A Little Christmas Magic

  Just a Little Series | Part 10

  By Tracie Puckett

  Smashwords Edition

  © 2012. All rights reserved.

  Smashwords Edition, License Note

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. The contents of this ebook are the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic or mechanical—without written permission of the author, Tracie Puckett.

  A Little Christmas Magic

  A Just a Little Short Story

  “He’s not here.”

  “What do you mean he’s not here?”

  “He’s not here,” Bruno said again. “He’s gone, away, absent. Charlie has left the building.” I narrowed my gaze. Bruno looked back down and kept reading his book, pretending he couldn’t see me. With his feet kicked up on the corner of his desk, a book in one hand, and his coffee cup in the other, he looked as though it didn’t matter to him in the slightest that I was standing only five feet away.

  “I need more than that, okay?” I said, trying not to lose my patience, but I was frustrated that he could be so vague. “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you ‘don’t know?’ You were right here when he left!”

  “Ever hear the phrase don’t shoot the messenger?” he asked, lifting his gaze for only a second. He leaned forward and set his coffee cup on a stack of paperwork, and then he assumed his previous position. “He left about an hour ago, said to tell you he’d be back in plenty of time to make the appointment.”

  I checked my cell phone and then looked up at the station clock to double-check the time.

  “It’s 12:15.”

  “Yeah.”

  “His appointment is in thirty minutes, Bruno,” I said, taking a step closer to the desk. “He can’t miss it!”

  “He said he’d be back,” he said calmly, and then he flipped to the next page in his crime novel.

  “Bruno,” I said, pushing his feet off the corner of the desk. Forced to sit up straight, he finally shut the book, but not without leaving his finger in between the pages to save his spot. Annoyed that I’d disturbed his peaceful afternoon, he let go of a heavy breath and looked up to me with a blank expression. “Where did he go?”

  “I—don’t—know, Julie,” he said, now sounding as though he’d lost his patience with me. “He came out of the break room, put his coat on, and said he’d be right back.”

  “Great,” I said. “Then where the hell is he?”

  “Don’t give me that Reibeck attitude, Julie Little,” he said, pointing his finger at me. And although his order was intended to sound tight-lipped and threatening, Bruno couldn’t disguise his gentle tone. He set his book aside, finally giving me his full attention. “Listen, I know you’re worried about him. We’re all worried about him. But you need to take a breath. I can’t force him to stay if he doesn’t want to stay.”

  “You know,” I said, shaking my head. Despite his tone, I was still furious that he hadn’t held up his end of the deal. It was his day to watch Charlie, and he had dropped the ball. He was lucky I hadn’t punched him yet. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d be inclined to think that you don’t care one way or another about Charlie’s wellbeing.”

  Just as I turned away to leave Bruno with those last few words, the station door pulled open, and the sunlight glared through the open doorway.

  “Please be Charlie,” I prayed under my breath, and then I shielded my eyes from the blinding sunlight as it blazed through the door. It was the middle of December and that’s all we’d gotten lately—an endless line of seventy degree days and beautiful weather. Between the lack of snow, my uncle’s dodgy behavior, and all the stress of everyday life, nothing about this Christmas season felt at all magical.

  Still hoping to see my uncle stride through the door, I squinted a little harder and peered through my lashes, but I only caught a glimpse of Luke. I closed my eyes and dropped my head.

  “Crap. It’s just you.”

  “I see you’re in a mood today,” he said dryly, only stopping long enough to press a quick kiss to the side of my head. He stepped forward and dropped a paper sack—one stamped with the Marco’s Meatball Sub logo—on Bruno’s desk. “That’s the last time I’m picking one of those up for you, you hear me? You keep putting that crap in your body and you’ll be no better off than the Chief.”

  I cringed at the thought, but Bruno didn’t react to Luke’s message. When neither of us said a word to him or to one another, Luke stared between us. His eyes darted back and forth, and he’d suddenly picked up on the reason for my mood. He could easily sense the thick tension lingering in the air, and then he took a hesitant step forward.

  “Okay,” he said. “What’d I miss? What’s going on?”

  “He did it again,” Bruno said, tearing into the carryout bag.

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” Bruno and I said in unison.

  “And apparently someone just let him leave.”

  “He’s a grown man, Julie,” Bruno barked. “He can come and go as he pleases. It’s not like I could hold a gun to his head and force him to stay.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Because that seems like a plan that might’ve worked!”

  Luke raked his fingers back through his overgrown hair. “Has anyone tried calling him?”

  “It won’t matter at this point,” I said, barely giving him time to finish his sentence. “We’ll never find him on time. God only knows if he’ll even answer his phone! I’ll just have to call and reschedule again.”

  “Take a breath, Jules,” Luke said, letting his rough hand fall gently on my back. He pulled me a little closer, and his thumb caressed my side in a circular motion. “We can only do so much for Charlie, okay? He has to want our help, you know that.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said, looking beyond the dark circles under his eyes. He was tired; we were all tired, but that seemed to be a norm nowadays. “I just wish he’d understand how serious this is.”

  “We all do,” Bruno said quietly, and his eyes glazed over with a layer of tears. He stood from his chair and cleared his throat. Swiping the carryout bag from his desk, he hung his head and watched the floor as he walked away from us, headed for the break room. He dropped his uneaten sub in the garbage can before turning down the hall.

  We both stared in the direction of the hallway, neither of us saying a word. Bruno had left us with a deafening silence, and if someone didn’t say something soon, there was a likely chance that the silence would get the best of me, and I’d be in tears for the hundredth time that day. Luke tightened his grasp on my body, and I turned into his shoulder to keep from crying. I knew that that was the only reason Bruno had left just then—he needed to shed a tear or two of his own, but he wasn’t about to do that in front of us.

  Our concern for Charlie had started to consume us, and it had even started to control each and every aspect of all our lives. It was mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting.

  “Let me try calling him before we give up altogether,” Luke said, pressing a long kiss to the side of my head. He nuzzled a little closer and kissed me again. “Hang tight.”

  When he pulled away, Luke took his phone from his pocket as he headed for the front of the station. He tapped the screen a few times, held the phone to his ear, and waited for a response.

  He pushed open the door and disappeared outside just as I heard him say “Charlie! Where the hell are you?”

  In spite of my tears, I found myself fighting a smile.

  I tried to imagine my uncle on the other end, spatting off something akin to what Bruno had said to me earlier (don’t give me that Re
ibeck attitude!). But I knew better than to think that.

  Charlie wasn’t going to fight with Luke; he was just going to sit on the other end of the phone and give him excuse after excuse as to why he suddenly couldn’t make it to his doctor’s appointment today.

  I walked toward the doors and pressed my nose against the glass. Luke paced back and forth on the sidewalk, waving the one arm he wasn’t using to hold the phone. He wasn’t yelling, but his gestures were large, and his expression was saddened. The longer they talked, the clearer it became that Charlie had ducked out again, and now Luke was doing everything he could to reason with my uncle. But just like every other day, he would fail to get through to him.

  Luke paused for a moment and listened, and I imagined that Charlie was mid-sentence.

  I took a drive out of town and got a flat tire.

  Oh, I must’ve nodded off during the news.

  Appointment? I thought that was tomorrow.

  Those were only a few of the explanations he’d come up with over the last few weeks, and there didn’t appear to be any shortage of lame excuses in sight. He couldn’t see the importance of attending his follow-up appointment, and his erratic behavior had driven us all to the edge. It was important (incredibly important!), but we couldn’t make him understand.

  It had all started four weeks ago. There were very few days in my life that I had ever felt my heart stop beating altogether, and the day I got that phone call from Luke… well, I thought I could die right then and there.

  I had just finished up one of my exams when the call came through. Luke wouldn’t give me the details over the phone, he only said that something bad had happened to Charlie, and I needed to get down to the hospital as quickly as I could.

  I’d arrived just as Matt came rushing through the corridor, and the receptionist let him into Charlie’s room immediately; the nurses and doctors refused to let me pass, and it didn’t matter how loud I argued or how many times I’d threatened to beat them to a pulp. I wasn’t Charlie’s ‘immediate family’, so I had no right to enter the room. They didn’t care that he’d been my caretaker for two years. They didn’t care that I loved him like he was my own father. They turned me away, and I had no choice but to sit out in the waiting room with Bruno, and he wasn’t in any kind of emotional state to tell me what was going on. Luke, though, showed up only a few minutes after I had, and that’s when I’d finally learned the truth.

  Earlier that morning, Charlie had delegated the briefing to the Lieutenant directly beneath him. He’d excused himself to his office, telling Luke that he’d been feeling unusually tired and just needed to sit down and rest for a little while. Twenty minutes later, Luke popped in to check on Charlie just as he was leaving for patrol, and he found him collapsed behind his desk. He’d suffered a heart attack.

  He was in the hospital for days and kept under very close observation. After they finally released my uncle back into the care of his family, I made it my number one priority to help Charlie get back on his feet. I packed my bags and started staying at the house ‘round the clock to enforce the proper habits for Charlie’s wellbeing. I assigned Matt to the task of coming up with a heart-healthy menu for the entire family. I put Luke in charge of leading and enforcing Charlie’s exercise regimen, and if it wasn’t directly pertaining to food or exercise, I took care of the rest. Once again, I was back to living with my uncle and cousin, and I was doing everything I could to keep my family from falling apart.

  Charlie hadn’t been allowed to start back at work yet, and the boredom of sitting at home day in and day out was killing him. I thought to remind him that he’d done the same thing to Luke once before, refusing to allow him to come back after the Milton shooting, but I thought it was probably best to just keep my thoughts to myself. I’d had to do that a lot lately.

  Little did Charlie know, though, his days at the Oakland PD were probably long behind him. Everyone but my uncle could see his career coming quickly to an end. Luke had mentioned the idea of retirement more than once, and each time the suggestion slipped off his lips, Charlie would either throw him out of the house or throw something at him. It was never a pretty outcome. And when Bruno brought it up…well, yikes.

  Because my uncle had made it his number one goal to prove that one little heart attack wasn’t going to change the course of his life whatsoever, he didn’t heed the warnings all the doctors had given him. He refused a heart-healthy diet. He refused to give a second thought to exercise. And with our constant preaching and enforcing, the stress started building up again. Late-nights led to worse eating habits than before, and that didn’t help things, considering his life was sedentary as ever. It hadn’t taken too long before he’d relapsed completely back into his old ways.

  Getting him into the doctor for his follow-up appointment was not only crucial for his health, but for my sanity. He wasn’t doing well, and I refused to lose Charlie. It wasn’t even an option.

  “I called the office,” Luke said, coming back through the doors. “He’s rescheduled for next Monday at four.”

  “And what was his excuse this time?”

  “It’s nothing we haven’t already heard.”

  “He’s just going to keep doing this isn’t he?” I asked. “He’s just going to keep avoiding us and putting off the appointments—”

  “Jules—”

  “And then one day we’re going to find him passed out again.”

  “Julie….”

  “Then that’s that,” I said, feeling my eyes well up with tears again. “We’ll be right back to square one. He’ll be in the hospital…hopefully alive! Bruno will go into shock again. Matt will have to keep cooking meals that Charlie won’t eat, I’ll have to skip school three times a week, and you will have to give up all of your free time just to make sure he’s taking care of himself.”

  “Jules,” Luke said, leaning forward to steal my gaze. “Listen to me. I’m not worried about Charlie, kid, but I am worried about you. If you don’t stop acting like this, you’ll be the next one to end up in the hospital. You can’t keep stressing yourself out. You need to try to focus on something else.”

  “Easier said than done,” I said, looking down to the floor. “I can’t think about anything but him.”

  “You need to try,” he said. “Please.” He lifted my chin and met my gaze, and his smirk widened into a small smile. “Pack your stuff. Come home tonight. Let Matt take care of Charlie for one evening, and we’ll make dinner, finally decorate the tree, and maybe even exchange an early gift or two.”

  “I haven’t even had the time to think about Christmas shopping, Luke,” I said, looking back down to the floor. “I don’t have anything to give you.”

  “Okay, so then you can open an early gift or two,” he said, lifting my chin again. “You need to distract yourself for a while. Please? Come home.”

  “Luke, it’s not—”

  “Julie,” he said, and his smile faded away altogether. “For me? I miss you.”

  After finding Bruno and making sure that he was okay, Luke and I left the station separately. He headed for the house out on the edge of town, the one he’d bought as a surprise for me, and the one we’d only shared for a short period of time before Charlie’s heart attack. I headed for the place I’d suddenly started calling home again, the place that I’d found refuge in after my parents’ deaths. Something about being back there with Charlie and Matt again felt right, at least for the time being. They needed me there, and I needed to be there for them…both of them.

  I let myself in just in time to watch Charlie dash across the floor and flop across the couch. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

  “You’re not fooling anybody with that snore,” I said quietly. Still, he kept up the pretense, probably hoping that if he just kept pretending, then maybe I’d just get fed up and walk away. But I kept standing there, my arms crossed at my chest, watching and waiting for him to be the first one to break. “Charlie, I’m not stupid. I know you’re no
t sleeping.”

  He opened only one eye and peeked at me, and when I only stared harder, he finally opened both of his eyes and sat up.

  “Yeah, alright,” he mumbled, swinging his legs down to the floor.

  I took a few steps forward and sat down, watching my uncle with a close eye.

  “You wanna tell me what happened today?” I mustered as much strength as I could to keep my voice calm. As angry as I was that he’d skipped out on another doctor’s appointment, I couldn’t unleash that anger on him. He needed to stay calm, and it was my job to make sure nothing triggered another episode. Again, I had to bite my tongue. “Hmm? What happened, Charlie?”

  “I fell asleep.”

  “You fell asleep?” I asked, biting back the urge to call him a liar. “Real sleep? Or the flop-across-the-couch-and-try-to-fool-Julie kind?”

  He dropped his head into his hands and scratched his scalp. It was his way of avoiding the question, and that’d been normal for Charlie lately. He didn’t seem to want to talk about anything, look anyone in the eye, or even humor the idea of getting back to normal.