The Christmas Wedding Ring. Susan Mallery

of the family. Idealistic and sometimes naive to Andres’s way of thinking, Jeff continually disavowed what he considered the other McKinneys’s base materialism. He spent his vacations helping migrant workers and went his own way, a way that was usually the opposite of what Phillip McKinney wanted.

      Which was exactly why Andres had liked Jeff and had called him to inform the family of the shooting. He couldn’t stand the rest of them.

      Shaking hands and greeting the officers, most of whom he seemed to know, Phillip McKinney was almost on top of Andres before he noticed him. He didn’t have time to prepare himself, so instead a cascade of emotions, genuine and unedited, crossed his expression at once. First surprise then anger, and finally a wary edginess, all of which he hid as soon as he could behind a stony mask.

      Andres stared back from behind his own facade. He’d never known if the old man was aware of the investigation he’d conducted against him or not. Regardless, they’d hated each other from the very moment they’d met. Phillip had told Lena that Andres wasn’t good enough for her, but the real truth was a lot more complicated. Phillip had had Lena to himself since her mother died and he didn’t want to share her, with a husband or anyone else. It was power and control and love, all mixed together.

      Phillip recovered fast. “How is she?” Silky smooth and deep, his voice was his trademark. It now held a tinge of something Andres had never heard before. Fear? Concern? Love?

      “Lena’s in surgery,” Andres answered. “The bullet entered her body just beneath her left breast. They reinflated her lung in ER, then took her into the operating room.”

      Phillip sagged. It wasn’t a physical response, but just as Andres had caught the tremble in his voice, he saw this as well. Phillip seemed to falter a bit, to pull inside himself, then the moment passed, almost, it seemed, before it had happened.

      He tilted his head toward the double doors behind them that led to the operating room. “How long have they been in there?”

      Forever.

      Andres glanced at his watch. “An hour and a half.”

      Bering spoke for the first time. He lived in his father’s shadow, never quite measuring up, never quite making the grade. He compensated for this with a blustery attitude and a burning desire to replace his father in the practice. “An hour and a half? And no one’s been out with an update?” He shook his head at Andres’s obvious lack of status, then turned to Stephen. “Go find somebody who knows what’s going on. Get a doctor out here.”

      Phillip nodded his approval and Stephen scurried off through the crowd. Wearing a self-satisfied expression, Bering said something about coffee and bustled over to a small kitchenette in one corner of the room, Richard going with him, offering help. Andres remained where he was, his black eyes meeting Phillip’s blue ones with the coldest of gazes. Something passed between them. It definitely wasn’t a truce—the war between them was too involved for that to ever happen—but the moment was understood by them both. This wasn’t the time or place.

      Jeff broke the tension by moving up to where Andres stood. He extended his hand, then his eyes widened as Andres lifted his own, now swathed in bandages. “You were hit?” Jeff asked in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell us—”

      “No, no. I wasn’t shot.” He dismissed the inquiry with a shake of his head. When Carmen had arrived at the hospital with fresh clothes for him, she’d taken one look at his hand and forced him to have someone take care of it. He’d bruised three knuckles so badly the doctor had insisted on wrapping them. “It’s nothing.”

      Behind him, Bering and Richard returned, Carmen helping them distribute the coffee they’d brought. Earlier Andres had been annoyed by her presence. Now he was glad. She handed out packets of sugar, then she made conversation and kept things cordial. Andres was suddenly grateful; he wasn’t sure he could have kept up the facade for much longer.

      Stephen returned with the doctor a moment later. They stepped to one side, isolated by a bumper of space from the waiting officers. “They’re still in surgery,” the man said, holding up his hands as if to ward off their questions. He was young but looked exhausted, his jaw dark with stubble, his shoulders a weary slump beneath his pristine white coat. “I’m Dr. Maness, Dr. Edwardson’s assistant. She’s still operating. The bullet’s currently lodged in the diaphragm behind the patient’s lung on the left side. It nicked the lobe before it stopped.”

      His gaze went to Phillip, then on to the other men until it came to Andres. Despite Phillip’s age and obvious status, the doctor seemed to sense Andres was the man he should be addressing. Andres hardly noticed this, though. All he felt was a rush of anxiety as their eyes met and locked.

      “I’m sorry,” the doctor continued. “You’re just going to have to be patient. If you want something to do, then go downstairs.” He let his gaze go over all of them this time. He wore thick glasses and his eyes were bleary and sad behind them. “There’s a cafeteria…and a chapel.”

      ANDRES DIDN’T LOOK for either place. He certainly wasn’t hungry and he’d given up searching for comfort from above a long time ago. Instead he went outside. He wanted isolation and some distance from the crowd upstairs, stopping first at the hospital gift shop to buy a pack of cigarettes. He hadn’t smoked in as many years as he hadn’t prayed, but the craving had hit him and there was nothing to do but satisfy it.

      Cupping his bandaged hand around the flame of his match, he was lighting the first one when Carmen opened the door of the hospital’s atrium. As she walked across the flagstones toward him, he jumped to his feet, his pulse suspended in midbeat. She shook her head as soon as she saw him and motioned for him to sit back down.

      “There’s no news,” she said. “I just came outside for some air.” She stared curiously at the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. “What are you doing? You don’t smoke.”

      He was angry at seeing Phillip McKinney, angry over Lena’s injury and angry at himself. With a pointed disregard for Carmen’s feelings, Andres unleashed the emotion and sent it flying toward her, his words scathing. “You don’t know me that well, Carmen. Don’t tell me what I do and what I don’t do.”

      She blinked at his tone, and he immediately felt like a bastard. Instead of apologizing, he turned his face away from her and took a deep drag on the cigarette. The acrid smoke seared his lungs with a sting so painful it brought a wave of dizziness with it as well.

      Without saying a word, she sat down on the concrete bench beside him. They weren’t the only ones in the small, walled garden. There were other smokers who’d been banished, and they all wore the same worried expressions. No one saw the carefully tended flowers or heard the bubbling fountain. Andres studied a young man on the other side of the patio, his hand on the head of a young girl who was dancing a doll along the edge of a low concrete wall.

      The silence between he and Carmen built and hung, then finally she spoke softly, almost reluctantly, it sounded to Andres. “This woman who was shot. Lena McKinney…you know her, don’t you? From before. You didn’t just meet today.”

      It took him a moment to decide how to answer, then he realized there was only one way. He had to tell her the truth; she deserved it.

      “Yes, I know Lena.” He looked at the cigarette between his fingers. “I know her very well.”

      “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

      “I didn’t think it was important.”

      She shifted on the bench. He could feel her eyes on him. “You didn’t think it was important?” She shook her head and smiled softly. “That usually means it’s just the opposite.”

      “Carmen…”

      She stopped him. “You don’t owe me an explanation, Andres.”

      “No.” He rose abruptly. “I do owe you that. At least.” He took a final, death-defying drag on the cigarette, then crushed it under his shoe. He turned and looked at her. “Lena and I were engaged at one