Her Christmas Wish

Marty didn’t have Eric’s charisma, that was true. “He seems very sweet,” Alina said.

“Yeah, but I like a little more spice with my sweet, if you know what I mean.”

Eric was plenty spicy. Alina turned to watch him as he pretended to wrestle with one of his young nephews. The longer she was around him, the more she felt her resistance to him weakening. The two of them could have a lot of fun together. But she was leaving in three months. What would happen then?

Chapter Three

The problem with inviting Alina to the barbecue, Eric decided, was that he hadn’t found any opportunity to be alone with her. After his conversation with his brothers, he’d been acutely aware of everyone watching whenever he so much as looked at Alina.

“So I have to find a way to ask her out without it really being a date,” he explained to Marty as the two cruised around town in an ambulance the following Monday. They’d taken the vehicle in for an oil change and were now driving the long way back to the station.

“Why not just ask her out on a date?” Marty asked.

“Because if I do that, word will get back to my mother and grandmother, and they’ll decide to take matters into their own hands.”

“What are you talking about?” Marty asked.

“My mother and grandmother have decided it’s time I was married,” he said.

“Why now?” Marty asked.

“I’m the only one of my siblings who isn’t married. Also, I suspect my mom thinks if I’m married I’ll settle down and give up the idea of going away to medical school.”

“I thought every mother wanted her son to be a doctor.”

“Believe me, when I’m a doctor she’ll be proud as can be. But she thinks I’m too ambitious, that I’m going to get in over my head, incur a mountain of debt, kill myself studying and working, become estranged from my family…If there’s a worst-case scenario, my mother has imagined it.”

“So she wants you to marry and settle down here in Gunnison. I get that. Then they ought to be happy if you start dating someone, shouldn’t they?”

“Only if it’s the right someone.”

“And Alina isn’t the right someone?”

“Alina is from another country—and plans to return there in a few months.” The knowledge made his stomach hurt.

“Ah. And your folks want you to settle down with a cute little Latina.”

“Exactly. So you see my problem.”

Marty shook his head. “Not really. Going out with a woman doesn’t mean you’re going to marry her. And you’re twenty-six years old. What’s your mother going to do—send you to bed without your supper?”

“Very funny. You don’t know my mother. And my grandmother is twice as bad. When I was ten and decided I didn’t like green beans, she served them to me every night for six months. It was easier to give in and choke them down than face six more months of seeing them on my plate every time I sat down to dinner.”

“There’s a big difference between a vegetable and the woman you’ll spend the rest of your life with,” Marty said.

“My mother and grandmother can be relentless when they’re trying to make a point,” Eric said. “If I start dating Alina, they’ll set me up with other women they think are more suitable. Every time I turn around one will just ‘happen’ to be there. Alina will think I’m some kind of playboy.”

“I guess Alina wouldn’t like that,” Marty said.

“Especially not when we hardly know each other,” Eric said. “The only chance I have is if the two of us can become friends before my family has a chance to interfere.”

“Then whatever your family does, she’ll be so besotted it won’t matter?” Marty said.

Or maybe he’d be so enamored he’d find a way to stand up to his folks. “I just want us to be able to have a good time before she has to go back to Croatia, that’s all,” he said. Though he hated to admit it, there was some truth in what his brothers had said—part of his interest in Alina probably lay in the fact that any relationship with her was destined to be temporary.

But since she was leaving soon, he couldn’t afford to waste any time he might spend with her now.

A loud tone from the radio alerted them to a call. “Elderly woman needs assistance at Lifeway Manor, two-one-one-two West Virginia Avenue.”

Eric and Marty exchanged a look. “The bowling ladies,” Marty said.

“Yeah, the bowling ladies,” Eric said grimly, and switched on the siren and flashing lights.

“Copy, dispatch. We’re on our way,” Marty said.

Lifeway Manor was an assisted-living facility not far from downtown. The elderly residents were mostly independent, living in separate apartments with access to a central dining facility, an on-site medical clinic and a host of planned activities.

The newest addition to the activity schedule, and the cause of great excitement among the residents, was a series of baseball games, golf tournaments and other games which the residents could “play” thanks to the latest video game technology. With these games, even wheelchair-bound residents could take to the links or to the basketball court. This had led to the formation of teams and a healthy competition among the residents.

But no group was more rabid or competitive than the women’s bowling league. The nineteen women who competed in the bowling tournaments battled with such intensity that several of them were familiar faces to members of the Gunnison Valley Emergency Medical Services crews.

First had been Carla Polenski, who had thrown out her shoulder while bowling a virtual strike. Then Betty Peabody had gotten stuck in the elevator when she pressed all the buttons at once in her haste not to be late to a scheduled game. Pearl Winters had fainted when her blood pressure spiked during an argument over scoring.

Tonight’s casualty was one June Freed, a pleasant-faced munchkin of a woman who had fallen in her rush to reach the game room ahead of her archrival Opal Simpson. “She always gets there first and camps out in my favorite chair,” June griped as Eric examined her swollen arm. “I’m sick and tired of it, I tell you.”

“It looks like your arm might be broken,” Eric said. “You’ll need to have an X ray to know for sure. Do you want us to take you to the hospital in the ambulance?”

“No. I already called my son. He’ll take me. But not before the tournament is over.”

“Why don’t you just take the game away from them?” Eric asked the harried administrator as he completed the required paperwork at the nurse’s station.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that.” The administrator’s eyes widened. “They’d revolt. When the golf game malfunctioned for two weeks, some of the men staged a sit-in in the main dining room. They threatened to call the newspapers if we didn’t have the game repaired immediately. One of them even said he’d have his grandson film a protest for YouTube.”

“Maybe you should take Alina bowling,” Marty said as he and Eric headed back toward the station. “It’s obviously a more exciting game than I imagined.”

Eric gave him a sour look.

“So what are you going to do about her?” Marty persisted.

“We need to do something with friends that still provides the opportunity for the two of us to be alone.” Eric glanced at his friend. “What do you think of Marissa?”

Marty blinked. “I don’t know. She seems nice enough. Why?”

“You should ask her to come with us. That will help Alina feel more at ease.” He flipped on his blinker for the turn into the station.

“Us? Since when am I involved in this?”

“Since now.” Eric backed the ambulance into its bay, ready for the next call-out.