by Teri Wilson
A fair bit. Lord, please don’t let it be even more than a thousand dollars. “How much do they eat? A thousand dollars is a lot of money.”
He shrugged. “You’ve got a lot of reindeer.”
Zoey grew very still. The snowflakes swirling around them seemed to move in slow motion. “I do?”
At long last, Alec Wynn smiled—a slight lift of one corner of his lips. It was the subtlest of gestures, but just lethal enough to uncurl a ribbon of dread in Zoey’s belly. “Yes, ma’am. You certainly do.”
* * *
Alec watched the color drain from Zoey’s face. The pink in her wind-kissed complexion faded right before his eyes.
“How many, exactly?” she asked.
There was really no way to sugarcoat it. And anyway, Alec believed in telling things like they were. “Thirty.”
“Thirty?” she echoed. She exchanged a glance with her friend—Anya, if Alec remembered correctly—who’d been watching their exchange with what appeared to be keen interest. “Thirty!”
“Give or take,” he added.
Zoey’s gaze narrowed. She had lovely eyes. If Alec had been the romantic sort—and he most definitely was not—they probably would have reminded him of the moss-covered Sitka spruce trees that shaded the Olympic Forest back in Washington. “You mean, you don’t know?”
“Of course I know.” He lifted an irritated brow. “It’s thirty. Usually. Palmer, one of the boys, keeps escaping. When he decides to grace us with his presence, it’s thirty-one.”
Anya snickered, failing in her obvious attempt not to laugh. “Zoey, you’ve inherited a rogue reindeer.”
Zoey’s mouth fell open. “This really isn’t funny. What am I supposed to do with thirty-sometimes-thirty-one reindeer?”
Alec felt as if he should comfort her or something, which was ludicrous. What was he supposed to say? Sorry about your charmed life, sweetheart.
She looked as though she might faint dead away. He really hoped she didn’t. His last attempts to revive someone hadn’t worked out so well. Then again, that shouldn’t have come as a shock. Sometimes it seemed as if everything he touched turned to ruin. Why should Alaska be any different?
All he’d wanted was a fresh start. He’d been looking for a new beginning all his life. Was that really too much to ask?
Apparently so.
He’d driven his bike more than two thousand miles in four days to get here, only to find himself holding the lifeless body of Gus Henderson within a day of his arrival.
He balled his hands into fists and pounded them against his thighs in an effort to shake off the memory. As bad as things in his life had been—and they’d been plenty bad—he’d never held a dying man in his arms before. It wasn’t an event he cared to repeat. Ever.
“Zoey, take a deep breath. Everything is going to be fine.” Anya wrapped an arm around Zoey’s shoulders. “Why don’t I call the lawyer and see if we can get to the bottom of this?”
Zoey gave a robotic nod. “That sounds good. Thank you.”
“His number is on the paper work in the car. I’ll go give him a call. Alec, it was nice meeting you. Welcome to Alaska.” Anya waved at him and headed toward the SUV parked on the edge of the street.
Relief, mixed with a healthy dose of annoyance, had washed over Alec when he’d first spotted the unfamiliar vehicle. The new owner had shown up. Finally. For nearly a week, he’d been muddling his way through things until someone who knew what they were doing decided to join him.
Alec glanced at Zoey Hathaway standing beside him. Clearly, she didn’t know the first thing about reindeer. He couldn’t help but wonder about her relationship with Gus. Judging by the shock etched on her delicate features, she’d never set foot on the ranch before. It should have seemed strange for a student to inherit her flight instructor’s property like this. Should have, but didn’t. Not really. Zoey seemed exactly like the sort of person who skipped through life as though it were a cakewalk.
She was pretty. Long, silky blond hair...and those luminous green eyes. Even out here where the temperature dipped below twenty degrees, she was perfectly put together. She wore fur-trimmed boots, black leggings and a cheery red parka. Her winter hat was also red, decorated with—irony of ironies—prancing reindeer.
Everything about her was sweet. Too sweet. Like the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus all rolled into one perky package.
And now she was his boss.
The very idea gave him a headache.
It wasn’t a cruel enough twist of fate that he’d ended up on a reindeer farm? Four weeks before Christmas? The ad he’d answered on Craigslist for a ranch hand never mentioned reindeer. Granted, the work was in Alaska. But he’d expected horses. Or elk. Not Rudolph.
How did a boy who’d never had a Christmas tree, never sat on Santa’s knee, grow into a man who lived on a reindeer farm in Alaska?
He pushed the thought away. He was here now, so he might as well deal with it. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not without the money he was owed. “Shall I show you?”
Zoey snapped out of her daze and blinked up at him. “The reindeer?”
“Yes. Would you like to see them?”
She nodded. “Very much.”
With a flick of his wrist, he cranked the motorcycle to life. “Hop on.”
“On that thing?” She frowned at the bike.
“We’re driving all of fifty feet. You’re not scared, are you?” He offered her his helmet.
She jerked it out of his hand. “Please. Of course not.”
He watched her as she removed her hat and replaced it with the helmet. It was far too big. Alec did his best to suppress his amused grin. Something told him now was definitely not the time to laugh at her.
He scooted forward on the seat of the bike, making room for her behind him. Zoey swung her leg over and situated herself on the seat. Alec waited for her to clasp her arms around his waist or, at the very least, grab hold of his parka.
Nothing happened.
He glanced over his shoulder. “You might want to hang on. You can wrap your arms around me. I won’t bite.”
He couldn’t see a thing through the face shield of the helmet, but he would have bet she was rolling her eyes.
“I’ve known you all of five minutes,” she said.
“Suit yourself.” He released the clutch, and the tires rolled and crunched over the snow.
Alec did his best to make the ride a smooth one. Tossing his new boss out of her seat didn’t seem like a smart thing to do, even though she would have had it coming. Apparently, she was every bit as stubborn as she was cute. Great.
Despite the fact that Alec had cleared the path with a snowblower an hour or so ago, it was a bit bumpy. Just as they made their way around the log cabin, which stood at the front of the property, the bike hit a slippery groove in the hard-packed snow. The motorcycle lurched to the right. Alec corrected the steering before Zoey could take a tumble, but immediately afterward he felt her arms wrap around his waist.
I told you so, his thoughts screamed. Even so, having her arms around him wasn’t altogether unpleasant.
She held on tight until they reached the fence and Alec cut the engine. Then she hopped off. With record-breaking swiftness.
“You didn’t ride all the way here from Washington on this thing, did you?” she asked as she removed the helmet.
He took it from her and hung it on the handlebars. “How else do you think it got here?”
/>
“It sounds a little dangerous. Not to mention cold.” She made an attempt to smooth her hair. It wasn’t all that successful.
For some reason, the sight of her—cheeks pink, perfect blond hair slightly mussed—made him smile. “You don’t like motorcycles?”
“I didn’t say that.” She didn’t have to. “It just doesn’t seem like the most practical method of transportation this close to the arctic circle. But suit yourself.”
Oh, I will. He didn’t need her permission to drive his motorcycle. He could ride around in a flying saucer if he wanted. She might be his boss, but she wasn’t his mother.
Not that his mother had ever cared a whit about him. She’d been too busy getting high and avoiding the angry swings of his father to pay much attention to him.
He stalked toward the fence without saying a word. Zoey crunched through the snow behind him.
The Chugach mountain range rose before them in jagged silver peaks. Low-hanging clouds obscured the mountaintops, and a layer of what looked like fog spread out over the base of the foothills. Then the fog rolled toward them. A spectacular set of antlers came into view. Then another, and another.
Dozens of reindeer trotted toward them, kicking up snow so thick that their legs were barely visible. They appeared to float in a snowy mist, as though carried by a cloud of glittering ice crystals.
“Oh, my,” Zoey whispered.
Alec recognized the wonder in her tone. He’d felt the same way the first time he’d seen the reindeer. As much as he hated to admit it, the sight of them still sometimes took his breath away. Even if the whole thing was a little too Norman Rockwell for his taste.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” he asked, his throat growing tight.
“They sure are.” Her green eyes sparkled. “Are they always so quiet? I feel as if I’m looking at a dream...something that’s not quite real.”
He took a sidelong glance at Zoey and felt a wholly unexpected flicker of connection with her. “They typically don’t make much noise. I think they like the cold. They seem happy to run and play most of the time.”
Then she opened her mouth, and the moment was gone. “You mean play reindeer games?”
She just had to go there—the saccharine-sweet Christmas route. He really should have expected it.
With great reluctance, Alec said, “I suppose you could call it that.”
She laughed, oblivious to the mercurial change in his mood. “I just had no idea. Gus never told me about any of this.”
And yet the man had given it to her. All of it. “I suppose this sort of thing happens to you all the time.”
She frowned but somehow managed to look all wide-eyed and innocent. “What sort of thing?”
“Inheriting reindeer farms and the like.” He hadn’t meant to inject acid into his tone, but there it was all the same.
“Actually, no. It doesn’t.” Zoey’s eyes flashed. Alec was thrown for a minute by the fire in her gaze. Fire aimed directly at him. “If you think I’m some sort of spoiled princess, Mr. Wynn, you’re sorely mistaken. I suppose I can’t really blame you. Usually people who inherit things—houses, money, reindeer—come from privilege. Or at least from loving homes. I have neither of those things. So you might want to revisit your first impression of me. I’m not your average heiress.”
She spun on her heel and stomped back down the path toward the waiting SUV, leaving Alec to wonder what had just transpired.
Zoey Hathaway had surprised him. And people didn’t surprise him often. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time anyone had.
Zoey Hathaway...average?
Hardly.
Chapter Two
“North Pole Nails? Really?” Zoey glanced at the sign on the door of the nail salon where Anya and their mutual friend Clementine had suggested they meet for an emergency pedicure session. “I thought the purpose of this mission was to make me forget about reindeer.”
Anya opened the door and nudged Zoey inside. “That’s our intention. I promise. But it’s not like Aurora is teeming with day-spa options.”
“Try to pretend it’s called something else, something non-Christmasy,” Clemetine said.
Try not to think about Christmas? When it was less than a month away? That idea only made Zoey feel worse. “I love Christmas. I just never imagined I’d be spending it with my very own herd of reindeer.”
Or that they were such expensive creatures.
She would have been perfectly happy to stop thinking about her reindeer’s spending habits. But that wasn’t possible. She’d even declined the pedicure offer at first. Surely she had something else she should be spending her money on. Like reindeer chow or something.
What do they eat, anyway? I don’t even know.
She really shouldn’t be here. This afternoon was one of her regularly scheduled volunteer shifts at the church thrift store. Staffed entirely by volunteers, the thrift shop raised money to help a few of the impoverished, hard-to-reach communities out in the bush, the area of Alaska that was inaccessible by roads. Having flown with Gus on numerous missions of mercy to such villages, Zoey had a heart for the people of the bush. But her pressing need to see her lawyer had thrown a wrench into her afternoon plans.
Since when had she become the sort of person who met with lawyers?
Since she became an heiress.
One thing had become crystal clear over the course of the morning—being an heiress wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be.
“Sit down and take off your shoes. And smile. This is supposed to be fun. Remember?” Anya steered Zoey by her shoulders to one of the sumptuous leather spa chairs.
Zoey sank into it, and Anya flipped a switch. The chair hummed to life. “What’s that noise?”
“It’s a massage chair. Relax. Please.” Anya sank into the next chair.
“Are you sure your mom is okay with this?” Zoey frowned. Anya’s mother headed up the church thrift store. As a seamstress, it was pretty much her baby.
“She’s fine. I just talked to her. She’s got more volunteers there this afternoon than she has customers. The thrift store is fine. Everything and everyone is fine, except for you, apparently.” Anya pointed at Zoey’s feet.
She took the hint. She removed her snow boots, dipped her bare feet in the tub of warm, bubbly water in front of her chair and said a prayer of thanks that her friends had insisted on treating her to this little luxury.
“Did you get a chance to meet with the lawyer yet?” Clementine asked as she settled into the chair immediately to Zoey’s left.
“Yes. I just came from his office, actually.” Zoey nodded and selected a color from the tiny bottles of polish the nail technician offered up for inspection.
Anya chose next—fire-engine red. “What did he say? Could he shed any light on the situation?”
“He apologized for misleading me into thinking there were only a few reindeer on Gus’s property. Apparently, thirty is a modest number as far as reindeer are concerned.” So was thirty-one. Zoey couldn’t help but wonder where Palmer, the errant reindeer, was right now. Should she be concerned?
She hoped not. She had more than enough on her plate without having to worry about a defiant reindeer roaming the city streets.
“Really?” Clementine’s eyes grew wide. “What’s a large number, then?”
“A hundred or more.” Zoey supposed she should be relieved. A hundred? She couldn’t even imagine. Although if she couldn’t afford thirty, what difference did it make? She might as well have inherited five hundred of them.
“Did he mention your mysterious employee?” Anya’s lips curved into a smirk.
“There’s an employee, too?” Clementine asked.
Anya’s smile grew wider. “Oh, yes. His name is Alec, and he’s rather handsome.”
Handsome?
Zoey couldn’t argue against that assessment, but she considered it far too tame an adjective to apply to Alec. She could think of a few words that fit, however—dangerous, moody...tempting.
“He’s also borderline rude, so you can wipe that grin off your face.” Zoey’s cheeks grew warm. She blamed it on the bubbly footbath and the heated massage chair. “And I happen to owe him a thousand dollars.”
Anya’s smile morphed into a frown. “That was real?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Zoey had pretty much committed to memory the itemized list the lawyer had shown her—fencing supplies, food, hay, straw and yet more fencing supplies. Apparently Palmer’s urge to escape ran deep. He wasn’t about to let something as silly as a fence stand between him and his freedom.
Clementine reached over and gave her arm a squeeze. “What are you going to do?”
Zoey inhaled a deep breath. Could she even bring herself to utter the lawyer’s suggestion aloud?
“I have a few options,” she said cryptically.
Anya and Clementine exchanged confused glances.
“Such as?” Anya asked.
“There’s a log cabin on the property. I thought I could move in there. With the money I save on rent, I might be able to reimburse Alec sometime this century.”
“And then what?” Clementine said, leaning her head back against her comfy leather pedicure chair and closing her eyes.
Zoey stared down at her feet in the soapy water. She couldn’t even look her friends in the eyes. How could she possibly go through with it? “There’s a buyer who’s interested in the herd.”
“Really?” Clementine’s eyes popped back open. “That sounds promising. Maybe you could keep a few—two or three, possibly—and sell the rest. Or do you think they’d miss one another? Do reindeer form attachments like that?”