22. Samantha
22
SAMANTHA
S am sat by Amelia’s side the following evening, with baby Ezra wrapped in her arms. The two of them were watching Amelia amuse herself with the controls on the hospital bed.
Sam’s heart was so full, it hardly seemed possible that yesterday morning she had been terrified that she would be alone in the world, her whole reason for existing gone.
But the doctors had assured her that Amelia was just fine. After an EEG and a blood test, the specialist might be adjusting her medicine to help prevent another tonic clonic seizure, but there was no permanent damage done.
And now Amelia was having the time of her life. The nurses were spoiling her with unlimited fruit Jell-O and bringing her in all the magazines on the floor to keep her occupied. At the moment she was cracking herself up just moving the bed up and down with the little remote control for about the thousandth time.
Every time Amelia sat back up and let out a peal of laughter, Ezra chuckled and kicked his little legs. Apparently, this was the height of comedy for anyone under ten.
Sam just hoped whoever was being put in the side of the room behind the curtain that separated the two halves wouldn’t mind a little noise. It had been empty until now, but she could hear things being moved around over there, like someone was being brought in.
“You saved me,” Amelia said suddenly.
Sam knew that her sister wasn’t talking to her. She was talking to the baby.
“You cried when I had my seizure,” Amelia told him. “And Sam and Wolf came to get me right away and bring me here.”
Ezra was much too little to understand, but he liked when Amelia talked to him. He was already kicking his little legs as if he could swim over to her.
Sam knew that they had been incredibly lucky that Amelia had wrapped herself around Ezra’s car seat to sleep. Her movements had woken the little fellow, and he’d set up an alarm that meant they saw the seizure and that Amelia would get the treatment she needed.
“He’s a baby superhero,” Sam agreed firmly.
That made Amelia giggle.
“Can we get Jell-O cups at home?” Amelia asked.
“We can make our own,” Samantha told her. “It’s really fun. You get a little box of powder to do it with and then you can make the Jell-O in cups or bowls or whatever you want.”
“In different flavors?” Amelia asked suspiciously.
“There are so many different flavors,” Sam promised her. “We’ll go to the store, and you can choose.”
“Awesome,” Amelia said, pressing the button and slowly lying down.
Ezra began chattering with excitement.
“You’re such a smart baby,” Sam told him. “You know she’s coming back.”
Speaking of coming back, Wolf had disappeared to grab a cup of coffee a while ago. She wondered if maybe the machine was broken and he’d gone to another floor.
Her heart throbbed helplessly at the reminder of the big man who was now her… boyfriend?
That honestly felt like too small a word for the person who had risked life and limb and cool-handedly gotten them to the hospital during a blizzard.
She counted her blessing that Amelia was probably going to be just fine. But knowing that someone as kind and capable as Wolf had their backs was just about the most comforting thing in the world.
“Hey,” his deep voice boomed happily from the doorway, where he stood with one of the nurses.
“Hi there,” she said. “I’m Stephanie.”
“Nice to meet you,” Sam said, with Amelia echoing her politely.
“Samantha,” Wolf said, stepping forward as Stephanie eyed Sam, her eyes dancing. “Would you go to dinner with me?”
Sam blinked up at him. How could any one man be so handsome? It made it hard to think.
“I… um… yes,” she managed. “Yes, of course. When we all get home and the snow lets up, we can go wherever you want.”
“I meant tonight,” Wolf said, suddenly throwing open the curtain that divided the room.
Instead of revealing another patient, she saw a small table and two chairs had been set up. A pile of vending machine snacks and two bottles of water sat on top of it, along with Wolf’s cell phone, which was playing a video of a candle burning.
“Sorry,” Wolf said softly. “I kind of had to work with what we had on hand.”
“It looks amazing,” Sam said.
She glanced down at Ezra.
“I’m here to take the little fellow,” Stephanie said. “If that’s okay with the two of you. And Amelia and I can hang out and have a nice chat while you go on your date.”
“You got a babysitter,” Sam realized in wonder. “On Christmas Eve.”
“And she’s extremely over-qualified,” Wolf said.
“All our elective procedures were canceled today,” Stephanie put in. “But I’m not about to get back in my car and even try to go home until my husband texts me that our street is plowed—and we live out in the sticks.”
“Thank you so much,” Sam told her. “This is so nice of you.”
“Are you kidding me?” Stephanie said. “I love kids. And this little lady is everyone’s favorite patient.”
That earned her a big smile from Amelia.
“You thought of everything, Wolf,” Sam said, beaming up at him, even as her cheeks burned.
They were only going to be eating chips and pretzel sticks in a hospital room with the kids on the other side of a curtain. But Sam had never been more excited for any date in her life.
“Are you okay with this?” she asked Amelia, even though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
“Very okay,” Amelia told her.
There was a gentle knock at the door, and Wolf opened it to reveal a young man carrying a cafeteria tray.
“The kitchen is closed, but we put together a slightly upgraded meal for your first date,” the man said with a smile. “So you don’t have to start off your courtship eating vending machine snacks.”
“Thank you,” Wolf said, quickly moving the snacks from the table to the bed so that the orderly could place the tray down.
“I’ll have the snacks,” Amelia said happily.
“You’re on a special food plan until the doctor gets another look at you, young lady,” Stephanie told her with a smile. “Now what can you tell me about the second grade?”
As Amelia launched into a big discussion about second grade versus first grade, Wolf held the curtain aside and bowed slightly to Sam.
She smiled and headed to the little table.
As Wolf closed the curtain and pulled out her chair for her, she tried not to notice the lingering scent of his spicy aftershave, or the way he sucked in his breath when he slid his hand across her shoulder.
“Thank you for joining me for dinner,” Wolf said, a half-smile tugging up one side of his lips.
“Thank you for asking me,” she said, feeling her face heat even more.
Sam didn’t have all that much experience going on dates. She had spent most of her adult life focused on school and then Amelia. But she was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to blush like a radish every other minute.
On the other side of the curtain, Amelia began giggling at something Stephanie had said and Ezra made a happy squeaking sound.
This is so much better than a regular date, Sam thought to herself. I don’t know when I’ll ever want to leave her with someone else again.
“It’s actually kind of nice that we can hear them,” Wolf said, echoing her thoughts.
“I’ll try my best not to be overprotective,” Sam said. “But hopefully she’ll forgive me for not wanting her out of my sight for the next little while.”
“She adores you,” Wolf said simply. “I don’t think you could ever be overbearing in her eyes.”
She smiled across the table at him, wondering how she had gotten so lucky as to meet someone who understood and honored her relationship with her baby sister the way he did. Sam realized that she didn’t even know if he had siblings of his own, or about a million other things, for that matter. And she couldn’t wait to spend the rest of her life learning everything about this wonderful man.
“Let’s see what we have here,” Wolf said, unwrapping one of the two packets on the tray in front of them.
In addition to the packets, they each had a red Jell-O, an orange juice, a bowl of salad, and a beautifully folded napkin.
“It’s a ham sandwich,” Wolf said in a pleased way.
“Same,” Sam said when hers was open. “This is much nicer than chips.”
“Although,” Wolf said, grabbing a bag of chips from the bed. “All sandwiches are better with chips on them.”
“Amazing,” Sam murmured, opening her sandwich so he could add the chips.
“Let’s have a toast,” Wolf suggested, peeling back the paper lid on his orange juice cup.
Sam did the same, and then raised it to him.
“To Christmas Eve miracles, and new beginnings,” Wolf said, touching his cup to hers. “And to the future.”
“To the future,” Sam added.
They each took a sip, and then Wolf sat back and shook his head.
“I still can’t believe you figured out something for me to do,” he told her. “How did you get the hospital director in on it so fast?”
“Well, Veronica’s nephew is one of the young men Captain Anderson is working with,” Sam said. “So she stopped in to say hello and check on us. That part was just luck.”
“More than luck,” Wolf murmured. “You have a reputation for helping people, and for making them smile. It makes everyone want to be near you.”
As long as it makes you want to be near me…
“Does it really sound like something you want to pursue?” she asked him.
Wolf’s ability to stay cool under pressure during the desperate drive to the hospital, in unspeakable conditions, had gotten Sam thinking he’d make a fantastic ambulance driver.
But she knew his passion was flying.
As they waited in the emergency room for Amelia to regain consciousness, she wondered what would happen to them if her sister needed to go to a larger hospital.
“A small county hospital like Tarker General doesn’t have its own helicopter,” one of the nurses told Sam. “We would have to wait for one to be sent from a city hospital to pick her up.”
To distract her mind from fears for her sister, Sam pulled out her phone and did a little research.
By the time the hospital director stopped in and introduced herself, Sam had already found a national program that brought helicopter teams to rural hospitals. When she asked about applying, Veronica told her that she had applied years ago, but had been turned down because the population of their service area wasn’t quite big enough to qualify.
“I’m told that there’s been a big influx in Trinity Falls in the last few years,” Sam told her. “And the highway is coming straight through the county. There will be workers putting that in for years, and then whatever businesses go along with it.”
“We have seen some growth out here recently,” Veronica said thoughtfully. “And we weren’t short by much. I’ll dig up what we have from them, but you just might be on to something. That said, our other major concern was that we’d need an experienced pilot to run the program. I’m not sure who we could recruit with that kind of skill to live all the way out here.”
“I think I have just the person,” Sam said with a smile.
And as soon as she’d told Wolf about the possibility last night, he’d been immediately on board.
“Of course,” he told her now.
“It won’t be like being a commercial pilot,” she warned him. “I know that would have been different—a position where you get a lot of respect from the public, a handsome uniform, and fancy perks.”
“Who cares about any of that?” Wolf laughed. “I’ll get to fly and actually help people.”
“You don’t care about the prestige?” she asked.
“I never have,” he told her, shaking his head. “What I loved about flying for the Army was knowing I was helping people—bringing in support and supplies to the guys on the ground who needed them. This will be a lot like that.”
It was good to know that Wolf didn’t see himself as some kind of hotshot flying ace. He thought of himself as part of a team—an important supporting player, not the star of the show.
Sam nodded, the idea of it coming together in her head and all the puzzle pieces of the brave and humble man she knew finally fitting together perfectly.
“I can’t believe I might be able to have it all,” he went on. “A career in flying and helping people. And a family…”
He trailed off, and Sam looked down at her hands, knowing he’d let that slip without meaning to, but feeling so happy to hear it that she didn’t trust herself to look at him for fear that she might start to cry.
“Sorry,” he said after a second. “I know we’re only on our first date.”
“What were you planning to do for work when you burst in here last night and said you couldn’t live without us?” she asked him in an effort to redirect the conversation a little.
“I figured I could find a job as a farmhand,” he told her, his eyes serious. “And if this program doesn’t work out, that’s still my plan. It can be steady work, and there’s plenty of it out this way. But it doesn’t pay well. I would have had to rely on family to watch Ezra, and I wouldn’t be able to take you on a lot of fancy dates like this.”
He gestured to the sandwiches with a grin.
“Making spaghetti at home and watching a movie with the kids is my idea of a perfect date night,” she told him honestly.
His icy blue eyes seemed to melt with warmth, and she lost herself in the feelings of safety and happiness that encircled her whenever his eyes were on her.
“It’s really quiet,” Amelia said from the other side of the curtain. “Are you guys kissing?”
“Sorry,” Stephanie laughed. “Let’s try to give them a little privacy, okay, Amelia?”
“Should we kiss, Amelia?” Wolf called back to her.
“Definitely,” Amelia called back.
Sam felt her cheeks burning again.
“It’s what your sister wants,” Wolf said, rising and offering her his hand.
She took it, standing in front of him and feeling like her heart was going to beat out of her chest.
Wolf reached out slowly to cup her cheek in his big hand. He held her captive in his crystal blue gaze for what felt like an eternity before he finally bent to slant his mouth over hers.
Sam had always thought that there were only perfect kisses in Christmas movies and romance novels. But from the moment Wolf’s lips met hers she felt her heart explode with happiness, and a sensation of lightness, like she could float right off the tile floor and into the clouds.
“Incredible,” Wolf murmured, his voice low as he pulled away, one big hand still cupping her cheek.
He took her hand and placed it over his heart.
“Can you feel that?” he asked her.
She smiled up at him and nodded, feeling the strong, steady beat of his heart under her palm.
“Like butterflies,” he murmured in wonder, stroking her cheek with the pad of his thumb.
And in that moment, with her sister and the baby laughing on the other side of the curtain, and the man she loved standing in front of her, nothing had ever been more perfect.