"Nothing elaborate, a simple thanks will do." Garrett smiled and felt her heart warm with love for the woman in front of her. ‘I can’t believe I went this long without having a real friend.’
Danni sprang up and stepped around the coffee table until they came face to face. She reached out, allowing her hands to grab onto the broad shoulders and pull her in for a hug. The nurse just couldn’t find the words to convey the feeling that she needed to show. It only took a second or two for the nurse to realize that she had made the tall woman feel awkward.
Garrett stood there hunched over, not knowing what to do. Her arms felt like they should be doing something, not just hanging there. For the first time, she realized just how lacking she was when it came to people skills. It scared her a little to actually make physical contact that she had not initiated.
For the first time in a long while, the surgeon realized she wanted to let someone in this close to her.
Releasing her grip, Danni eased out of the close range of the surgeon. "Sorry, I tend to get a little emotional at Christmas." She looked up to see stunned blue eyes looking back at her.
"That’s okay…" was Garrett’s weak response. "I just wasn’t ready for it."
The nurse nodded and looked back to the present as she tried to put a little distance between them. She lifted it out of the box and held it in front of her to view the entire jacket. "I don’t deserve this, Gar. I almost cost you that project."
"But you didn’t. You came through when the chips were down and I appreciate that." The surgeon pointed to the embroidery on the front of the leather jacket that looked very similar to her own, only much smaller in size.
"That’s what I consider us…a team."
Their eyes both gazed down at the decorative writing on the jacket as Danni read it out loud. "Flight Surgeon Team, D. Bossard R.N."
"I figured we’d need something to help us tell them apart in a hurry." Her tone was light as she joked about the difference in size.
Before she knew what had hit her, the surgeon was wrapped in nurse from head to toe. The young woman clinging desperately with her arms around the tall woman’s waist and resting her check on the taller woman’s chest. It was only minutes after the first hug from her friend but this time Garrett knew what to do and let her body respond as her heart told her to. She slowly wrapped her strong arms around the petite woman, enveloping her like a shield from the world around them. Bending her head down, the surgeon rested her check into the golden tousles of Danni’s hair and gently kissed it without making a sound. Closing their eyes tightly, they both wished for this moment to never end.
Somewhere up in the heavens, in that late afternoon sky, a small star twinkled in delight just like the lights that twinkled brightly on that tree of love known as Danni’s life.
The house seemed quiet now without the small blonde. Danni had left for her parent’s house over an hour ago, but all that Garrett had done since was sit on the couch and watch the lights on the tree. ‘Danni’s tree, it’s so much like her, reaching out and touching the lives of everyone.’
The surgeon looked down on the framed photo that she held in her hands, her eyes sweeping over the images of her and her brother at a memorable time in their lives. ‘We were so close then, almost inseparable, Luc. You were in my every thought of the future. We were going to rule the world, you and I.’
The random patterns of the twinkling lights caused her eyes to drift from the photograph, her gaze now held by the warming glow of the tree and its lights. ‘Now it seems that my thoughts are filled with someone else.’ The surgeon’s lips grew into the lop-sided grin as the image of Danni strolled lazily through her mind. ‘But you already knew that, didn’t you, Luc?’
It was so nice to have a tree at Christmas time, and the surgeon considered how long it had been since she could call one hers. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen decorated trees or even hung an ornament on one every year she had, usually as part of the program that she was in or in the Navy when each sailor had to place their own symbol on the ship’s tree. She thought about that and how she had always used some piece of medical bric-a-brac to represent herself. Now that just didn’t seem like her at all. She was finding out that there was so much more to life than just medicine.
The gentle ding of her wristwatch alarm pulled her out of her daydreams. It was 1720. Time for her to get her duffel bag and head on out to the Blazer. She got up from the couch and placed the gift that the nurse had given her into the top of the duffel. It was meant for her desk and there is where she was taking it.
Pulling on her own leather flight jacket, she looked around the house that had come to mean so much to her. It was feeling more like home than any place she had ever been before. Sighing, she grabbed her bag and went out the door. At the bottom of the steps, she turned slightly to look over her shoulder to see the twinkling lights of the tree that now acted like a beacon in the window waiting for their return.
It had taken her less time to arrive at her parents’ house than she had thought. The roads had been kept fairly clear, even after she had gotten out of the city limits. The slowly falling flakes of snow gave the scenery an almost magical appearance as Danni drove the last two miles of the county road. Her mother had always liked the stately driveway leading up to the house but her father simply thought of it as getting closer to the country that he loved while keeping the city folks at bay.
The nurse thought about how different as night and day her parents were. Sometimes she even wondered what it was that had brought them together in the first place. ‘I guess that it had to be love.’ Her mind brought forth images of stolen moments that she had seen between the two. Ones that they thought would not be seen by their children, like the tender embrace of two hearts that were devoted one unto the other.
Danni’s mind drifted to the country with its fresh air and open spaces. Her father always seemed bigger than life when he was at the cabin, but that could have been merely due to the fact that her mother was never around to cast a shadow over his spirit. She loved the memories that she had of the times spent with her father up there. The only thing that was better was the addition of her grandpa to the mix. I guess that was why she and her mother never seemed to agree on summer activities. Her mother wanted Danni to cultivate her social standing, while all that Danni wanted to cultivate was a good day of fishing and the warm laughter that she and her grandpa would share.
The glowing orange of the dashboard readouts made the young woman think of the bobber that she always used when fishing, just so that she could daydream. She hadn’t used that the last time she was at the cabin fishing. She didn’t have to. Her mind had been totally engrossed in the activity, not to mention the friend who was with her. Thoughts of the tall, dark-haired surgeon casting out into the creek that fed into the lake now took over her mind’s eye. The graceful movements had captivated her, holding her attention on the fishing as she tried to impress the woman with her. The bond that they had built from that weekend was now stronger than any she had ever had before. Giving her friendship to this woman was something that she found to be as natural as breathing itself.