“What the hell isgoing on here?” an unfamiliar voice suddenly bellowed.
Wade untangled himself from Mira to check it out.
A tall, sharply dressed man stood there with his arm around the mom whose son had been on Santa’s lap when the reindeer riot had started. She looked a lot calmer now, but she was still holding her son tightly ... probably to prevent him from running back over to the reindeer pen. He still looked like he wanted to pet them.
That was good, honestly. At least the kid seemed mostly unfazed by what had happened.
The man in the suit went on: “Stampeding reindeer? Santa almost getting shish-kabobbed? Oursonright in the middle of it all?”
Of course, he was the dad. No wonder he was so outraged.
Even though Wade didn’t think he’d ever met this guy, something about him rang a distant bell. Then it clicked, and with a dark flash of humor, he knew why Marsh had been so rabidly insistent on dragging that reindeer over to Santa’s chair right at that moment.
And, as the awful cherry on top, why he was so thoroughly crushed now.
This was Alexander Arbogast, the founder of Honey Brook mall. The boy who’d longed for a stuffed beluga whale was hisson, and the terrified mom was his wife and fellow member of the board.
Marsh had tried to impress his ultimate boss’s family, and in the process, he had risked getting them gored to death by a reindeer in the process.
“Mr. Arbogast, I—” Marsh took a shaky breath.
Was he going to apologize? Throw himself on Marsh’s mercy?
Nope. Instead of doing any of that, he pointed at Mira.
“I left this young woman in charge of the reindeer. I warned her—”
Wade wasn’t going to listen to another word of this.
“That’s b—ridiculous,” he said, censoring himself for the sake of the little kid. “He’s been blaming Mira for everything, and it’s never been fair. He did ask Mira to look after the reindeer—because she had warned him that this was a bad idea. She’d told him something could go wrong. He didn’t care: all he said was that it would be her responsibility if it did. But it wasn’t, not even close. She’s not the one who let the reindeer out of the pen,hewas. He led it right up to your son. It wouldn’t have gotten upset if he had left it alone.”
“You’re the one who made it upset!” Marsh said.
“That’s not true,” Mrs. Arbogast said, and Marsh’s mouth snapped shut. He was fine with rebutting Wade and Mira, but he wasn’t going to argue with the mall’s leading family. “Santa here is the one who stayed calm and got Billy off his lap. He told one of the elves to start ushering everyone out. And this young woman was the one who finally got the reindeer back in the pen.” She gave Marsh a withering look.
Little Billy was starting to get restless in his mom’s arms. He was too big to be carried around, and he knew it. Wade suspected that, with more empathy than most kids his age couldhave mustered, he’d been putting up with the post-reindeer coddling for her sake, but he was hitting his limit.
“Mommy,” he said, wriggling. “Let me down.”
“I can look after him,” Mira offered. “Way away from the reindeer, obviously. There are plenty of leftover cookies at the bakery stall, if you’re okay with that.”
Mrs. Arbogast sighed, half in reluctance and half in relief, and let Billy down to join Mira. “Thank you. It’s very much appreciated.”
Mira took Billy off to get some gingerbread. Wade wanted to join them, but he needed to hear how this whole thing with Marsh played out.
“We’ve been hearing rumors all season that you’ve been mismanaging this place,” Mr. Arbogast said, looking around the Christmas Village. His lip curled with sorrowful disgust.
Wade could see why. The village had been shiny and festive this morning, but the crowd’s mass exodus had taken a toll. Even though the Elf Mafia had tried to keep the process smooth, people had still knocked things over. The garlands and candy cane poles that cordoned off the edges of the line to see Santa had fallen into a messy red and green tangle. Hastily dropped gingerbread had been stepped on and smashed into crumbs. Spilled hot chocolate made sticky patches on the cobblestones. Someone must have run into the tree, making ornaments fall and shatter.
It was sad in a way he hadn’t expected. When he had agreed to step in for Petey, the Christmas Village hadn’t meant much to him. He had vague memories of coming here as a kid, but that was all. He had never made a habit of stopping by as an adult, not even for a peppermint mocha or free gift-wrapping, even though it obviously would have been convenient enough. It had always seemed too busy, too loud. Maybe even a tad toocheesy. And when he’d needed to play Santa in it, he’d mostly just thought it looked like a stressful place to work.
But over the last few days, the Village had become special to him.
Now, even though it was hectic and loud, it felt like the heart of the mall. It was where the air smelled like gingerbread. It was where he’d discovered he was actually pretty good with kids after all.
It was where he had met Mira. Where he had fallen in love with her.
He didn’t like seeing it like this. It was like a natural disaster had hit it. He wasn’t going to wait for the custodial staff to come around tonight and clean it up, even if the Arbogasts closed it off for the rest of the day. He could do some of the work now—
