Hoofbeats?
Had Honey Brook hired a horse-drawn carriage as some kind of seasonal event? Mira could see appeal of that, but why on earth had they started it up so late?
There could be only one answer to that, and realizing it made her heart sink:
It was Marsh. Ithadto be Marsh.
As he turned the corner, she saw that she was right ... and that, if anything, she had underestimated him. A Victorian-style horse-drawn carriage would be tooordinaryfor the guy who had insisted on her spending weeks in a Galadriel costume. It would be too much of a guaranteed crowd-please for the genius behind all-day carol-oke. It would be too realistic and easily implemented.
Marsh had brought inreindeer. He was leading a whole string of them, guiding them by the halter on the lead.
A few problems instantly came to mind. No one on staff, Marsh included, was likely to have any experience corralling reindeer. And while the kids would start off besotted with Donner and Blitzen’s hairier, grumpier cousins, that infatuation might not last when the reindeer started pooping in the Honey Brook plaza—or, God forbid, nipped some little hand trying to pet them. Mira knew that certain regions domesticated reindeer, but she had the uneasy suspicion that Marsh hadn’t shopped around that carefully. He was the kind of guy who liked to get a good deal, even if that meant getting reindeer from the kind of sketchy dealer who would offer you a couple boa constrictors as a sweetener.
These reindeer looked distinctly jumpy. If they were uncomfortable here when everything was quiet, what would they be like when the place was hopping?
She couldn’t say they exactly fit with the general décor. Everything here was cute and cozy and colorful, and the reindeer—with their broad sides, huge bony antlers, and dusty brown-gray coloring—stood out even more than her Galadriel costume. They were wild and real in the middle of a fantasy land. No wonder they were uncomfortable.
Poor things! She hoped they were feeling more cranky than scared.
She looked at Wade.
“I’m pretty sure those are for you,” she said.
Wade was staring at them with a very eloquent expression that said he was thinking everything she was.
“That fortune cookie did say you’d have an interesting week,” she added.
“It’s been interesting enough already. It doesn’t need this.” He lowered his voice even more, as if to make doubly sure Marsh wouldn’t hear them, and said, “They’re not going to like me. They’ll smell my bear.”
Mira had a hard time imagining anyone or anything not liking Wade.
“Bigfoot didn’t,” she pointed out. “He liked you right away.”
“Housecats don’t know what polar bears smell like. Reindeer do. Polar bears don’tlikeeating reindeer, they won’t really go after them if they can get much else, but I can’t see that being too reassuring.”
No, probably not. And, of course, while she was sure thatWadehad never chomped on any reindeer, she couldn’t blame them for tarring him with guilt by association.
“I’ll talk to him,” Mira said, patting Wade on the shoulder.
Wade had rescued her enough already: it was time for her to try to savehim(and the reindeer) from an awkward run-in. She slipped out of the wrapping paper booth and strode across the shadowy plaza, making a beeline for Marsh.
Apparently he’d been too distracted with shepherding the reindeer to notice her, because when she said, “Mr. Marsh?”, he almost jumped out of his skin.
As soon as he saw it was her, the alarm was replaced with a scowl.
“Mira. What are you still doing here?”
“You asked me to finish the presents people left for overnight wrapping.”
Did he not evenremember?
“I would’ve thought you’d finished that a long time ago,” Marsh said, with a little smirk. He glanced at the wrapping paper booth, and even more dark amusement crept in when he realized whoelsewas still here. “But I suppose you were ... distracted. I’m not paying you to flirt.”
What an asshole. He wasn’t paying her for tonight’s overtimeat all,and he knew it. She had been letting it slide because the bonus was so close she could taste it, but now she was sorely tempted to remind him that if he felt so strongly about the sanctity of the workplace, he could damn well follow all the labor laws.
Since he wasn’t, and she and Wade were pitching in tonight for free, they didn’t have to hurry. All that mattered was that the job got done before morning.
Her long silence must have reminded Marsh of the sticky legal position he was in here, because he cleared his throat and stopped looking so smug.
