A Christmas Proposal: A Hidden Threat Short Story
Read A Christmas Proposal: A Hidden Threat Short Story Online
Authors: Sherri Hayes
Contents
First published by The Writer’s Coffee Shop, 2011
Copyright © Sherri Hayes, 2011
The rights of Sherri Hayes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Writer’s Coffee Shop
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E-book ISBN-978-1-61213-139-9
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Cover image by: ©Mark Hryciw
Cover design by: Jennifer McGuire
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Chapter 1
Ever since Cali Stanton had agreed to move in with him, Matthew Andersen had been planning how he would propose to her. She was it for him. There was no question in his mind.
When she’d taken the emergency room job over at Chicago Memorial Hospital, he’d had no idea how crazy her schedule would be. He’d never lived with a doctor before, and while he knew they had crazy hours, it was still eye-opening.
Her crazy schedule had him pushing his plans back and reassessing. She’d not had more than twelve hours off for the last month. After tonight, that would change. Cali was due to end her shift at midnight, although in all likelihood she wouldn’t finish until a couple of hours later, but after that she didn’t have to return to the hospital until seven o’clock in the morning on the twenty-sixth. They would have more than twenty-four hours together, and he was going to make the most of it.
Carrying the last armful of bags into their townhouse, Matthew began unloading them onto the counter. He was not one to wait until the last minute, but seeing as how he didn’t want Cali to suspect what he was up to, he didn’t have a choice. Luckily, the grocery store wasn’t busy this Christmas Eve. Matthew suspected everyone was at the mall, given the packed parking lot he passed.
His plan was to give Cali a day she wouldn’t forget. It was their first Christmas together, which would be special enough, but given that he planned to ask her to be his wife added extra pressure.
Matthew was used to pressure. He’d spent nearly four years as a sniper in the military. It was one of those jobs where losing your cool in high-pressure situations could get you dead in quick order. This, however, was perhaps the most important thing he’d ever done to date and he wanted it to be perfect. He was not above admitting that he was nervous. She could say no. Matthew didn’t think she would, but there was always that possibility.
He spent almost an hour washing and cutting fruit, prepping breakfast for tomorrow morning. Breakfast in bed was the first order of business. It would get things moving in the right direction and hopefully show Cali just how special she was to him. Before her, his life had been a series of things that needed to be done. She’d opened him up, made him relax and enjoy life a little. Cali made things less predictable.
Once he felt everything in the kitchen was prepared, Matthew moved into the living room. They’d put up a tree and decorated it. He’d never been much for Christmas decorating, at least not since his mom died. His father and brother Jason had seemed to feel the same way, so their house had pretty much looked the same all year around. The only nod to Christmas had been a fake tree about two feet tall on a small plastic stand. Most of the time, however, it remained bare of any ornaments or decoration.
With Cali now living with him, decorating had felt right. They picked out a live tree together, bought decorations, and spent several hours on a Saturday afternoon covering nearly every surface in their living room with some hint of Christmas. Every little touch made their house feel more like a home instead of just a place to live.
She did that. Every day. Not just with the Christmas decorations, but with everything.
I never want that feeling to go away,
he thought as he slipped the small black box out of his pocket.
His thumb rubbed gently over the box. It had taken him just over a week to find the perfect ring. He’d spent hours searching the Internet, but continued to come up short. Nothing seemed to fit her personality and what he wanted to say.
Finally he decided that maybe a physical search would have better results. It had taken him little more than a half hour inside the small jewelry store to find what he wanted. The ring displayed a single-carat diamond flanked on each side with a cluster of three smaller stones. A white-gold band wrapped round the diamonds in a show that was elegant rather than flashy. He’d known the moment he saw it that it was the ring he wanted to put on Cali’s finger.
They’d placed presents under the tree for each other over the past few weeks. It had been easier for both of them to wrap them and put them under the tree as they went rather than trying to hide them from each other. They were both adults, after all.
Matthew used the already-stacked presents to his advantage and tucked the small box in behind everything else so that it couldn’t be seen. His plan was to give it to her last. He didn’t think she was expecting it, and he wanted to keep it that way.
Looking up at the clock, he realized it was almost midnight. Christmas Eve had come and gone. Cali would be home soon, the morning would arrive, and he could put all his preparation into practice.
He took one last look around, making sure everything was in place, ready for tomorrow, before heading to bed.
As he slipped under the covers, he glanced at the empty spot beside him. This time tomorrow he hoped to be sharing this bed with his fiancée.
Cali reached for the medical chart lying on the small desk assigned to her. The ER was hopping tonight, and one of the scheduled doctors had called in sick. You never knew what you were going to get on Christmas Eve in a Chicago emergency room, and tonight had been one of those where anything goes. She’d treated everything from chest pains to helping with two births.
Her shift was supposed to end at midnight. It was now drawing close to two a.m. As a doctor, she couldn’t just punch out when her shift ended. Injuries and illness didn’t adhere to a time clock. Thankfully, things were slowing down, and after seeing this last patient she was going home.
Knocking on the door outside the patient’s room, Cali waited for the voice inside to give her the okay to enter. According to the chart, her patient, five-year-old Travis Maky, snuck downstairs in his home two hours ago looking for Christmas presents. He’d found them and, being a five-year-old, did not want to wait until morning to see what Santa had brought him. His parents had been woken by their child’s screams. Travis had opened all their presents, not just his own, including a set of earrings meant for his mother. One of the earrings was now lodged inside Travis’s ear.
Cali stepped into the room and smiled at the child’s parents before addressing her patient. “Hello, Travis. I’m Dr. Stanton. I understand you have something in your ear that’s not supposed to be there?” With apprehension, he looked over to his mom before nodding his head. “Well,” she said, putting on a pair of gloves and retrieving her tweezers. “Let’s see if we can get it out of there for you, okay?”
“Okay,” he whispered shyly.
“Can you lie back for me and turn on your side?” Cali motioned for his parents to help the boy get into the right position. “Now this shouldn’t hurt. You let me know if it does, okay?”
He nodded.
It took some maneuvering, but Cali was finally able to wrap her tweezers around the small round earring and pull it out of her patient’s ear. She made sure there were no scratch marks from the entry or removal and then patted the little boy’s leg. “All done,” Cali smiled.
Cali placed the small piece of jewelry into a plastic baggie and handed it to Travis’s mother. “Thank you, doctor.”
“You’re welcome,” Cali smiled at the woman before turning her attention back to her patient. “Now, young man, you have to promise me that you’re not going to be putting things in your ears anymore.”
Travis ducked his head and said, “I promise.”
Cali smiled, breaking the seriousness of the conversation. Travis had been lucky. Over her years as a doctor she’d seen much worse, but sticking things in one’s ears was not an advisable practice. Reaching into the deep pocket of her white coat, Cali retrieved one of the suckers she kept there just for such occasions and offered it to her young patient. Travis’s face brightened and he took it eagerly.
She left the family in the small room and walked back to her desk. The nurse would have some paperwork to finish up with them, but her part was done, which meant she could finally go home. Slipping on the heavy winter coat she’d bought at the first sign of snow, she began the trek to her car.
As soon as Cali stepped beyond the sliding glass doors, the bitterly cold Chicago wind wrapped around her. Somehow, no matter how many layers of clothing or how heavy your coat appeared to be, the wind found its way through all of it and settled deep in your bones. She’d missed a lot of things about Chicago when she was away in Africa for two years. The winters weren’t one of them.