Sweet Christmas Kisses (130 page)

"Ye aren't asking for money, and ye won't be intruding on his life.  Just a quick hello and we'll be off, unless he's receptive."  Brodie reached over and rested his hand on hers. "We've got his phone number, though.  Do you want to call first?"

She bit her lower lip. "I should warn him, at least.  I don't want this to be a shock." Brodie snagged his cell phone from the dashboard, punched in the numbers, and handed her the phone.

The phone rang twice. 

Three times. 

Four. Still no answer.

"Look--he's outside. Let's just go say hello."  Brodie shifted the car into gear and drove down the winding road to the valley floor, then pulled to a stop in front of the house.

Lucy stared out her window at the tall, elegant man opening his car door.  He was dressed in a long black wool coat, his gray slacks neatly pressed.  He cast a curious glance at Brodie's car and walked out to the road.

This was definitely the man whose picture she'd seen on the clinic website. He appeared unusually pale, even a little haggard, but his salt and pepper hair was curly and thick, his kindly eyes were definitely green.  His craggy features and gentle demeanor reminded her of the old, late night re-runs she'd once seen about some doctor named Marcus Welby.  Was he really her father?

"Are ye lost?"

Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of his voice as she slowly climbed out of the car and faced him.  "W-we were actually hoping to see you.  A girl at the village clinic gave us directions."

He frowned at that.  "And did they tell ye that I'm retired?  I no longer practice."

"I know.  I..." she faltered, with no idea what to say next.

Brodie came around the car to join her, and extended his hand.  "I'm Brodie MacLaughlin, a friend of hers.  And this is Lucy.  Lucy Campbell Davis, from America."

The man gave them both a blank look, and Lucy's heart started to fall. 

"I believe my...um...aunt knew you well.   Maura Campbell, from Deoiridh?"

His gaze flickered.  "That I did, but it was long ago."

"She passed away a few months ago, and I've come back to settle her estate.  I'm her only remaining relative, you see."

 "I'm not sure what this has to do with me, lass. I havena' seen her in over thirty years.  But I'm grieved to hear of her passing."  His heavy sigh spoke volumes. "She was a lovely, sweet girl."

The temptation to flee grew almost overwhelming.  Lucy shot a pleading glance at Brodie, but he just looped his arm around her waist and stood his ground.

"She...left me some letters to read when I got here.  About the past."  Lucy swallowed hard, then added gently, "about you...and her."

He looked away, his eyes filled with regret and sadness. "We were so young.  She was just fifteen, and I was but nineteen.  We thought we'd be together forever.  But her parents forbid me to see her." A faint, wry smile briefly touched his lips. "I wrote her letters from university, but she never answered back.  I was heart-broken.  So much for true love, aye?"

"I wanted you to know it was far more than that."  From over his shoulder Lucy spied a heavy-set woman peering out one of the windows.  His wife, probably.  And perhaps not the right audience for this conversation.  Lucy spoke faster.   "She said in her letter to me that she loved you all of her life, but she had worsening heart problems and knew she'd only be a burden to you.  She didn't want you to give up on your dreams and leave school because of her.  Her health was compromised because she was pregnant, you see," Lucy added gently.  "But she came through it all right.  And that baby was...me."

Dr. Fraser's face paled.  He staggered a step back, reaching behind himself for the stone wall, and awkwardly sat down, a hand at his chest.  "That canna be.  She would've told me."

"I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to upset you." She shot a stricken look at Brodie then watched as the old man fumbled in his coat pocket.  "I am so, so sorry.  Truly I am."

He withdrew a vial and nearly dropped it, then tried to open it with shaking hands.  Lucy lifted it from his weak grasp and opened it.

He held up a single forefinger.  She shook a tablet into his palm, and watched as he finally managed to place it under his tongue after several tries.

Five agonizing minutes passed.

He took another tablet.

The door opened wide and slammed against the front of the house as the woman inside came barreling down the sidewalk, her gray hair frowsy and her apron flying.  She shouldered Lucy aside.  "What have these people done to ye, Calum?  Can ye talk?  How many pills did you take?"

"Two, ma'am," Lucy said, her own heart aching.

But he didn't look any better.  His face was gray, his skin clammy.  He still had a hand clutched at his chest.

Calum nodded weakly toward the bottle in Lucy's hand.

"And this will make three," Brodie murmured.  "I think we need to call 999 for an ambulance."

The woman lifted a mobile from the depths of her flour-dusted apron, made the call, then turned to glare at Lucy and Brodie.  "Git now, both of ye," she said harshly.  "And don't come back or I'll be calling the law on ye."

"We'll wait until help arrives," Brodie said.  "I don't want to leave the two of ye alone out here."

"You've done enough," the woman snarled, hovering over the old man like an angry mama bear, her hands resting on his shoulders. "Now go on or you'll make him worse."

Brodie and Lucy went back to stand by his car, and he curved an arm around her waist.  She leaned against him thankful for his support, while she stood with her gaze riveted on the father she'd never known. 

His color seemed a bit less gray, but he still sat hunched over the hand he held at his chest, his head down.

 "I was so afraid of this," she whispered. "We never should have come."

He hugged her closer to his side as the sound of faint sirens rolled over the distant moors. "Ye couldn't have known."

"But I did know he was old, and I knew this would be a shock.  And because I was selfish, I might now be the person responsible for his death."

They waited until the Scottish Ambulance Service arrived and the paramedics ensured that Calum was stable.  After he was loaded onto a gurney, Lucy drew closer.  His eyes were closed and he lay so quietly that she wondered if he'd received some sort of sedative or a powerful pain medication that made him drowsy.

Or maybe he was even dying.

 She touched his arm.  "I'm so sorry.  I'll be praying every day for your good health, Dr. Fraser."

Brodie drew closer as well, whispered in his ear, and slipped something into his hand.  The old man didn't stir.

On the way back to Rosethorn, Lucy stared pensively out of the window at the wintery landscape. "May the good Lord forgive me, I just wasn't thinking when I told him so abruptly.  What did I expect?  That he would dance for joy?  Give me a big hug?"

Brodie glanced at her and reached over to give her hand a quick squeeze, then turned his attention back to the narrow road ahead.  "I thought ye did a grand job of it.  And I think we both saw his wife hoverin' at the windows, ready to come out.  Ye couldna said much if she'd been standing next to him.  He'd probably never mentioned to her that he'd loved some other girl."

"My fiancé never did--of course, he was seeing her while we were engaged, so that can be a bit awkward."

"Ouch."  He shot another glance at her.  "But he was a complete fool, if he didna see what he had right in his hand.  Ye were well rid of him."

Despite her low mood, she couldn't help but laugh.  "Thank you.  That's what I thought, but it still stung."

They'd almost reached Deoiridh when Brodie's cell phone played a Scottish reel.  He grabbed it from the dashboard, glanced at the screen, then pulled to a stop in the next lay-by at the side of the road.

 He spoke to the caller for a moment then looked over at Lucy with a twinkle in his eye.  "Are you up for another wee drive?  This is a nurse at the emergency room.  Apparently your father is awake, agitated, and demanding that he see you.  The entire E.R. staff is hoping that you'll agree, because they're tired of all the fuss."

****

An hour later, Brodie walked into the emergency entrance of the hospital, with Lucy's hand tucked around his arm.  He could feel her trembling, but she soldiered on at his side with her jaw set.  "If this doesna' go well, we'll just be on our way," he murmured.  "The past is not your fault."

"How I handled it sure is.  I'm just thankful he's still alive."

A nurse at the admitting desk led them through the emergency department to a bank of elevators.  "We've just now moved him up to the cardiac floor where we'll be keeping him at least overnight.  Room 308.  Go up and take a right."

At the door of the room Lucy took a deep breath, then squared her shoulders and walked in.  The old man was in a hospital gown, hooked up to a variety of monitors, a nose cannula for oxygen, and two IV bags hanging at the side of the bed. One bony arm lay on top of the white blanket drawn up to his chest.

"They told me you were coming," he wheezed.  He looked at Brodie and lifted a hand briefly in his direction. "My housekeeper ran ye off, and I apologize.  If ye hadn't left me your business card, I wouldna have known how to find ye."

Overwhelmed with a flood of emotion, Lucy shot a look of thanks at Brodie, then moved over by the bed. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see that you're all right.  I never should've dropped by like I did.  No warning.  No tact whatsoever."

"Nae--it wasn't your fault.  It was my angina kicking up, and I was already on my way to the clinic because of it.  I couldna let you disappear thinking I'd gone off to die because of you."  He reached for the bedside control and raised the head of the bed a few inches. "And I couldna risk losing the chance to hear about my dear Maeve..." his throat worked and his eyes glistened with sudden tears.  He beckoned her closer, to a chair by his bed.  "And about you."

Brodie lingered at the door for a few moments, making sure all was well.  Then he slipped away to the waiting room down the hall with his mobile in hand, and started making some calls.

The following week flew past.  Lucy went back to visit her father every day, first at the hospital and then at his country home, savoring every moment with him. But with just two more weeks until the Christmas party with Brodie's family, she needed to stay put at Rosethorn and get things taken care of while she was still in Scotland.

On Sorcha's advice, she started going through the first floor rooms one by one, cataloguing the descriptions of the contents in a notebook and photographing each piece, so that she could decide from back in Chicago later on, about which items she would keep and which would be sold if the property was eventually listed.

But the more she immersed herself in the beautiful old house and its treasures, the more it seemed like a crime to let it all go. Each piece of heavy, intricately carved furniture fit perfectly where it had sat for generations, being used by her own flesh and blood.

The oak settee near the front door--had her great-grandfather played under it as a little boy?  The paintings and wall hangings and old oriental rugs--all perfect, just where they were.

Little of it would fit in her condo lifestyle back home.  But how could she sell it all to strangers? 

And then there was Brodie...whom she was falling for a little more each day.

As if.  She shook off those impossible thoughts and forced herself to focus.

Hands on her hips, she studied a beautiful antique cherrywood wardrobe in front of her and sighed.  It was huge--a good eight feet tall and ten feet wide--with fanciful embellishments and carvings of Scottish fairytale selkies, fairies and unicorns.  The ornate hinges were the likes of which she'd never seen.

The piles of Maeve's wardrobe and various odds and ends destined for disposal or donation to a local charity shoppe grew larger every day.  Her initial resolve to sell Rosethorn and its contents was weakening.

"How's it going, love?"  Aileen came to stand beside her and studied the massive piece of furniture. "Ach, that's a beauty.  A wedding gift to Maeve's great-great grandmother, it was.  But it's far older than that."

So definitely another keeper, then.  Yet so heavy that shipping to the U.S. would be impossibly expensive.  And where would she put it?  "It's gorgeous, as is all of the furniture.  I feel such a sense of history here--everywhere I look."

"I'm glad of it.  It would be such a shame if it had gone to someone with no appreciation. So how far have ye gotten with all of it?"

"Not very.  Some of the rooms down here.  Nothing on the second or third floors."

Aileen gave her a thoughtful look.  "Have ye been up to the top floor yet?  That's where some of the very oldest pieces are.  Trunks of clothing, silver flatware...Maeve kept it all out of daily service because of its age.  She talked of loaning some of it to a museum in Edinburgh."

"At this rate, I'll need a year to go through everything, not just another two weeks."

"That's what Sorcha and I have been saying, too.   What have you to look forward to when you go back to Chicago?"  She fluttered her fingertips dismissively.  "There's no place on earth more beautiful than the Highlands, and now ye have a lovely home with all of us for company."

"That's true."  It was also a litany she heard from the ladies almost daily.

Aileen winked at her. "And that lovely young man out in the cottage seems particularly smitten with ye, if ye ask me."

She'd heard that refrain a lot, too.  Lucy fought the urge to roll her eyes. "We're good friends, nothing more. Remember?"

"Ach, so that's what they call it now?"  Aileen tut-tutted as she left the room. "Times have changed since my day...when a smart girl didn't let a fine handsome lad get away."

A few minutes later she toddled back into the room.  "Brodie just came by the kitchen, so I asked if he'd help ye open that door to the third floor staircase.  He'll be by in a few minutes.   Oh, and Sorcha and I will be in the village for the choir concert this evening," she added with a wink.  "Probably quite late."