A Midnight Clear Read Free Page A

patient with him yesterday. And please, don’t take what he said to heart. He’s in a phase where he says ugly things to everyone. He’s picked up a bunch of new words in school. And normally when Aiden picks up new words, I’m thrilled. He didn’t start talking until he was four, and then only so he could sing his favorite songs. Now I wish he’d never learned the words stupid and idiot and dummy .”
    “And that makes you like most other mothers. My own ma used to wash my mouth with soap every time I used the word stupid . Old-fashioned but effective.” He paused for a moment. “Not that I would recommend that approach.”
    His words assaulted the shell Teri kept around her emotions. No one had ever suggested that she was an ordinary mother. Mothering Aiden took all she had to give sometimes. Her son was not ordinary.
    The doctor leaned back on the bench, a picture of male grace. A question formed in his deep, dark eyes as he gazed toward Aiden.
    “He’s waiting for an angel,” Teri said in answer to the doctor’s unspoken words. “There are stories about angels appearing here at Golfing for God. Aiden believes them with his whole heart.”
    “My sister has a kid. His name is Jimmy. He’s a little younger than Aiden. It’s a fun age. He believes in angels too. Along with the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and, most of all, Santa. I’m going to miss my nephew this Christmas, but Ma is coming to visit around New Year’s. She insisted. She wasn’t all that thrilled when I decided to sign up for the National Health Corps. The truth is, I haven’t spent much time away from Massachusetts.”
    Oh, the poor man. He was homesick. Her heart melted a little for him. She couldn’t imagine being away from her large family at Christmas. Especially since her nieces and nephews were like little Jimmy. She got her dose of childlike wonder from them. Aiden might believe in angels, but he didn’t believe in anything else.
    She let go of a big sigh.
    “That sounded sad, Mrs. Summers,” the doc said.
    “Not sad. Just wistful, I guess. You see, Aiden isn’t like your nephew. He doesn’t believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa. In fact, he actively dislikes Santa. He always has. To start with, he doesn’t like the color red. Don’t ask me why, it’s just the way it is. And no matter how many times I tell Aiden that Santa isn’t a real person, he still doesn’t get it. He sees all those Salvation Army Santas and to him they’re all the same person. He thinks Santa is an army of evil clones or something. It scares him silly. But angels—well, that’s a whole different story. He believes they are real.”
    “Aren’t they?”
    She turned toward him. He was so handsome it almost hurt to look at him. And he was gazing right back at her with such an earnest look in his eyes that she knew right then he wasn’t trying to be clever or funny.
    “Mrs. Summers,” he said after a long, charged moment, “anyone who’s spent any time at all in a hospital knows that angels are for real.”
    *  *  *
    Teri Summers was pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way, with a dusting of faint freckles across her nose and eyes that seemed to change color depending on the light. Today her eyes were gray. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, so Tom assumed that she was managing Aiden all on her own.
    She was doing a pretty good job of it. Like his sister, she was brave and determined.
    And alone.
    He was alone too. And away from his family for the first Christmas ever.
    “So what’s Christmas like in Last Chance?” he asked.
    “We have a big get-together at the park near city hall to light the town tree. I get pretty frantic this time of year. I’m a florist. I own Last Chance Bloomers, and the holidays are my busiest time of year—even busier than Mother’s Day or Easter. I oversee the decoration of the town tree. And I decorate most of the downtown merchant’s spaces. I run around a lot this time of year.” She kept her eyes