“Dinner was wonderful tonight,” Carson said, squeezing Noelle’s hand. “Thanks for going to the trouble.”
She smiled at him with a twinkle in her eye. “It was no trouble. I love to cook, and Momma Connie’s hot roast beef sandwiches are easy to make.”
“Can you call it a sandwich when you have to eat it with a fork?”
Noelle held one hand out to the side in a shrug. “Were there two pieces of bread?”
Carson smiled, and the sound that left his mouth was amused. “There were, indeed, two pieces of bread.”
“Then it’s a sandwich, even if it was covered in gravy.”
“I’m going to write that down as wisdom imparted from small-town living. As long as there are two pieces of bread, it’s a sandwich.”
Noelle pointed at him with a grin on her face. “It won’t take long to fill up a notebook if you’re keeping track. Have you seen many patients since you took over for the good doctor?”
“I thought I was the good doctor!” he exclaimed with his hand to his chest.
Noelle shoulder bumped him and laughed at his antics until he finally answered her question. “Well, do you mean patients that you haven’t brought me?”
She gave him the har-har face. “Yes, patients I haven’t brought you.”
“Then yes. My days are booking quickly. It’s that time of year where people are sick. They aren’t holding out hope the good doctor, as you call him, will come back and treat them. They’ll take any port in the storm.”
Noelle moved closer to Carson and snuggled into his side while they walked. “I think you’re a good doctor. I saw the way you were with Lisa today. I’m sure everybody likes you as much as she did. You have a great bedside manner. You’re calm, funny, and caring.”
“The question is, do you like me?”
Noelle ducked her head, her cheeks staining red at the question. “I do like you, but we should keep that between us until after Christmas. We don’t want Santa catching wind of it and putting us on the naughty list.”
Carson zipped his lips and threw away the key. “Mums the word until the day after Christmas. Look!”
Noelle followed his finger toward the edge of the park where a sad snowman sat missing his head. “Oh, no,” she giggled, her head shaking at the snowman sitting so forlornly. “We’d better help Frosty out.”
Working together, they were able to recap the snowman and fix his carrot nose and charcoal eyes.
“He’s missing something,” Carson said, tapping his chin. “Oh, I know!” He unwound his scarf from his neck and swung it around the snowman.
“Tie it,” Noelle ordered, helping him thread the scarf until it hung perfectly at the snowman’s neck, guaranteeing his head wouldn’t come off again.
They stepped back and admired their work.
“Now Frosty is perfect,” Noelle sighed.
“I think you’re perfect,” Carson whispered, wrapping his arms around her. “I didn’t expect to meet someone as wonderful as you the first day on the job.”
Noelle gazed up at him, lost in the rugged, handsome lines of his jaw and the plumpness of his lips. “I didn’t expect a guy like you to walk through my café door and save my life. I didn’t expect to deliver a baby there with you either!”
Their laughter filled the park, and Noelle bent over, picking up snow and tossing it at him in playful glee.
“Hey,” he shouted, his laughter echoing around them. “Now you’re asking for it!”
“Oh, yeah?” she asked, giving him gimme hands. “Bring it, pal.”
A cold snowball landed right in the middle of her chest. She stared down at it for a moment before she lobbed her own and hit Carson square in the shoulder. They hurled snowballs back and forth until they were laughing too hard to keep going. Noelle fell over in the snow and lay on her back, staring up at the sky. Carson joined her, and they made slow and easy snow angels until he took her hand and held it still against his belly.
“The stars are beautiful tonight,” Noelle whispered, her gaze transfixed on the glittering, shining points of light in the sky.
“Not nearly as beautiful as you are,” Carson answered.
She never took her eyes off the sky, but she wore a smile that said his words were exactly what she needed to hear.
