“This is the sun room,” she told the volunteers “There’s some food in that bag if anyone starves, there are some clean up items in case of— Whoops!” Ellie faked a laugh. “In case of an accident like that. Paper towels, pet safe disinfectant, and here is the door that goes out to the yard. It’s fenced, but it’s a wrought iron fence, and they might be able to get through it. Be careful. We want adoptions, not accidents.”
“Thanks, Ellie. We will get the dogs calmed down in a few minutes.”
Ellie hoped so and set the Christmas music to sound through the house, hoping it would calm the dogs down. She decided against Chipmunks. That might trigger someone’s hunting instincts. She didn’t want that.
The doorbell rang again a few minutes after she put the cookies and hot chocolate out in the dining room. Another tray went in the family room and she hurried to the door over the barking. Would they settle down? They had to. Where had Luke gone?
“I’m your host,” a young man, who looked about fifteen, said. “I’m Colin, and manning the door and sending people in with the flyers we printed up.”
Oh good, for some reason she’d thought she’d be doing door duty but was just as glad she didn’t have to. Flustered was not a good look on her. She needed to calm down. And where was Luke? Why was she being flooded with all these emotions? She didn’t like it. This was her perfect day.
“Perfect,” she said. “What do you need?”
“A floor mat for wet feet. It’s starting to snow and there will be a lot of boots,” he said, looking down at the spotless tile and she knew soon her house would be covered in muddy boot tracks. Who cared? Floors washed, right? Right.
Was it snowing? She felt a flash of happiness. That would be perfect for a Christmas walk. Lucky her to live in a town called Blizzard at Christmas time! Another perfect!
She popped into the kitchen to get the marshmallows for the cocoa, heard the doorbell ring again, and Colin say, “Welcome to Allen House, one of our historic homes. Here is a little information to help you while you tour. Help yourselves to cookies, cocoa and coffee in the dining room.”
She heard that repeated about fifteen times in the next hour, wondering where Luke went while she flitted about, chatting to people, talking about the house, filling hot chocolate and coffee cups, and making sure they got discarded properly. Filling the dogs’ water bowls a few times, she kept watching them. There were so many, and they were so large and some of the handlers seemed so young. Capable, she told herself. They were very capable.
The doorbell kept ringing, making the dogs bark, repeatedly. Wouldn’t they get tired of barking? Colin was right there, moving people through the house, why did they have to ring the bell? Where was Luke?
An hour or so later, Ellie took a deep breath and walked to the front door to see how Colin was handling things. Smiling at him, she asked, “Need anything? Can I get you something?”
He looked at her a little pained and whispered, “I’m sorry, I need to use the bathroom. Too much coffee this morning.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “You know where it is, I’ll do the door till you get back.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’ll hurry.”
“Just go.” Ellie laughed and opened the door for the next group of people. “Welcome to Allen House! Come on in. Cookies and cocoa in the next room. Just follow the—” Suddenly there was a burst of barking. Then dogs. So many dogs. Out here. And people shrieking. And crashing noises. And where was Luke?
Where were the dogs’ people? Oh, chasing. She stood, staring as people either tried to grab running dogs or ran from running dogs which made running dogs chase them. Dogs barked. People shouted. Then things started breaking. How did the dogs get loose? All of them at the same time?
“The chocolate pot!” someone shouted. Great. Chocolate on the new rug.
“No! NO! Not the tree!”
“Watch out! Grab him!”
Ellie just stood at the front door and listened. Waited. And there went the crash. Her brain saw the tree on the floor, the ornaments crashing, tree water everywhere, that dogs and people were running through and tracking everywhere. Where was Luke?
She took a deep breath and tried to exude calm. Her abilities hadn’t been very strong lately and failed her badly now because no one was calm. No one. Not even her, but she needed to be. Getting upset would not help and who was going to catch these dogs? Someone needed to!
“Stormy!” she said, catching sight of her as she dashed by. “How can I help?”
“Shut doors!” Stormy said. “Keep them inside. We will get them! I don’t know what happened!”
How many were loose... And there went another tree. Two trees down and her hot chocolate pot and “NO! Bad dog!”
Another crash. The Rudolph set. Running in to try and save the scene, she heard the doorbell ring again as another group just came in. No, just no. Where were her elf powers and why were these dogs loose and how much chaos was there? No, this could not be happening on her perfect day!
Ignoring the dogs who seemed to be ignoring her, and everyone human, she ran around, checking on damage. Three trees down. Chocolate all over the rug. Cookie crumbs everywhere. People shouting. People screaming. Running and grabbing futility at things that had twice as many legs as they did. That never worked. She didn’t dog, but even she knew screeching and tackling would not catch things.
“Oh, this must be the parlor,” an elderly voice hit her ears. But then, there was a cacophony of dogs barking and people yelling and things crashing.
Ellie did the sensible thing. She took a deep breath, and slipped out the front door. Humans. She was so over them, so done. The man she wanted left her when she needed him. The rest of them... ran around like fools, chasing and yelling. Did she want any part of that? No.
In the back of her mind, she realized she should go back in and help corral dogs. Clean up broken glass. Put the trees back up. There was another hour of walk today and all day tomorrow and she just couldn’t. No. She was done.
Shaking her curls, she wished she’d grabbed a coat; the cold still was not among her favorite things. But cold it was, and she’d have to deal. Ellie put her head down and walked away as fast as she could, she wondered why she was here. Luke left when he knew she needed him. He hadn’t even told her he was leaving. He was just gone. She messed up on the biggest day of her human life. The house had to be trashed by now. His house. And no perfect cuddle time on the couch tonight because Luke wasn’t there. Oh, and someone would have to clean up all night. She shivered and suddenly noticed how hard it was snowing. It felt like a blizzard. It was blizzarding in Blizzard. Why did she not think that was funny? Because it wasn’t!
She was done being a human. She had failed. She didn’t get the guy. She didn’t achieve the perfect Christmas walk, the perfect Christmas season. She should just go home before things got worse. All she wanted was to make things perfect for Luke. It didn’t happen.
Realizing she never asked how to go home, she walked down the street, shivering in the snow. Where was her coat? Why could she not even see anymore? Too much snow. What was she going to do? She couldn’t human. Humans were hard. Humans yelled.
Humans had too many emotions.
Humans spanked.
Humans loved. Where was her human?
“I’m right here.” His voice in the snow. She could barely see him, shaking so hard from the cold, but she heard him. How did he know?
“I don’t know how I knew, I don’t know how I know. But, Ellie, I can’t do this without you. Can you be with me forever?” He dropped down on one knee in the swirling snow while she shook with cold. Holding her would be better than knee dropping and... What? What was he asking?
“Ellie,” his voice coaxed, “please say yes.” He grabbed one of her frozen hands and she almost felt something slide on her finger. “I love you. Marry me? Please?”
Ellie took a deep breath and everything went black.
“I told you things wo
uld be fine.” She smiled at him.
“Oh, did you now? That isn’t quite how I remember it.” He pulled her close to him and kissed her.
“Do they have to forget?” she asked.
“How would you like to be reminded daily you were human?” he said, kissing her cheek.
She laughed. “What a silly man you are! I was always an elf. I was never human!”
“Oh, that’s right.” He kissed her again and brushed back her bouncing curls. “What was I thinking?”
“It’s Christmas. You’re busy. I forgive your lapse.” She kissed him back and said, “I can’t wait for Christmas to be over. I want to go to Paris this year.”
Where you grew up, he thought. Then, “I will take you anywhere you want to go. Maybe we can stop in Blizzard on our way home.”
“I’d like that.”
He knew that.
Luke walked out his door, glad the Christmas season was over. He was ready for the new year. It had been too full and too rushed and he felt as if he didn’t get much holiday magic from it. A lot of work and just work. Decorating his house for the Christmas walk wasn’t too bad, there had been a team to come in and handle that, thanks to the Historical Society realizing he had just moved in and needed some help. They took things down yesterday and his house felt a little barren and cold. It took him a while to get up to speed on his new job. Doing the same thing in a new office with new people and new procedures was still challenging, but he felt better about the way things were running now. That made him proud. Looking around, he smiled. He liked his new neighborhood, full of old historic houses. He liked even more that his depression had eased over the holidays. He’d really expected it to double down, but he felt better than he had since his wife had passed.
Tomorrow would be the start of a new year and he couldn’t wait to see what it held for him.
Walking toward the garage, Luke saw someone waving at him from the driveway next door.
“Hello?” he said to the small female standing next to a car with an open hood.
“Hi! I’m Elenore, your new neighbor and I guess my battery is dead? Any chance you could give me a quick jump?”
For some reason, looking into her bright blue eyes, jumping her was all he wanted to do. She felt familiar. “Do I know you?”
“Oh, I don’t know how you could. I just moved here from up north. The new restaurant at the edge of town hired me to be their executive chef.” She barely looked big enough to bus tables, much less be in charge of a kitchen.
“Nice to meet you, Elenore. I’m Luke,” he said.
“You can call me Ellie.” She flashed him a smile and he felt the earth shift on the axis just a little when her dimples popped out.
“Welcome to the neighborhood, Ellie. I’ll be happy to help you.”
“I’ll be sure to return the favor,” she said.
The End.
Megan McCoy
His Christmas Elf is part of Megan’s South Dakota Dreams series. Megan McCoy lives in the heartland of America, surrounded by corn, soybean fields and hot guys on tractors. At home, she’s raising kids, Chinese Cresteds, and poodles, training them all with a tender hand and heart, while saving her sternness for the alpha males in her books. Getting up at three in the morning to write, leaves her time for a few hobbies – gardening, canning, bike riding, bread baking and taking in strays.
Visit her website at: www.meganmccoy.com
Facebook: meganmccoybooks
Twitter: @meganmccoybooks
Don’t miss these exciting books by Megan McCoy and Blushing Books!
Her Choice series
His Firecracker
The Dilemma
The City GirlHer Choice, Always
Her Choice Forever
South Dakota Dreams series:
Stormy’s Trouble
Talia’s Time
Wynter’s Waif
Wynter’s Wife (12 Naughty Days of Christmas 2017)
Sailor’s Search
His Christmas Elf (12 Naughty Days of Christmas 2018)
Along Came Jones Series:
Sebastian
Hank
Logan and Ronnie
Single Titles:
Two Weeks of Joy
An Old-Fashioned Relationship
Hard Wired Desires
Audio-Books:
An Old-Fashioned Relationship
Lord Leaping’s Christmas Ball
A Bawdy Tale of Joining Giblets
Susann Oriel
Part I
The 23rd of December, 1853 marked a very important date for Lady Cassandra Worthingstone of Hawtry House in the county of West Sussex. For today was her nineteenth birthday, an age she had eagerly awaited for some time. Indeed, she wore the date quite literally about her young neck in the form of an etched gold heart on a long chain, tucked low in her bodice so that when she moved, she could forget neither its presence nor its significance. For according to the terms of her late mother’s will, Lady Cassandra had reached her coming of age, whereupon she had received her trust fund. She was now a young woman of both means and independence.
To celebrate her new status, Lady Cassandra had decided to attend Lord Leaping’s annual Christmas Ball. Furthermore, she had decided to acquire Lord Leaping himself to take instruction in the art of lovemaking. She was considered the best beauty in the county, could ride like the wind, suffered no ailments, and she was of the nobility. Procuring Lord Leaping’s services for an hour or two would not be a difficult task considering her assets and his notoriety as the biggest rake in England.
She was also betrothed. While she had no particular wish to marry anyone, her father, Horatio Worthingstone, the Viscount Hawtry, disagreed. Although he loved his daughter dearly, he feared for her virtue, so had found her a potential husband in the form of Sir Rupert Swan, the son of a business associate. Lady Cassandra had never met Sir Rupert but had already decided he must be a bore. Fortunately, he did not seem to want a practising wife any more than she wanted a husband. Sir Rupert – an Englishman of twenty-seven years – had proposed by letter, sent from a strange-sounding place on the Indian subcontinent where he managed his many tea plantations. Naturally, she would have declined a long distance proposal, but for the fact that Sir Rupert had the fourth biggest bank account in England. Moreover, he intended to spend ten months of every year away from the home country with no expectation that she would join him. All he asked in return was that she reside in his manor and produce him an heir. For Lady Cassandra, the arrangement could not be more agreeable.
In preparation for her upcoming nuptials, Cassandra had taken the unusual step of losing her virginity. The thought of lying with a fumbling new husband while still intact would not do in her practical mind. For all she knew, Sir Rupert might be an excellent lover and possess the stamina of an ox, but he could also fall short of expectations. As marriage did not come with an instruction manual, the whole thing posed risk. After all, sex was a serious business and without experience, she could not know if Sir Rupert was doing it right. Worse, she might need to instruct him.
Unfortunately, her attempts to acquire lovemaking knowledge had so far been a failure. She’d taken her father’s best stable hand – a dull, thickset man who seemed to think she should be ridden at full gallop like a filly on its first outing around the track. Left unsatisfied, sore and still untutored, she had then allowed an eager, well-bred young swain to court her with more than poetry, but he’d lasted mere seconds. As she could not afford to find herself with a bastard child and no husband, it had become clear to Cassandra that she needed to take guidance from the crème-de-la-crème of lovers by way of Antony Leaping, the ninth Earl of Rootham. She knew of him solely by reputation, as did her father, which explained why he had never allowed her to meet the earl or attend his Christmas balls. But now that she was safely betrothed, her father was happy to escort her to the grandest event on the year’s social calendar. Cassandra was completely confident that by evening’s end, she w
ould have her knowledge.
With this thought in mind, Lady Cassandra passed her snow-covered ermine cape to a waiting attendant, attached herself to her father’s arm and swept into the glittering ballroom of the Leaping ancestral home, Rootham Castle. As she proceeded through the assemblage, Cassandra was only too aware of the many pairs of eyes admiring her from the top of her fair, ornately arranged curls to the tips of her satin slippers, peeping from beneath her gown.
The Dowager Countess, Lady Beatrice Leaping, welcomed them. “Christmas greetings, Lord Hawtry. We are honored to have you here in such inclement weather. I do hope the journey did not prove too arduous.”
Cassandra’s father bent his head in greeting. “Not at all, Lady Beatrice. It is most pleasant to attend once again.”
The countess’ cool green gaze fell on Cassandra. “And this must your lovely daughter.”
“It is. Cassandra has recently become betrothed so this will be her final ball as an unmarried woman.”
Cassandra politely bobbed to the dowager countess, mother of Lord Leaping. At forty-eight, Lady Beatrice was still a beauty and like Cassandra, had golden curls worn high on her head. There, any similarity ended. After the death of her husband five years ago, the countess had put herself in black and been there ever since. Indeed, the county surmised the poor woman would never wear color again. Cassandra thought it a waste to confine oneself to interminable dreariness. If Sir Rupert should die before her, and frankly, she hoped he would, her widow weeds would scarcely be out of mothballs before returned to storage. Her own gown, a daringly low cut, tightly laced bodice above a voluminous skirt of blue satin, matched her eyes and her new pink shawl was draped low to display her pale, slender back. Other than her gold heart, she wore no adornment for the simple reason that tonight she did not want to lose her precious jewelry in the sheets during the hurly-burly of intercourse.
12 Naughty Days of Christmas 2018 Page 61