I looked at my second-youngest brother. “Why did they send you instead of telling her themselves?”
“Because they figured she wouldn’t kill me,” Hayes said sagely. “And they weren’t as sure about themselves.”
“Because you’re Sweet Baby Hayes.”
“Because I am Sweet Baby Hayes,” he confirmed.
“Flynn Montana Kingman.” Jules’s voice carried across the mountain with the clarity of a woman who coached linebackers for a living. “I swear if you don’t find that reindeer I will roast your chestnuts over an open fire. Do you understand me?”
Hayes and I both winced.
“I don’t care how many sweet little niños you and Tempest want to have, Flynn. Over. An. Open. Fire. Find it. Now.”
She straightened her jacket, turned back to us, and said with a smile that would eviscerate lesser men, “It’s fine. Everything is under control.”
“I’m sure it is,” I said, mostly to make myself believe it. Truthfully, a lost reindeer was small stakes. With the number of moving pieces today had, if that was the biggest problem we encountered we were going to be fine.
Everett and Chris came jogging down the path from the ski lodge. “Just heard from Penny,” Everett said. “They’re on the bus. They’re headed here.”
“Vixen to the White Witch,” Jules said into her earpiece.
“Who’s the White Witch?” I asked.
“Ciara Mooselips Willowtree. The wedding planner.” Chris looked at me like this was obvious. “Did you not study the wedding playbook Jules distributed?”
“Not as thoroughly as I should have.” I paused. “Also, her name is Ciara Mosely Willingham, Chris.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s not,” Chris said, with the absolute iron confidence of a man who was absolutely wrong and had no idea. Only older brothers could pull that off. It was honestly something.
“I just received confirmation from Cupid that the Snow Queen and the Sugar Plum Fairy are en route,” Jules said, looking at her phone. “ETA T-minus forty-six minutes.”
Forty-six minutes.
I don’t know what happened exactly. One second I was standing upright and the next my hands were on my knees and the world had gone slightly sideways.
“Whoa,” Everett said, and then he and Chris were at my sides, hands on my shoulders.
“Declan.” Jules’s voice shifted immediately, going soft in the way it only did when she was actually worried. “What’s going on?”
“What if she hates all of it?” The words came out before I could think them through. “I hijacked our wedding. She thinks we’re doing some celebrity wedding for her fans and the press. What if she gets here and she hates everything and she’s so angry at me that she doesn’t want to marry me anymore?”
There it was. The thing I hadn’t let myself say out loud until right now, standing on a mountain in a tuxedo with forty-six minutes on the clock.
Jules stepped in front of me.
“Declan,” she said. “What’s the first song Kelsey ever learned to play on guitar?”
“Jingle Bells, but?—”
“What was the name of the first song she ever wrote?”
“’Queen of the Snowball Fairy Princesses,’ she was six, but that doesn’t?—“
“What’s Kelsey’s favorite number?”
“Eight.”
“Why?”
