A Wedding in December

“This isn’t practical.”

“What you wear in the bedroom should never be practical.”

Maggie closed the door and stripped off again.

If she bought this, Nick was going to think she’d gone mad.

She was definitely going to say no.

She eased it over her head and it slid down to midthigh. Maggie stared at herself.

With her hair tousled and her lips red, she looked—she looked—

“Oh boy, oh boy, you look super sexy in that.” Catherine gave a slow smile as she peeped around the door. “Nick will not be able to resist you.”

Maggie was fairly sure Nick had no problems resisting her. If he did, he wouldn’t have moved out. They hadn’t been intimate for—how long? The fact that she couldn’t remember said a lot.

What if he saw the nightdress and thought she was trying to seduce him?

It would be unspeakably awkward.

She did not need a slinky nightdress, and she was going to hand it back to Catherine right this minute.

Keeping it would be nothing short of ridiculous.

Katie

Katie plowed her way through the crowds at the airport. Elbows dug into her ribs and Christmas gifts with sharp corners bruised her legs. A baby howled in misery and she turned instinctively before remembering that his welfare wasn’t her responsibility. She was off duty. Today she wasn’t a doctor. She was just

another person going home for the holidays. Except that in her case, this wasn’t her home. And technically she was on sick leave, not vacation.

The throng of people made her feel uneasy and anxious. Maybe she should have taken those antidepressants instead of shoving the prescription into her purse.

A woman in front of her shrieked and sprinted toward a man with scruffy hair and an eager expression who swung her into his arms.

What must it be like to be greeted like that?

She was probably never going to find out. Unless she got a cat.

Should she get a cat?

No. She was already responsible for the lives of too many living creatures. Did she really want to add another to the list?

And what would it do when she worked long hours? It probably wouldn’t even be pleased to see her when she walked through the door. It would be like Vicky, disapproving of her lifestyle choices.

She tightened her grip on the case and walked past the couple, trying not to listen.

I love you.

I love you, too.

In that moment, their lives seemed perfect. Katie hoped there was nothing grim waiting for them around the corner. That single, dark thought annoyed her.

What was the matter with her? Was she really so warped by her job that she’d forgotten good things happened to people, too? People fell in love, babies were born, friends were made. Some people went through their lives without ever needing the services of the emergency department.

She had enough insight to know that her vision of the world was distorted.

Being a doctor in emergency medicine was like peeping through a window at a crisis. You saw a glimpse of someone’s life, but never the whole picture. She rarely saw this reality. There was a businessman striding through the crowd, talking on the phone as if the people around him didn’t exist; a couple hugging; a little girl balanced precariously on a suitcase.