“One. I am happy to pay you for using the welder.” Clove had offered to pay for the damages, and he’d let her because it was the right thing to do on her part. Besides, payment for use of a machine would be much less than it would cost to pay a mechanic to order parts or do the work himself.
Otis opened his mouth to argue–as evidenced by the way his face went dark. Drake plowed on. “Two. Why do you want to fix up this old thing, anyway?”
Otis broke into a warm smile. “This was my granddaddy’s sled. He won the Race to the Sky three years running with this sled. These dogs come directly from his line.”
Drake lifted his chin, starting to see where this was going. “And you want to enter.”
“Been thinking about it for a couple years–even bought the supplies. The race isn’t until February.” He scratched under his beard again. “If I get the sled in order now, I’ll have time to practice with the dogs. They need it.”
“They look in sync already.” Some dogs ran in a counter-clockwise direction, while others went clockwise. They passed one another at regular intervals and he could pick out who the lead dog was by the way she twitched her ears or snapped at another dog that fell behind. “Wouldn’t take much to get them working together.”
Otis eyed him. “You work with dog teams?”
“Reindeer.” Drake didn’t want to get into much of the training work they did. They taught the non-fliers to pull sleds, either alone or in teams. They never needed more than two reindeer for a sled, though. It wasn’t like he could tell Otis that he trained Santa’s eight reindeer–nine now that Rudy and his glowing red nose lead the team. Rudy’s rare genetic trait, one they hadn’t seen in 43 years, also came with partial blindness. It wasn’t until Faith operated on him that he’d been able to see clearly and train hard enough to be eligible to join Santa. His dreams came true last Christmas Eve.
Sometimes Drake missed him, though the only one he’d told was Dunder. That old reindeer would keep his secret for the rest of his life. Besides, Dunder missed Rudy too, and Drake didn’t tell anyone about his softer side.
“So you want me to help you fix up the sled?” He ripped the cover off. Most of the wood was rotted and full of splinters. The metal runners looked thin and warped. The brakes were non-existent. Drake groaned. This wasn’t a fixer-upper, it was a complete rebuild. “How long do you think it’ll take?”
“A week?” Otis said hopefully.
Drake stalked around the workshop, cataloging scraps from other projects that he could harvest for the sled. If they had everything they needed, he might cut it down to three days and get the trailer fixed. Otis’s shop was disorganized but well stocked. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” He shook hands with a delighted Otis.
“I’ll tell the missus. And I’ll get your trailer over here right now.” Otis jogged inside, whistling for the dogs to follow. They barked and ran after him.
“The amount of dog hair in that house could probably stuff a mattress.” Drake shook his head as he walked back to the bed-and-breakfast. It was only a couple of blocks north, though most of that was skirting a wooded area.
He tapped his boots against the top step to dislodge the snow before throwing open the door.
“Oaf!”
He looked around the door and found Clove leaning against the wall, her arm up to protect herself.“Sorry,” he said as he quickly shut the door. Judy wasn’t paying to heat the front porch. “I didn’t know you’d be standing there.”
“I wasn’t standing here.” She tugged down her plaid shirt. “I was going to go out and shovel the walk for Judy.”
Drake nodded once and went right back outside, grabbed the shovel, and started work. It was good for him to have something physical to do. Back home, he would have fed the reindeer by now–a process that included lifting several bales of grass hay, bags of oats, and hauling water by the bucket at times. The old pickup they drove into the field was a stick shift with a gummy clutch that could give you a charley horse for trying to shift gears.
Being out here meant he wasn’t stuck inside with Clove. She unsettled him. She was pretty, with her blonde hair in two braids and a stocking cap. She looked like a ranch-girl, and he would be lying if he said he didn’t have a thing for ranch girls.
Some men wanted a woman to take care of, one who kept house and looked pretty when he came in for dinner. Not Drake. A woman who could hold her own with a chain saw was sexy.
Clove came out a few minutes after, her face red and her eyes dark. “I wasn’t telling you to do it.” She grabbed for the shovel. “It’s my job.”
He pulled it out of her reach. “Doesn’t matter. I’m doing it.”
“Well, stop doing it.” She reached again, her arm across his body and her face close. Close enough to kiss.
Her lips were light pink, and she had three freckles on her nose. Cute. Add to that her hen-like indignation that he’d taken her chore, and she was downright adorable.
He mentally shook himself. Clove hated him. He had no right to think about kissing her or each of those three freckles on her nose.
“Do you have a problem with people being nice?” he asked instead.
She continued to grasp for the handle, which he barely kept out of her reach by twisting his body a little more. “I don’t like people doing things for me.” She twisted with him.
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” he growled.
She stomped a foot and launched after the shovel. He’d twisted his body so far around that he was off balance. He grabbed her arm with his free hand in an effort to steady himself. Her foot slipped and the two of them fell. He tossed the shovel away and grabbed her, absorbing the impact of their fall.
