Page 48 of Just for the Holidays

“Just sit,” Nichol commands. “I’ll push him,” he tells the nurse.

She shrugs and struts away.

Teddy wobbles on jello legs, slowly lowering into the wheelchair, he peers up at Nichol dreamily. “Thank you.”

Nichol smirks, gripping the handlebars, spinning the chair around, and pushing it down the corridor, toward the lobby. “Wait here,” he orders, stepping around the front of the chair, and looking down at Teddy. “I’m going to get the van. I’ll be right back.” He trots across the main entrance.

“Hate to see you go… Love to watch you walk away.” Teddy slurs.

Nichol glances back, before he walks through the automatic slider, roaring with laughter that echoes into the night.

Ages later, headlights sweep across the floor-to-ceiling wall of glass spanning the front lobby and Nichol returns to collect Teddy. They abandon the wheelchair, load into the vehicle, and head for the bakery.

The hum of the engine, theater of whirling snow squalls ahead of the windshield, and cocktail of pain medications, have Teddy dozing in and out of consciousness.

Twinkling lights glimmer on pepto-pink siding . . .

Nichol’s arm snakes Teddy’s waist, hoisting him off the seat. . .

Orange blossoms waft…

“Mmm, you smell nice.” Teddy murmurs…

Bells jingle a cheery greeting…

“Am I hurting you?” Nichol’s voice is underwater…

Teddy rolls his neck. “Mm-nooo.”

Aluminum scrapes…

He falls slowly, like floating, onto a fluffy cloud…

A soft blanket tucks around him…

Teddy drifts…

Sometime later, a warm body lies against his back…

Gram’s fresh-baked pies tease his nostrils…

And sleep carries him away…

Chapter 29

Nichol

The Charmed Prince

The alarm clock in Nichol’s phone mutely buzzed against his thigh, from inside his pocket, for thirteen minutes before his tired body registered the vibrations.

He carefully slides off the futon, not disturbing the snoring baker, and soft-steps through the aluminum gate, quietly latching it behind himself.

GiGi waddles across the floor, out of the dark shadows and into the moon-glow spilling into the kitchen from the storefront, whisper-squeaking a reminder that it is her breakfast time.

“Shh… one sec.” Nichol presses his index finger to his lips and flicks one of three switches on the wall, to light just the kitchen, over the workbench.

He gathers the bin of produce from the fridge and discovers a bag of pellets under the work surface, breaking two carrots into thirds with his bare hands and dropping the pieces on top of the pellets in a silver mixing bowl—like he had witnessed Teddy doing before—and sets the bowl down, inside the gate, for her to munch.

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