Christmas, Actually: The Christmas Gift / The Christmas Wish / The Christmas Date

“Don’t move her, Sophie.”

“I’m an E.R. trauma nurse. I think she’s lacerated an artery.” Sophie recognized her own growing shock in the wave of nausea that surged through her as she assessed the gaping wound on the young woman’s upper arm. She whipped off her cotton shirt and tore it with adrenaline-fueled strength. “I’m applying a tourniquet,” she said, shivering in her tank top.

“We’re sending a helicopter,” the operator said. “Is she breathing?”

“Yes. Low and fast.” Drops of blood had appeared on the teen’s chin. “She has a— Oh.” It wasn’t the girl’s blood. Sophie didn’t dare stop winding the shirt to check her own injury.

No pain in her abdomen. My baby girl. Eighteen weeks. Plenty of cushion.

“Are you hurt?”

“Some pain in my wrists, and I have a laceration somewhere on my head or face. I’m eighteen weeks pregnant, but I don’t think I’m bleeding, and I have no abdominal pain. Please hurry.”

“They’re lifting off. Shouldn’t be more than five minutes.”

The girl struggled as if she were trying to breathe, and then—nothing. Sophie felt for a pulse with shaking fingers. “She’s stopped breathing. I’m starting CPR.”

She began compressions, while her wrists screamed for her to stop. The operator’s voice went on in the background, but Sophie barely heard.

This girl had left some other mom’s home this morning, with her whole life just waiting to be lived. She’d be going back if sheer force could make her breathe again.

Tears leaked from Sophie’s eyes.

A new sound made her want to look up. The whir of blades. So many times Sophie had waited on the landing pad in Boston, but today would be different. Her own baby and this girl were both going to live.

Chaos descended. The helicopter landed close enough to lift her hair and the teen’s. Papers fluttered past. One, titled “Biology,” imprinted itself on Sophie’s eyes. The girl’s Christmas break assignment.

Feet appeared around them. One crushed her phone on the road. A pair of legs in dark blue uniform pants eased her out of the way.

Someone else helped her stand, but she felt as fluid as water. The EMT supported her when she began slipping back to the ground.

“Are you in pain?” He looked younger than the girl she’d been helping.

“A little in my wrists but I don’t think they’re even sprained.”

He tilted her chin up with his finger and then pushed her hair out of the way. “You have a small laceration.” Producing an alcohol wipe, he cleaned it.

A nurse in a flight suit applied a cervical collar to the patient, while the first EMT was still doing compressions. Sophie watched his hands, stronger than hers.

Sophie slid her arms around her stomach. “I’m pregnant,” she said. “Eighteen weeks.”

The EMT helped her to sit down on the road, out of the way of the others.

The man’s colleague, still working on the girl, looked back. “I have a pulse. Let’s get her in the chopper.” He helped the others strap their patient to a backboard.

Sophie’s EMT touched her arm. “An ambulance is on the way for you. She’ll be fine. Are you bleeding?”

Sophie shivered as the cold cut into her. “I don’t think so.”

“How hard did you strike your head?”

“I’m not sure.”

“We’ll check for concussion at the hospital. For now, follow my finger.” She did. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Where do you live?” he asked. “Street address?”

“Nine-ten East Portland Street in Boston.”

“Good enough. Can we call your husband? I think I stepped on your phone.”

Jack’s face, expressionless, flashed in front of her. She tried to breathe. “No husband. No one to call.” She stared across the road at the pieces of glass and plastic and a hot-pink phone cover, instead of looking into her own thoughts.

With any luck, Jack wouldn’t be on duty today.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_43832afe-b828-5aa2-9339-1a436edd8b6d)

JACK BANNING MET the chopper, where the patient had gone into arrest for the second time from loss of blood. After the crew resuscitated her, he took a report from the flight’s RN. Running beside his patient’s gurney toward the E.R. entrance, he was forced to veer out of the way of an incoming ambulance.

When the doors opened, he saw Sophie.

It wasn’t really her, of course. Since he’d left Boston, Jack had seen her face everywhere he went. Guilt, he figured.

Not that guilt would change his mind.

Sophie would have to accept his financial assistance and hope a better man came into her life.

Jack looked back at his patient, assessing on the fly. He couldn’t help glancing at the ambulance.

It was still Sophie.

Staring at him, white with shock, blank.

Nausea hit him so hard he was almost sick on the cement. He took deep breaths that didn’t provide nearly enough oxygen.

Was she hurt? And her baby... He didn’t let himself think of the child. Another doctor would take care of Sophie and the—her—baby. What was she doing here?

“Dr. Banning.” The trauma nurse assigned to his team spoke his name. No one ever had to focus him, and she sounded alarmed.

Sophie had come after him when he’d rejected her and the baby—it was completely out of character. He pushed thoughts of her aside, clearing his mind and hardening his heart.

Emotionless, capable, in charge, he knew what to do next.

“O.R. Two is waiting for us.”

* * *