Page 17 of Wrapped Up in Christmas Hope
“Asking Morgan out again,” Cole supplied.
“Why two weeks?”
“’Cause that’s when you’ll be seeing her again. Sophie said Morgan was volunteering at the Quilts of Valor Foundation Sew-In. That thing the quilt shop is hosting at the church.” Cole settled back in his chair to study his crossword puzzle. “I signed us up. As long as no calls come in, Chief says we can volunteer all day.”
Andrew could believe it. Chief was all about volunteering, as was Cole.
Ben grimaced. “We’re sewing, aren’t we?”
“Yep.”
“Great.” Ben sighed. “Santa Cole has struck again, going around spreading Christmas cheer.”
“Look at it this way, maybe your ‘the one’ will be there and you two can knit a life together,” Cole suggested.
“Stitch, not knit. Two completely different things,” Andrew corrected him. With Sophie running a quilt shop, Cole should know better.
“Whatever,” Cole said, shrugging. “It’s for a good cause.”
Ben was still fussing. Not wanting to seem too eager, Andrew mumbled some complaints, but only half-heartedly as he didn’t mind helping to make quilts for veterans.
Seeing Morgan Morris again would be an added bonus.
Maybe he’d get lucky and she really would have missed him. And, if so, maybe she would have decided that she was ready to be friends. Fourteen days...it could happen.
“Never heard you humming before,” said the eighty-year-old man lying in his hospital bed.
“Was I humming?” Morgan asked.
John Harper had only been at the assisted living facility for a week, but he’d quickly become her favorite patient. She’d admitted him on the day of his transfer from Pine Hill General Hospital. He’d been wearing his Korean War Veteran ball cap, as he did every day, and they’d bonded when she’d thanked him for his service and told him she’d grown up a ‘military brat’ whose parents still proudly served their country overseas. John’s quick wit and positive attitude during his intake assessment had kept her smiling.
“Like a songbird,” he told her, eyeing the pills she held out to him in a small plastic cup. “Do I have to take those?”
John pushed right through the pain that she knew his physical therapy caused him, but he made no bones about not wanting to take his medications.
“I’d recommend it if you want to keep your blood pressure and sugar under control. Of course, it’s up to you on whether you want to slow that fractured hip from mending so you can go home.”
Sighing, he took the cup. “What you’re saying is that they’re never going to let me out of here if I don’t take these so I should take them.”
“Did I say that?” she teased.
He gave her a wry look and tilted the pill cup, popping the medication into his mouth. Then he took a sip from the water bottle Morgan kept near him.
“I didn’t mean you had to take them all at once,” she pointed out, shaking her head as she watched to make sure he got them down okay. “It’s all or nothing with you, isn’t it, John?”
“If I’m going to take them, there isn’t a reason to mess around with it. Just take ‘em and get it over with. Now, tell me what had you humming? That boy of yours finally find something to talk about other than the firefighters who came to visit his school?”
Morgan always chatted with her patients while she was providing their care, hoping to give them a look at the world outside the facility and to help them feel connected. Greyson was her favorite subject.
“He may still be talking about it when he graduates high school,” she admitted as she tossed the empty medicine cup into the trash. She worried she might still be thinking about a certain firefighter when Greyson graduated high school, too. Andrew seemed unforgettable. Then again, it had only been two days since she’d seen him at the fire hall.
“You don’t sound overly excited about it.”
“I’m hoping he’ll decided on something less dangerous by then.”
“Nothing wrong with being a firefighter.”
“Except for the whole running-into-a-burning-building part,” Morgan countered.
