“Isn’t your house, like, an hour that way?” He pointed west.
She narrowed her eyes at him over Felix’s back, grateful for the large animal between them. “I’m not leaving you alone with Felix.”
“Wh-why?” He sputtered. “It’s not like I can go anywhere without my trailer.”
“Ha!” She threw up an arm. “You’d probably just jump on his back and ride him back to North Dakota and leave Grandma stranded here.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “We don’t normally ride reindeer. In fact, I’ve only met one woman daring enough to try it.”
Clove instantly hated her. “Who?” she demanded.
“Stella Kringle.”
Drake’s soft smile and disbelieving shake of his head told her this Stella woman was special to him. The green-eyed monster had her hands in fists.
“Not only did she ride the reindeer, she did it with passengers,” he said, as if confiding in her. “Total respect.”
“I’m sure Miss Kringle is waiting for you back at your ranch so you can just pack up, go home, and leave us alone.” She took Felix by the halter and tugged.
He huffed:Easy.
She let up on the pressure, but continued to encourage him away from Drake.
Drake jogged to catch up with her, not even having the decency to be out of breath. “Stella Kringle lives at the North Pole, so I’m pretty sure she’s not in North Dakota.”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes.
Drake stopped walking, and Felix stopped too, making her have to stop. She glanced over her shoulder and found Drake studying her, his head tipped to the side in this cute I’m -trying-to-figure-you-out angle.
“What?” she looked down to make sure she didn’t have pecan syrup all over herself from breakfast.
“I just told you the name of one of Santa’s daughters and you didn’t so much as blink.”
“So?” she spat.
“So . . . that’s normally a conversation starter.”
He gave her a lopsided smile that made her heart flutter. She barely resisted pressing her hand over her ribs.
“I don’t want to talk about Santa or his daughters.” She folded her arms.
Felix turned his head:I want to talk about them.
“Sure thing.” Drake walked on the other side of the reindeer and the three of them started moving.
They were walking where there should be a sidewalk. Felix was antsy in his pen and needed exercise and to see the world. He wasn’t used to being in a box–one more reason he should not be at the ranch with Drake and his eighteen foot high chain link fencing. You know–if they had that. She didn’t know, and she certainly wasn’t going to ask.
“Santa, or Harvey, as we call him, has five daughters. Ginger and her husband, Joseph, are currently the ones delivering gifts on Christmas Eve. She’s smack dab in the middle of the five daughters and she wasn’t planning on being Santa.”
Felix cocked his head:Oh? Why not?
Clove caught herself doing the same head motion as her reindeer and jerked her chin back to neutral. She did not care about these people–elves? Wasn’t Santa a jolly old elf? She clamped her mouth tight, so the inquiry didn’t slip past her lips.
“Because everyone thought it would be the oldest daughter, Robyn.”
Robyn. Stella. Ginger. That’s three out of the five. She ran through possible names for the other two. Gumdrop? Rudolf? No, that was a reindeer. She hated herself for even thinking about this. She needed to zone Drake and his deep, captivating voice out completely.
She tried to think of a song to sing in her head, but all that came to mind was “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” This was so stupid.
