Secret Santa (4 page)

“No wonder he had a heart attack,” she said as she and Neil came to a stop on a street corner. “He worked himself to death.”

“Oh, no, you don’t think that, do you?” Neil peered at her. “Nah, I didn’t think so. It seemed to energize him, actually. And he’d recently taken on a new project.”

“Yeah? When did he have time?”

“Come on. You’ll like this.” He started off down the sidewalk toward the rougher side of town.

She hesitated. “Neil...things may have changed a lot, but the direction you’re heading in used to be a hotbed of drug sales.”

“It’s okay. It’s cleaned up now—at least a little. Thanks to Dr. Prescott.”

A five-minute walk brought them in front of a new metal building with big glass windows, the lights on and the paved parking lot still dark with crisp yellow lines. The parking lot was overflowing with cars of every shape and size, none of them any newer than a decade. On the building’s metal exterior were simple block letters: Brevis Community Clinic, and underneath, in Spanish, Clínica de la Comunidad.

“Huh?” Charli gawked at the building. “What is this? Why isn’t it near the hospital and the rest of the doctors’ offices?”

“Let’s just say the hospital authority didn’t welcome this addition to the Brevis medical community,” Neil said. “But your dad saw the need for a community clinic. He said that a lot of people were uninsured and couldn’t afford or wouldn’t go to a regular doctor. But they’d come here. He really fought for this place.”

A group of people came out of the building, walking down the painted concrete block steps, talking excitedly in Spanish. Another car door opened and more Hispanic people headed for the clinic door.

“It’s an indigent care clinic? For migrant workers?” she asked. She couldn’t wrap her head around the idea that her father, who’d been so opposed to the migrant workers flocking here when she was a girl, would fight for a community clinic.

Neil smiled. “Yeah—well, of course it’s open to anybody, and a lot of the community’s uninsured use it. But mainly it’s used by the migrant workers. Your dad volunteered as the medical director, but a doctor who comes in a couple of days a week and a couple of nurse practitioners provide most of the care. At least, I think so.”

“Wow. I—I—” She turned to Neil, grabbed his good hand and squeezed it. “Thank you. Thank you. I have to admit, the man you’ve described isn’t one I would have recognized...but he sounds like a great guy.”

“He was. And he must have been with you, too, because...well, you turned out pretty terrific. I’m just sorry that he didn’t get the chance to show you all this. I’ll bet he would have—if he hadn’t been battling the E.R. staffing problem,” Neil told her.

Charli wasn’t so sure. Granted, she hadn’t been home much in the past seven years, but she and her dad had spent time together. Never once had he mentioned any of these things that Neil had shown her. Of course, a lot of that time her dad had spent trying to talk her out of pursuing an M.D., and talk her into getting married—to have some babies and be happy—all the things that she didn’t want to do.

Maybe they’d just spent too much time arguing without ever truly understanding each other.

“So...now you see,” Neil said, interrupting her thoughts. “Your dad loved Christmas—you’ve got to at least let me help you put up a tree and hang a wreath.”

Perhaps it was because she was flat-out jealous that Neil had seen a side of her father she hadn’t known, or maybe Charli simply wasn’t ready to be rushed into anything. Whatever the reason, Neil’s emphatic “got to” grated on her nerves.

“No,” Charli retorted, “I don’t. And I don’t appreciate you trying to guilt me into it. Why can’t you just live and let live?”

Neil put up his hands. “You’re absolutely right. I just thought it might make you feel better.”

“Everybody from my mother on down seems to think they know what’s best for me, including you. I can’t turn around without someone suggesting another way to move on with my life. Well, maybe I don’t want to move on just yet! And maybe seeing a tree in my living room would just make me miss my father even more!” Charli knew the words weren’t fair, but they came tumbling out, anyway.

“Whoa.” A muscle in Neil’s jaw worked. She could see he was angry—or at least trying to bite his tongue. Very carefully, he said, “I lost my mom right before Christmas. So I understand what you’re going through. I know how afraid you are about forgetting your dad, about how guilty you feel—”

“I don’t have anything to feel guilty about,” she snapped. “Not a thing.” It was a lie, a big one. She did feel guilty, horribly, horribly guilty, especially now that Neil had shown her the father she’d never get the chance to know. Still, she wasn’t about to let Neil Bailey know it. “And I think I want you to take me home now.”

CHAPTER FOUR

C
HARLI
SAW
L
IGE
W
HITAKER
, the bank president who also served as the hospital authority board chair, come out of his office when she approached the bank’s customer service desk. Today he was in banker’s garb, but usually, even to the hospital authority board meetings, he wore jeans and a flannel shirt.

“Charli, how’s your mama? Neil called me, wanted a quote for the paper. I hope I did all right.”

Charli couldn’t help but frown at the mention of her neighbor. The night before was still bothering her. She was angry at herself for the way she’d acted, but she still felt a little resentful toward Neil. She pushed down her emotions and smiled at her father’s old friend.

Lige was thin to the point of boniness, about the same age as her father. Where her father had put on a little weight—all those coconut cakes, after all—Lige had kept the rangy build he’d had as a young man. “Thank you,” she said to him. “You said just the right thing. My mother was so grateful. You and my dad made a great team.”

Lige waved away the comment. His rural twang seemed so out of place for a bank president, but Lige had always prided himself on being just another fellow. “Darlin’, last week, you saw me at my worst, tryin’ to deal with that staffing situation in the E.R. I hope that didn’t contribute to...well, to the heart attack. All the stress, I mean. Your father’s a hard man to lose. He helped me keep this hospital here when I didn’t think it was possible.”

The smile on his lips was matched by his bright blue eyes, but she could see his jaw tense. He changed the subject. “What can we do for you? Do you need another loan against the practice? Your dad had just paid the last one off. I can understand if things are tight. Your father never was, bless his heart, much of a businessman. He was always way too generous with his skills and talents.”

“No, no, we’re good,” Charli assured him. “I think, anyway. He had just enough life insurance to pay off their house and buy an annuity for Mom. To tell you the truth, I haven’t really dug into the practice’s books yet. But I’m sure we’ll be fine. I’m not looking to add any debt to my student loans. No, what I came in here for was to access the safe deposit box. Jed Cannady—he’s the lawyer who’s helping us with probate—suggested I come and check it out.”

“Well! That’s all? My gracious. Such a little thing.” He didn’t take his eyes off her, but snapped his fingers. “Nora! Charli here needs to get into her safe deposit box. Why don’t you help her with that, all right?”

Nora Evers, who’d been at the bank since Charli was a little girl, scurried up to her, obedient as any dog Lige might own. She darted her eyes toward her boss, then at Charli. “Why, sure, why don’t you come with me?”

Alone, the woman greeted her with genuine sympathy. Several other bank staffers took a moment to share their condolences. Apparently, like practically everywhere else in town, her dad had them thoroughly charmed. He could do that. He might have been arrogant and peremptory at times with his family and with many of his patients, but he always won them back with his charm.

“Jed brought over a letter of testamentary this morning since you weren’t a signatory on the box,” Nora told her. “As the executor of estate, he authorized you as the signatory, but of course he’ll have access, too. You inherited the practice, so he figured the box had to do with it. It was part of your dad’s business account. You have the keys?”

“Yes, Jed had a spare one, just in case.”

She guided Charli to the safe deposit area, negotiated the whole business of the keys and manhandling the box to a carrel and said, “Now, just let me know if I can help you.”

With that, she left Charli alone with the closed box.

For a long while, Charli wasn’t sure she was going to have the courage to open it. Did it really need to be opened right now? The only sound in the little room was the insistent buzzing of the fluorescent light fixture above her. Everything else seemed muted by the thick carpeting and the rows and rows of safe deposit boxes behind her. A portrait of one of the bank’s founding fathers—one of Lige’s kin, she knew—glowered down at her.

Looking at the box, Charli couldn’t think what it might contain. The will had been with Jed, as were all her dad’s important papers. If her dad had felt the need to give a key to Jed for safekeeping, maybe the box contained something important.

Jed said the box might have computer backups or something else I need for the practice,
she told herself.
Or maybe it’s empty.

Her hand felt heavy as she flipped back the lid to reveal the interior jammed tight with a creased manila envelope.

It was mustard yellow, worn at the corners, having long ago lost its crispness. Charli had to tug at it to pull it free from the confines of the box. The envelope itself had some heft to it. On the back, she could see that her father had several times taped the envelope with his initials scrawled across the tape.

Her heart twisted at the sight of his familiar handwriting. She’d seen those initials many times, and seeing them again made her realize afresh she’d never stand beside him again while he scratched out patient notes.

What could be so important that her dad would want to be sure no one else had opened this envelope? Charli worked a finger under an edge of the tape and pulled it free.

When she turned the manila envelope upside down, thick packets of cash tumbled out.

Ten bundles of hundreds, with bands saying ten thousand dollars on them, landed in a heap on the highly polished wood of the bank table, along with another couple of bundles of fifties and three bundles of twenties, one of them simply rubber-banded.

A hundred grand, easy. In cash.

Charli’s mind did the calculations but couldn’t process the answer to the bigger question.

Where on earth had her father got a hundred thousand dollars in cash? And why was it stuck in a safe deposit box?

* * *

O
N
HIS
DAILY
WALK
to the bank, Neil spied Charli huddled on a downtown bench and did a double take. Though the day was deceptively warm for the season, Charli hunched over as though a stiff north wind was cutting through her.

She looks plain miserable.

Maybe she’d rebuff his attempts to help her like she had the night before, but he couldn’t stand to see someone in the depths of so much grief.

Neil eased down beside her on the bench. For a moment, Charli didn’t even notice him. Then she did. He could see emotions swamp her face and felt like a foolish optimist that he could detect the flash of pleasure that disappeared in the wake of irritation and grief.

“Is this an attempt to be alone again? Am I horning in?” he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t think I can be alone in this town. But it’s a free country.”

It wasn’t the enthusiastic welcome he might have hoped for, but at least she didn’t tell him to beat it. He pressed his luck and remained beside her.

“Want to talk about it?”

He’d tried to keep his voice neutral, like he’d remembered his aunt and his father had done with him in the days following his mother’s death. It had been hard for him to open up. He’d blamed himself because she’d been killed in a car wreck while on a run for Christmas goodie bags for his first-grade class.

It had taken weeks for his aunt to dig that little tidbit out of him, but when she’d folded him in her arms and assured him that it wasn’t his fault, his healing had really begun.

Now he saw Charli’s lower lip quiver. Tears welled up in her eyes. She lifted her chin and managed to school her face into submission. He didn’t dare reach for her hand, though that seemed to be the thing that would have helped him the most. He just waited.

His wait paid off. In a halting voice, she said, “I don’t think I really knew my dad at all.”

“Because of what...what I showed you last night?”

She started to shake her head, but stopped. “I guess.”

Neil didn’t believe her—not totally. Charli had been angry with him last night, but only after she thought he’d been bossing her around. Maybe he had—or at least he could see how she could take it that way. Before that, she had been awestruck, not sad, about her father.

No, Neil was certain her confession had to do with something else.

He wasn’t quite sure what to say. “I guess it is kind of confusing to have one idea of who your father is while other people knew a different side. If it makes a difference, he was really proud of you,” Neil said. “He was excited that you were joining his practice.”

Her face lit up. “Was he? Really? I mean, I know he
told
me, but I figured it was—” Charli broke off.

“Yeah. Really. He’d already had me promise to do a big feature on you. That sort of got derailed with your upside-down schedule when you first got here. I wish you could have heard the way he talked about you. I was kind of intimidated—figured you’d be a spoiled-brat arrogant doctor with her nose up in the air after all that advance billing.”

“Hopefully—aside from last night—I haven’t lived up to that, huh?” she said, not looking at him.

“No. I like you. I like the way you stood up for me that night in the E.R. Your dad could be, well, hard to sway once he got his mind fixed about something.”

Charli’s laugh was rueful. “I had a lot of practice standing up to him. He didn’t want me to be a doctor. Did you know that?”

“He told me that. He said he’d tried to talk you out of the medical field altogether—said you got so mad with him you refused to let him pay for medical school.”

“Ah, yes. And I have a huge mountain of student loans to show for my stubbornness. He offered to help me out, but he really wasn’t in a position—” Her openness came to an abrupt stop, with her mouth clamping shut to bite off her words.

Neil took the hint and didn’t press her. “I just paid off my last student loan. I can’t imagine what yours must be like.”

“A nightmare. But it’s doable. After all, I had something handed to me that few family practice newbies get—Dad left me his practice.” Her shoulders slumped at her last words, and Neil speculated the reality of such a bittersweet gift was hard to accept.

“But you’d rather have your dad.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I would.”

“Well, his patients will love you, just like they loved him—and he loved them.”

Charli nodded, doubt furrowing her brow. “Maybe. It’s all changed. I’ve been gone too long. I can’t remember everybody.”

“Well, it just so happens I have the cure for that,” he told her. “Your mom called me earlier today to thank me for my article about your dad, and we were talking about everything your dad was involved in. She reminded me about how he always participated in the community Christmas cantata, and she suggested I invite you to fill his place. I know, I know, she said you’re an alto and certainly not the tenor he was, but you know what I mean. They’d be thrilled to have you. We start rehearsals tonight.”

Charli put a hand to her face. “Oh,” she said, the word a groan. “My mother.”

“What? Did I make a hash of things? Did I get it wrong?” Neil asked. “She said you’d participated when you were in high school and really enjoyed it.”

Charli groaned again. “Neil, let’s face it. I’m just so not ready for anything to do with Christmas. I know you’re the holiday’s biggest cheerleader, but...I just...I just can’t.” Her voice broke. “My mother is trying to get you to babysit me, and I don’t need babysitting. Honestly. I need to be working.” She sprang up from the seat. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve got a lot on my plate now. Okay?”

With that, Charli took off down the sidewalk, her businesslike stride full of purpose and showing none of the vulnerability he’d witnessed just a few moments before.