1. Grace

Chapter 1

Grace

Three Weeks Until Christmas

There's no good place to have a heart attack, but if you must, being in a hospital surrounded by doctors isn't the worst choice.

One minute, I was managing a ceremonial ribbon cutting.

The next, the stage was cleared for CPR, a gurney whisked my best friend's dad off to the Emergency Department, and she chased after it, leaving me staring at the red ribbon sagging like a forgotten Christmas present.

I definitely hadn't included time for that in the Grand Opening agenda.

I'd planned every detail to dedicate the hospital's new sensory room, including decorating the community room with snowflake cutouts my patients made as art therapy projects. Stockings hung along the nurses' station and an artificial tree loomed over gifts I'd wrapped and labeled for Santa's visit in a few days. Even the crimson bow around the door matched the festive spirit.

The mayor spoke first, extolling our community for coming together. The Hospital CEO shared the benefits of a pediatric sensory room so the children could escape the stimulation of the hospital's bright lights, loud monitors, and sterile aroma. I mouthed along, since I'd written the speech after years of researching the topic.

As the CEO delivered his remarks, I straightened the tie of the final speaker, Bruce Clarke, who shot me a lopsided grin and whispered, "Do I look ok?"

He looked pale, with beads of sweat along his brow, but I wouldn't say so.

"Handsome as ever," I reassured him, loosening the Windsor knot to let him breathe easier, and placing water into his shaky hands, which he chugged in one long gulp .

As he took my hands — his palms felt clammy, probably from the cold water bottle — he said, "Thank you for asking me to be a part of this, Grace."

Why was he thanking me? Sure, turning the storage closet next to my social worker office into a sensory room had been my idea. Still, without his connections, my proposal to the hospital's Board of Trustees would have sat unopened. When I confessed my dream to him, he contributed the seed donation and spearheaded the fundraising campaign.

Then again, Bruce wasn't only a donor. He was also my best friend's dad.

An unrestrained laugh rang out, piercing the solemnity of the ceremony. Our heads swiveled to find the source of the irreverent sound.

Yep, there in the back of the room stood my best friend Mallory Clarke, blonde hair shimmering and pink dress shining under the fluorescent lights, completely ignoring the speeches in favor of flirting with … was that Dr. Tran? What was he doing here?

"I've got this, you go convince Mallory to behave herself." Bruce winked, both of us knowing that trying to keep his daughter in line was a fool's errand. I handed him the oversized scissors and dodged through the crowd.

As I approached, her face lit up as she wrapped her arm around my waist. "Grace! The woman of the hour! You know Dr. Tran, right?"

"Of course I do." His cheeks flushed as our gazes met.

"I told you to call me Stephen."

Mallory's irrepressible grin widened. "I was inviting Steve here to visit our yoga studio when you teach on Thursdays and Sundays …"

Oh my gosh, I couldn't believe that she was using this Grand Opening to try to set me up. I pointed to the stage. "Maybe not right now, Mallory."

Her head lifted. "Oh my God, isn't this over yet?"

I let out an embarrassed laugh and asked Dr. Tran to excuse us, and he found his way into a group of physicians near the front.

"Sorry, Grace, I got bored. This place is swarming with interchangeable white men. Literally swarming, like a beehive. All the women worker bees, making the event happen," she gestured to my women colleagues, restocking the pastries on the refreshment table. "While the male drone bees stand around, unable to feed themselves." We watched a doting wife slide a cheese danish into her husband's palm. "And when I met that hot cartographer —"

"Cardiologist," I corrected. Definitely not a mapmaker.

"Does it matter? He's young, Asian, sexy as hell. I tried to get his number, but he only wanted to talk about you."

My cheeks heated. Mallory insisted that people were attracted to me, but she was imagining things. She was used to men tripping over themselves to go out with her, a petite, peppy blonde with a banging body from teaching a dozen weekly yoga classes. But me? I'm too tall, too lanky, with too-tiny boobs. "He's just a friend."

"Pretty sure he wants to be more, Grace. You should give him a chance."

"Guess you don't think all men are drone bees."

"Hashtag NotAllBees. Although like drone bees, he'd probably pass out immediately after sex," she said with a good natured laugh. "But I'd fake a heart murmur to get onto his exam table, if you know what I'm saying."

I bit back a grin as the Hospital CEO finished his remarks. "If you've bought a house in the last 30 years, you probably recognize our final speaker as a real estate closing attorney, but you might not know he's also a generous philanthropist."

From the back of the room, Mallory and I watched Bruce step onto the small stage and wipe his brow. I whispered, "Your dad looks hot."

"Gross, Grace, stop checking out my dad," she elbowed me in the ribs.

"No, he's sweating." Although I'd be sweating if I had to give a speech, too.

Bruce stepped up to the podium and pulled index cards from his suit jacket. "Thank you for coming to the dedication of the hospital's pediatric sensory room! When I heard about this project from a person near and dear to me, I had to donate."

He lifted his head to find me and Mallory, eyes glassy. "I'm proud to be a part of the team that made this …" Bruce took a deep breath and grimaced. "That made this," his eyes met mine, expression pained, "that made this …"

And then he collapsed.

Dr. Tran rushed to the stage to start CPR as a nurse hustled over with a defibrillator. Mallory and I pushed forward, watching as they lifted Bruce onto a gurney and sped off to the emergency department. From collapsing to being whisked away took less than five minutes.

Mallory stood beside me in shocked silence as they began rolling her dad away. I nudged her. "Go with him, I'll call your mom."

She startled, then pressed her phone into my hands. "My brothers too, they're both in my emergency contacts. Nick's filming in Cambodia, so don't worry if there's no answer. Alex rarely answers my calls, so keep trying." She grimaced, genuine remorse replacing the worry. "And I'm sorry in advance for his attitude."

As she ran after her dad, the remaining crowd murmured their disbelief before the commotion settled and staff returned to their jobs.

That's the thing about working in a hospital: You sometimes forget that every moment can be life or death. Tragedy strikes and life goes on.

My boss Jennifer found me, arms limp in shock, eyes locked on the crimson fabric across the closed door. "I knew he wasn't ok. He was sweaty and shaky. I chalked it up to nerves, but —"

"Hey," Jen interrupted, her hand gentle on my shoulder. "You're a social worker, identifying heart attack symptoms isn't your job."

Tears lined my eyes. "I'm the one who asked him to give the speech, Jen."

"And he agreed because he believed in the sensory room."

I understood that logically, but now Bruce was in the OR because of me.

The custodial crew arrived to disassemble the stage, reverting the room into a children's play area. The music speakers, silenced for the speeches, began piping in Elvis crooning about having a Blue Christmas.

Glancing down the hallway where Bruce had been carted away, I wondered how the Clarkes' Christmas would look. I'd spent the last three holidays with Mallory's family. Reluctantly at first, fearful of being a charity case, until I realized that when her two older brothers stopped coming home, they wanted to fill the vacant seats as a distraction from their absence.

"Think of it this way: He was already in the hospital, so he didn't have to wait for an ambulance. Being here may have saved his life," Jennifer said, interrupting my spiraling guilt. "Why didn't you go with your family?"

"They're not my family. "

"They sure seem like your family. Nobody in my life would spearhead a fundraiser solely because of how much it matters to me."

I held up Mallory's phone, which I'd been gripping so tight that the gems of her bedazzled case imprinted in my palm. "I have to go call his wife and actual children now."

"You want me to stay?" Her eyebrows furrowed as her expression changed from my boss to fellow social worker. When I shook my head, she walked me to my office door and gestured to the limp ribbon. "Take the afternoon off. We'll take care of all this later."

I flicked my badge and flopped into my desk chair, the adrenaline of the event's traumatic and abrupt ending catching up to me. I took five deep breaths before I got to work.

My first call was to Bruce's wife, Helen. I recounted the event in my calmest voice. She burst into panicked tears, and her car door slammed as she rushed to the hospital.

I tried Mallory's brother Nick next, but the call rolled to a full voicemail.

My thumb hovered over the final name in Mallory's emergency contacts: Alexander Clarke. I tried to remember any stories. One memory jumped out, from right after I started working part-time at her yoga studio.

After class one night, while I was mopping the sweat-covered floor, Mallory — probably avoiding boring paperwork — asked about my weekend plans. I asked her to pass me a towel, and she said, "As you wish." When she saw my confused expression, her mouth fell open. "Haven't you seen The Princess Bride ?"

I shook my head, not wanting to explain that my father was an Evangelical minister who forbade us from watching secular movies.

"Inconceivable. Nobody who works with me can be ignorant of The Princess Bride." At the time, before I understood Mallory's sense of humor, I worried that I'd committed an egregious offense and might lose my job over this royal wedding thing.

She locked up the studio and threaded her arm through mine. "Let's go to my parents' house. I know they have the DVD because when I was in fourth grade, my brothers and I got the flu. The three of us watched it on a loop for four days. "

She led me into a posh neighborhood and up a wraparound porch into a giant Colonial, where she tossed her coat on a chaise and abandoned her shoes. I straightened her clothes and hung mine up as she lounged on the sectional and pressed play.

I was hooked as soon as the little boy and grandfather appeared, reminded of my Nanna watching me and my three older brothers. Mallory talked over the whole movie: about her dad quoting Miracle Max, about her brother Nick's nerdy comparisons to Hamlet, and about annoying both her brothers by rhyming nonstop like Fezzik.

"Tyrone," Prince Humperdinck said on-screen, "I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped."

"You'll never believe this, Grace," Mallory said around a mouth full of popcorn. "Alex spent hours arguing that Humperdinck was the true hero, a strategic diplomat and strong leader, consolidating power through war with Guilder and delegating to Vizzini and —"

"Any chance he was kidding?" My twin brother Elijah would have joked like that just to rile me up. "What does he do now?"

"He's a bougie Silicon Valley lawyer, negotiating all sorts of fancy …" she tilted her head, a laugh bubbling on her lips. "Oh shit, was he was trolling me?"

Back in my office, I realized that's who I was about to call: a Humperdinck apologist.

Maybe he had a dry wit and had been trying to annoy his gullible little sister.

But maybe, just maybe, he believed it was okay to murder your fiancée for political gain.

With that story in mind, I pressed the button to call him.

It rang and rang, then went to voicemail.

I tried again: ring, ring, voicemail.

I tried again: straight to voicemail. He declined the call.

Well, this wouldn't work.

I opened my computer, minimized my color-coded to-do list, and googled, 'alexander clarke lawyer california.' The eighth result showed a man with broad shoulders in a navy suit and crisply knotted tie. His inky dark hair was swept back, not a lock out of place, and his cocky mouth rose into a crooked grin similar to Bruce's. Blue eyes the same shape as Mallory's pierced the screen with a sharp gaze.

Bingo! Alexander J. Clarke, Esq., Senior Associate in Mergers & Acquisitions. You can't avoid my calls forever.

I dialed from my desk phone, hoping the hospital number might help my case.

"Good morning, Mr. Clarke's office, this is Connor."

"I'm calling from Saratoga Hospital with an urgent matter about Alexander's father."

"He's locked in negotiations, but let me send a quick message." Frantic typing. A pause. Frantic typing. Another pause. "Hold please."

I imagined the man from the photo rushing out of a conference room, frantic with worry for his beloved father, breathless when he says —

"This had better be good." The coarse voice interrupted my daydream. "This is Alexander Clarke. I'm balls-deep in a multi-million dollar deal, so this had better be worth it."

"This is Grace Alvarez calling from Saratoga Hospital —"

"I know, get to the point."

I sputtered before I spit out: "Your dad collapsed. It might be a heart attack."

An intake of breath. "When?"

"About ten minutes ago."

He muttered a curse word. The bad one, the one that rhymes with duck. "Is this why my kid sister was calling so insistently?"

"That was me, calling from your sister's phone. I work for her and I —"

"Let me get this straight: My dad fell. It might be a heart attack. Now my flaky sister's assistant is interrupting my negotiation to tell me that she doesn't have any details. Is that accurate?"

I felt like I was an inch tall. He grunted, ready to hang up.

Then I remembered: This was about Bruce. Not my feelings, not his ego.

"No, that's not accurate. I was with your dad all morning," I rushed, uncertain he'd let me finish. "He was sweaty and pale. The doctors used a defibrillator, this is serious."

The silence was deafening. I wondered if he'd already hung up. I was ready to call back when he spoke, so calm it felt deadly. "Why were you with him?"

"He was at the hospital for a ceremonial ribbon cutting."

"Shit, Mom told me about that. This is what he gets for being philanthropic." He released a heavy, put-upon sigh. "He knows I've got this acquisition to finalize, and partnership promotions are in six weeks. I'm swamped."

That ticked me off. Before I knew what came over me, I snapped, "Listen, you don't want to regret not being here if something goes wrong, and your mother will need your strength. You should come home."

The challenge buzzed like a tuning fork, vibrating across 2500 miles.

After a fraught silence, his voice was calm and detached, every consonant clipped. "Connor, give Lacey my work cell number so she can call back when she has more details. If she shares it with my sister and I get texts about my favorite boy band, I'm holding you accountable for getting me a new number."

"Of course, sir," his assistant said, startling me as Alexander hung up. "Are you still there?"

I wasn't sure. I felt dismissed and devalued, like when I was scolded by my father for fidgeting at church. I touched my face to confirm I still existed. "His sister warned me, but nothing could have prepared me for that. Is he always like that?"

"Not always." Connor rattled off a number which I scrawled onto a post-it.

I couldn't help myself: I went all social-worker on my best-friend's-brother's-assistant. "You say he's not always like that. What's going on?"

When he hesitated, I said in my kindest voice, "Connor, today has been a nightmare. Bruce was doing me a favor when he collapsed and the doctors rushed him into emergency surgery and I don't know if …" My breath hitched but I pushed through. "Then his ungrateful son bit my head off. I won't tattle. Heck, I'm probably never going to talk to him again after today."

I wondered if Connor's hands were tied. I didn't intend to drag an innocent assistant into unnecessary drama, knowing assistants were often the hardest working, least acknowledged staff. I readied myself to apologize for asking him to divulge private information when he said, "Ok, Grace, here's what we're going to do."