Sleigh Bell Sweethearts

by Teri Wilson

  She took a deep breath and let the words flow. “I lost my parents when I was sixteen.”

  It felt strange saying it aloud. She hadn’t actually had to tell anyone about her past before. Everyone in Aurora knew her story.

  She peered up at him through the fringe of her eyelashes, fully expecting to see sympathy etched in his chiseled features. Or worse, pity. Relief coursed through her when she didn’t.

  He simply looked at her as though she was the same Zoey and he was the same Alec. As if nothing had changed. So she continued. “I guess you could say the whole town came together to take care of me. And they’ve been taking care of me ever since. Don’t misunderstand—I appreciate all the love and support. I just...”

  She stopped, unsure how to continue. How could she possibly put it into words?

  Silence hung heavy between them until Alec spoke. And when he did, somehow he gave voice to the feelings Zoey couldn’t. “You don’t want to be that person for the rest of your life. You want to start over.”

  “Exactly.” She turned her bewildered gaze toward him. How could someone who was barely more than a stranger seem to know her so well? “How did you...?”

  He cut her off with another wistful look. “Just a hunch.”

  A hunch? She doubted that.

  “What happened to your parents, if you don’t mind my asking?” He unwrapped the sandwiches, took a giant bite of the one on top and put the others in his pocket.

  The ordinariness of the gesture was somehow comforting. She could almost believe they were talking about any trivial matter, rather than her life’s defining moment. She wondered if he’d done it on purpose.

  Surely not. This was Alec—the man who’d hidden from her church group all day in the barn. He wasn’t exactly a people person.

  “They were in a plane crash,” she said, once again surprised at how easily the words slipped from her mouth. “A twin-engine prop plane. They got caught in a surprise mountain downdraft.”

  She probably could have left that part out, but it was important to her that he knew it wasn’t her father’s fault. It was just an accident. A tragic, heartbreaking accident.

  “Plane crash?” His brow furrowed.

  “Yep.” She shoved her hands in the pockets of her parka and waited for him to pronounce her crazy.

  “And now you’re a pilot?”

  “Go ahead. Say it. You think I’m nuts.” A smile danced on her lips, which should have seemed odd given the topic of conversation. Somehow it didn’t. Talking with him was nice.

  She couldn’t remember talking like this with any of the guys she’d dated. Keeping things light, meaningless—that had always been her motto. And she’d never had trouble sticking to it.

  She sneaked a sideways glance at Alec. Black jacket, black gloves, black hat...and the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Her heartbeat kicked up a notch.

  “Not nuts. Courageous.” The corners of his lips lifted, and those blue eyes glimmered like the stars overhead. “And spirited. Definitely spirited.”

  “I don’t know about that.” On the inside, though, she was smiling. Secretly she loved being thought of as spirited. “I mean, my father was a pilot. I grew up in the jump seat of his plane. Flying was never a question for me. It’s a way of life.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it. Not mine, though. I’ll stick with spirited.” He reached out and brushed a snowflake away from her eyes with a gentle swipe of his thumb.

  Zoey found herself growing breathless, which she attributed to the thin mountain air. It couldn’t be because Alec was standing so close. Close enough for her to see a tiny scar above his left eye that she’d never noticed before. Close enough to breathe in the scent of damp earth and evergreen trees coming from his parka.

  Who are you, Alec Wynn? Who are you, really?

  “I’m my father’s daughter.”

  She wanted to share a part of herself she usually kept safely under wraps in hopes he might give her a glimpse of the man he was underneath all the hard edges. She didn’t talk of her parents often. She told herself it was because they weren’t really anyone’s business, but the truth was that it still hurt. Even after all this time. “You know what they say—the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  Alec grew very still.

  And something changed. Zoey wasn’t sure what, but the tender moment they’d shared suffered for it.

  “That’s what they say, all right.” Icicles could have formed on his tongue. His tone was frostier than the Alaskan night. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at her with thinly veiled revulsion in his gaze.

  Nothing about their surroundings had altered. A herd of majestic reindeer still stood before them, and snow flurries still danced around them in a gentle waltz of winter beauty. But everything between them was different. Hard. Cold.

  A shiver ran up and down Zoey’s spine. She blinked up at him, bewildered at his sudden change of mood. “Alec...”

  He took a step backward. “Good night, Zoey.”

  “Good night,” she whispered, her words floating in a puff on the crisp arctic wind.

  And then she could only watch wordlessly as he stepped farther away from her, with eyes as melancholy and blue as the bluest of Christmases, and retreated into the darkness.

  * * *

  Alec barged his way into the guest cabin, sat on the edge of his bed and dropped his head into his hands.

  He hadn’t seen it coming. Even when Zoey had started talking about her father and how she’d followed in his footsteps and become a pilot, he hadn’t expected her to utter those words. He’d been caught off guard. Blindsided.

  Hearing them come from Zoey’s mouth had been a much-needed slap in the face. He wasn’t angry with her. Far from it. He was grateful.

  Because, until she’d said it, he’d been on the verge of kissing her.

  Not that he would have actually gone through with it. But he’d thought about it. He’d thought about it a lot. Far more than he should have.

  He wasn’t even sure how it had happened. Sure, she was cute. More than cute, really. She was beautiful. The more time he spent with her, the more beautiful he found her. But it was that go-getter spirit of hers that really affected him. Even more so now that he knew about her past.

  She was an orphan. An actual orphan. But instead of giving in to the role and being content to let people take care of her, she railed against it. For someone like Alec, who’d been struggling to overcome the past for most of his adult life, it was a quality to be respected.

  And to top it off, she was a pilot. She climbed aboard an airplane every day and soared into the same sky that had taken the lives of her family. That was the clincher right there. The moment she’d told him that, he knew he was a goner.

  Until she’d said it. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  Fine. If that was how she felt, he was better off knowing it now...before he did something really stupid. Like give in to his urge to kiss her.

  He would never have asked Camille to marry him if he’d thought she would believe such a thing. They’d met at church—the first church he’d ever attended. Walking into that building and hearing the message of how God could take a man and change him had been a life-altering experience. What was that verse again?

  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.

  He still knew it by heart. How pathetic was that?

  For a sweet, naïve time, he’d believed it. He’d believed it all. Then Camille’s family had gotten involved. And in the end, they all thought he had the potential to become like his parents. Even Camille—the only person who’d ever had his back—had turned and run.

  And a seed of doubt had taken root deep in Alec’s consciousness. Maybe they were right.r />
  Zoey apparently thought so.

  He told himself he was being unreasonable. It was an expression. How was she to know how close it hit home for him?

  Unreasonable or not, hearing her say it had been a wake-up call. Zoey was a good girl. As good as they came. She would never understand the things he’d seen and done. If she had the vaguest hint about his childhood, she’d probably consider him beyond redemption.

  And she’d probably be right.

  He shook his head, rubbed his face with his hands and eyed the deflated duffel bag tucked under the bureau in the corner. He could be packed and out the door in half an hour. He should just do it. Just leave and forget all about Alaska, all about Zoey and all about her reindeer.

  As tempting as it was, he knew he couldn’t do it. First, there was the practical matter of the money Zoey owed him. If he left now, he’d never see his thousand dollars. He had his doubts about recouping it, even if he did stay. More importantly, he’d given Zoey his word to stick around until Christmas. And no matter what anyone believed, Alec was a man of his word.

  “Christmas it is,” he muttered to himself as he stretched out on his back and rested his head on the pillow. But he’d made no promises about the New Year. He’d start looking on Craigslist first thing tomorrow. Maybe by the time Christmas rolled around, he could have something new lined up for January. And until then...

  He sighed.

  Until then he’d just have to remember that Zoey Hathaway was off-limits.

  He let his eyes drift closed, and before he even realized what he was doing, he found himself talking to God.

  Lord, I want to be a new creation. I’d love nothing more than to believe that the old has gone and the new has come. But I don’t see how it’s possible.

  Help me be strong. Keep me from repeating the past. And keep me away from Zoey. She’s a good person. She deserves better. Amen.

  It was the first prayer he’d uttered in as long as he remembered.

  Chapter Seven

  Morning arrived early for Zoey, which was really saying something considering that, up until recently, she’d earned her living working at a coffee bar.

  Sleep hadn’t come easy. She’d felt like the lone guest at a slumber party. It had taken nearly half an hour to find her toothpaste, and when she finally did, it was in one of the kitchen drawers. She really hoped that had been a joke, either Clementine or Anya’s doing, because who kept toothpaste by the kitchen sink?

  In addition to feeling as though she was stumbling around someone else’s home, she’d been plagued with thoughts of Alec and his odd behavior as they’d looked out over the reindeer. Just when she’d thought he might be the one person who’d ever really understood her, he’d shut her out. Was it something she’d said?

  She’d turned their conversation over in her mind time and again as she’d lain in the dark, adjusting to all the sounds and scents of a new home. But she remained as mystified as ever. How could someone seem so soulful one minute and so distant the next?

  She’d huffed in the darkness, pounded her pillow and pledged not to think about Alec anymore, but then memories of Gus crept in—the red flannel hat he’d worn every time she’d seen him in the cockpit of a plane, the way he’d always smelled of spearmint and black coffee, and his fondness for ice cream. Every year on her birthday since the death of her parents, Gus had taken her to Aurora’s one and only ice-cream parlor and bought her the most extravagant sundae on the menu—a frosted chocolate-malt spectacular. Hot fudge, chocolate-malt ice cream, sticky marshmallow topping and malted milk balls, all served up in a frosty mug.

  With two spoons.

  Those memories, once so fond, were painful now. She didn’t want to think about them. But alone in the dark, in Gus’s home, she couldn’t forget the way he’d always treated her like a granddaughter or how his wrinkled hands had begun to look increasingly fragile wrapped around the yoke of the Husky A-1C he piloted.

  She’d scarcely slept. And it seemed as though her alarm sounded the moment her mind had finally stilled. The temptation to hit the snooze button ran deep. But she lived on a reindeer farm. Didn’t that make her a farmer now? She supposed it did, even though in a matter of days she’d be a professional pilot. And didn’t farmers rise at the crack of dawn?

  She threw the covers off and dragged herself out of bed. Any thoughts of sleeping in were tempered by the snide comments she was sure to hear from Alec if she strolled outside after all the morning chores were done. Not that she had any real idea of what those morning chores might be.

  After layering up in her thermals, parka and the warmest knit hat she owned, she headed for the door. But as her hand lingered on the knob, she spotted Gus’s old flannel cap hanging on a peg on one of the knotty-pine walls. She smiled. She didn’t think she could stand seeing it in the thrift store among so many discarded items. She was immensely thankful someone had realized the hat would carry sentimental value and chosen to leave it there. Anya’s doing, most likely.

  Impulsively, she tugged the woolen hat from her head and replaced it with Gus’s flannel one. Her head might freeze, but wearing the cap was sure to warm her heart. And that was no small thing.

  The snow was blowing hard, almost sideways. The reindeer didn’t seem to mind, though. They were engaged in a boisterous game of chase, zipping across the pasture, kicking up snow in a flurry of hooves, sleek brown bodies and graceful antlers. The ground thundered beneath Zoey’s feet, and she wondered how they managed not to slip and fall. She could see several icy patches from where she stood at the fence, but the reindeer floated over those areas with the same surefootedness as they did over the rest of the pasture. She envied them their grace and then made a mental note to check Google for more reindeer facts that might surprise her. Alec wasn’t the only one who knew how to use a computer.

  Where is he, anyway?

  A peek in the barn proved rewarding. Alec was there, dressed in black, of course, shoveling hay into a wheelbarrow. His jacket strained across his broad back as he stabbed his shovel at the ground with more force than appeared necessary. A muscle flexed in his jaw, and the look on his face bordered on lethal.

  Zoey’s stomach fluttered. She’d dragged herself out of bed to face this? She was tempted to climb back under the covers.

  “Good morning,” she chirped. She sounded absurdly cheerful for this early hour, even to herself.

  Alec cast a dismissive glance over his shoulder and said nothing.

  She plowed on. “So, tell me what I can do to help.”

  He shrugged. “Most everything’s already done.”

  “And I thought I’d gotten up early. You must have risen with the sun.” What little sun there was at this time of year in Alaska. The violet haze hanging over the horizon was the closest thing to a sunrise they would see in a snowfall like this one.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” he grumbled.

  “I guess I’ll go on back to bed, then.” She crossed her arms and waited for the spoiled-princess comment that was sure to follow.

  Nothing.

  He must really be in a bad way, she thought.

  “Come on. I want to pitch in. Surely there’s something I can do.”

  He let out a huff and jammed his shovel into the frozen earth. “Zoey...”

  “Alec.” She mimicked his grumpy tone.

  The subtlest of smiles tipped his lips, and Zoey’s breath hitched in her throat. A sullen man had never looked so handsome. “I’ve got things under control. You’re paying me to work here, remember?”

  Zoey made a face. “Not technically. Gus paid you for the month, remember?”

  “Regardless, I’ve been paid. You can go about your business.” He glanced at her snow boots with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Don’t your toenails need painting or something?”

  �
��Done.” She crossed her arms. Her toenails were still only halfway painted as a result of her mad dash from her pedicure the other day, but he didn’t need to know that. “And my tiara is all polished, too.”

  He shook his head and looked at her for a long, silent moment as if weighing his options. “If you really want to do something...”

  “I do.”

  He let out a tortured sigh. “Fine.”

  She grinned in triumph.

  “I wouldn’t look so excited if I were you. What we...er, the reindeer...really need is hay.”

  “Hay. Got it.” She looked around. What little hay she could see was all piled in the wheelbarrow. It looked like a paltry amount for thirty-one reindeer, even to someone who had no clue what they did with it. “This is all there is?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  He didn’t utter a word about money. He didn’t have to. Zoey was beginning to see dollar signs everywhere she turned.

  It was hay. How much could it possibly cost? “Where do we get more?”

  “This time of year, you’ll probably have to get someone to fly it in. Last time I checked, there was a pile of it stored in a hangar in Anchorage. It’s not going to be cheap.” His gaze shifted away from her, and she got the feeling he’d been avoiding talking to her about this particular matter.

  Her thoughts toward him warmed once again. He’d wanted to spare her more bad news. He might not want to admit it, or even act like it, but he cared.

  A goofy smile made its way to her lips before she could stop it. “Aren’t you forgetting something? I’m a pilot.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” He crossed his arms. “You don’t have a plane.”

  “I’m sure someone will let me borrow one.” She shrugged.

  Truth be told, getting her hands on an airplane with less than a day’s notice would be complicated at best. Complicated, but not impossible.

  “Of course they will.” Alec rolled his eyes. “I should have known.”