“Freakin’ idiot!” a cab driver yelled from his window.
Holding his daughter’s hand tightly, Ethan pushed his and Daisy’s way through the quickly gathering crowd. As a university lecturer, he was certified in CPR and as such felt obligated to step in when any such emergency presented itself.
“Someone call an ambulance, quickly,” he ordered as he made his way out onto the road.
Kneeling at the injured man’s side, Ethan could immediately see the man was still breathing, and with some relief, he took to clearing a space around him.
“Is he okay?” the driver of the taxi said, a shell-shocked expression on his face. “Man, he just came out of nowhere. I couldn’t have avoided him, seriously.”
“I can’t honestly say.” Ethan gently wiped the blood from the injured man’s brow and ensured nobody else tried to move him while they waited for help.
“I swear to God, he just came out of nowhere. My fare will back me up on that and…oh man!” Ethan followed the driver’s gaze back to the cab, which was now empty of passengers. Typical, he thought wryly, some people in so much of a hurry they couldn’t wait around long enough even to see if the guy their own cab struck was dead or alive.
“Try not to worry. I’m sure he’ll be fine,” he reassured the driver, who seemed even more distraught now that he’d lost his witness. Worried about a lawsuit, perhaps?
There was a large crowd gathered, and while the man’s health was foremost on Ethan’s mind, he was also rather mindful of his belongings. The last thing the poor guy needed was for some quick-thinking thief to steal his stuff, especially on Christmas Eve.
“Can you gather up his things?” he asked Daisy, who was standing there looking very worried indeed. “It’s okay, poppet. He’ll be okay,” he reassured her quickly, almost sorry now that they’d gotten involved in something that could potentially be quite traumatic for her. “We just need to make sure no one steals his shopping bags.” That seemed to make sense to Daisy, and she quickly leaped into action, much to Ethan’s relief.
Eventually, a blare of sirens could be heard in the background, although it seemed to take forever for the ambulance to navigate its way through the sea of Fifth Avenue traffic in order to reach them.
Once the medics were on scene and had taken charge, Ethan’s next priority was simply getting his little girl back to the warmth and safety of their hotel.
Telling the medical staff what little he knew about the incident, he soon was free to go as they loaded the still-unconscious man—and his plethora of packages—into the ambulance.
“Hey, mister,” a gruff voice called to Ethan. It was another yellow cab driver who must have been watching the scene from nearby. “That was mighty nice of ya. Howza ’bout I give you and your girl a lift to wherever you’re headed? It’s on me.”
“Thanks, that’s really very kind of you,” Ethan answered, thinking that perhaps New Yorkers weren’t nearly as brash as people made them out to be. “But we’re only up the block, and I think we need to walk this off anyway. But thank you. And Merry Christmas. I mean, happy holidays.”
“No problem. Same to you.” The driver tipped his baseball cap, and Ethan and Daisy continued on toward the Plaza, just a short walk away.
Back in their hotel room, Ethan helped Daisy unbutton her winter jacket and warm up her hands.
Vanessa was still out, and in truth, he was glad to have some more time alone with Daisy after what had happened. Since losing her mother, she was prone to worrying about every little thing, especially (and perhaps understandably) about losing him too.
Sometimes she was like a mini version of Jane, scolding him about his diet and how he shouldn’t eat too much junk food. Ethan also blamed advertisements continually peddling cures for heart disease and diabetes for scaremongering his eight-year-old into worrying about health problems, when at her age, she should be concerned with little more than the outcome of the books she read.
Following the taxi accident, it seemed the old worrywart Daisy was back, and he needed to nip that in the bud.
“You okay?” he asked, and she nodded uncertainly. “You were a big help back there. Sad to say, but there really are people who would have stolen that man’s shopping. You helped him just as much as I did, you know. We’re a good team, you and me.” At this, Daisy smiled proudly, and his heart lifted a little. “Why don’t we order room service while we wait for Vanessa, and then we can tell her all about it. Fancy another hot chocolate?”
“I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “We had a big mug already today and—”
“Well, as your mum used to say, you can never have too much hot chocolate in New York at Christmas.”
Daisy grinned. “Really? Well, okay then.”
“Great. While we’re waiting, why don’t you go wash up, change into your pajamas, and meet me back here when you’re ready?”
“Okay.”
Fifteen minutes later, Daisy was relaxing in the chaise longue with a cup of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows, just the way she liked it, Ethan seated in a cozy armchair across from her. It was a strange day, he thought, and sensed that she was feeling it too.
Well, a lot of things had happened today.
“You’re very quiet,” he said, moving across to sit on the end of the lounge. “I hope you know that the doctors will do all they can to help that man.”
“I know. I’ve seen stuff like that on TV, Dad.”
