“Morning, Beautiful.” He touched the brim of his cowboy hat in greeting. “What are you doing up this early?”
“I’m always up early.” Natasha rolled her eyes and swiped a stray piece of hair off her cheek. “Where are you going?” She motioned for him to keep walking, so he did.
“To clean stalls.” He figured that would be enough to scare her off, but she kept stride with him.
“Cool.” She rubbed her lips together and then burrowed deeper into her scarf. “How’d you sleep?”
He glanced down at her. She wasn’t one for small talk—what was going on? “Poorly. But I had a good talk with my dad last night.”
Her shoulders straightened. “Is he improving?”
“I think he’s finally turned a corner.” Even as he said the words, he knew they were true, and the tension ball in his shoulder that had formed the day Dad went into the hospital loosened. He rolled his head around.
Natasha’s cheeks lifted. “My great-aunt had pneumonia two winters ago—it was hard on her. I’m relieved to hear he’s improving.”
“Thanks.” Jack could hear the sincerity in her voice, and he appreciated it. She hadn’t talked much about her family, and he kept quiet, hoping she would open up.
“Listen, I’m not sure how to ask this….” She tugged her scarf up around her neck.
Jack’s heart sank at the change of subject and the formal tone in her voice.
“I must be crazy,” she mumbled.
Cinnamon sticks! Only one thing around this place would make people think they were crazy: seeing a flying reindeer. And it was highly likely that she’d done just that.
And it was his fault.
He might as well get used to cleaning stalls.
“Yeah?” he had to force the word out of his throat because it had tightened with worry.
She looked up at the dimly lit sky and then back down at the ground. “Do your reindeer fly?”
Jack wasn’t much for telling lies and had to get creative over the years to keep the reindeer’s magical abilities a secret. “What makes you ask that? Been sipping eggnog lately?” Usually, teasing the questioner would be enough to make them doubt themselves. His sinking stomach twisted. The last thing he ever wanted to do was make Natasha doubt herself.
No matter what he did, he’d lose. Telling anyone from Hollywood that they had flying reindeer in the barn—Santa’s reindeer—would be disastrous. Notcouldbe, butwouldbe.
“No eggnog.” She coughed the dry cough visitors got sometimes. If she’d been in LA for a while, she wouldn’t be used to the lack of humidity here. “Seriously. I keep replaying what happened in my head and I swear Dunder …swooped in from above.” Her ears turned red with embarrassment.
He lifted a shoulder. “I believe in Santa. Who am I to stop you if you want to believe in flying reindeer?”
She shoved him. “You’re hiding something from me.”
“We just met—there’s all sorts of things you don’t know about me.” He winked. “But I’m not hiding any of them.” Deflection—another great tool to hide the truth. He stopped at the barn door.
She lifted her chin. Her eyes darted to the signs on the barn and then back to him. “How about I help you clean stalls, and you tell me all the stuff I don’t know?”
Jack rubbed his leather glove across his chin. “Now there’s a tempting offer. I’d like to see you clean a stall.”
She cocked her hip out. “I have shoveling skills to pay the bills.”
He debated the pros and cons of letting her into the barn. He’d reacted to the situation yesterday and done something stupid. He needed to keep a clear head this time, despite Natasha being as tempting as Christmas fudge.
If he warned the reindeer to behave….
This was a bad idea all the way around. All it would take to spill the reindeer beans would be Rudy falling asleep; he levitated when he snored.
And Sparkle? She loved prancing across the open rafters.
