She grinned. “I bet the chrome will fit now. Shall we?”
He watched her out of the corner of his eye as they lifted the light-weight metal and put it in place. She hadn’t called him a thief, yelled at him for anything, or argued, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it.
She pressed her hip against it to help steady it. “Okay. I’ve got it. Can you screw it in?”
He jumped to work. He hadn’t had to ask her to hold it in place. She seemed to know what needed to be done. He put in four place-holder screws, as his dad called them, so she could let go. They held the weight of the sheet. She grabbed the container of screws and handed him one at a time as he went down the row of pre-drilled holes. “Thanks,” he said when they were done.
“You’re welcome. What’s next?” She closed the box and placed it on the shelf where a couple dozen other screw boxes resided in no particular order.
He scrubbed the back of his neck. “I hadn’t planned to get that far today.” He gave a self-depreciating chuckle and explained about Otis’s migraine.
“That’s too bad.” She tucked her fingers into her front pockets and lifted onto her toes. “Well, it’s not like there’s much to do at the B&B and I’m used to being active, so…”
Understanding how she felt about needing to move, to stay busy, he scrambled for something they could work on together. “Can you weld?”
She twisted her lips. “I’m not bad, but I’m no pro. It’ll look like a DIY project.”
“Hmm.” He couldn’t bring the trailer home in less than perfect shape. Pax would have his head. Then he’d take it all apart and put it back together again. Which would irk Drake to no end because Pax acted like he could do everything better than Drake.
He didn’t want to send Clove away, and he didn’t want to relegate her to the sidelines while he welded. There was something satisfying about working alongside her, like that was the way it was always meant to be.
The dog sled! He moved to that area of the workshop. “The cargo bed needs glue in all the connections. He grabbed the handles and shook the sled while Clove looked at the places where the wood dowels went into the frame. They were all loose.
“We need shims too.” She glanced up and their eyes met, that same energy growing between them that had sparked and sputtered to life on the stairs last night. He’d sworn her eyes had dropped to his lips and, for a brief moment, she’d leaned into him. Then she was gone like the Ghost of Christmas Past and he had goosebumps.
This time, distance tampered the wattage. If they’d been standing closer, his hands may have gone to her hips and his eyes to her lips and then he’d be pushing her up against the trailer and kissing her like he’d caught her under the mistletoe.
He looked up. Nope. No mistletoe. Otis hadn’t put up so much as a stocking out here. Not that most people decorated their diesel shop. Some did. His family did. Since three of his brothers got married, they hung mistletoe everywhere. He couldn’t muck out the stalls without ducking under the stuff.
“Drake?” she asked.
He jerked out of Christmas kissing thoughts and back to the drab interior and the problem before him. “Shims!” he said way too loudly. Spinning around so fast the world had to catch up with him, he went to the shelves and came back with a pack of small wood fillers. “I knew I saw them somewhere.”
They lifted the sled onto the worktable and each took a side of the sled to work on. Having something between them felt prudent.
After a few minutes of quiet, where they dipped the ends of their shims in the glue and then inserted them into the gaps, Clove cleared her throat. “How long has your family been taking care of reindeer?”
His hands paused. Her question surprised him. Up to this point, she’d blocked any and all efforts to talk about the ranch. He ducked his head, not daring to hope they’d turned a corner. “A long time. My dad took over when he was in his twenties. Grandma and Grandpa passed away the same year, and it was really hard on him. He married my mom that Thanksgiving and they’ve been there my whole life.”
She swiped extra glue off the sled and wiped it on a paper towel roll she found on the shelf under the table.
“What about you? How long have you been homesteading with your grandma?”
“Since I was eight.” She grabbed the finish hammer at the same time he did. He yielded it to her, though she didn’t yield the conversation to him. “How long have the reindeer been in North Dakota?”
He leaned over the top of the sled and cupped one side of his mouth. “You mean Santa’s reindeer?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
“As long as my family. And we go back several generations. I think it was in the 50s that the reindeer were put on the protected species list. We were grandfathered in at that point and the permits were automatic. Mom has to do a lot of paperwork to keep them, and we have inspections periodically.”
Her head came up. “Inspections?”
It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Nature conservationists and well-meaning activists think that the herd would be better off roaming free through the wilds of Alaska or something. They get a senator all worked up and he orders people out to the ranch to evaluate the level of care and attention we give to the reindeer.”
“Have you ever had a critical review?” She tucked her hair behind her small, delicate ear. It was rather perfect and her earlobe was blush pink.
He stopped staring. “Nope. Though they can’t fly, most of the reindeer are as full of personality as Felix. Officials and scientists fall in love with them and see how domesticated they are and don’t think they would do well against predators.”
