by Wendy Knight
“You just need a party dress, not a ball gown,” Kayne said. “And an escort. Which I—”
“What about the rest of the time? What else do we have to do?” Her voice rose several panicked octaves with every word.
Kayne grabbed her hands, holding them between his and rubbing them, as much to calm her as to warm them up so she didn’t get frostbite while she wasn’t paying attention. “The parade is Saturday at noon. You wear winter clothes. The winter carnival is right after until eight p.m. Two days later we hold a banquet for the Veterans Center.”
“Oh right. Yes,” Cleo said, nodding. The bright color in her cheeks was fading as she took slow breaths. “Okay.”
“We serve them dinner on the twenty-first. The ball is the twenty-third. And then you’re done.”
She closed her eyes. “Okay,” she whispered.
“You good?”
She nodded.
Her eyes flew open. “I don’t have an escort, Kayne. Where am I going to find an escort in three hours?”
“Kayne, are you escorting anyone?” Red asked, having appeared behind him like a ghost, her flaming red hair bright against the white sky.
He shook his head.
“Kayne, could you escort Cleo so she stops panicking?”
Kayne nodded.
“There you go, Cleo. You’re all set. I’ll watch Mozzie for a few hours. You go get ready. I’ll see you tonight.”
Cleo nodded numbly and stumbled away, patting Mozzie on the head and whispering something before she escaped from the yard.
Red beamed at him. “You’re welcome.”
Cleo smoothed the glittering, curve-hugging dress and bit her lip, eyeing herself in the community center’s mirror. She hadn’t seen any of the other royalty court, so she had no idea if she was dressed appropriately or not. She’d tamed her wild blond curls into something resembling old fifties style waves, and it had so far stayed in place.
Two of the other girls came in, heads bent together and laughing. Cleo tensed, waiting for their snub. They’d all gone to school together, although not the same year, but they’d both gone to the university in the city and only came home for winter break.
Like Kayne.
“Cleo! I love your dress,” one girl said, taking her shoulders and spinning her in a slow circle. Cleo had to think hard for her name, because the girl had been a year behind her in school. Rose. That was it. She had long dark curls and huge doe eyes and a smile that lit up the room.
“And your shoes are amazing. I can’t walk in heels,” the other girl said, sticking out her foot and her flat, sparkling shoe. “I hurt my ankle and heels are just not my friends. I’m Farrah. Do you remember me? We went to Huckleberry Falls High together.”
Cleo nodded, some of the tenseness melting from her shoulders. “Of course, I do. You both look amazing.”
Before they could respond, the door slammed open and Malen strode in. She was tall, with eyes and hair as dark as Kayne’s. “It’s time to go.”
Cleo had never liked Malen in high school. She’d hung all over Kayne despite how uncomfortable it had always made him. She’d been demanding and high strung and complained when Kayne spent time rescuing instead of being with her. She’d thrown a huge fit their senior year when Kayne had won homecoming king and she hadn’t been crowned queen. She’d locked herself in the bathroom all night, which had meant no one else could go in.
And Kayne had had to beg her to come out all night.
The impression had been made. Cleo couldn’t see her any other way.
Rose and Farrah hurried after her. Malen gave Cleo a long, inscrutable look before she turned and disappeared through the bathroom door. Cleo took a deep, shaking breath and straightened her spine. She might get laughed off the stage when everyone realized she was a joke and didn’t belong up there, but it was only five minutes. She could survive anything for five minutes.
Right?
She approached the door, her hand shaking as she reached for the handle. The low, angry murmur of voices stopped her before she could pull the door open more than a crack and she froze, unsure what to do.
“I can’t believe you’re her escort, Kayne. You told me you weren’t doing the pageant at all this year and next thing I know, you’re her escort? You’re throwing her in my face, Kayne Frost.”
“She needed an escort, Malen.”
“So did I!”
“You have an escort.”
“I wanted you as my escort. You told me no!”
The announcer called the court to the stage and Cleo whimpered under her breath. She was trapped in the bathroom. How was she supposed to get on stage without walking past them?
She couldn’t. So she made her presence known, instead. She closed the door, slammed into it, and stumbled backward, muttering loudly. Then she pulled it open. By then, Malen was scampering toward the stage and Kayne was pushing away from the wall, eyes wide. “Are you okay?”
Cleo straightened her dress again. “I was trapped in the bathroom. It’s fine.”
Kayne frowned but she grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the stage. “Let’s get this over with.”
Kayne chuckled low under his breath, almost smiling as he allowed himself to be dragged down the hall.
“It’s only five minutes,” she said as she climbed the steps toward the waiting court. “I can do anything for five minutes.”
“We have the question and answer game after,” Kayne said, leaning close to be heard over the crowd. “You knew that, right?”
Cleo whirled, squeaking unintelligibly. “What?”
“Cleo Klausse, escorted by Kayne Frost,” the announcer called.
Kayne looped her arm through his, settling her fingers in the crook of his elbow. He had somehow managed to find a tie that perfectly coordinated with her dress in the two hours she’d given him. His black dress shirt seemed to make his broad shoulders even broader and accentuated his dark good looks. If they hadn’t had such a weird frenemy relationship for so long, she would probably be swooning with the rest of the crowd.
And the crowd did love him. They roared when he and Cleo walked out on stage, so loudly that the announcer had to wait for the noise to die down so he could read their bios. Cleo barely heard any of it. Were they all laughing at her? Were they amazed that Kayne would even escort her? Were they all wondering what she was doing on stage?
She was. For sure. Her heart raced and her vision became blotchy as she struggled to breathe.
Panic attack.
Again.
“Just smile,” Kayne said under his breath. “Pretend they’re ferrets.”
Cleo broke into a smile despite herself. “Ferrets?” she gasped.
“You like ferrets.”
“I like people,” she said as she tried not to giggle. Kayne’s lips quirked and he winked at her.
“You like ferrets better. I see about a hundred ferrets. How many do you see?”
True that. From then on, Cleo couldn’t look out into the audience and see anything but furry little ferret heads. Her grip on his arm relaxed and she pried her fingernails from his sleeve as they made their rounds across the stage and then down to the front to stand with the other court members. “See? You survived.”
Cleo grimaced at him. “So far. How bad will the Q and A be?”
Kayne barely lifted a shoulder. “You can handle birds and waterlogged ferrets, you can handle a Q and A.”
Sure. Sure, she could.
The rest of the court was introduced, and they all waved and smiled until they were escorted to chairs on stage. The announcer, Bart, was the owner of the Huckleberry Falls Bed and Breakfast. He was one of the sweetest little old men Cleo had ever met, and his blue eyes still twinkled. He usually wore a felt hat pulled low over his ears, but for the pageant, his hair was combed neatly to the side and he wore his best Sunday clothes. He grinned at Cleo and she smiled in relief. At least there was one friendly, non-ferret face to focus on.
He started by hav
ing them all introduce themselves. Cleo sailed through that question and waited on pins and needles for her next one, wishing they could all be that easy.
Kayne, of course, charmed the crowd with his quiet confidence.
Bart asked them about their favorite colors, their favorite foods, their favorite animals. Cleo made the crowd laugh when she said anything but birds—they all knew she worked at the sanctuary. But then things got real.
“You’re all young adults in your prime,” Bart said, raking a hand through his white hair. The crowd laughed and Cleo joined them. Even Kayne cracked a rare, devastating smile. “What are your plans for the future? What are you doing to achieve those goals?”
Cleo’s heart stopped. They were free to answer or not answer whatever questions they wanted. She just hoped no one noticed that she didn’t answer this one.
Kayne went first, sitting close to Bart’s right. “I’m going to be a biologist. I want to help protect the environment and develop solutions to lessen our imprint. And I’m going to school in Scottsdale, Arizona to get my degree.”
The crowd clapped in appreciation. One by one, the others took their turn. Cleo sat quietly, hoping to be forgotten.
Malen did not forget. She leaned into her microphone, her dark hair falling over her shoulder. “Cleo Klausse, you haven’t had a chance to answer.”
Kayne sat across the stage, but she could see the quick, suspicious glance he gave Malen.
“That’s okay,” Cleo said quickly. “We’re running short on time.” Which wasn’t a lie, thank the heavens.
“No no,” Malen responded with sickening sweetness. “You have to answer. We’re all so curious why you aren’t doing anything with your life like the rest of us.” She laughed prettily, but no one joined her.
Cleo swallowed hard, her heart pounding so loudly in her ears she couldn’t hear anything else. “I—I—”
“Cleo is one of our best rescuers at the sanctuary,” Kayne said quickly. “It wouldn’t survive without her.”
She forced a smile, trying hard to keep the panicked tears from her voice. “I love my job at the sanctuary,” she said weakly, her voice wobbly. “I feel like that is where I need to be right now.”
Malen smiled, but there was no humor in her dark eyes. “How quaint.”
Bart wrapped it up after that and Cleo escaped from the stage while everyone else was greeting crowd members. Hot tears soaked her cheeks and ruined her mascara by the time she got to her Jeep. She kept hearing Malen’s voice over and over in her head while she drove aimlessly toward the mountains, seeking shelter that she couldn’t find at home.
We’re all so curious why you aren’t doing anything with your life like the rest of us.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“So, let me get this straight,” Kayne said as he trudged behind Cleo, carrying an ice pick. “We’re rescuing five fish from… their pond.”
Cleo nodded, her ponytail bouncing as she flitted through the snow. Snowflakes floated softly through the air, and the whole landscaped yard was hushed. It was Kayne’s favorite part of winter—and something he’d missed while he’d been in Arizona—the way the snow seemed to absorb the sound, giving everything an ethereal silence that somehow felt safe.
She hadn’t said a word about the night before, or about the thirty texts he’d sent her that she’d ignored, or the seven phone calls that she hadn’t returned. She hadn’t explained where she’d been all night because Kayne had driven past her house several times. When he’d asked if she was okay, she’d said she was fine with a too-bright smile and bounced away from him. He wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, but he got the hint.
She didn’t want to talk about it.
“The Lees thought the fish would be fine in the pond through the winter while they went to southern Utah because it would freeze the top and the Koi burrow into the sand at the bottom. But their neighbor said a raccoon broke through the ice when it didn’t freeze solid and is killing all the fish. We have to get the rest out and keep them safe until they come back in the spring.”
“We’re a babysitting service now?” Kayne asked, catching her as she toppled sideways. Cleo didn’t miss a beat, bouncing back to her feet.
“We rescue. Even fish.” She shuddered.
Kayne narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Are you afraid of fish, Cleo? I thought birds were your only weakness.”
She barely paused to glance over her shoulder at him before she was on her way again. “I am not fond of fish. But I am not afraid of fish either. They’re just… wiggly.”
“So are lizards and you didn’t bat an eye.” Kayne caught her arm as her feet slid out from under her.
She continued, hardly noticing, so focused on the pond ahead of them that she probably didn’t even realize he’d just saved her from face planting into the snow.
“This place is incredible,” she breathed, tromping unceremoniously through the six inches of fresh powder.
Kayne had been so focused on her and trying to keep her on her feet that he hadn’t acknowledged their surroundings. He paused to look up, blowing out a breath that froze and hung in the air. The house itself was fairly large, but not even as large as his parents’. The land around it, though, was truly magnificent. Huge pines towered above them, and manicured trails with raised garden beds on each side ran through the entire two acres of back yard. A pergola stood over a fire pit with rustic benches perched around it and the remains of summer vines still clinging to the lumber. Further along the trail, Kayne could see the pond. Since the property backed up to the mountain, it made sense that there would be wildlife nearby.
Not that raccoons cared about whether it was urban or wild. They made their homes wherever they pleased. He’d rescued enough of them to know.
Cleo jogged the rest of the way, murmuring a distracted “thanks” every time Kayne had to rescue her from the ice or the snow. She was miraculously still on her feet and mostly dry by the time she made it to the pond.
And dropped to her knees in the snow.
Kayne threw out the tarp and laid their stuff on it, staying as dry as possible. Cleo brushed snow away from the ice, peering through it with cupped hands like it was a fogged window. “I see the fish. Oh dang, they’re really big.”
Kayne could just see the orange glint of scales through the ice. They were big, which explained why they couldn’t burrow into the silt at the bottom of the pond and escape. The pond wasn’t deep enough for fish that big. “They must have been transplanted,” he said. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have grown like this.”
Cleo nodded, reaching for the ice pick. “Ready for this?”
Kayne nodded wordlessly. They made short work of the pond and the ice that wasn’t nearly thick enough to protect the fish, working from where the raccoons had already been breaking it away. Once they had a hole big enough to reach into, Cleo gulped. “Ready,” she said weakly.
She pulled her glove off. Her hand was scratched and covered with teeth marks. When Kayne raised an eyebrow, she smiled. “We’re making progress.”
Mozzie was definitely giving her a run for her money.
“Let’s fill the buckets first,” Kayne said. The fish needed their natural water in the transition. Otherwise, the abrupt change could kill them or at the very least, make them ill. Cleo nodded, relieved.
Kayne dipped the buckets one by one into the pond, even getting lucky and catching one of the koi in the process. But the rest were more clever or less curious and swam away.
“I think there are four more,” she said, biting her lip. Her face brightened and she beamed over at him. “Five golden fish!”
“What?” Kayne shrugged his coat off and rolled up his flannel shirt sleeve. He wasn’t afraid of fish or how slippery they were. He’d gone fishing with his dad and brothers often enough growing up that holding fish was second nature.
The cold water, though, was quite the shock, despite how prepared he thought he was for it.
“It’s the fifth day of
Christmas and we have five golden fish!” She giggled, pushing herself to her feet as he gritted his teeth against the icy depths.
Cleo moved the buckets for him so he could quickly deposit fish and reach for the next one. They ended up having to break more ice, and with each passing minute it seemed to get colder.
He wondered half-heartedly why he’d come home from Arizona for the winter.
Until Cleo squealed and dodged backward, nearly throwing the fish she’d just bravely caught. Kayne lunged forward, rescued the fish, and settled it in its bucket.
That was why.
And she would never know.
“That’s the last of them,” she gasped, shoving her hair out of her face with her shoulder, holding her wet hands out like they could infect the rest of her if she let them get close. “Now what?”
“Now we take the buckets back to the sanctuary and let Red deal with where they’ll sleep until spring,” he laughed.
Cleo nodded. “The owners of the property are paying her quite a donation for our trouble.”
“That’s a relief.”
The sanctuary did a lot of fundraising throughout the year, and Red had a lot of wealthy backers, but rescuing and feeding so many animals was costly.
Carrying buckets full of koi back to his truck across two acres of snow wasn’t the easiest thing Kayne had ever done, but it was much better for him than for Cleo. She only carried one, but she slipped and slid all over the place, almost splashing out all the water before they made it back to the front drive.
Somehow, even when she couldn’t stay on her feet, she still managed to keep the fish in the bucket.
Priorities.
He turned the heat on full blast as she climbed into the passenger seat, shivering. It was a while before her teeth stopped chattering and conversation was even possible.
“How’d Glacier do?” she asked, holding her hands toward the heater, where they shook violently and probably caught very little heat.