I'll Be Home for Christmas and One Golden Christmas: I'll Be Home For Christmas / One Golden Christmas

And ran right smack into the arms of the very man she was trying to escape.

Myla’s dust rag and cleaning supplies went in one direction and her armful of laundry went in the other as she plowed into Nick, sending him back against the sturdy oak railing on the second floor landing.

Catching her just as his back hit the banister, Nick gripped her shoulders to keep both of them from toppling down the stairs. “Goodness, is there a fire in there?”

She leaned against him in relief. “Nick, you scared me!”

“I’ll say. Are you all right?”

Myla glanced up at him, embarrassed and acutely aware of his arms holding her. She had to learn not to be so clumsy! “I’m fine. What are you doing home so early?”

Nick hesitated, his smile as wry as ever. Then she noticed with a mother’s keen eye, he looked flushed and his dark eyes were glazed over with a red-rimmed heat.

Concerned, she automatically put a palm to his forehead. “Why, you’re burning up with fever!”

He pushed her away with a gentle shove. “Tell me something I don’t know. Don’t get too close. According to my friend and racquetball partner, Dr. Loeffler, I’ve got the flu. That’s the only way he’d ever beat me and he knows it.”

Myla kicked her scattered cleaning supplies out of the way and steered him toward his room. “You went to work like this, and played racquetball! Honestly, don’t you ever know when to quit?”

He drew his brows together, amused at her righteous indignation and her bossy nature. “I felt kind of tired this morning, but things got progressively worse as the day wore on. Dr. Loeffler checked me over after our game and told me to get home. Guess he couldn’t believe he’d actually beaten me.”

Myla clucked over him with all the vigor of a mother hen. “Will you stop making jokes and get into bed? I’ll make you some chicken soup and get you some medicine for that fever. What did the doctor tell you to do?”

Nick gave her a lopsided grin. “He told me to let a beautiful woman serve me chicken soup and give me something for my fever.”

Laughter bubbled in her throat, but she managed to keep her tone stern. “You’re impossible. You’d better be all tucked in when I come back.”

“Yes, ma’am, Nurse Myla.”

She put both hands on her hips. “And don’t expect me to baby you. I’m busy and you need to rest. I know you must really feel horrible. You never come home early.”

He sent her a mock scowl. “No, I don’t, but I still intend to get some work done. So, hand me my briefcase before you head down to concoct your flu survival kit.”

Hissing her disapproval, she picked up the heavy leather satchel he’d left on a chair. Shoving it at his midsection, she said, “You do love your work, that’s for sure.”

Nick watched as she pranced out of the room, then he dropped like a lead weight onto the big bed. Holding his hands around the stuffed briefcase, he nodded to himself. He did love his work, but right now it was the last thing on his mind.

He fell back in a heap against the fluffy plaid pillows. Well, if a man’s gotta be sick, he reflected with a grin, at least it helps to have a spunky redheaded nurse waiting on him hand and foot. This might turn out to be a good thing. He could actually enjoy being here, that is, if his body would just stop hurting all over.

A few minutes later, Myla was back with the promised soup and medicine, glad to see he was dressed in a blue sweat suit. He sat propped against pillows with paperwork scattered all around him, and a laptop computer centered in front of him on the bed.

“Are you going to eat and then rest?” she questioned as she set the bed tray down in front of him, then pulled the laptop away.

Giving her a mock angry glare, he brought the laptop back beside him. “Can you spoon-feed me?” he teased, enjoying the way her denim skirt whirled around her boots as she fussed with his discarded clothes.

“I don’t think so,” she retorted, a smile creasing her lips in spite of her reprimanding look. “You don’t seem that weak to me.”

“Gee, such a caring nurse.”

“I’m sorry,” she finally said, taking his droll humor seriously. “I’m just not used to you being home during the day. You’ve thrown me completely off schedule.”

Nick knew his smile was awfully smug. He’d also brought a becoming blush to her apple cheeks. He liked knowing that his presence distracted her. That meant she was interested. Although, he reassured himself as he watched the winter sun dancing off her radiant auburn hair, he really didn’t have time to indulge in a relationship. And he had no earthly idea where this one was going.

He put the laptop aside, then sampled the soup before sitting back to stare up at her. “I think you’re just not used to me, period. But I’d say, all in all, this arrangement is working out okay. Other than that one unfortunate incident with Shredder and that overgrown puppy of Carolyn’s, you and the children haven’t been any trouble, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not,” she said, backing away, memories of being in his arms in the middle of the kitchen floor reminding her that she needed to concentrate on her job. “I’d better get back to work.”

“Myla, wait.” He gave her a questioning look. “Tell me how you do it?”

A look of confusion colored her green eyes. “Do what?”

“Keep that serene expression on your face. After everything you’ve been through, including putting up with my demands, you seem so at peace.”

She looked up then, her not-so-serene gaze meeting his. “I found my strength again,” she said simply. “I found my faith again, after I thought I’d lost it forever.”

Uncomfortable with this turn in the conversation, he said, “How’d you manage a thing like that?”

She lifted her chin. “Prayer. You know, Nick, when you have nothing left, you always have prayer.”

No, he didn’t know that. It had been a very long time since he’d relied on prayer. “Why…how did you lose your strength?”

She backed farther away, like a frightened bird about to take flight. “I don’t want to discuss that.”

“I’d really like to know…and to understand.”

When she didn’t answer immediately, he said, “Look, I’ll take my medicine, and I promise I’ll eat my soup. Sit down in that chair over there and talk to me.”

Myla hesitated only a minute. Wanting him to see that he, too, could find his strength in faith, she sat down and watched as he diligently took two pills with a glass of juice; then, his eyes on her, he dutifully ate his soup.

Satisfied that he’d finish the soup, she leaned back for a minute. “You see, at one time, I thought God had abandoned me.”

Surprised, he stopped eating. Funny, he’d thought that very thing himself, right after burying his father. “Why would you think that? You seem so sure about all this religious stuff.”

She lowered her head, her hands wringing together, her eyes misty with memories. “I wasn’t so sure for a while. Because of something I did, or rather, something I didn’t do—and I’d rather not talk about it. It took me a long time to see that God hadn’t abandoned me. It was the other way around.”

“You mean, you abandoned Him?”

She nodded. “I gave up on Him. I didn’t think I was worthy of His love.”

“Why would you think a thing like that?”

“I had it drummed into me enough,” she said, then gasped. “Oh, never mind. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Well, you did. What do you mean?”

When she didn’t speak, Nick sat up to stare across at her. “Does this have something to do with your husband?”

Her silence told him everything he needed to know. And brought out all the protective instincts he’d tried so hard to ignore. “Myla, did your husband do something to hurt you?”