by Zoe Chant
The walls and ceiling of the attic space were glistening with water. What Abigail had thought was the stickiness of an unwashed floor was more water, soaking through the floorboards. “Hell,” she muttered.
“It looks worst in that corner.” Jasper pointed. He frowned, swearing under his breath. “I’d guess the roof’s been damaged—”
“—But no one’s noticed, because the Santa mannequin’s covering it up. Heat rises through the shop, melts the snow on the roof display… and it drips straight through.” Abigail bit the inside of her cheek. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit. How long has it been like this?”
Jasper knelt down and reached one hand out to the floor. He gave a particularly dark patch an experimental thud. It sounded like a rotten squash. “Long enough for this wood to be spongy.”
“If we’d been standing half a foot farther left, we might have fallen through,” Abigail whispered. Her stomach went tight and cold.
“Abigail—” Jasper stood up carefully and put his arm around her waist. “I think we should go down now.”
He made her go down first. Abigail ran her hands along a few of the rungs as she hurried down. She’d thought the aluminum ladder was cold, when she was climbing it earlier— now she noticed the droplets of water. Not condensation. Melted snow.
She clenched her fists as she stepped off the ladder, and glanced up. Jasper was following her, but she couldn’t wait for him. She had to check the other rooms.
“Shit.”
By the time Jasper found her she was standing on the desk in Mr. Bell’s office, testing the ceiling. Plaster came away in damp clumps at her touch. She met his eyes.
“It’s not just the attic.” Abigail groaned as she clambered down from the desk. “The display must be too heavy for the roof. Maybe the tiles have cracked, or someone hammered nails into something they shouldn’t have, but… the whole ceiling’s soaking. How the hell did no one notice this?”
Guilt twisted inside her faster than she could push it back. You should have noticed something. You know Mr. Bell doesn’t pay attention to regulations. You have to look after yourself. You, you, you—
Abigail pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, willing the voice to go away. “We should go outside,” she muttered. “I don’t feel safe here, knowing the roof’s holding that much water.”
She put her head down and hurried through the door, past Jasper. He put his hand on her lower back and kept pace with her as they descended the stairs to the ground floor. Abigail tried not to flinch. She knew he meant it as a comfort, but the discovery of the leaking roof had left her wound so tight she thought she might crack.
And it was Christmas Eve tomorrow. And if the roof was really bad, if Mr. Bell had to shut the shop…
She squeezed her eyes shut as she pushed through the external door into the alleyway. Cold air bit at her face. If the shop’s shut… what the hell am I meant to do tomorrow?
Jasper turned her around to face him. She tried to get her face under control— God knew all her time in retail meant she could do that, at least— but he must have sensed her distress. Concern flooded his ember-warm eyes.
“It’s not your fault, Abigail. You can’t be blamed for not noticing it until now— none of your colleagues did either, right? And if you’re worried about what your boss might say about you poking around after hours, hell, he must know it’s a good thing we found the leak. Better now than when the shop’s full of customers.”
Abigail shook her head. “I’m not worried about that. I—” She wrapped her arms around herself as the cold night air bit into her, and began to gnaw on the inside of her cheek again. Now that she’d had a few minutes to think, she wasn’t worried about Mr. Bell being angry at no one noticing the leak until now. The shop was so crazy this time of year, no one had time to breathe, let alone look up. And even if they had noticed any random drips, they probably would have assumed it was just customers tracking snowmelt into the store and flinging it around.
No. That wasn’t the problem.
She groaned, biting down on her cheek. “It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow. I’m meant to work all day. But this…”
“Hey.” Jasper cupped her face in his hands. He tapped her cheek with his thumb until she stopped biting it. “So you might have a day off. Would it really be that bad?”
Yes. Abigail clenched her jaw shut before the word could get out.
Jasper was amazing, but tomorrow was Christmas Eve. He’d want to spend it with his family, not her. And she couldn’t wait around at home all day, with nothing to do. She couldn’t.
She took a deep breath. Best case scenario, the shop was fine. They would open in the morning as usual. Double shift, no time off. Maybe she could even put in some extra hours cleaning up the upper floor.
Worst case scenario…
“I need to call my boss,” she said stiffly, shoulders knotting. Jasper was holding her still, but his touch wasn’t relaxing her like it did before. Instead, she could feel herself prickling. And every time she thought about tomorrow, it got worse.
Jasper’s voice interrupted her crackling, unhappy thoughts. “Tell me what I can do.”
He stared deep into her eyes. There wasn’t any subterfuge in his gaze. He wasn’t fidgeting to leave, or hiding impatience at their make-out session being interrupted by a flooded roof-space.
Which made what Abigail had to say even harder. “I need you to leave.” She choked the words out.
Jasper moved his hands to her shoulders. For a moment, he didn’t speak. Then he tightened his grip. A muscle in his jaw tensed. “I’m not going to leave you to deal with this by yourself.”
“Well, too bad. You have to.” An icy wind whistled down the alleyway. Abigail pulled away from Jasper, buttoning her jacket up higher around her neck. “This— this was a bad idea. All of it. And I can’t deal with you being here right now, on top of everything else. Please.”
Jasper reached out to her— and then closed his fist, and thrust both hands into his jacket pockets. Was it her imagination, or was he shaking?
He was cold. That must be it. They were both freezing out here, wet from the attic and chilled by the wind.
“You should go home,” she said. The words came out harsher than she meant, and she winced. She should be growling at herself, not him. She didn’t really want him to go. Or, since he had to, she wished he would go to her apartment, and be waiting for her when she got home.
She opened her mouth and her throat went dry. She couldn’t say it. Not now, not with everything else that was happening.
“You want me to go.” Jasper’s voice was hollow.
Abigail couldn’t speak. She nodded, her neck stiff and Jasper let out a sharp breath. For a moment, he looked as though he was about to say something else— then he shuddered and strode past her, stumbling slightly on the rubbish-strewn ground.
Abigail wished the ground would swallow her. She turned after Jasper as he marched away, like a flower turning hopelessly towards the sun. “Jasper, I—”
At the end of the alleyway, Jasper stumbled, steadied himself on the nearest wall— and didn’t look back. In the space between one heartbeat and another, he was gone.
She watched the space where he had been, ice forming around her heart. Her vision swam.
He left.
Her breath caught and suddenly she couldn’t hear anything but her pulse, pounding like a drum in her ears. She covered her face with her hands and forced herself to breath slowly.
She had to call Mr. Bell. That was the important thing, here. Call Mr. Bell, and hope like hell the shop would be open tomorrow.
That was the most important thing. Wasn’t it?
CHAPTER 12
Jasper
The curse shook him like a terrier with a rat. Jasper clutched at his dragon, trying desperately to hold onto it— but the shuddering power that took hold of him was too strong.
He was going to shift. Either that, or— No!
Scales crackled out of
his skin. Jasper hissed and pushed them back. Pushed his dragon down, and held it, even as the shaking became almost too much for him to bear.
He couldn’t see where he was going. The street spun around him, colored lights lurching sickeningly.
I have to get out of town. No one can see—
Jasper cried out as another soul-wrenching shudder gripped him. He ran. When the lights turned into shadows, and the right angles of buildings turned into the curves and sharp edges of snow and rock, he let go.
Jasper’s dragon burst out of him. His claws dug into the snow, screeching on hard rock, and then he was airborne, the icy wind billowing under his wings. He flew.
He gained height quickly, flying strong, wings battering the air. The mountains swung below him, cold and remote. The peaks and valleys of his childhood. The dragon knew every one of them, every hidden cave and secret ice-melt stream. His territory. His home. Except— who was he? The dragon, or the man?
The dragon screamed into the night. Jasper screamed with it, and the sound seemed to shock him awake.
He was still there. He was still himself. This was just a shift. Like he’d done tens of thousands of times before.
There… Twinkling lights filled a valley, like someone had spilled jewels into the mountain and they had trickled down the slopes to pool together in one beautiful, glimmering pile. Pine Valley. A hundred thousand lights, a thousand human souls— and one of them called to him, so sweet and so longing that his heart ached with being apart from her.
His mate was down there. Abigail. Sweet, prickly, beautiful— and she had sent him away.
His dragon screamed again as he remembered how she had pulled away from him. All he’d wanted was to hold her, help her. He would have stayed out of the way while she called her manager, but she didn’t want that. Didn’t want him. She had pushed him away— she had—
The dragon was huge, and powerful, but its soul ran on instinct. Deep inside it, Jasper’s human self frowned. He knew there was more to what had just happened than simple rejection.
But the dragon was in charge now. When he was in human form, he’d ignored his dragon’s desire to fly away with Abigail, and now it was too late. The dragon’s fiery soul was cracking. Whatever his human self had to say was lost in the dragon’s roar.
Jasper turned away from the glittering town, and flew into the night.
CHAPTER 13
Abigail
Abigail’s chest ached.
Mr. Bell had responded to her call with all the frenzied speed of a person determined to find someone else to blame for the situation. He had bustled up in record time, puffed full of disbelief that the situation was as bad a she had described, and more than ready to tear her down for wasting his time. When he saw the water dripping down the walls and ceiling, his eyes had narrowed to angry slits.
Then, to her surprise, he’d clambered up into the crawlspace himself to see where the water was coming in. His discovery that the nephew he’d employed to set up the Christmas display had attached it by driving nails through the roof had stoked his fury to boiling point— but he hadn’t directed it at Abigail.
Instead, Mr. Bell had clapped her on the shoulder, and actually thanked her for reporting the problem.
She watched him stump off, feeling like her insides had been scooped out. He hadn’t yelled at her. He hadn’t even growled. She’d been ready for either— both— waiting on edge for the situation to devolve into painful accusations and recriminations.
But… nothing. And instead of feeling relieved, Abigail felt sick. She had freaked out for nothing. Jasper probably thought she was a psycho, and he was right.
What the hell was wrong with her?
She wrapped her arms around herself and hurried out into the square. It was past two in the morning, and town was empty; even most of the Christmas lights had been switched off. If she squinted, she could pretend it was only the streetlights illuminating the cold square. Pretend that it wasn’t Christmas at all.
Abigail stuffed her hands deeper into her pockets. There was no sign of Jasper.
Like you really thought he’d stick around, she berated herself. It had been an hour since she told him to leave. Why the hell would he have stayed? Face it. You ruined this, just like you ruin everything.
Her fingers brushed against something deep in her coat pocket. Her cell phone. For just a moment, she considered calling him. They had exchanged numbers that morning.
God, was it only this morning? Abigail shook her head. It felt like eternity ago. That’s what happens when you screw everything up. The world splits into before— and after, when you can’t change anything.
She left her phone in her pocket, telling herself there was no point calling him; he was probably halfway back to his family’s home by now.
Abigail shivered as a lingering drop of snowmelt made its way down her neck. She sighed. The real reason she wasn’t calling him was that she was afraid. She’d driven him away; what if he didn’t even pick up the phone?
Better not to know, than to confirm that he didn’t want anything to do with her.
* * *
24 DECEMBER
CHRISTMAS EVE
For the first few moments after she woke up, Abigail didn’t know what was wrong. Then she rolled over and opened her eyes.
Oh.
She was alone in bed. That was it.
Abigail sat up, blinking until her eyes cleared. Her alarm was blaring, and she turned it off, resisting the urge to throw it across the room.
She’d only woken up with Jasper beside her three times. And she’d known the whole time, every minute of every day, that it was going to end badly. And now it had. So why was she so upset?
Jasper’s face flashed into her mind. The look in his eyes when she told him to leave, like she’d slapped him. The way he’d marched off, not even looking back at her, as though he was desperate to get away from her.
Bitterness rose up in her throat. Of course he wouldn’t look back. Not after the way you talked to him. He probably thinks you’re a psycho. Freaking out about your stupid workplace—
Her skin flushed cold. The shop. She gritted her teeth and fisted her hands so hard her knuckles went white, trying to force the wave of anxiety back. See? Freaking out. Like a psycho.
Abigail took a deep breath, reminding herself that she had called Mr. Bell after Jasper left. You mean, after you drove him away. She winced.
She quickly checked her phone. No messages. Nothing from Mr. Bell, which meant she should hurry and get in to work as usual.
And nothing from Jasper.
She waited until she had herself mostly under control, and then stomped through to the bathroom and turned the shower on. The water blasted against her head and shoulders, knocking her thoughts even further out of order.
Nothing about this is a surprise. You knew it wasn’t going to last, and you knew you were going to be the reason it all fell to pieces. So just deal with it. You know what to do. Back into the routine. Back to work. Forget all about—
Abigail banged her forehead against the shower wall. Damn it, damn it, damn it…
By the time she stepped out of the shower, skin stinging from the hot water, her mind was a boiling fog of unhappiness. Her only saving grace was that with no message from management, she had to assume work was open. If the shop was closed today… hell, she didn’t know what she would do.
She took a deep breath. “As if Mr. Bell would ever close the store on Christmas Eve,” she reassured herself. Her voice sounded thin in the steaming bathroom and she shook her head. Christmas was their top sales month. Even if the roof completely disintegrated, Mr. Bell would have her and Carol hand-selling mass-produced knick-knacks from the side of the road. It was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine.
Except her and Jasper. Which she shouldn’t even be upset about. She’d only known him for a few days. It wasn’t a big deal. Shit.
As she scrubbed herself dry, something caught the corner
of her eye. Abigail sighed. Part of her was glad of the distraction, but part of her…
“Why didn’t I throw you away that first night?” she grumbled at the kitten plushie she had “rescued” from the shop roof the night she met Jasper. It was sitting on top of the washer, which was pushed into an out-of-the-way corner while it wasn’t in use.
A gentle cycle in her washer, a few days drip-drying in the shower and half an hour under her hairdryer had somehow made it look even more pathetic. Its fur was fluffy, but its stuffing had shrunk, giving it a floppy, depressed look. Plus, it still only had the one eye… and she hadn’t gotten around to sewing its leg back on.
Abigail’s stomach flipped over as she wondered briefly if Jasper had seen it one of the nights he’d been here— God, that would have been embarrassing.
She shook herself. As if that matters now. You’re probably never going to see him again.
She pulled her clothes on quickly. The toy should have gone straight in the garbage. She didn’t know what she was thinking, trying to fix it up. She snatched it up and marched back through to the kitchenette.
Abigail paused, holding the kitten plushie over the garbage bin. One bead-eye glittered back at her. Her chest twisted.
“Damn it,” she muttered, and threw the toy onto the countertop. It skidded to stop next to her handbag. “I can’t even throw out a stupid toy? What the hell is wrong with me?”
She checked the clock. Half an hour to opening… if the shop was going to open again. Anxiety gnawed at her stomach.
* * *
“What do you mean, the shop isn’t opening today?”
Abigail pulled her scarf tighter around her neck, trying to block out the icy wind that was whipping through the town square. Mr. Bell huffed at her, his white cloud of breath racing away on the air. He gestured up at the shop, where bright DO NOT CROSS streamers had been plastered over the Christmas tinsel.