Christmas Melody: a romance for the holidays Read online

  Chapter 1

  Present Day

  “Melody Parish?”

  “Yes! That’s me!” Melody stood up and hurried to meet the nurse at the door to the waiting room. That is, she hurried as much as you can when you have a sprained knee. (Hopefully, just a sprain! She still planned to run the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, and that was only 3 weeks away.)

  “I’ll take your forms, Ms. Parish, and you can follow me to the exam room.”

  Melody walked after the young, slender nurse. Everybody at this office looked attractive, young and fit; it made her feel oddly insecure, even though she was only 30 years old, very fit, and indisputably pretty. It was probably being a twin that did it; Mel liked to stand out from a crowd, but she never seemed to do it. She wasn’t even a stand-out in her own family.

  Now that they were grown up, Mel was the only sister still single, and still living in Iowa. The others had moved and married, and Eliza even had two kids. Mel had opened her own yoga studio after college, and things had gone amazingly well. It was an active, fit, youthful community, and her location near a college campus made her studio a huge draw. Her business partner, Subha Merrit, taught most of the classes, while Mel handled the money, marketing, and whatever else needed doing. It had been a dream professionally—at first. But the thing about owning your own yoga studio is that it’s very routine work. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to grow—unless they wanted to open another studio, which was becoming a distinct possibility, if Subha could convince Mel to go along with it. She had to do something. It had been almost ten years of the same old thing.

  She’d settled down locally to be near her boyfriend, a local musician who had eventually dumped her and moved down to Austin to focus on his band. Greyson taught Melody an important lesson: you should never make somebody a priority in your life unless you know you’re a priority in his. Without the man she’d built her life around, Mel wasn’t sure where to go. So here she’d stayed, year after year, recognizing that her life had become stagnant, but unsure what she could do about it. Three years ago, she’d taken up running. And as luck would have it, she’d tweaked her knee this summer, and the thing just wouldn’t heal. So here she was.

  The nurse told Mel to sit on an exam table while she checked her vital signs. Once she was left alone, Mel studied the diplomas hanging from the wall. Dr. Mitchell Westicott, orthopedic physician. Her heart started racing when she saw his name. That was unexpected, but not totally abnormal. It was that magical instinct she always seemed to have when she met someone who wanted something desperately. She knew then and there that she had to get to know Dr. Westicott better. She had to sing to him for Christmas; he was her next “fated meeting,” as she’d come to think of them. She sighed and looked down at her swollen knee. This was so inconvenient.

  Putting aside the fact that it’s awkward to sing for total strangers, Mel’s gift was still a total pain. Mel had begun to resist sharing her gift over the years. It was painful to help everyone else get what they wanted, while she seemed totally unable to help herself. She gave herself credit for Eliza’s first pregnancy, even. Her sister had been trying for months when she came home for Christmas and Mel serenaded her with “Silver Bells.” What would this man’s wish be?, she wondered. If it was something mean, then she just couldn’t sing to him. And even more importantly, how could she figure out how to serenade him at the doctor’s office? That was the oddest part of her gift. Most people just don’t expect to be sung to in daily life, so she got such weird looks, and never any gratitude. Nobody knew that she was helping them; the fulfillment of their deepest wishes usually passed for a coincidence. The anonymity was less favorable when it meant more than half the people ended up thinking Mel was a total weirdo.

  The door opened after a short wait, and a man who was, if possible, even better looking than everyone else she had seen so far, stepped inside the door.

  “Hi, Melody? I’m Dr. Westicott, it’s good to meet you.”

  “You, too.” Mel tried to sit up straighter and before she could stop herself, she was combing her fingers through her hair. She had this automatic reaction to good-looking men now, made worse when she noticed the lack of a wedding ring. She immediately felt silly and slouched again. Although, maybe she shouldn’t look too dumpy? She tried to find a happy medium of posture, only stopping when she observed that Dr. Westicott seemed to notice her fidgeting. Maybe not a great idea to make the cute doctor think you’re a spaz, she thought.

  “So Dr. Abrams tells me you tweaked your left knee on a run. Is that right?” Dr. Abrams was Mel’s primary care doctor, who had referred her to the medical dream boat now standing before her.

  “Yeah, I was jogging out in the rain and I slipped on some wet gravel and fell. It’s been swollen for months and it isn’t healing, so she sent me to you.”

  Dr. Westicott sat down on the black stool by the computer, then rolled toward her. “Let’s take a look.”

  The exam was short. The doctor had her lie back while he went through range of motion exercises with her leg. He felt different ligaments with his muscular, tanned hands and asked Mel how much pain she felt. Stupidly, she fibbed and said it didn’t hurt a bit. His surprised expression reminded her that she was supposed to be receiving medical care, and she corrected her previous “one” to a “five” on a scale of one to ten.

  When he was finished, the doctor entered some information in the computer, then turned to face Mel again.

  “I wish I had better news for you,” he said. “It feels like a small tear in your ACL. I want to get some X-rays taken so we can know for sure, but the range of motion and pain are a pretty good indicator.”

  Melody sighed. So much for running that Turkey Trot. “So will I need surgery?”

  Dr. Westicott’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket. He stared at the screen for a minute, frowning. Melody wouldn’t have expected an orthopedic surgeon to be on call during a day of office visits, and she waited for him to put the phone away.

  “Um, no…” he said distractedly.

  Seriously? Way to make me feel even more insignificant, she thought. “Then what’s the game plan? Can I keep running on it while it heals?”

  He still only half looked at her, slipping the phone back in his pocket. “Well, we’ll get…I’m sorry, excuse me. We’ll get the X-rays and then make a decision from there. But since you’re a hobby runner and the tear seems minor, surgery is a last resort that we will probably be able to avoid.”

  Melody’s heart started racing again, and she knew what she had to say. Damn it. This was so awkward. Even more so since the doctor was practically ignoring her—a difficult thing to do during an exam. She felt about as interesting as the room’s plain yellow wallpaper, and here she was, about to pry into her sexy doctor’s personal matters, all so she could try to sing him a carol, of all things…good grief. One thing she could say was that she had never had a boring holiday season.

  “Was that something important? On your phone?” she asked, nodding toward the pocket where his phone’s screen was lighting up again.

  “I apologize,” he said, an attractive, reddish blush spreading over his face as he removed the phone from his pocket to place it face-down on the table. “It’s important, but not urgent. It can wait until we’re finished here. Which I think we are, basically, so…”

  Unable to stay away, he picked up the phone again. Mel fought the urge to roll her eyes. Her instincts told her that the person who had sent the messages Dr. Westicott was answering was intimately related to his deepest wish. But she wouldn’t get anywhere with that today. She’d see him again.

  “Okay, well. Thank you, I guess. Should I set up the X-ray with your staff on my way out?”

  “What? Oh, no. We’ll order it for you with the hospital, then schedule a follow-up appointment later next week. Take care, Melanie.”

  “Melody,” she corrected, sliding carefully off of the exam table. The doctor barely seemed to notice her limping as she
passed him through the open door. Men. This is why, after all these years, she was still single. Self-centered, inattentive men.

  The lab work had been a nightmare to schedule. First it seemed Dr. Westicott had actually forgotten to put in the order, so after two days, she called the office and requested that he do it. Then, the hospital wanted her to come in during regular business hours, which wouldn’t normally be a big deal, except that it was Mel’s long-awaited “Fit for the Holidays” promotional week at the studio. Classes were sold out, memberships were flying off the shelves, and it was all hands on deck around the place. So it would be another week until she could make it work, and in the meantime, she liked to think she got to be pretty adept at hopping around one-legged.

  Amos, who worked her front desk, had begun calling her “Gimpy.” Young and energetic, he insisted on doing almost everything that required standing, reaching, or moving in general for her when she was at the studio. As a result, the swelling had finally begun to go down, and after her X-ray, Mel began to feel confident that there was probably nothing wrong with her leg. Dr. Westicott had barely paid any attention to her; what did he know?

  When she got home from the clinic, Mel called her sister.

  “Good news! I think I can run the Turkey Trot after all.” Francy and Brent, her husband, would be in town for Thanksgiving. Now that Mom and Dad had sold their home to spend their retirement RV-ing across the country, Mel’s somewhat cavernous and lonesome three-bedroom house had become the family’s home for the holidays. Everyone would be arriving to stay with her in six short days.

  “That’s great! Is that what the doctor said?” Francy asked.

  “Yep,” Mel lied. “It was just a tweak, and the swelling is totally gone now. So bright and early Thursday morning, tell that husband of yours to be ready to get his butt kicked!” Mel and Brent ran the Turkey Trot together every year, while Francy cheered them on from the sidelines.

  “I will let him know. Hey, by the way, Mom thinks you’re a lesbian.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, we talked on the phone two days ago. She can’t understand why a pretty girl like you—”

  “Oh my god, please stop.”

  “—can’t find a man to settle down with.”

  “Seriously, I do not want to hear this.”

  “Just warning you, she’s starting to worry that when you die there’ll be nobody but the cat to find you.”

  Mel didn’t even have a cat anymore, and she was barely over thirty! “Okay, that’s enough. What about you? Doesn’t she have enough to pester you with?” Mel stopped herself, just in time, from mentioning grandchildren. Francy had suffered two miscarriages in the years since her marriage. She was worried the cancer treatment might have made her infertile. But Mom knew none of this, so the constant pestering about grandchildren was a thorn in Francy’s side the way Mel’s singleness (and homosexuality, apparently) was in Mel’s.

  When Francy didn’t answer right away, Mel said, “Francy?” And then a moment later, with that twin-ly sixth sense of hers, she knew. “Oh, Francy. Congratulations! How far along are you?”

  She could hear her sister sniffling, and her voice shook with happiness. “Twenty weeks. I wanted to surprise you all at dinner. Mel, I just found out—it’s a girl!”

  Mel wiped at her own joyful tears, feeling in that way only a sister can the true bliss of the moment. She hadn’t brought about this gift with her caroling, but somehow that made it even more special. “I’m so happy for you!” she said. “Are you gigantic?”

  “Actually, I’m not,” Francy said. “I’m just showing a little bit, but remember how it was with Liz? She still wasn’t showing until 24 weeks, and then—pop!”

  Mel smiled. “I remember. Wow.” As she let her sister regale her with happy pregnancy stories, Mel’s heart was at peace. In moments like these, she wasn’t restless or depressed, and she wasn’t envious either. But, she had to admit to herself later that night, she was lonely.

  On Thanksgiving morning, Mel got up early for the race. Most of the family had arrived the night before, but Mom and Dad would get here in the late morning. The house was spotless in anticipation of their arrival, but Liz’s kids had quickly seen to disrupting that, strewing toys about the playroom and asking Aunt Mel to get out all the DVDs so they could choose what to watch, before passing out in an exhausted heap of pillows, blankets, and DVD boxes on the floor.

  Mel sent Francy down the street for bagels for Liz, Adam and the kids, while she and Brent got ready for the race, then the three of them headed downtown in the chilly November air. The race began and ended by the river, but moved over a bridge, through a college campus, and past countless businesses, including hers. It wasn’t until after they had registered that her knee started to hurt again. Great.

  Francy would have noticed her limping, but Brent did not, so there was nobody to stop her from stupidly lining up with the other racing enthusiasts and shooting off like a dart through the morning fog. It was only a 5k; she could do it on a bad knee, right?

  Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Francy watched, bemused and not truly surprised, as her husband tried to coax Mel along toward the finish line. She was limping badly, but wouldn’t stop running, and they were dead last.

  They were about half a mile from the finish line when a handsome man approached Francy.

  “I see your knee is looking better,” Dr. Westicott said to the wrong sister.

  “Huh? Oh, you’re mixing me up with my twin sister, I bet.” She pointed up the road. “Mel’s the one whose knee is definitely not looking better.”

  Even in the distance, even in the dark, Mel could see the doctor’s shocked face when he saw her hopping down the road like a one-legged, neon-wearing kangaroo. Dressed warmly in black compression leggings and a fleece jacket, the doctor had clearly been running the race himself. He ran back down the street toward her, gesturing with his arms. “Sit down,” he called. “You can’t run on that knee!”

  Well, this was sufficiently embarrassing.

  “Do you know that guy?” Brent asked.

  Mel’s face reddened. Dr. Westicott had almost reached them, and was still waving his arms and shouting like a maniac. How had he recognized her, when he’d barely said two words to her at her appointment? “He’s my doctor.”

  Brent frowned and said, “Aw, jeez, Mel. You aren't supposed to be running?” His tone indicated that he wasn’t truly surprised.

  “He never actually said that,” Mel said, but she felt stupid and exhausted. Brent helped her to the curb, and she was seated there when the doctor reached them. His brown hair was ruffled from the wind, and in the warm light of the sunrise, his hazel eyes sparkled. His muscles were visible through his shirt—not too large, but very defined. When he knelt in front of her, Mel’s heart started racing.

  “I meant to call you this week,” he said apologetically, by way of greeting. “It's a worse tear than I thought: you have to stay off the knee while it’s healing or it'll tear even worse.”

  Mel groaned when the doctor straightened her leg and began feeling her sore knee.

  “This is what I was afraid of.” He pressed gently, and Mel yelped. “She can't walk,” he said to Brent, who was looking distractedly toward the finish line.

  “Just finish the race,” Mel said, annoyed. She liked her brother-in-law, but Brent was not the most selfless person.

  As Brent darted away, with promises to be right back and bring the car, Dr. Westicott helped Mel stand and hobble to a nearby bench.

  “That’s your husband?” the doctor asked, not seeming too concerned with what the answer was.

  “Brother-in-law,” Mel corrected.

  Recognition dawned on his face. “Right. I met your twin.”

  “I saw.” They were so close to the finish line. This stunk.

  Once Mel was seated again, Dr. Westicott knelt in front of her once more. Again with the heart racing! He was just so handsome; maybe it wasn’t only her gift that was causing thi
s reaction.

  “I should have called,” he said absently. “This week has been…”

  Ah. Nope, it was definitely the gift. Mel felt like she would burst if she didn’t ask him to explain more.

  “You were distracted at the office, too,” she said. “I hope everything’s okay.”

  He glanced up at her, they locked eyes, and after a moment his expression changed. He rose up onto the bench beside her and said, “Truthfully? This is the worst year of my life. I just…. I’m dealing with….” He stopped, shaking his head. “Sorry. You don’t want to hear this.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Sometimes it’s easier telling a stranger,” she said.

  He gave her a mirthless smile. “My fiancée dumped me. She met somebody else.”

  Ouch. Having someone you love put somebody else ahead of you, whether a person or a passion, really hurt; Mel knew what that was like. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I keep trying to convince her to give us another shot,” he said. “We have a son together. I,” he paused, gathering himself. “I hate the idea of him having another dad. You know?” Mel nodded, and Dr. Westicott seemed encouraged enough to continue. “She brought Aiden to her new boyfriend’s family’s place for Thanksgiving. They live in Nebraska.”

  Mel’s heart ached. What a painful thing to have to deal with, and at the holidays, too. She could imagine that having a kid would just make a split up even more unbearable. “That’s awful. I’m really sorry,” she repeated. In that moment, she wanted to just sing a quick carol and be done with it. Fix his life and let him go on his merry way. But something told her that getting back together with a woman who didn’t necessarily love him wouldn’t be the best thing for Dr. Westicott—or for anybody, for that matter. It might be what he wanted, but that didn’t make it likely to make him happy in the long run. She just wasn’t sure; she needed more information.

  So, she didn’t sing. Instead, she said, “Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?”