A Daddy Sent By Santa. Susan Carlisle

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      “Then you know it’s nothing to mess around with.” Henry wasn’t letting his patient intimidate him.

      Lauren shook her head in disbelief. Could this evening get any more interesting? “Then we’re going out in the weather again.” She winced. “More fun in the snow.”

      “It looks like it.”

      Lauren imagined Paxton’s arrival in Oklahoma was far above and beyond his Bostonian expectations.

      “How soon can I get out of here?” Paxton asked Henry.

      “As soon as you’re ready.” Henry made a note on the chart he held. “After you have your hands wrapped. They need to be that way for at least twenty-four hours. I don’t want you using them until tomorrow. I’m going to prescribe you a little something for pain. Call me with any problems.”

      Paxton didn’t look pleased with that directive but he didn’t argue. “Understood.”

      Henry nodded to her and Paxton, then left. A few minutes later a nurse wrapped Paxton’s fingers individually in gauze.

      As soon as she left Paxton said, “I’m ready to go.” He stood and started pulling on his coat.

      Lauren assisted him with getting his arms into it, then adjusted the weight around his shoulders and buttoned it. The rigid posture of Paxton’s body let her know he wasn’t used to people doing things for him and he didn’t like feeling incapable. She pulled his collar up around his neck.

      A funny feeling came over her and she looked up to see him intently watching her. Her gaze met his. A pang of awareness ran through her.

      His hair was still damp and mussed, a large lock of it having fallen over his forehead, giving him an endearing disheveled appeal. He was a good-looking man, not in a glossy magazine manner but in the subtle way of someone who had confidence in who they were and what they wanted.

      “Can we go now?” he asked with arched eyebrows.

      Had she been staring at him? She backed away. “I need to get my coat and bag on the way out. I left them at the nurses’ station.” They walked to the unit desk. There she went around to a cubby and gathered her things. “Jane,” she said to the unit clerk, “do you know where we can get some scrubs?”

      The heavy woman in her mid-twenties said, “Yeah, but I’m really not supposed to hand those out.”

      “I’ll bring them back, I promise. If I don’t, you can charge me for them.”

      Jane pursed her lips and gave her a sideways look. “In this case...” She went into the storage room. She soon returned with green scrubs sealed in clear plastic. “Sorry, I only have one set left, in extra-large.”

      “Okay. We’ll make them work.” Lauren took the package, then turned to Paxton. “You ready for this?”

      “I’ve been ready,” he grumbled.

      Apparently he’d had all he wanted for a day. She looked at him. His eyes were bloodshot, underlined by the bruise-like evidence of exhaustion, and his mouth was a tight line. She glanced at his hands all wrapped in white. He deserved to be testy.

      Pulling on her coat, she zipped it closed and put her bag over her shoulder. The large automatic glass doors opened as they approached. A blast of cold rolled in. Lauren shivered and murmured, “All we have to do now is manage to not slip on the ice.”

      Paxton grunted and hunched against the wind, putting his hands into his coat pockets.

      She picked her way down the curved drive to the street while keeping an eye on him. All he needed was to fall. Thankfully the street lights gave off enough light to make visibility good and the snow had slowed to drifting flakes. The motel was straight across the four-lane street from the hospital. They waited for a car to pass then as quickly as possible walked toward the window with the glowing orange neon sign that read “Office.”

      “How often do you get snowbound with a patient?” Paxton asked.

      “I’d have to say this is a first.”

      “I’m not surprised. That’s my life lately. A lot of firsts.”

      Lauren wasn’t sure what that statement meant but it didn’t sound good by the tone of his voice. Keeping a steady pace, they kept moving. The situation was movie-worthy. They would laugh about this one day.

      Lippscomb Motel was a nineteen-fifties-style place, where the one-story building formed a horseshoe and the parking was in front of each room. All the slots appeared taken. What were they going to do if there were no rooms? Return to the hospital. She should have thought to call. They had no choice now but to ask.

      Making it to the entrance first, she opened the glass door, letting him go in ahead of her. The warmth of the lobby greeted them.

      A bald-headed man wearing a T-shirt despite the weather stood behind a counter with a tiny, sad-looking Christmas tree on it. A TV blared in the background.

      “Can I help you?”

      “We need a couple of rooms for the night,” Paxton stated.

      “Don’t have but one,” the man said off-handedly.

      Lauren had been afraid of that.

      The man continued, “The storm has us all full up tonight.”

      “We’ll take it,” Paxton said before she had a chance to say differently.

      She pulled her wallet from her bag.

      “I’ve got this.” Paxton put a card on the counter.

      Regardless of the circumstances, it didn’t quite sit right with her to have a man she hardly knew pay for their hotel room for the night. Somehow it seemed sleazy. She was a professional taking care of a patient who happened to be a male, she sternly reminded herself. There was nothing immoral about that. It was necessary.

      A minute later the man returned Paxton’s card and gave her a plastic keyring with the number three on it. “The heat won’t be on, but it shouldn’t take long for it to warm up.”

      She shuddered at the thought of going back out in the frigid night and to a cold room but she had no choice.

      Walking under the awning, they made their way to Room Three. Her feet were wet and cold and all she wanted to do was have a hot bath, call Shawn and crawl into bed. She was pretty sure Paxton had a similar desire.

      Unlocking the door, Lauren pushed it wide and let him enter, then quickly closed the door behind them. It wasn’t much warmer inside than out. She left Paxton in the middle of the room lit only by the porch light coming through the thin curtains. Going to the lamp sitting on the table between two beds, she clicked it on. The room was much as she had expected.

      The beds were standard size with headboards fixed to the wall and a small, well-worn sofa set against a wall with a cheaply framed picture above it. There was a built-in desk with a chair and beside it a clothes rack attached to the wall, level with her head, to serve as the closet.

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