Melt Your Heart
Chapter 40: Christmas Wish
Sam Radford would never admit - not even under excruciating physical torture - that he actually hadn't had the very worst time at the annual Middleton Christmas pageant. His face, protected by the magical balm Cassie had provided, hadn't bothered him all evening, and when he removed the itchy fake beard, his skin looked as good as new.
Unfortunately, the memory of Cassie standing so close to him, her healing hands touching his face, was taking longer to clear.
Standing in the kitchen at Grey House, where she had insisted on plying him with hot spiced apple cider and fragrant mince pies, he felt like a spare part, and he was so tired it was hard to stand up straight. But he wouldn't – couldn't – bring himself to call it a night and leave.
Cassie smiled at him, caught somewhere between amusement and pity. He'd been the perfect Santa, and even her twins and their own mysterious ways of knowing things hadn't clocked that the man with the bag was in fact their next-door neighbour.
"Big night for Santa," she said gently, standing next to where he was propped against the kitchen counter. If she remembered correctly, which she always did, not so long ago she had been perched on this very same counter with her arms around him and her lips on his. It felt like yesterday and like an eternity ago simultaneously. After their earlier moment in the kitchen, she kept her distance, ensuring that their bodies weren't even close enough to brush sleeves accidentally.
"Yeah," he replied around a mouthful of mincemeat. "I can see why Derek was so smug about getting to miss it this year; people get it wrong when they say Santa only works one night a year."
"Well, you did a great job," she told him, sipping her cider. "The kids loved you."
"Yeah, well, now Martha has ammo to make me do it all over again," he grumbled. "Maybe I should've shown them all my bright pink, rash covered face when I had the chance."
Cassie smiled again, feeling that the doctor was indeed protesting too much.
"You had fun," she teased.
"Okay, maybe a little bit, but if you tell anyone that, I'll…" he stopped, unable to think of a suitable threat on the spur of the moment.
"Tell Martha I'm opening an occult shop?"
"Ooh," Sam replied. "That's a good one. I can almost hear her painting her protest signs already."
Cassie laughed softly, but although Sam's comments were meant in good humour, there was a niggle in the back of mind at how the town's residents would respond to her business once she finally got it up and running.
"They might be running us both out of town, though," Sam told her, not sure why he'd decided this was the perfect moment to tell her about his plans. Maybe it was the cider, or maybe it was because right now was the closest it had ever felt like they'd been to being friends.
"Oh?" Cassie turned to look at him, forgetting her promise to not get any closer to him than was strictly necessary.
"This probably isn't the ideal moment to tell you, but I'm leasing a property on Main Street as well."
"Oh," Cassie said again, a lightbulb flickering on. "That's what Ryan was so excited about."
Sam smirked at her deadpan tone.
"Yeah, he thought he was finally getting rid of me and instead I was just putting even more roots down in this town." He shook his head. "If someone had told me ten years ago that not only would I have traded New York for a small town, but I would have bought a house and invested in a business here, I would have had them committed. But instead, you're looking at Middleton's next, and only, town doctor."
"Oh wow, Sam, that's really exciting. I'm so pleased for you." And she was, she really was.
"It's been on the cards for a while - hence Ryan - but I couldn't find the right moment to tell you," he said, setting his empty cider mug down and turning so he could face her. "I guess I didn't want you to freak out and think I was making these changes because you and I were together. But now that we're not, there's really no reason not to tell you."
Cassie swallowed, confused by her own swell of emotions.
"What about Hillcrest?" she asked, choosing to focus on the practical rather than the emotional.
"I'll be tendering my resignation in January," he explained. "I haven't told them yet, and I'll stay on until they find a suitable replacement and my own practice is up and running." He stopped, a boyish smile sweeping over his face. "My own practice. That feels really good to say."
"Martha is going to be so excited to have two new members on the board of commerce as well," Cassie added. "Even if she'd rather one of us was opening a Java Shed."
Sam winced. "Don't let Stephanie hear you say that!" He paused. "Speaking of Stephanie, I haven't seen her all evening."
"She's not here," Cassie replied, keeping her voice low because she could sense that Abigail was here, somewhere. "As soon as the pageant ended, she went to Blairsville with Simon, apparently they were having a Christmas parade tonight as well."
"Ah," Sam frowned. "Well," he continued, his expression clearing. "Looks like someone else will be taking the top spot on Martha's shit list then."
Cassie chuckled, pressing her fingers against her lips. "Neither of us had better think about branching our businesses out to Blairsville, then."
"Not if we want to live to see another Middleton Christmas, no."
"I definitely want to," Cassie said, suddenly serious as realised the truth of it: she didn't ever want to spend another Christmas anywhere else. She had finally found her place.
"Good," Sam replied, nodding a couple of times. "I'm glad."
"Me too." Cassie smiled. "Me too."
They chatted for a while longer until Cassie couldn't hold back a yawn; staying up till nearly midnight was something of a rarity when you had two young children. She walked Sam to the door, lingering over saying goodnight, but when they did she leaned up to press her lips to his cheek. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.
And when Sam stepped out into the cold December night, his cheek tingled because of an altogether different type of Merriwick magic.
December 25th
Cassie woke with a start on Christmas morning, her hands fisted around the bedsheets. It took her a moment to catch her breath and to get her bearings. As she calmed down, her vision cleared and she realised, a little foolishly, that she was here, safe and warm, in her own bedroom at Grey House.
The dream was slipping away from her now, the memory of it becoming fuzzier the longer she was awake.
"Jake," she murmured softly into the empty room.
It was still dark out, and so early that the twins were not yet awake and racing into the room to exclaim that Santa had been. Cassie was relieved she had this time to pull herself together.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand; she didn't usually take it to bed with her, but something had made her take it out of her pocket and place it between the water glass and paperback novel on the little wooden trestle table beside her bed, and she was learning to follow these feelings of intuition.
She opened the text message and smiled, a warmth spreading through her.
"Sorry if this wakes you, but I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas."
It was a simple message, but Cassie found herself hugging the phone to her chest. Whatever she tried to pretend to him, to everyone else, and mostly to herself, she still had feelings for him. And not the friendly, neighbourly kind.
With another, different stir of heat, she remembered how closely they had stood at the Christmas pageant; the way his skin felt under her fingertips as she'd smoothed the healing balm over his face, and the not quite innocent things he'd whispered.
She wanted him with an ache so fierce, it blotted out the final hangover from her dream about Jake.
"Merry Christmas, Sam," she replied, her fingers almost shaking in their haste. "I'm looking forward to seeing you later."
She didn't care if it was too bold or too forward, or if she was pushing the boundaries of the friendship truce they'd made, she just knew in her heart and soul that on some not-too-distant Christmas morning, she wanted to wake up with Sam Radford in her bed.