My heartwarming and humorous holiday romance, Take Me Home for Christmas, releases October 4th. Here’s a fun sneak peak for you!
Happy reading,
~**~
Early praise from NetGalley reviewers:
“Ten out of ten for cuteness and romance and Christmas cheer.”
“Such a feel good Christmas book! Loved all the characters and everything about it! Highly recommend.”
“This book was absolutely darling! Just had all the feel good Christmas feels.”
~**~
She invented Mr. Right…just in time for the holidays.
Every tangled web starts with one tiny white lie. The kind you spin when you’re desperate.
One day I, Mia D’Angelo, third-year pediatric resident, was telling my mom that I’d finally met the perfect guy. Gushing about how amazing he was. And how happy I was.
It was all true. Until my “perfect guy,” Dr. Braxton Hughes, turned out to be my co-worker and my only competitor for a spot in the best practice in town…and then suddenly I was dumped…again. But I kept going with the stories, to get her through a very tough time.
My mom’s health crisis ended, and just when I thought things had settled down, my family wanted to meet my wonderful boyfriend for Christmas.
So I asked (okay, begged) just about every male I knew under forty, except of course for Brax.
Don’t get me wrong. I could always count on him in a pinch. At work, that is.
Brax is an amazing pediatrician, but he would never fit the bill as a boyfriend. Maybe in looks. And charm. And his big heart. The problem is that he’s the biggest commitment-phobe this side of the Mississippi.
He’s the kind of guy I would definitely never take home for Christmas. There’d be no kissin’ under the mistletoe, no canoodling under the tree—because my heart could not survive falling for him again.
My car is packed and I’m down to no one, when magically, there he is, duffle in hand, melt-me smile on his face.
Oh, joy.
Keeping it professional is going to be a whole lot harder than I thought. Especially when he charms my parents, my whole family, and even my dog.
And Dr. Wrong…well, he’s suddenly looking awfully right.
**~**
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Prologue
The Christmas when I was eight, I received a magical snow globe. Within its smooth glass dome was a perfect miniature scene: a tiny Victorian house with glowing windows and a huge Christmas tree in the snow-covered front yard with lights that really lit up. A dog that looked just like our dachshund, Jack, jauntily wore a Santa hat.
But the special thing about that snow globe was that at the very center, two little girls bundled up in bright winter coats held hands, one blonde like me, the other dark haired like my twin sister, Grace.
I remember staring at it for hours, shaking it into a flurry of magical sparkles and peering in at that perfect little world that encapsulated for me all the magic of Christmas—the warmth of the glowing house, the miracle of snow, the happiness and comfort of family.
I clung hard to that magic because shortly afterward, my sister was diagnosed with leukemia, and the year that followed was a blur of doctor visits, cycles of chemo, and watching my mischievous, vivacious twin turn into a shadow of herself. All the normal that we knew tumbled down around us like boulders in a rockslide.
Cancer separated my childhood into a before and an after. Before was carefree happiness in the hugs of our mother, the winks and funny jokes told by our father, and the jostling and friendly torments from our two older brothers.
Grace got through her treatments. Later that year, on a snowy day just before Christmas, we were playing tag in the family room, scrambling around the furniture and giggling. I’d carelessly left the globe on the edge of the coffee table, blissfully unaware that it was perched on the brink of disaster. My sister had been feeling great that day, and I remember feeling so happy that she was done with her long road of chemo, that she was again my constant playmate and best friend.
It was the last time I’d felt that life was as it should be, everyone safe and tucked into place.
Right as she reached out to tag me, I twisted away, lost my balance and tumbled down, my arms splaying. The globe crashed to the floor, shattering into a million pieces as the water spilled, the magic swirling snow now just papery white flakes on the carpet.
“I did it,” I immediately confessed. “I did it,” I repeated, my voice a thin whisper. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
“She didn’t do it,” Gracie said, already sitting back on the couch, winded from our game. “I tagged her. I did it.” She sounded a lot more convincing than I did. It had taken all of five seconds for her to decide on that lie, and she went with it.
My mother, hands on hips, looked the two of us over. “You girls certainly share everything, even the blame, don’t you?” She sat down on the couch and pulled me next to her, wrapping her arms around both of us.
“You said no running.” Grace’s lower lip quivered. She was still fragile. She wasn’t supposed to be roughhousing. That made me feel like I was doubly at fault.
My mother kissed my head. “I know how much you loved it, Mia. But it’s just a snow globe. Just a little thing to remind us of the fun Christmas we’re going to have.”
Our Christmas had been more than that, really, which I didn’t understand until much later. We roller-skated in the basement on new skates and on our frozen-over pond with ice skates. We made cookies and ate them with hot chocolate by the roaring fire Dad made in the fireplace. We played cards and games every night before bed. Even our big brothers seemed to pull fewer pranks than usual. Grace seemed strong and happy, and for the first time in so long, cancer had been abolished from our minds.
That was our last Christmas together as a whole and happy family.
My sister—my twin, my other half—lost her battle, and that broken globe became a reminder to me of just how fragile life is. How good fortune could turn on a dime. How happiness is a rare thing and not made to last. Somewhere along the line, I stopped expecting to find it.
Grace’s illness shaped me in more ways than I could count. She was the bold one who never hesitated to speak up. I was quiet and shy, always hesitant to speak my mind.
With her death, I’d lost my lightness. And my innocent acceptance of life as a beautiful, exciting journey. Because—why her? Why had God taken her and not me?
I became determined to make my life count for both of us. I would be cheery and kind. I would be smart and dutiful. And I vowed to never give my mom and dad a reason to cry again.
We had to pick up the pieces after Grace left us and somehow put ourselves together again. Which we did, but ever since then, it seemed I was always looking for the part of me that she took with her.
CHAPTER 1
Twenty years later
Mia
“Here I come, Dr. D’Angelo!” Bianca Giarelli, one of my favorite patients, sped by in her wheelchair as I stood charting at the nurses’ station of the Children’s Wisconsin adolescent unit, where I was a third-year pediatric resident. The chair had an IV bag attached to a pole in the back, filled with an icky green liquid and swinging slightly as she breezed by. Bianca, age sixteen, had tied red and green streamers and a string of battery-powered LED lights to her pole, completing the Christmasy effect. I waved and gave her a thumbs-up as I talked into my phone, finishing a conversation with my mom as I worked.
“So, are you all packed?” my mom asked, sounding strong and well after the ordeal she’d just been through, which made my heart swell doubly with both happiness and relief.
After what had happened with my sister so long ago, you’d think my family would have gotten a pass on the C word. No such luck, but my mom’s breast cancer was caught early. She’d gotten through surgery and six difficult cycles of chemo. But now she certainly sounded like herself, and this nearly made me cry with joy. The doctors were extremely hopeful that she was going to be fine. Which was still terrifying, but we were dealing. And so, so grateful.
“Getting there,” I answered. It was Monday, and my four-day holiday break began after I was off the clock on Friday. “Can’t wait to come home for Christmas.” As my mom related what was new with my family, my eyes wandered over to my co-resident on the hematology-oncology service this month, Braxton Hughes.
Brax was actually the chief resident over the interns, the first-year residents, in our program. That meant he’d already completed his residency and had been hired on for a year where he had various duties like making the interns’ schedules, arranging and helping teach their educational sessions, and keeping an eye on their professional growth and mental health.
But this week, the week before Christmas, he was pinch-hitting on the ward for a resident who had to travel overseas to see his family for the holiday. At the moment, he was standing in the middle of the hallway consulting with Joe, one of our wonderful child life specialists.
They stood against a backdrop of light strings, tinsel, and glittery paper snowflakes dangling from the acoustic ceiling tiles above their heads. Brax was tall, big-shouldered, and all lean muscle, and actually very nice to look at. I didn’t realize I was staring until he glanced over at me, giving me the slightest nod, turning his dark gaze on me that always seemed to contain a twinkle of mischief—and sometimes more.
I waved and quickly looked away, trying to stop my heart from racing and the telltale flush that was already flaring its way into my cheeks. I sometimes sensed that mischief, that heat, was directed at me, although he’d made it clear, since breaking things off last summer, that there could only be friendship between us.
I tried not to fan myself, but the hormonal rush was, frankly, uncontrollable. But I was working on it.
As my mom discussed all the different ways she’d decorated the Christmas trees she’d talked my dad into putting up all around our house, I was distracted by what was going on in front of me on the ward. “Hey, Bianca,” Brax said in a teasing voice as she rolled by. “You’d better be practicing up for ping-pong tonight.” He circled his right arm around as if he were warming up his muscles for a pitch. “’Cause I’m gonna whup your butt.”
“Hey, Doctor Brax,” she said. “We’ll see about that. I’ve been practicing too.” She wound her arm around in the same way. She was weak, of course, from the chemo she’d endured, but her enthusiasm—and her sass—made up for her lack of muscle.
Brax laughed. Laughter that caused a lot of females to melt into Jell-O at his feet. Not me, of course. I was not a melter. But he did make my knees wobble. And a couple of other reactions that I would never admit out loud.
Bonded by the life-and-death nature of our job, Brax and I quickly fell into a friendship that was more than simply collegial, but less revealing than what we’d had before. We managed to keep the other stuff out of it. Mostly.
“So how’s your guy?” my mom asked.
Brax was not my guy. But my mom actually thought he was. “He plays ping-pong with the teens who’ve been on the ward for a while.” I watched Brax grab a small beanbag elf off the counter and toss it playfully at Bianca. It landed in her lap, making her chuckle. “They kind of have a pool going. They play for M&M’s.”
“Oh, Mia,” my mom gushed. “He sounds wonderful.”
A hefty dose of guilt flooded through me as I failed, as I had repeatedly through these past months, to tell my mom the truth about our breakup. Bianca cranked up her arm again and tossed the elf in Brax’s direction. He made a giant show of catching it, hurtling himself in the air, making faces, and doing a football-esque victory dance when he caught it, almost running into Valerie Beckett, our charge nurse, who’d recently celebrated her thirty-fifth year in the profession.
“Sorry, Val.” Brax displayed his boyish grin, which did not make my heart flutter. “We were just practicing for the big competition tonight.”
“In the nurses’ station, Dr. Hughes?” Her frown wasn’t really even a frown. More like a he’s-so-adorable-and-I-wish-I-were-thirty-years-younger kind of look.
Geesh. He was adorable.
Brax shrugged. “To make up for it, you can join us tonight for the tournament, okay? If you’re as good at ping-pong as you are at managing this ward, we should be very afraid.”
Val, completely charmed, shook her head. “Mmmhmm. Maybe they should keep you residents busier if you’ve got time for ping-pong tournaments.” But she turned away smiling.
Suddenly, the red-and-green felt blur flew through the air, directly toward me.
In a not-very-pretty but nevertheless practical move, I caught it while somehow managing to mute and not break my phone. “You suck,” I said to Brax.
Bianca laughed.
Brax lifted a well-defined brow in surprise. His gaze, full of challenge, settled upon me in a way that gave me goose bumps.
To make things worse, he walked up and leaned over the counter, staring down at me with amused, warm brown eyes. “Thought you had better reflexes, Dr. D’Angelo.”
“You’re all bluster,” I shot back. “I have great reflexes. A true teammate communicates.” And then I tossed it right back. He caught it quickly and smoothly, with one show-offy hand. If only I could summon the nerve to speak with him that way—in a bold, sassy tone—about what really mattered. But Brax only allowed people in so far.
My twin, Grace, had been sassy. I, on the other hand, tended to think of smart comebacks approximately five hours after a conversation. So much for genetics.
His full mouth turned up ever so slightly. “And here I thought we had something better than words.”
“And what would that be?” I couldn’t wait to hear this.
“Intuition. Reflexes.” He tossed the poor elf back and forth between his hands. “Being in tune with each other’s moves.”
Okay, it was definitely getting hot in here. I dropped my voice and frowned. “Are we
talking about sex or ping-pong here?” Had I just said that, one finger press away from my mother actually hearing it?
I’d sworn to never bring that up again. But when did my mouth ever listen to my
brain? Plus, he was being flirty. But why? We’d broken up months ago.
“Touché.” He leaned on his elbows, his face so close that I could see the masculine grain of his late afternoon stubble. “I was thinking more about how we handled that case in the ER last week.”
I called baloney—silently, of course. Because his eyes told me differently. They often did. But he never acted on the impulses I saw there.
And yes, we had worked together very efficiently and quickly to help a toddler with pneumonia get oxygen, antibiotics, and quick admission to the PICU, short for the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
“I’ll be sure to communicate my plays from now on. Okay?” There was that smile again, hot lava to my insides. Oh, so painful, to be this close to him and constantly pretend we were friends, friends, friends. I needed a brain reset. For my own sanity.
After he’d broken things off last summer, he’d said, “I care about you so much, Mia. We’ll be working together all year. I want us to be friends.”
With his words, my heart cracked right in half. I should have said Screw you, absolutely not.
But you know what? We often happened to be on call the same nights, working closely to help very sick kids. Give us any emergency, and we were magic together. We anticipated each other’s moves, had the same rhythms, even the same thoughts about what to do next.
So, I had no choice but to accept his friendship, which he offered very sincerely. That worked fine, as long as I ignored the rush of hormones that released in my body every time he walked into a room.
It had been magic in bed too. Well, in my opinion, anyway. Let’s face it, if he’d felt the same, I wouldn’t be searching for a fake boyfriend to bring home with me in T minus five days, now would I?
I forced myself into the here and now as Brax walked over to Bianca and handed the beanbag to her. “I’ve got to go but keep practicing. ’Cause Pedro and I are going to whup Mia’s and your butts tonight.” Pedro was another teen on the unit who happened to love ping-pong—and Brax.
“Not,” Bianca said definitively, like the typical teenager she was, spinning her chair around and heading down the hall.
“Mia?” my mom asked.
Oh. My mom.
“Sorry,” I said. She’d been relating a story about how our whole town was excited for the big annual Christmas party, where everyone got way too dressed up, ate a fancy sit-down meal, and danced to a live band—a usually fun event that happened to be hosted by my ex’s parents. Except this year, it would be hosted by—bonus!—my ex and his new wife. I was definitely not going.
“I’ll let you get back to work,” my mom said. “Is that Braxton I hear in the background?”
“He—um—he just said he can’t wait until we’re on call together tonight. If it’s not too busy, we’re going to put together a fake Christmas tree someone donated and get the kids to make paper chains and stuff.”
That part was true. But for the rest of the tales I was spinning, I was going to burn in hell.
“He sounds so…light. Fun loving. I can see why he’s perfect for you.”
I didn’t have to tell my mom that life had sucked the fun loving right out of me for quite some time, starting with my longtime boyfriend breaking up with me two years ago and marrying someone else in Vegas last month.
I was okay with being single at twenty-nine, but this made my mother, who’d married my dad at twenty, worry about me constantly. Plus, the breakup with Charlie had been hard, and people in our small town, two hours from Milwaukee, asked about me a lot, which made her worry even more.
When Brax dumped me a few weeks after we’d started dating, she’d been about to start chemo, and I just couldn’t tell her. And so the fantasy lived on.
I was definitely going to burn in hell. Since my sister had died, I’d made it my mission not to cause my parents any worry. I supposed I’d become the perfect child, determined to do everything right. They’d had enough grief in their lives. I didn’t want to give them more. But inventing a boyfriend was a whopper, even for me.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. “Maybe it’s too much, me coming home with someone. Maybe it’s better if—” Please, I prayed. Please say it’s too much.
“Sweetheart, we cannot wait to meet Brax,” she quickly said. “And I’m feeling great. Ask your dad.”
“Hi, honey,” I heard in the distance.
“Hey, Dad.” I pictured him standing there, dutifully holding an ornament box for my mom while she picked them out one by one, exclaimed over the story each one told, and hung them on our tree. I’d basically hit the parent jackpot—my dad always had my mom’s back, and vice versa. Not always easy when she tended to be Mrs. Christmas.
“Tell her, Steven,” my mom urged. “Tell her I’m just fine.”
I heard a shuffling noise as my father took the phone. “Your mother now has a total of eight Christmas trees in our house.” There was a painfully patient pause. “She’s made me haul each one to its perfect place. And she’s been decorating for the past two weeks.” In his voice, I heard an unconscious plea for reinforcements. “I can firmly say she’s back to her old self.”
Stopping my mom from decorating would be like stopping the snow from coming just south of Madison, where I grew up in a quaint lakeside town dotted in the summer with crystal blue lakes, bright red geraniums, fresh June strawberries, and the squeakiest cheese curds you’ve ever tasted. In the winter, it was all quaint old homes and rolling snow-covered hills. And everyone trying to outdo themselves in the Christmas-decoration department.
“We can’t wait to meet your young man,” my dad said.
“Knowing you’ll be here soon is the best medicine of all,” my mom said, “so hurry home.”
“’Kay. See you soon. Love you,” I said as I hung up.
I took a giant breath. And rubbed my forehead. It had been so hard to support my mom this past year when I’d had so little time off, but my stories had distracted her and given her something to look forward to. Along the way, I’d invented happiness in the form of a boyfriend who was kind, funny, handsome, and treated me like a queen.
He greatly resembled Brax times ten—like, Brax if he’d never broken up with me. If he’d said he loved me instead of Can’t we please be friends?
I marveled that, somehow, I’d managed to do what I’d never been able to do before—fool my mother. And I’d done it spectacularly. I wasn’t congratulating myself for my Academy Award-winning performance or my on-the-spot creativity—every time I added onto the pile of lies, I literally broke out in a sweat.
I’d invented the perfect man. The only problem was, now I had to produce him. For Christmas.
I’d tried telling my parents back in November that he couldn’t make it. But then my mom, her immune system already weakened, got sick with a head cold that had gone straight into her chest, requiring antibiotics and a brief hospital stay for pneumonia. She’d sounded so discouraged, so weary and tired, that I said he could make it after all.
Yes, I’d panicked. But fortunately, I now had a plan. My pal Gabe offered to play the part, which was just for a long weekend. Eventually, in a month or two, maybe, I’d tell my mom that we broke up, but it wouldn’t be a big deal because by then, she would hopefully be long past this awful health scare.
So it was all going to be fine. I had it covered.
On the ward, Dr. Robin Miller, who was in her first year of practice, sat down across from me at the nurses’ station. She finished a call with another doc and hung up. “Hi, Mia,” she said, “how’s it going?”
“You’re here late.” I glanced at my watch. Almost seven. I was already getting called about night shift admissions from the ER.
She sat back and rubbed her very pregnant abdomen. “Long day.”
Robin was the only female physician in the prestigious BCP Group—named after the founding partners, Drs. Brunner, Curry, and Pendergast—but affectionately called by nearly everyone the Brew City Pediatrics group. Otherwise known as the most well-respected practice in town, it was the practice that ran the smoothest, stayed up to date on all the latest trends, and which invested the most time teaching the residents. It was also the group where Brax and I were both vying for the one open spot.
They were the best group with the highest standards, and I wanted that job more than anything. I loved working with people who loved their jobs, who strove for excellence, and who truly cared about making a difference for kids—everything that checked all my boxes for why I wanted to be a pediatrician in the first place. Come July, I’d be done with residency and ready for the real world, and I couldn’t wait.
She came right out and addressed what was on my mind. “I don’t think we’ll be making a decision about the job until after the holidays. You and Brax are both such excellent candidates.” She took a sip of water from her flask. “All I can say is, enjoy third year, because that’s a dream compared to private practice.”
What? I, along with every other resident, was under the impression that residency might be its own form of hell, but the light on the other side was finishing and having a real job. Life balance was just a few elusive months away.
Robin must have noticed my puzzled expression. “You know how high the standards are in our practice. We all work as long as it takes for our patients. That’s why we choose the hardest-working residents to join us.”
I didn’t want to question her too much, lest she question my dedication, even though her comment struck me as a little intense. So I settled on “Is practice what you expected?”
She hesitated. The tiniest bit. Yet that little pause took me from concerned to really concerned. “I’m the only woman in the practice, so I’d love more representation. Sometimes I feel that it will take bringing on another woman to bring some balance, if you know what I mean.”
I was really confused, but just then, the charge nurse walked over to ask me a question about someone’s medication, and Robin’s pager went off, so our convo ended.
When I finished, Robin was gone, but there was Brax, giving a pep talk to Pedro, a gangly teen of fifteen, who was passing by, dragging his IV pole behind him. They talked ping-pong strategy while Brax took the pole, walking alongside him, deep in conversation.
I got up, grabbed my laptop, and headed down the hall. Brax saw me coming and glanced up. “Hey, Mia,” he said in his sexy, deep voice, “hope you and Bianca have been talking, because Pedro and I have our strategy down.” He fist-bumped with Pedro.
I loved being on call with him. Well, no one loves being on call, but the key here was with him. He had a way of making even the most awful nights fun.
“Bianca and I are going to win,” I said with confidence. “What are we playing for this time?”
“Ice cream!” Bianca said as she passed by on her tenth lap. She smiled widely at Pedro, and he returned an equally enthusiastic smile.
Aw. Seemed like those two had a little bit of a crush going on.
“Already in the freezer,” Brax said. “Waiting for me and Pedro to feast on it.” He rubbed his flat stomach and licked his chops, making Bianca, Pedro, and me roll our eyes.
A visual appeared before my eyes—I’d seen that flat stomach up close. Those sculpted abs. That lovely chest. And all the rest of him. I could attest that every body part was of excellent quality. But oh, how I wish I could erase those images.
Brax’s fun-loving antics with our patients had entertained my mom over the past few months and helped her—and me—through a tough time. Now, I just had to play out the charade until I could end it. My stomach gave a nervous flip, like it did when I knew I was in trouble. I reassured myself that everything was set up perfectly, if a little precariously. What could go wrong?
CHAPTER 2
Mia
“What do you mean you’re sorry, but you can’t come home with me for Christmas?” I froze in the middle of plopping scoops of snowball cookie dough on baking sheets at my friend Gabe’s sparkling quartz island. It was Wednesday night, and we were in his apartment, listening to Michael Bublé belt out “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Gabe’s rescue cat, Stupor Queenie (a name we’d given her after a long ICU rotation and too much wine), sat on the roof terrace of her kitty penthouse, flicking her tail and staring at us as if to say, Your people problems are waaay too complicated.
My other good friend Samantha Bashar, who was in specialized training at Children’s to become a pediatric anesthesiologist, was uncorking a wine bottle.
I was going to need that wine, because it felt like a race car was running laps in my chest. A wave of dizziness forced me to sit down, so stunned, I forgot to set down the scoop.
“I’m so sorry,” Gabe said, flicking his gaze downward in a way that I could tell he felt bad. He pried the scoop from my hand and replaced it with the glass of wine that Sam had just poured, which made me hate him a teeny bit less. “It’s just…Jason’s asked me to go home with him to meet his parents. That’s a huge step.” He sat down at one of his nice leather counter stools and seemed, for the first time since I’d met him, almost as bewildered as I was. “I think he’s going to propose.”
“Oh, Gabriel,” Sam said, “that’s amazing.”
Tears of happiness filled my eyes despite my panicked state. Gabe and I had met the first day of pediatric residency and bonded over our mutual terror at having to care for fragile former preemies in what we residents affectionately called the Special Scare Nursery, and we’d been the best of friends ever since. He was one of those people who loved big and hard and who, because you trusted him so much, got you to overshare before you even understood you were doing it. Hence, he knew about everything—including blow-by-blow accounts of the two years of awful dates I’d endured before I’d met Brax.
“I’m really happy for you.” I walked around the huge island to join Sam in giving him a giant hug. We’d all had our share of dating heartaches, and Jason, Gabe’s beau of two years, was amazing. I couldn’t think of anyone who deserved better.
Meanwhile, I tried to tamp down my welling desperation. I had to produce a fake boyfriend in three days. Three. Where on earth was I going to find one?
Gabe stopped to give Queenie, who had rubbed up against his arm, a scratch behind her regal ears. “I think this is it for me.” He looked me straight in the eye, with a solemn, sure expression that I had to admit made me envious. “I think he’s The One.”
His happiness was obvious. And hard-earned. We’d been warriors together, on the wards and in the dating world. And he’d done it: he’d found love. Which should’ve given me hope that someday I might find it too. Underneath my terror and my joy, I felt a tiny twinge of sadness. “Who’ll console me with ice cream and cheap but plentiful wine after I survive yet another awful date?”
“Ahem,” Sam said, pointing to herself.
I turned to her and said in a wry tone, “You’d console me by taking me to a bar and finding me a one-night stand.”
She lifted a perfect brow and tucked a lock of shiny black hair behind her ear past a pretty gold dangling triangle earring. I’d need to borrow those. “I can’t help it if I’m a problem solver. Maybe if you’d taken my dating advice, you’d be over Brax by now.”
Sam was beautiful, brainy, and sometimes brash. Adventurous and bold. Many things I wasn’t. Sometimes, I thought that maybe I connected with her so much because she reminded me of Gracie. She was also one of the kindest people I knew. When she wasn’t pushing me to be bolder, that is.
“I’m getting engaged,” Gabe said, “not moving to Alaska.”
The dizziness hit again, making the room spin. The effect of the tangled web I’d created all by myself, no doubt. Gabe coming home with me had always felt too good to be true—he knew the whole story, understood what I’d done, and hadn’t judged me. He’d just settled his steady, enveloping gaze on me and said in that calm, reassuring, I-got-your-back voice, When do we leave?
He would’ve done that—been an on-the-spot boyfriend. Even though it meant pretending to change his sexual orientation to help me. I couldn’t be angry with him.
Only myself. Yep, I had plenty of that pent up inside for getting myself into this stupid predicament.
“Look at it this way,” Gabe said. “I don’t exactly look like Brax. We wouldn’t have fooled your mom.”
“You’re both dark haired,” I said in protest. “Plus, the photos I’ve sent the past few months have been kind of out of focus.”
“How about you ask Brax?” he suggested gently. After giving me a good eye roll, that is. “He’s a logical choice. You two are close, even if you’re too bullheaded to date each other again.”
“Not to mention we’re competing for the same job. Remember that?” Another reason to stay far away.
Gabe waved a hand in the air like the fact that we were the last two candidates left wasn’t a big deal. “A job’s a job, and that can be sorted out.” He paused. “Did you know that the last time we went out, Brax told me that the chemistry between you two was positively animal?”
Sam covered her mouth with her hand in fake astonishment. “Shocker,” she said.
I frowned. “How much did he have to drink?”
He shrugged. “Enough to tell the truth. Look, maybe it’s time to sit down with him. You two have been tiptoeing around this obvious—”
I shook my head. “He made things clear.” Crystal clear. He did not want to date me. Period.
“You know he’s complicated,” Gabe said. “Maybe he isn’t sure what he wants.”
I shook my head. “Last time I checked, Brax was an adult.” This time around, I was going to make certain my next boyfriend was one.
“Leave her alone, Gabe,” Sam said. “You know what happened with her ratty ex.”
Charlie had been a straight what-you-see-is-what-you-get arrow—but when I’d left for residency, he’d fooled around on me with someone he’d met at a football party. I guess he’d finally found someone as passionate about the Packers as he was.
It hit me hard, I wasn’t going to lie. Two years later, I had more perspective. My life with Charlie would have been predictable. With low-simmer arguments…and, I realized now, low-simmer passion.
And in the meantime, I’d done my best to get myself back out there.
Brax, the polar opposite of Charlie, had never put up the pretense of ever wanting to settle down, but I’d been completely swept away anyway. My brief time with him had been electric. I simply couldn’t stop myself from falling hard.
“I hate men.” I must’ve said that out loud, because Gabe came over, pried the wineglass out of my hand, and hugged me hard.
Shortly afterward, I got back to work dropping balls of dough on the cookie sheet. I couldn’t resist saying, “I thought Brax spends Christmas with his sister in Philly.” Brax and his sister had grown up in a rough west Philadelphia neighborhood. His ticket out had been a full scholarship to the University of Wisconsin, and he’d ended up staying on in our fine state for med school. He did his residency at the prestigious Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia but returned to Wisconsin last summer to work. Jenna lived in Philly, where she was married and worked as an accountant, and Brax was very, very proud of her.
Gabe started scooping dough. “All I know is that Jenna’a pregnant, and Brax is thrilled. I think he was going to make sure everything at the hospital was covered before he made a decision about going to see her.” The chief residents made the schedules, which could get tricky over the holidays. We all worked extra hard so that every one of us could get either Christmas or New Year’s off. It was common for the chiefs to pitch in and cover shifts to help it all work out.
I didn’t know much about Jenna, but I knew she was all the family Brax had. He’d never elaborated much, but from little clues he dropped here and there, Gabe and I both figured that his upbringing hadn’t been the greatest. All we knew was that he was very close to his sister.
Gabe set down his cookie scoop and grabbed my wrist. “Ask him.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re pushier than my Grandma D’Angelo.”
Across the island, Sam nodded. “What have you got to lose?”
A lot. Also, I was making a mess of this cookie project. My balls were all different sizes and the dough was sticking to my fingers when I tried to fix them. “Hi, Brax, remember when we dated last summer?” I said in a fake-cheery voice. “Well, I kept embellishing that to my mother, and now she thinks I have a serious boyfriend coincidentally named Brax. By the way, would you like to come home with me for Christmas?” A groan escaped my throat.
“Maybe you can get to the bottom of whatever’s holding him back,” Sam said.
“That’s the thing,” I said. “Not wanting to keep seeing someone isn’t a crime.”
“If it makes you feel better,” Sam said, “Brax doesn’t do serious with anybody.”
Except I’d thought we were serious. That he was maybe even The One.
Typical small-town girl goes to the big city and gets a reality shakedown.
Gabe stared at me. “I know what he says. But I also know how he looks at you when you’re not looking.”
I shook my head in denial. Except, to be honest, I knew exactly what Gabe was talking about. Sometimes, I’d look up to find Brax staring at me, his eyes a little heavy lidded, with fire burning in them, directed straight at me.
I might have dated my hometown honey for a lot of years, but I wasn’t born yesterday.
Sam patted my shoulder. “How about we hit the town? The bars are still open.”
“I’m not picking up some rando at a bar and bringing him home!” Geesh.
“Just an idea,” Sam said.
“Right. A bad one!” The bottom-line truth was that Brax was a heartbreak waiting to happen (again), and I couldn’t take another one. And that slow, smoldering burn that I always felt with him was just another reason not to ever bring him home—or anywhere—alone.
I must’ve looked completely stressed out, because Gabe said, “I have another solution. Maybe you should just come clean. To Brax, to your mom and dad. To everyone. Think of what a weight off that would be.”
“Tell the truth?” Sam gave an incredulous snort. “Gabe, I bet you were one of those kids who confessed to sneaking candy in the cupboard.”
Gabe shrugged. “Probably. But I didn’t come out until I was seventeen. That was a whopper to hold back for all those years.” He looked at me. “You don’t have to carry all the burdens for your family. It’s okay not to be perfect.”
“I just can’t,” I said firmly. “My mom loves Christmas. And this year, things are so emotional.” I didn’t tell them, but my sister had died right after Christmas, and as you can imagine, the anniversary of her death always brought up tons of memories. But this year, with my mom’s cancer…nope. I just couldn’t tell my family I’d been lying for months. “I need to come up with Plan B,” I said. “Fast.”
Gabe embraced me from the side, rubbing my arm. I probably felt tin-man stiff. “You’re really tense,” he said, dropping his arm and scooping up a blob of raw dough. “That’s what lying does to you,” he added sagely.
Sam rolled her eyes. “I vote for the rando.” Sam poured me more wine and counted on her fingers. “Exciting, adventurous, and completely out of your comfort zone. Just what you need, girlfriend.”
If they hadn’t been such good friends, I would’ve tossed some cookie dough in both their directions.
CHAPTER 3
Brax
Every single day as I climbed out of bed, I reminded myself to hold Mia D’Angelo at arm’s length. To be friendly, yet keep her at a distance.
But every single day, I failed. Because Mia wasn’t like any other resident. She wasn’t like any other woman, period.
I was feeling the struggle at eight on a Thursday morning as I scrubbed my hand over my unshaven jaw and took a gulp of old, cold coffee. Mia stood in the middle of the ward conversing with one of our hematology-oncology attendings, Dr. Laura March. My good friend Gabe sat charting at a nearby computer, a refugee from the toddler ward who often snuck over here where there was less commotion.
Mia and Dr. March were at the beginning of rounds, where they would stop at each room to discuss the daily plan for each patient, basically making a square lap around the nurses’ station.
I glanced up nervously, following their progress. The problem was that I knew something Mia didn’t about her favorite patient. The question was, should I tell her?
Three rooms down, they’d soon stop to see an eleven-year-old named Rylee Hunter with newly diagnosed acute lymphocytic leukemia, the most common type of childhood cancer—which also happens to be one of the most curable.
Part of our jobs as physicians was to constantly walk a tightrope between caring about our patients and not getting too involved. So we could ensure our objectivity and make good decisions. Care, but not too much. Sort of what I’d forced myself to do with Mia.
Mia, for some reason, took this particular family—Rylee, with her brunette hair and big blue eyes, and her twin sister, Reagan, who had the same bright eyes but blonde hair—to heart. I worried about her because childhood cancer was a heart-wrenching roller-coaster ride—that was obvious. Yet I also knew that Mia was amazing with all the kids on the heme-onc service, big or small. She had a gift for talking with them and their families and helping care for them, medically and emotionally, that I felt was exceptional.
I wished she would see it too. That way, we wouldn’t be in competition for the job I wanted more than anything. But whatever she chose to do, I knew she’d be amazing at it.
Just as I debated pulling her aside and letting her know the results I’d just gotten from the lab, Dr. Ted Brunner walked up to the desk. He was the senior member of Milwaukee’s best pediatric group, the “B” in BCP. “Dr. Hughes,” he said in a jovial tone, “how ya doing, buddy?” He stretched out his hand for a shake. “I stopped by to say hi to Rylee’s family. How’s she doing medically?”
I got up and shook his hand. “She’s a real trouper.” She’d tolerated all the scans, X-rays, and blood tests like a champ, and they were almost at an end. “You’re just in time to hear what Dr. March has to say.”
“Great, great,” he said. “They’re such a nice family. Sorry to see them go through this.”
Next to him was Robin Miller, the newest BCP associate, who also happened to be seven months pregnant.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Great. Nice to see you, Brax.” She looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes. I felt better when she managed a wan smile.
“Robin, how about you read through Rylee’s chart and then meet me in the room?” Ted said.
“Sure thing, Dr. Brunner,” Robin answered. Which I thought was a little unusual. Robin had been a resident in our program, but once you were out, you usually called your partners by their first names.
“Great,” Dr. Brunner said, then turned to me. “Brax, walk with me for a sec, will you?”
When Dr. Brunner gave an order, most of us jumped. So of course I did, extra high. Hell, I would’ve run a few laps around the unit if that would have helped my case.
I wanted this job more than I wanted air to breathe.
It would be the culmination of a lifetime of struggle and heartache.
Dr. Atticus Pendergast, the “P” in BCP, who had been one of the founding partners sixty years ago, was the man I owed everything to. The currency he’d invested in me, despite our brief time together—how to be a person who strives to help others, how to survive and even thrive—had gotten me through a lot.
Even though he’d passed on years ago, I wanted to make him proud. Show him that despite all those years I’d spent in the foster system, all the hours of working three separate jobs and applying for every scholarship, taking every opportunity to get through college and med school—I’d finally made it, and now it was time to pay it forward.
Ted clapped me on the back and dropped his voice. “Brax, my boy, I wanted you to know that our group is very close to making a decision about our newest partner.” He beamed a big smile.
My heart began a slow, steady acceleration.
He laughed. “Don’t look so serious. Of course, you and Mia are both still in the running. You know our group is all about maximum efficiency. We’ve got the lowest wait times for our patients, and we’re the fastest at getting worried moms and dads appointments for their sick kids. That’s why we take the brightest, most-talented residents who can keep up with the intense demands of a busy practice.”
Dr. Brunner’s gaze drifted over to Robin, who was still sitting at the computer, sipping from a water bottle. Robin had been a very high-performing resident. She was well respected and well liked. I couldn’t guess what his point was.
I didn’t have to wonder for long. He dropped his voice even lower. “There are certain members of our practice who feel they shouldn’t have to pitch in and take call for someone just because they’re of a certain gender, if you know what I mean. I’m certainly all for diversity, inclusion, and equal rights, but we’re all working at maximum capacity. We want a new partner who can promise the same.”
Mia and I were both efficient and hardworking, but was he actually saying something that I couldn’t imagine in this day and age—that the group didn’t want to hire another woman?
I swallowed my shock. Half my mentors were women whom I liked and respected. Years ago, Atticus had chosen a female physician as his first partner. And if this was about balance and humane schedules—weren’t those things that were good for everyone? I got an odd, churning sensation in the pit of my stomach. One that made me wish I hadn’t heard what he’d just said.
I was still figuring out how to respond when Laura and Mia walked out of the room next to Rylee’s.
“Excuse me, Dr. Brunner.” I suddenly knew what I had to do, and that pushed thoughts of my would-be job right out of my brain as I took off toward them.
I mumbled something to Dr. March about needing a minute and then, before Mia could protest, grabbed her elbow and steered her a little way down the brightly lit hall. “The lab just called with Rylee’s bone marrow results,” I said.
Mia’s breath caught. She death-gripped my arm and went pale. Her deep green eyes, the color of what I’d always imagined the hills of Ireland might be like, were filled with worry. She trained them on me, scanning my face. “It’s bad news,” she said.
She always seemed to read me, no matter how neutral I thought I’d trained my expression to be. “Not bad, but challenging. Not insurmountable.”
“She’s got cancer cells in her spinal fluid.”
“Yes.”
Her grip on my arm tightened, and her eyes got a little teary. I was suddenly glad I’d been the one to tell her.
“It’s going to be okay,” I rushed to say. Damn, why did I just say that? It was unprofessional. I didn’t have a crystal ball, and cancer was scary in the best cases. She stared up at me in a way that filled me with the intense desire to do anything for her, like pull the moon out of the sky and hand it to her on a platter just to make her smile.
She called me out. “You can’t know that.”
“You’re right, I can’t.” I blew out a breath. No human did. “But I do know she’s getting the best care. We’ll make sure of it.”
She swiped at her eyes, and I could tell that she was upset. This wasn’t great news, but it wasn’t uncommon. Finding cancer cells in spinal fluid meant that the leukemia was present in the central nervous system. It meant more chemo, and more intrathecal chemotherapy, which was chemo injected directly into the spinal canal, but the odds were still very good that Rylee would come out okay.
“You can take a minute, and I’ll cover you,” I offered.
“Don’t need it.” She straightened up and took a deep breath.
“She’s got a great shot at a cure.” My words sounded weak, but I had to say something.
“I know,” she said. “I also know everything this family has to go through for the next two or three years.” She gave a little nod. “Thanks for telling me.”
“Come find me when you’re done, okay? We’ll do lunch. Maybe check out that new place with the smash burgers. What do you think?” That was the thing about Mia. I’d friend-zoned her, but I kept finding excuses to spend time with her. Which was pretty messed up, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.
She managed half a smile. She cared deeply about all her patients, but I couldn’t help wondering what it was about this particular family that made her so emotional.
I walked back to the nurses’ station. Gabe was still there working. I sat down at another computer and began to chart on my patients. After a few minutes, I turned to the sound of my name. Drake Shelton, one of the pediatric surgical residents, walked up, immediately opened a box of Christmas chocolates that was sitting out on the counter, and stuffed two into his mouth. “Have you seen Mia?” he asked in a muffled voice.
“On rounds.” I gestured down the hall. He’d been coming around lately, doing what guys do when they’re interested. Pretending it was a total coincidence that he just happened to be passing by the unit when he had no patients here, complimenting Mia on what she was wearing, flirting with her. I knew his game, and I didn’t like it one bit.
I mean, the guy was a meathead. His muscles were the stuff of legend. He probably ingested a small cow daily to keep up all that bulk. Not to mention the Christmas cookies and homemade fudge, so plentiful at the hospital this time of year, that he was now carefully picking through as if he hadn’t eaten in a year.
But the real reason I disliked him was that he had a reputation. You know the kind. Like, there weren’t many female medical professionals in a three-floor radius that he hadn’t tried to sleep with.
Also, did he even like kids? There was a reason children’s hospitals were filled with nice people. They loved kids and somehow managed to balance the joy and heartbreak of daily life here. But Drake was impatient, short-tempered with the staff, and intolerant of spit-up, all no-nos in this world.
Whether I liked him or not didn’t matter because I had no claim on Mia, which meant that I had no choice but to tolerate his presence with gritted teeth. And with my hands fisted in my pockets so that I didn’t not-so-accidentally punch him.
Drake took a seat, stretching out his legs as if it were Saturday morning and not the beginning of a long and strenuous day. “I’ll wait. She texted that she needed to ask me something.”
Wait. She’d summoned him? As if that hadn’t made my neck hairs stand up, Gabe looked up and went a little pale. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” He stood up and basically forced me to follow him down the hall until we halted right outside the on-call room door.
“I think you should know something,” he said, concern plastered all over his face.
“What is it?” As chief, half my days began with statements like that. Which could mean anything from one of my interns having difficulties dealing with the emotions of caring for sick kids, to conflicts with other residents or staff, to the fallout from two residents hooking up. That was my job, stamping out fires. While making sure I didn’t engage in any drama myself.
That was why Gabe, Mia, and I became friends. None of us were fire starters by nature, just competent, normal people who did their jobs and toed the line. Except I’d made a primary error. I broke my own rules. I’d gotten too close.
“Mia needs help.” Gabe cast an anxious glance toward Drake.
“Is she in trouble?” Outwardly, at least, I practiced measured patience. From the corner of my eye, I checked for Laura and Mia. They were still in Rylee’s room.
Gabe sighed. “She’ll kill me if I tell you.”
“Okaaay.” My brain kicked into crisis mode. Debt? Eviction? A medical error? Someone giving Mia a hard time? That was doubtful, since she got along with just about everyone.
“But if I don’t tell you, she might suffer even more.”
My veins turned to ice. Her mom was doing great, but what if something had happened? “Just tell me already.”
Gabe sighed. “She needs someone to go home with her for Christmas, no questions asked.”
Irritation swelled in me, despite Gabe’s good intentions. “That’s why you pulled me over here? I mean, you’re always matchmaking.” Now Mia was back in the hall, moving on to Marc Markeson’s room, a twenty-year-old with Hodgkin’s lymphoma who’d had a rough night of nausea from his chemo. I figured I had about five minutes before she finished rounds and walked back to the front desk.
“This isn’t matchmaking,” Gabe said emphatically. “This is—”
“You know I can’t.” Mia and I had somehow managed friendship after what happened between us, but sometimes, things got awkward as hell. Like when she caught me staring at her. Or I’d catch her staring at me. Making me wonder if she was remembering the exact same things I was about our time together—how our chemistry had been off the charts, incredible. Too good to be true.
I’d done everything I could to stop the crazy attraction, but I might as well try to demagnetize a magnet. So maybe I couldn’t help it that she made my stomach do cartwheels or made me feel like Pedro whizzing around the ward on Rollerblades, but I didn’t have to act on it.
“Bottom line,” Gabe explained, not letting this go, “is that she needs to show up with a boyfriend because she told her mother she had one, and I can’t do it. And if you won’t do it, he will.” He nodded toward Dr. Suave, who was now flirting with one of our brand-new nurses. Ugh, no.
“She told her mother she had a boyfriend.” I wasn’t following.
“To help her get through her treatments, Mia sort of…embellished.”
“Embellished.” To handle a tough few months? Okay, understandable, I guess. Gabe somehow knew all about this.
But not me. I’d let her down, not just as a boyfriend, but also as a friend. I sucked.
Gabe was staring at Drake, who was now laughing and casually touching the nurse’s shoulder.
Nice. That had taken him one minute or less. My blood began a slow simmer at the thought of Drake trying to sweet-talk Mia. Or touch her. Let alone spend an entire long weekend pretending to be her boyfriend.
Why was she even asking him?
“You know I can’t go home with her,” I said, as much for me as for Gabe. “It would be…uncomfortable.”
“Maybe you’d like to talk about that sometime?” He folded his arms and cocked a brow.
I telegraphed him a look that said he was entering this discussion at his own risk.
“Okay, then, that’s between you two. But while you’re figuring that out, you should know that I wouldn’t interfere unless I thought she really needed you.”
Gabe was a fixer. He couldn’t help it. He was always trying to push himself into my personal life on the pretext of “helping.” He gave me a sad little shake of his head and a shoulder pat. “It’s okay to let yourself feel things.”
He felt sorry for me.
“Maybe psychiatry is your true calling?” I knew it was a bad joke, but I was on the defensive. My all-American looks fooled most people into thinking I was raised with apple pie and baseball and a fantastic family like I knew Mia had. And I did nothing to stop people from assuming that. In fact, I really didn’t talk about my past at all because it would blow that squeaky-clean image to shreds, and what would be the point? “I know you think I was a jerk to her.”
He’d been down this road with me before, trying to get me to talk about why I broke up with her, but I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Talking about emotions wasn’t exactly my strong suit. Or why it was so much safer for everyone to just stay friends. That way, no one got hurt.
“Do me a favor. At least talk to her,” Gabe said as he left for the toddler ward. As I headed back toward the nurses’ station, Mia walked out of the last room. A split second before I would’ve met up with her, Drake stood up and intercepted me.
“There you are,” he said, his big, athletic form suddenly standing right next to her, dwarfing her more petite one. He flashed her a toothy grin, ignoring me and effectively blocking me with his body.
Every muscle in my body tensed for action. Ironically, I’d just gotten exactly what I wanted: someone helping me to keep Mia at arm’s length. I wanted to push him aside and take my rightful place beside her. Yet I stood there, frozen in place, my feet glued to the floor solely by the conviction that I wasn’t the one for her.
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