But that meant she couldn’t quit her Christmas elf job, no matter how annoying and frustrating her boss was and no matter how many kids asked her what she was supposed to be. She had to put up with it.
Mr. Marsh had reiterated that she wasn’t getting a new costume, so that was all there was to it. At least it was only five more days until Christmas. And only four until Christmas Eve,when the Christmas Village would shut down for good just after lunch.
Four more days. That was it.
“Where’sSanta?”one child howled.
“We want Santa!”
Four more long, loud days.
And Mira actually liked kids! She just liked them one at a time, not in massive sugar-high hordes.
“Santa will be here any minute,” she said, crossing her fingers that was actually true. “In the meantime, why don’t we all sing ‘Jingle Bells’?”
Two ear-splitting renditions of “Jingle Bells” later, Peteystillhadn’t shown up for work. The Christmas Village grapevine had already let Mira know that Petey was at Honey Brook, but since he still wasn’there, she was fuzzy on the details. She wasn’t sure she cared about them, either. What she cared about was that she had a huge crowd of excited kids and disgruntled parents who were tired of waiting around.
Until today, Mira hadn’t had any problems with Petey Moore. He was a good Santa, able to connect with even the shyest of kids, and no matter how many things went wrong in Marsh’s benighted Christmas Village, none of them seemed to faze him. He was a nice guy and an easygoing coworker. But if he didn’t show upthis instant, she was going to—
A tall, bright red shape moved towards her through the artificial snow.
Oh, thank God,Mira thought, with a wave of relief.Petey, I may have to kill you later for being late, but right now, you’re my hero.
Except as Santa got closer, Mira saw that it wasn’t Petey after all. This Santa looked wide-shouldered and strong, like he spent all day wrestling reindeer, and he didn’t have the Santa belly strapped on. Mr. Marsh was going to throw a fit about that, buthe was going to throw an even bigger one about a total stranger showing up to play Santa. And in that one instance, she was actually on his side.
Mira planted herself in front of him and asked the question kids had been asking her all holiday season:
“Who are you supposed to be?”
Santa looked at her, and his eyes widened into perfect circles.
They were gorgeous eyes, Mira reluctantly noticed: a clear, bright gray and fringed with long, dark eyelashes.
Petey had gray eyes too, but she’d only noticed it because they were rare. She hadn’t feltstrucklike she did now.
She wasn’t the only one. Santa was looking at her like she’d socked the breath out of him.
He finally got it together to answer her, though.
“I’m Santa,” he said, pitching his voice so that the kids would be reassured. When they erupted into cheers, he used the noise as cover to quietly tell Mira, “I’m Wade, Petey’s brother. I’m taking over for him.”
“What happened to Petey?”
Santa—Wade—gave her a wry smile she could just make out under all the white beard foofaraw. “Nothing bad, trust me. He won free tickets to Hawaii.”
Wow. Petey had won the employee raffle? Mira couldn’t say she wasn’t jealous. If they had pulled her number instead, she could have sold the prize, and that might have finished paying off her parents’ entrance fee.
But Petey was so easy to get along with that it was impossible to begrudge him his chance to kick back on some sugar sand beaches. She was willing to bet his brother agreed, and that was why he had let himself get dragged into this in the first place.
There was only one thing she didn’t understand.
“Mr. Marsh signed off on this?”
She had a hard time believing the answer was yes, so it didn’t surprise her when Wade reluctantly shook his head. If Marsh wouldn’t approve subtly mismatched elf costumes just to make his employees more comfortable on the job, there was no way he would rubber-stamp something as huge as changing out Santas a week before Christmas.
“Marsh didn’t, but HR did. I just signed a bunch of paperwork.” He frowned. “Now that I think about it, though, Petey made sure to get me in the suit before he took me down there. They probably thought Marsh already knew.”
Probably. Mira’s sneakier side approved of Petey’s little gambit, but her responsible side—which she hoped was a whole lot bigger—hoped Wade wouldn’t get blamed for any of this.
