Crossfire Christmas. Julie Miller

week. If he was lucky, he’d see New Year’s. He glanced down at the blood seeping through the hole in his leather coat.

      Or maybe, if he didn’t clear his head and think of some options fast, he wouldn’t even live to see tomorrow.

      * * *

      “FINALLY. HERE’S THE horse I’ve been looking for.”

      Teresa Rodriguez watched Laila Alvarez sag into her wheelchair, dropping the scissors and magazine she held into her lap. Despite the little girl’s brave smile and never-ending chatter, Teresa could tell that thirty minutes of making ornaments in the playroom of the Truman Medical Center’s children’s wing had taxed the eight-year-old’s energy.

      Knowing her patients better than they sometimes knew themselves, Teresa slipped her hand over the glue stick on the table and dropped it into the pocket of her cartoon-print scrub jacket before Laila noticed. She nodded toward the image of a team of brown-and-white horses. “Those are Clydesdales. They grow big and strong and pull heavy wagons. They’ll be a nice addition to your stable.”

      “Are they bigger than you?”

      At five foot three, Teresa found that a lot of things, except her patients, were taller than her. “Bigger than you and me both.” She leaned in with a smile and gently took the magazine and scissors from her young friend. “How about I set the Clydesdale aside, and we can cut him out and put him on a new ornament tomorrow.”

      Laila closed her fingers in a halfhearted grab. “But I want to finish decorating the tree.” She gazed longingly over at the Christmas tree in front of the bank of windows. An Appaloosa, a buckskin, a pinto, a palomino and a Lipizzaner stallion already hung from yarn bows in the branches, along with ornaments other children had made. “And I want one to hang in my room.”

      “I said we could work until we ran out of supplies, remember?” Teresa gestured to the tabletop. “We’re out of glue. I’ll have to get some more on my way home. But we’ll finish them later. I promise.”

      Despite the wistful expression in her cocoa-brown eyes, Laila nodded. She moved her small fingers to the picture of a barn and hay bales that she’d already glued to a piece of cardboard for Teresa to cut out and string a loop of yarn through. “I need a cowboy to watch the horses for me when I’m not here.”

      “After I get the glue, I’ll go by a bookstore and find a magazine with lots of cowboys in it to bring to the hospital.”

      “You’re the best nurse ever, Teresa,” Laila gushed on little more than a whisper.

      Teresa smoothed her hand over the knit cap that covered the girl’s bald head. “You’re the best patient, sweetie.” With a quick glance at her watch, Teresa rose and turned Laila’s chair toward the hallway. “Come on. Let’s get you back to your room. It’s time for your medication, and I think maybe you can use a nap.”

      “But I—”

      “You want to be fresh and smiling when your mom and dad come in after work, don’t you?”

      Laila nodded. “Can we show them the ornaments I hung up?”

      “Absolutely.” Teresa parked her friend at the central desk to chat with an aide and a receptionist while she went into the dispensary and unlocked the prescribed medication. Then she wheeled her patient through the wide door to her room and locked the chair beside the bed before helping the determined girl stand and climb beneath the covers herself.

      Teresa handed Laila the stuffed horse from her bedside table and the little girl hugged the well-loved toy to her chest while she chewed her tablets. After giving her charge a sip of water and tucking her in, Teresa checked the girl’s vitals and recorded the details and medication on her computer tablet. Laila was asleep before she was done.

      “Oh, sweetie.” With a smile that was part admiration and part heartache, Teresa caught her long ponytail behind her neck and leaned over to kiss the girl’s pale cheek. Then she closed the blinds, unlocked the wheelchair and headed back into the hallway.

      Returning to the playroom, Teresa quickly cleaned up their mess and pulled over an ottoman to set Laila’s artwork safely out of the way on the top shelf of the supply cabinet. As she climbed down to return the glue stick to a lower shelf, she made a mental list of other craft supplies they were running low on that she could pick up to keep the children who visited siblings or were patients here entertained. She suspected that Laila and a few of the other long-term care patients would be here over Christmas next week. Maybe she’d add some small gifts for them to her shopping list, too. Plan a party. Bring decorations from home to add more holiday color to their sterile environment. She had a couple of days off she could spend shopping, decorating and wrapping gifts. She glanced toward the waning sun and white flakes floating past the windows and grinned. If she cleared it with the doctors, maybe she could even bring the ingredients to help the children make snow ice cream.

      No one should have to be alone on Christmas Day, denied the family and fun of the blessed celebration. No one should have to be sick or injured and in the hospital, either.

      Humming a tune at the plan that was coming together in her head, Teresa locked things up and headed back to the nurse’s station to update her end-of-day reports. Although it had nothing to do with physical care, putting together a holiday party for the patients in the children’s wing would do wonders to raise their spirits. That was probably why she’d become a nurse instead of the artist she’d originally intended to be in college. Teresa was hardwired to help anyone in need. She needed to make a difference in other people’s lives.

      Even if all she could do was make a little girl with a brain tumor forget her surgeries for a few minutes and bring a smile to her face at Christmastime, she was going to do it.

      “There you are.”

      Teresa looked up from her laptop to see a petite woman with dark brown hair and cheekbones that matched her own waddling up to the counter.

      “Emilia.” She quickly stood to greet her oldest sister. The white coat and shadows beneath her eyes told Teresa that Dr. Emilia Rodriguez-Grant had just finished a long shift in the E.R.—if she wasn’t still on duty. “What brings you to the third floor?”

      “Have you looked out the windows?” Emilia pointed to the bank of glass in the playroom before bringing her hands back to rub at her pregnant belly and the small of her back. “We’re supposed to get three to five more inches of snow on top of what’s already on the ground tonight.”

       Here we go again.

      Teresa inhaled a steadying breath but couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “It’s December in Missouri? Snow happens.”

      “Don’t get smart with me.” Emilia tugged a lock of her recently bobbed hair behind her ear, practically clucking like a mother hen. “It’ll be dark soon. But the sun was bright enough today to melt some of the snow. You know when the temperatures drop, it will refreeze into ice. Driving will be very dangerous.”

      Although she would’ve liked to blame this overprotective streak on Emilia’s pregnancy and the fact their mother had passed away just over a year ago, Teresa was far too familiar with her older sibling’s smothering concerns. It was both a blessing and a curse to be part of such a tight-knit, loving family. While she knew she was loved and would never lack for someone to care about her, she was the baby of the family, and asserting her independence was a challenge she’d been working on for most of her twenty-nine years.

      “Thanks for the weather report. But I’ve been driving since I was sixteen—in worse conditions than this. I’ll be fine.”

      “You know we promised Mama we’d look out for you.” Why hadn’t that dictate been given regarding any of her older sisters and brother? Maybe their father’s murder when she was a baby or the fact she’d been mugged her first summer out of high school or having a veteran cop for a big brother made them all unusually cautious about protecting their own. Still, it would be nice if one day her brother and sisters would see her as an equal adult