But I shook my head. “It’s fully booked,” I said. I had no idea if it was booked or not. But here’s what I did know: Nothing could be better for Babette than a little time with her real family. Nothing could be better for all of them than to make good use of Kent Buckley being halfway around the world. And nothing could possibly be worse for me than a whole weekend with Tina.
I’d rather spend my Christmas all alone watching Hallmark movies.
And that’s exactly what I wound up doing.
* * *
A few days later, I took a car service to pick up Duncan from surgery.
As promised.
It wasn’t a hospital, it was an office building—with Cryosurgery Associates taking up the entire third floor.
I wasn’t even entirely sure what cryosurgery was.
They were rolling Duncan out of recovery in a wheelchair just as I arrived.
Are you wondering if he’d worn his suit and tie to have surgery?
Because that’s a yes. Though the jacket and vest were off now, and lying across his lap, the shirt was open at the collar and untucked, and he was wearing the tie outside his collar, lying there loose—as if he’d just slipped it back over his head like a lei. There it was. He looked good neat and pressed, but he also looked good mussed up.
He squinted when he saw me. “Are you who I think you are?”
“Who do you think I am?”
“The librarian with the clown socks.”
“That’s me. You asked me to pick you up.”
“I did?” He turned to the nurse behind him for confirmation. She nodded. “That was smart of me,” he said.
Wow. What had they dosed him up with?
The nurse gave me a stack of discharge instructions and a small batch of “hard-core” painkillers, saying he could switch to Tylenol tomorrow, but to definitely stick to the hard stuff through the night.
“My name’s Lisa,” the nurse said next, circling her name on the discharge instructions, “and you can call me with any questions.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “I’m Sam.”
“Oh,” she said then, turning to take in the sight of me. “You’re Sam!” Then she just smiled.
“What?” I asked.
“He was telling us all about you.”
I frowned.
She smiled again and nodded. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Good things.”
“Like?” I prompted.
“Oh … I feel like you must already know.”
“I definitely do not.”
“And if you don’t know,” she went on, “then he should be the one to tell you, not me.”
Well, that was unsatisfying.
Lisa helped me wheel Duncan out to the parking lot, where the driver was waiting. “He sang about you, too,” she said as we walked. “In recovery.”
“He sang about me?”
“You know,” she said. “The ‘Oh! Susanna’ song—but adjusted for ‘Samantha.’”
“Do a lot of people sing in recovery?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Never. No one. He’s adorable. How long have you two been”—she gestured between us with her hand—“ya know?”
“Oh!” I said. “No. We’re not … we’re just work colleagues.”
She laughed like I was joking. Then she stopped walking when she realized I wasn’t. “Wait—you’re not even dating?”
I shook my head. “Not even close.”
She opened her eyes wide, like Whoa. “He has got a thing for you, lady.”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t even like me. Like, at all.”
“I’m telling you,” she said, “he does.” Then she added, “The opiates never lie.”
At the car door, Lisa flipped up the footrests on the chair so Duncan could set his feet on the pavement. Before we hoisted him up, she said to be careful of his left side—hip to ribs. He was harder to lift than I was expecting—so much dead weight. I wedged myself up under his armpit and clamped his arm over me as I rotated him.
He was bigger than I’d realized.
I maneuvered him into the backseat with a plop, and he was so out of it, I had to lift his feet up for him, and lean across him to buckle him. He kept his eyes open the whole time, watching me without helping—like his brain was in slow motion and couldn’t catch up.
“You smell like honeysuckle,” he said, while I was clicking the buckle.
“That’s my shampoo,” I said, and just as I pulled away, he leaned in closer to take a deeper sniff—and his face collided with the back of my head.
“Oh, God,” I said, leaning closer to see if he was hurt. “I’m sorry! Are you okay?”
He just smiled up at me. “I’m fine.”
Do you know what love-struck looks like? It’s so hard