One Tough Christmas Cookie - Lucy McConnell Page 0,6

Hurrying into the room, she tried to figure out where she could stand that she would be out of the way of the nurses who were changing out his IV bag and unhooking monitors. Everything was happening so fast, it felt like the room spun around here. Any second, they’d wheel the whole bed away and her chance at closure would disappear.

Seeing a break in activity, she rushed forward. “Dad!” She leaned over the flat bed, noting the white sheet that lay across his still body like a shroud.

She needed to rein in her morbid thoughts. He wasn’t dead—not yet, anyway. But the knowledge that this could be the last time she laid eyes on the man who’d taught her how to set a broken wing whooshed through her entire body. Was it possible for a person’s spirit to leave while their heart still beat? Her eyes darted to the monitor that beeped sporadically. She suddenly wished she’d watched the documentary on near-death experiences when it had popped up on her Netflix feed last week.

“Can you hear me?” She placed her hand on his arm, shocked at how cold he felt. Especially since she hadn’t worn gloves and her hands were cold.

His eyes fluttered open at the sound of her voice, as if she’d called him back from a deep sleep—maybe the deepest. His work-worn hand groped for something to hold on to. Her hands weren’t much better than his, covered in calluses, the nails trimmed short. Veterinary practice didn’t lend itself to manicures and feminine wiles.

“Faith,” he graveled out. His voice had always been deep, but her name sounded like it was dragged behind his old green pickup on a dirt road.

“Yeah, Dad?” She leaned in, hopeful and expectant that his last words would be healing, comforting, and an apology for the years he’d neglected his family. She could forgive him if he finally saw the light, if he finally noticed the prized woman she’d become despite not having his influence in her life. This was the moment that all the pain could be washed from their history and she would be able to look back and only see the good.

“Protect the reindeer,” he said, moistening his parched and cracked lips.

“What?!” She moved closer still, sure she had misheard. “Are you kidding me right now?” The man was pounding on death’s door, and he asked her protect the very animals she’d resented her whole life. If it’d come down to going to Faith’s preschool Christmas show or a vet check on a reindeer, he’d picked the reindeer. When her mom had handed him the ultimatum—us or the reindeer—he’d chosen the reindeer.

And now, after Faith rushed to his bedside—leaving her own thriving vet practice in a lurch and her partner to cover for her during Christmas, with only the clothing on her back and the credit card in her purse—his thoughts were of the reindeer.

“It’s important. Promise me.” He wheezed as if every word cost him greatly.

What he didn’t understand, what he never understood, was what those darn hooved beasts had cost her.

A nurse with bright red hair put her hand on Faith’s shoulder and spoke calmly. “We’re going to take him in now, sweetie. Say what you need to say.”

Faith glanced up to meet her warm chocolate eyes and nodded. So many words filled her mind. Angry ones that had bite and venom. Words that would sting him for every wrong he’d ever done her and every loss she’d ever felt because of his obsession with the stupid reindeer.

She took in the old man lying naked under a thin sheet, his hand shaking in hers. Tubes went from his arms and nose into who knew what machine or bag of fluids. His life hung in the balance, and she couldn’t let their possible last moments together be tainted with the past. Did that make her a sucker? Mom would think so. Mom would tell her to leave him there. Let him ask the reindeer for help—see if they were there for him in his dying moments.

But she wasn’t her mother.

“I promise, Dad.” She kissed his forehead and then stood and folded her arms as the staff kicked the release on the wheels and rolled him out of the room. Tears, hot and stingy, blurred her vision. She went into that place where the mind and the body numbed to protect her, and she folded her arms over her chest to hold herself together. Breathing was not an option. Time