Free A Home for Christmas by Deborah Grace Staley

instead. “I can't believe you're here.”
    He raked a hand through his hair. “Neither can I.”
    Strain made the crinkles at the corners of his eyes more pronounced. Janice had to look away from the intensity of his clear, blue gaze. “My office is just down the hall.”
    She led the way. Blake followed. Unlocking the suite door, they walked back to her office. With a flip of a switch, she turned on a lamp in the corner of the room.
    “Were you sitting here in the dark?”
    Janice nodded and sat on the couch. She kicked off her clogs and tucked her feet beneath her. Blake sat next to her. He leaned forward, his hands folded loosely between his knees. There was that look again. The one that took in entirely too much detail.
    “You've been crying. Is it your patient?”
    Janice had to turn away again. “Yes. No.” She shrugged, unsure of her own feelings, and propped her chin in her hand.
    He took her other hand in both his, then dipped his head to meet her gaze. “I'm sorry.”
    The softness in his voice did her in. Janice turned away from him, pressing her fist to her mouth as the tears came again.
    He squeezed her hand. “It's okay.”
    She brushed the tears away. “I don't know what's wrong with me. I've lost patients before.”
    “But something made this one different?”
    She swallowed hard, struggled for control. “I suppose.”
    “It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, but I'm willing to listen if you do. It's sometimes easier to unload your troubles on someone you don't know very well.”
    “I never have. I'm not sure I know how.” Sure, there were parallels between hers and Eve's lives, but there was more. “I guess she reminded me of my grandmother. Thinking of her brings back memories . . . regrets.”
    “Why regrets?”
    Janice hesitated. She'd never told anyone what had happened. She'd been so angry and hurt all these years, and Eve's death just brought it all to the surface. Blake squeezed her hand, silently encouraging her to continue.
    Janice took a deep breath and began. “I was finishing up medical school in Boston. I'd been offered residencies at Johns Hopkins and The University of Tennessee Medical Center at Knoxville. Much to my mother's dismay, I accepted the latter.”
    “What about your father? What did he think?”
    “He didn't get involved. He never got involved.”
    “Johns Hopkins is pretty prestigious.”
    “I didn't care about that. I wanted to be close to my grandmother. Grandfather had died the year before. He had Alzheimer's.”
    “I'm sorry.”
    The warmth of his hands enfolding hers helped her go on. “His illness had been hard on Grandmother. I kept in close touch with her after he died. When I got the UT residency, we agreed that I would relocate to Angel Ridge and move in with her. She was quite elderly and needed help with the place. I didn't want her to be alone.
    “I loved that house. Looked forward to living there and having someone to care for. Someone to . . . ” She let the words trail into silence.
    “Someone to what?”
    “To care for me,” she said quietly.
    “But you never moved there,” he supplied.
    “No. She died before I finished school.”
    Blake squeezed her hands.
    “She died alone, just like my patient tonight. Someone went to check on her when she didn't show up for her Wednesday morning quilting circle at church. That's when they found her.
    “The worst thing is that I didn't get to say goodbye.” Janice laughed. It was an empty sound that held no humor. “My mother was out of the country at the time. Some weeks later, she broke the news to me in a postcard from Nice. The house and its contents had already been sold at auction.”
    “I remember that. Thought it was unusual.”
    “I guess that's when you bought the house.”
    “No. I only bought it a year or so ago. It stood empty until then.”
    So, no one had lived there since her grandparents until Blake moved in. It went uncared for all those years. Janice