m taking up money for Toys for Tots, and I’ll ride Rudolph to deliver the cash.”
And there was Rudolph, nosing in behind her, his red nose blinking and buzzing—
No. She shook herself awake. It wasn’t Rudolph. It was her cell phone. What now? She pushed herself up out of her warm snuggly covers and saw—very clearly in the bright-as-daylight glow of her neighbor’s Christmas extravaganza—her phone buzzing away on her nightstand.
Caller ID registered the hospital’s number as she hit the answer button. “This better be good,” she griped into the speaker. The bedside clock told her she’d been asleep only a couple of hours.
“Charli.”
Lainey’s voice sounded all wrong. Somber.
“What is it?” Charli asked, already reaching for the slacks she’d dumped on the bench at the end of the bed. “I’m on my way, whatever it is. Knife Guy?”
“No...Charli, your dad...”
An icy chill shot through her. She froze on the bed. “What’s wrong?” She was surprised she could even verbalize the question, as scared as she was.
“He’s had an MI. At home. Your mom called 9-1-1, and the EMTs responded. They’re inbound. She’s with them and, well, Charli—from the way it sounds from the EMTs, you’d better come right away.”
* * *
NEIL WAS BUSILY rigging up a plastic bread bag over his bad arm in order to take a shower when first his front doorbell rang, long and loud, followed by someone doing a good impression of the Gestapo on the heavy oak.
He dropped the bread bag on the kitchen counter and made his way through the living room to the foyer. When he threw open the door, Charli Prescott nearly beaned him on the head, apparently ready to pound on the door again.
He caught her fist in his good hand. “Whoa! I’m here.” He released the pink-tipped fingers. For a long moment, all she could do was gulp in air. Maybe she was still ticked about his Christmas lights? He tried a smile to defuse the situation. “Can’t sleep?”
“My keys... I gave you my keys!” she got out.
“Yeah. I put them under the flower pot by your back door.”
“Oh! Sorry! I didn’t look there!” She whirled around, purse flying, no coat on despite temps hovering around a chilly forty degrees, and her hair even worse for wear than it had been earlier.
“Wait! What’s wrong?” Neil followed her as she stumbled down his steps and down the walkway.
“My dad! He’s had an MI—I’ve got to get to the hospital.” She wobbled unsteadily as she shouted this over her shoulder and backed past his Christmas lights.
“A what?”
“An MI... A heart attack.” As she turned to head for her own driveway, her purse got caught in Neil’s trio of wired angels by the front walk. She snatched at the strap, making the whole chorus of angels rock back and forth.
“Let me drive you. I have my keys, right here in my pocket.” Neil held them up and was gratified to see her extricate the strap from the offending angel’s halo without doing any damage and without falling herself. “My car’s here.”
Charli stopped again. Her expression revealed indecision. Neil could literally see her body jerking first one way and then the other.
So he didn’t wait for her reply. Instead, he dipped back into the little foyer, grabbed two jackets and shut the door behind him. He loped over the short distance between him and Charli and took her arm gently in his.
“Come on. Let’s get you to the hospital.” He steered her to his car and assisted her in with a fumbling one-handed approach, though she didn’t seem to notice. He wrapped the spare coat around her slim frame. She didn’t protest, just folded her long legs into his little Corolla and seemed to withdraw into herself.
Once he’d negotiated closing the door with his right hand, he started the car and backed carefully out of his drive. It seemed to trigger something in her. “I’m never like this,” she said. “I’m always cool in a crisis.”
“Hey. It’s your dad. You’re thinking like a daughter, not a doctor.” Gravel that had collected in the dip between the street and the drive crunched under his tires as he backed out onto the street and started for the hospital. “What happened? Do you know?”
She jerked her head in the negative. “Lainey—a nurse—”
“I know Lainey. She called?”
“After they got a call in from the EMTs. It’s bad.”
She would know. She’d probably handled lots of these in her work, Neil figured. At the stop sign, he hung a left and made the subsequent turns to the main road in town.
“Do you want to call your mother?” Neil asked her as they stopped for the last red light between their neighborhood and the hospital. “I didn’t think to ask if your mom needed a lift.”
