Holiday Unscripted, page 1
Copyright © 2025 Natasha Madison. E-Book, Audio and Print Edition
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons or living or dead, events or locals are entirely coincidental.
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Cover by K.B. Barrett Designs
Editing done by Karen Hrdicka Barren Acres Editing
Editing done by Emma Gilmore
Proofing by Ashley Carey
Proofing by Judy’s Proofreading
Contents
Dedication
1. Elizabeth
2. Elizabeth
3. Elizabeth
4. Nate
5. Elizabeth
6. Nate
7. Elizabeth
8. Nate
9. Elizabeth
10. Nate
11. Elizabeth
12. Nate
13. Elizabeth
14. Nate
15. Elizabeth
16. Nate
17. Elizabeth
18. Nate
19. Elizabeth
20. Nate
21. Elizabeth
22. Nate
23. Elizabeth
24. Nate
25. Elizabeth
26. Nate
27. Elizabeth
28. Nate
29. Elizabeth
30. Nate
31. Elizabeth
32. Elizabeth
33. Nate
Catch up with Elizabeth’s Parents
Acknowledgments
About Natasha Madison
Also by Natasha Madison
About Holiday Unscripted
KISS HER ONCE FOR ME!
Elizabeth
My brother was getting married.
At Christmas no less.
The holiday I hated the most.
Let me list all the reasons why this will be the worst season yet:
One would be my luggage not arriving.
Two would be being told I had to find somewhere else to sleep since my room was occupied by family members.
Oh, and now I am forced to stay with my brother’s best friend.
The man who broke my heart seven years ago.
Nate
My best friend was getting married.
I was happy for him.
Until I had to offer his sister my spare bedroom.
It’d be fine, two weeks and she’d be out of my hair.
But the thing with Elizabeth was that she pushed every single button I have.
She gets under my skin in the best ways.
All we have to do is survive the wedding and the holiday.
Then she’ll be gone yet again.
Unless maybe, just maybe, my wish of having her comes true.
Dedication
This is to everyone who dreads Christmas but still likes to watch those Hallmark movies!
You know who you are!
I’m one one them!
CHAPTER 1
Elizabeth
SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS
November 2nd
“So this is Christmas.” I roll my eyes when I walk into the doctor’s lounge and hear the soft sound of the music coming out of the radio.
“Ugh,” I grunt, looking over at Ty, my coworker who’s sitting at the table, scrolling on his phone while he eats his breakfast bowl. “Isn’t it a bit early for this?” I point to where the music is coming from, just in case he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“It’s perfectly okay for Christmas music to be playing at the beginning of November,” he says, his Australian accent annunciating “ah” instead of “er.” “It’s kind of a global rule.”
“Who said this?” I ask, taking off my white doctor coat and opening my locker. “I want to know their actual names and not something you just made up.”
“Society,” he informs me and I roll my eyes as I hang up the jacket before grabbing my big tote bag. “I’m pretty sure society as a whole.”
I put the bag over my shoulder. “We should have a rule made where there should be no Christmas music playing in the common areas until the first of December. Or if we even want to tempt fate, dare I say, two weeks before Christmas. Just enough time for us to not be sick of it.”
“As soon as Halloween is done, it’s fair game.” He grabs a forkful of eggs, shoveling them in his mouth.
“How can you even think Christmas when it’s hot outside? When you think of Christmas, you think snow and cold.” After living in Australia for the past seven years, I’m still not used to it being summer during Christmas celebrations.
“That’s just in movies.” He winks at me, and if we didn’t work together, I might maybe, just maybe, think of hooking up with him. But I’ve seen it time and time again, nurses and doctors getting involved with each other and the breakup is felt through the whole department. It’s just too small a circle. So, I’ve made it a strict rule that I will never get involved with someone I work with. Not a nurse, not a doctor, not anyone who I will be seeing more than once in my workspace.
“Are you the kind of person who puts their tree up the second week of December and then takes it down the day after Christmas?”
“Pfft.” I fold my arms over my chest, shaking my head. “As if I put up a tree!” I shake my head. “I’m the type of person who likes to enjoy life and I value my time, so I do not even try to attempt to put up a tree,” I tell him. “Besides, for the last five years I’ve done nothing but work the whole two weeks around Christmas and then I take a glorious month off.” I exhale. “You should try it.”
“I love Christmas,” he says. “I can’t ever imagine not being able to have Christmas dinner with my family.”
“I’m feeling nauseous,” I tell him, making fun of him and putting my hand to my stomach. “I’m tired, so I’m going to head out, and you can enjoy your breakfast”—I point to the bowl—“and all things Christmas.” I hold up my hand to the sound of the music playing. “I think my ears are going to start bleeding soon.” I stick my hands over my ears, making him chuckle, as I walk out of the doctors’ lounge and notice the nurses changing shifts.
The whiteboard that hangs right in front of the nurses’ station is being tended to by Gayle, the head nurse in charge during the 8:00 p.m.-to-8:00 a.m. shift. She’s making sure she writes all the notes for the day nurse who is coming in to relieve her. “I’m off,” I tell Gayle, and she looks over her shoulder at me. Her black scrubs have prints of colorful Band-Aids all over them.
“See you tonight,” she replies and I nod my head.
“Just so you can be ready and prepared”—she moves the paper in her hand toward me—“my Christmas scrubs are coming out.”
I groan. “I might have to take this up with HR,” I stop and tell her and she just smirks at me. “I don’t know if I can work in these conditions.”
“I’m just giving you the heads-up so you can properly prepare yourself.”
“I’m going home right now and getting scrubs that are the color of the Grinch.”
She tosses her head back and a bark of laughter comes out of her, making her light-blonde bob move just a touch. “That will look like snot,” she states. “Highly do not recommend.” She smiles. “But I don’t know what the cool kids are wearing these days. You do you.”
“Great,” I mumble as I walk out of the swinging doors of the emergency room and head for the front of the hospital. The hustle and bustle of morning has people arriving as I head out after my twelve-hour shift. Nothing like walking out into the bright hot sun after spending the night going crazy in the darkness that is the emergency room night shift. I squint just a bit as I head over to the side of the parking lot where the staff parks.
I rummage through my big purse, tossing things aside and grabbing my keys and unlocking the door to get in. I start the car and roll down the windows as I pull out of the parking spot. Stopping at the closed barrier to scan my parking pass, I wait for it to open up so I can drive through.
I pull out of the parking lot, turning on the radio and listening to the non-Christmas songs as I make my way home. After a long night shift, I’m ready to be in my apartment. I drive up to my apartment complex, park in my assigned spot, and wait for the window to roll up. I grab my bag and head toward the stairs that lead up to my door. The stairs open to both sides, each floor has two apartments on it, four floors per unit. I walk up the two flights of stairs, finally making it home. The rug at the door is a gift from my brother Jack and his wife, Evie, when they came to stay with me for a week on their way to New Zealand. Jack and Evie met when they were both in the hospital at the same time for cancer treatments. They became the best of friends; they even had nicknames, Jack was called Jumping Jack and Evie was called Easy Evie, because she was so easy to make happy. Jack was lucky that our father could afford the treatment. Evie’s family were not as lucky, but my father made it possible that she got treatment also. They only found out when t hey both turned sixteen that our dad made it so Evie could afford the care. From then on they were even more attached at the hip. Then it quickly went past the best friends stage and they finally caved to their feelings. She and Jack finally got married six years ago and are looking at adopting their first child.
Welcome-ish, depends on who you are and how long you plan to stay.
I press my code into the door pad and wait for the lock to unlatch before turning the handle and stepping in. The shades are still drawn from when I left thirteen hours ago. I dump my bag off at the door and kick off my sneakers.
I make my way over to the living room, opening up the blinds before walking into the kitchen and doing the same thing to the window by the table. I walk into the back of the apartment, where my room is, heading straight for the shower. Opening the glass door, I turn on the water before undressing out of my scrubs.
I let the warm water wash over me as I put my head back and water runs down the nape of my neck. I close my eyes and exhaustion washes over me. Getting out I grab a towel, wrapping my hair up in it before grabbing my white robe.
I walk over to the chest of drawers and take out a pair of boxer shorts and a tank top before returning to the kitchen and opening the fridge. I move things out of the way, trying to decide what to eat for dinner. It’s breakfast for certain people, dinner for me. The last snack of a protein bar, between patients at 4:00 a.m., wore off about thirty minutes ago. I’m starving and exhausted, so whatever is going to be the fastest to heat up is what I’m going with.
I take out one of the prepared meals I usually order when I’m working for the week and turn toward the oven, starting it. As soon as I place it in the oven and start to make my way back to the bathroom to comb out my hair, the phone rings from beside the door.
I walk over, grabbing my bag and closing my eyes for a moment, hoping it’s not the hospital calling me in for an emergency. Turning it over in my hand, I see it’s my mother FaceTiming me.
Smiling, I slide the green button to the side and wait until her face fills the screen. “She’s alive!” she shouts over her shoulder, and I roll my eyes at her.
“Where has she been for the last week, Elizabeth?” I hear my father, Zack, shouting from somewhere in the house.
“Your father wants to know,” she starts, as if I just didn’t hear him shouting from the other side of the room. I see her sitting down in the kitchen, all the lights on in the room.
“Yeah.” I laugh. “I heard him. I was working. Plus, with the time difference, I would pick up the phone to call you and it would be in the middle of the night over there.”
“You know that wouldn’t happen if you lived closer to us.” My mother smiles at me. “We could even work side by side.”
I inhale deeply, my mother is the head of the oncology department for the children’s hospital in New York City. It’s where she met my dad many, many moons ago, when he came in with my big brother Jack who was fighting cancer. She got him on an experimental drug; my father would have done anything to save him. We are thankful every single fucking day that it worked and he went into remission.
In the end, she fell in love with my dad at the same time. He was also playing hockey with my uncle Max at the time. Now that they are both retired, he heads up the Horton Foundation, which helps a few children’s hospitals across the states, and my father runs the arena that has been in my aunt Allison’s family for generations. It’s where most of my cousins who play for the NHL go in the summer to get fit. Or if they are rehabbing an injury, they go to him to get back into shape. “Mom, we have this conversation monthly.” I put the phone down on the counter in the bathroom and pull the towel off my long, light-brown hair that has streaks of blonde woven into it. Picking up the leave-in conditioner, I start spraying. “I love living in Australia.”
“But we would love you living here,” she pushes and I laugh.
“Noted,” I tell her. “Is that what I owe the pleasure of this phone call?” I put the conditioner back down and start to brush out my hair. “Usually this is a Sunday phone call. After you have the family dinner, you call and let me know I’m missed and it isn’t the same without me.”
“It’s almost Sunday,” she replies and I snort.
“It’s literally Tuesday over here, so it’s Monday where you are since you know I’m in the future.” I look at her. “I will say nothing bad happens, so you are still all safe.”
“Very funny,” she retorts sarcastically. “Anyway, I was calling you to remind you…” I stop moving as I listen to her, knowing she is probably going to tell me something she reminded me about at least five times, but the minute she said it, I most likely forgot about it. “…that you need to buy your plane ticket.”
I slap my forehead with the palm of my hand. “Shit,” I swear, “I had it written down on a Post-it at work, and I think I threw it out.”
“Your brother is getting married,” she huffs, “and you forgot!” The last part is shrieked out.
“I mean, it’s not like I won’t be at the wedding.” I try to calm her down. “Or that there are no planes to America.”
“Elizabeth Parker Morrow.” She uses my full name, letting me know she is either deeply upset with me, or she’s about to lose her mind. Actually, when she’s about to lose her mind, she says my name with clenched teeth, so I think I’m fine…ish.
“Here we go,” I groan. “Mom,” I say softly, “I will get online right now.” I grab my hair in my hand and twist it up before clipping it to the back of my head. “And I’ll get my ticket.”
“Don’t bother,” she grumps, “I already bought your ticket.” I smile at her. “Don’t you dare smirk at me, young lady.”
“I’m smiling because I’m happy that in less than six weeks I’m going to be seeing you,” I tell her. “I’m so excited I get to spend Christmas with you.” I hold up my hands and jump up and down. “Yay, Christmas.”
“Zack,” my mother shouts for my father, “come and speak to your daughter.”
“Mom,” I say her name, “you’re the best.” I lean on my elbows in the middle of the small island and wait for my father to come to the phone.
“Here.” She thrusts the phone at him. “She’s exactly like you.”
He chuckles and I see him sit down on the couch next to my mother and lean over to wrap an arm around her shoulders. “Hey, if it isn’t my favorite daughter.”
“Um, I’m your only daughter,” I remind. “Unless someone comes to the door and, ding-dong, you have a long-lost daughter you didn’t know about. How awkward would that conversation be?” He gasps. “Don’t even try it, you were a very good-looking man back in the day, and you played professional sports. God knows where you put that thing.” I suddenly fake gag.
“Why am I even talking to her?” My father looks over at my mother, who is now biting her lip. “I told you just buy her the ticket and send her an email, but no, you wanted to call her and then she’s all like this.”
I laugh. “I love you too, Dad,” I tell him and he side-eyes me. “But yes, send me the details. I am going to put in for time off. Fingers crossed I can get it.”
“Your brother is getting married!” my mother shouts. “My son is getting married. I’m already a mess that I’m losing him, and you aren’t helping.”
“Okay, let’s relax and not talk like he’s going off to war. He’s getting married and they bought a house one street over. I think you’ll be fine.”
“That’s right. The only one breaking my heart is you.”
“Smooth,” I say when the oven beeps. “I will get the time off. I will be on the plane and his wedding is going to go off without a hitch.” I smile into the phone. “Now, I have to let you go so I can eat and get my ass to bed. I love you. It’s always nice seeing you.” I blow a kiss and then hang up the phone, and the text comes in right away.
