Sleigh Bell Dreams (Mistletoe Meadows Sweet Christmas #1)

Chapter 22

Terry sat in front of the crackling fire, some medical journals on her lap. She needed to keep up with all of the latest, and she often used her time in the evening to read and study, wanting to keep up on everything to give the best care for her patients.

But she wasn’t looking at the medical journals now.

Why hadn’t she confronted Judd?

She glanced across at the other chair where he sat, his feet propped up on a box, his phone in his hand where he had been reading a book, but it lay on his chest now and he breathed deeply and evenly.

He looked younger in sleep. Boyish almost. She smiled at how adorable he was, even though he would probably be embarrassed if he knew she was staring at him with his mouth open and his head tilted at an odd angle.

He was such a good man. He hadn’t missed a meal since he’d said that he would cook, other than Thanksgiving, of course. He’d gone to his parents’ house. She kind of wished that he’d asked her to go, but it didn’t surprise her that he didn’t. Why would he? It was just that he had gone to her family’s Thanksgiving.

Regardless, she had come into the house tonight with every intention of asking him immediately if he was the Secret Saint. If he had been out the night before putting Christmas trees on people’s porches, if that was why he smelled like pine and why the description that she had gotten from Mr. Collins had matched almost exactly Judd’s description. A lot of people didn’t know he had hurt his hand because he wore gloves when he was working, and it might not be common knowledge around town since the only way it would get out would be if she said it. And she certainly hadn’t talked about it.

She doubted he would, and that was the thing that gave her doubt. He didn’t really talk to a whole lot of people. Sure, he got around, but he had to get to know someone before he really chatted with them. She hadn’t seen him standing around talking, and he never asked her for any information. If he were the Secret Saint, wouldn’t he be digging for info every day on who needed money and who needed gifts and what she thought he could do that would be a blessing to people?

Wouldn’t he need to get that information from a whole pile of different people, and he would be talking to everyone he met about it, right? Except, Judd had never asked her, not even one time, not even a question close to anything personal about her patients.

She wouldn’t be able to tell him anyway, because the personal information of patients was private.

She could tell him any town gossip she heard, but he hadn’t even asked for that.

But that wasn’t really the reason she hadn’t asked him.

She shifted the journals in her lap, preferring to have the paper version for as long as she could. There was just something about holding it in her hand and being able to work on it with a pencil or pen if she needed to that made her feel like she could learn the information better.

She thought that the reason that she hadn’t asked him was...because she didn’t really want to know.