Chapter Fifteen

December 23

Wade could get used to this.

The day before Christmas Eve began with Mira curled up in bed with him, her dark chestnut hair in disheveled waves. She had stopped by her apartment to pet Bigfoot and clean his litterbox, but she’d forgotten to grab a pair of pajamas while she was there, so she was wearing one of his T-shirts instead. There was something intensely, sexily cozy about the unraveling hem of one of his oldest shirts resting against the lush curves of her thighs.

Fiona was snoozing between their heads, letting out purry little snores. Every now and then, her whiskers would twitch and brush Mira’s nose and make her sneeze in her sleep.

It was an adorable, idyllic morning, and the only problem was that it couldn’t last.

Wade gave Mira a reluctant nudge. He hated to do it, but he knew she was afraid of being late and giving Marsh the only excuse he would need to stiff her on her bonus.

Mira stirred, her hair falling across her face like a curtain. “Mm?”

“Sorry. The alarm went off.”

She groaned and shifted, putting her arm across her eyes before she had to open them to the weak morning light. “I didn’t hear it.”

“I’m pretty quick at turning it off. Shifter reflexes.”

“That’s nice.” She rolled over to give him a quick embrace. “I’d rather wake up to you than to a blaring beep-beep-beep.”

She could wake up to him for the rest of her life, as far as he was concerned.

He needed to tell her that, which meant he needed to tell her about the mate bond. He should have done it last night, but somewhere between their clothes hitting the floor and their heads hitting the pillows, he’d forgotten about it.

He had to stop waiting for the perfect moment. But at the same time, he couldn’t go to the other extreme and drop the news on her while she was scrambling to brush her teeth and get to work on time.

He settled for making her pancakes instead, turning out a stack of them while she was in the shower. She came into the kitchen with her hair in a towel and a grin on her face.

“I feel like I floated in here nose-first,” Mira said. “Like in a cartoon. You’re my hero.”

“It had to be pancakes,” Wade said, giving her a kiss. “You haven’t taught me your cold cereal-pouring tricks yet.”

“We have to make sure to set aside enough time for that. It’s complicated stuff.”

They both plowed through their pancakes in a hurry, with Mira flattering him by bemoaning that she didn’t have time to savor them.

Of course, they knew they had to rush, but Fiona didn’t know it. Or if she did, she—in typical cat fashion—didn’t care. She settled down on Mira’s knees and purred up a storm.

“She sheds,” Wade warned her.

Mira waved her hand. “So does Bigfoot, no matter how much I brush him. I’m used to it.” She petted Fiona, stirring up a cloud of black fur and laughing at it. “You probably wish I was already in my Galadriel costume, don’t you, pretty girl? Imagine the havoc you could unleash on an all-white outfit.”

“We’ll have to see how much chaos the reindeer unleash.”

*

Not too much, it turned out. Not for the first part of the day, anyway.

Mira let several excited kids take photos with the reindeer—warning them a thousand times to keep their fingers out of biting range, just in case—and tactfully steered them away from asking Santa to duck into the pictures too. Wade tried to make that part of the job a little easier by keeping busy, so there was always some obvious reason he couldn’t join in with all the reindeer games.

It was working. The parents with toddlers and no play area were irritated, but everyone else was at least intrigued. The reindeer still seemed a little on edge, even from a distance, but Wade wasn’t sure if that was because they sensed his bear or because they weren’t meant to be in a gilded mini-playground and surrounded by thronging crowds of sugar-high children. Or both. They were like a nature photo that had gotten pasted into someone’s Christmas card, and they seemed to know it.

Still, as long as they kept milling around the pen and nosing at the nearby Christmas tree instead of biting anyone, Wade was willing to count it as a win. He hoped that if the reindeer were stressed, there was some way they could make it up to them later. What would be the equivalent of a reindeer spa day?

“I don’t know,” Mira said thoughtfully, when Wade posed the question over their food court lunch. (This time they had opted for the mediocre pizza instead of the mediocre Chinese food.) “Maybe a couple worry-free hours of rolling around in a snowbank, with lots of delicious lichen to eat? Reindeer eat lichen, don’t they?”

“Lichen and moss and ferns and stuff, I think.” He had been racking his brain all morning to remember every nature special he had ever seen.

“So a whole buffet of all their favorite things. And a fresh snowfall that’s soft and cool but not too cold.”

“Honestly, that sounds pretty good to me, too—assuming I could swap out the moss and lichen for some of Nonna’s carbonara.”

“And the ferns for some of your pancakes this morning,” Mira said. “Then I’d be on board too. I’ve always wanted a white Christmas.”

Wade had too. He loved that living in California meant year-round fresh produce, most of it grown locally, and the warm, temperate seasons certainly had plenty of upsides. But ever since he was a kid, he had daydreamed about the snow days and winter wonderlands he’d never gotten to see firsthand.

He’d always told himself that one of these years, he would rent a cabin in the mountains. Even in California, you saw plenty of snow when you got up to a higher altitude. But he’d resigned himself to thinking that he wasn’t actually going to do it. Spending a lot of money on a romantic lifelong whim was more of a Petey thing, wasn’t it?

But Mira had shown him that it didn’t have to be. He could afford to have a white Christmas if he wanted one, so why not? He couldn’t let dumb ideas about what kind of person he was stop him from doing what he wanted.

Especially not when it was what Mira wanted too.

“Can I ....”

Was this when he was going to tell her? In a mall food court?

Stop waiting for the perfect moment , he told himself. No one can hear you. This is as good a time as any.

He could feel his ears heating up with an incoming blush, but he powered ahead.

“Can I imagine that we’ll be together next Christmas, or is that too much?”

To his delight, Mira lit up. It wasn’t an instantaneous process, like clicking on the string of lights on a Christmas tree. It was warmer and more gradual, like watching the sun come up. She was so breathtakingly gorgeous in that moment that Wade didn’t understand how the people walking by didn’t stop dead in their tracks just to stare.

“That’s not too much,” she said. “And I think it’s a good prediction. A safe bet. I’m glad you feel like that too.”

She does sense the mate bond! his polar bear said jubilantly. She knows we belong together, even if she doesn’t know how she knows.

Wade reached across the table and took her hand.

“I was going to say that next Christmas, maybe we could rent a cabin in the mountains. Someplace where we’d see snow.”

“I’d love that.”

“I would too.” He tightened his fingers around hers, and she squeezed back. “And I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you why I’m so sure this is only our first Christmas together. See, when shifters—”

Marsh’s voice cut through the romantic haze around them. It was like a sudden chill descending.

“Why haven’t I seen any pictures of Santa and his reindeer?”

Wade’s polar bear had very distinct, very vivid ideas about how to deal with this particular interruption, and as much as Wade could sympathize with it on that front, he had to push the gory visions away.

“I thought Mira told you,” he said. “I’m afraid of reindeer. It’s called tarandophobia.”

“I don’t care what it’s called,” Marsh hissed. “You’re afraid of doing your job, and I know what that’s called: laziness! Laziness and lack of vision! No one here wants to do what it takes to make the Christmas Village truly extraordinary, but I’m not letting your indifference stand in my way. This is going to be an experience that our guests remember for years to come.”

Wade thought Marsh was a self-centered blowhard who enjoyed wielding his petty power way too much for his own good, and there was no defense for the way the guy took his frustrations out on the rest of the world—and especially on Mira. But was there any way to reason with him at all? Could they play to his ego?

“It’s a fantastic Christmas Village,” Wade said. “And the kids seem to love the reindeer. If you want extraordinary, I think you’ve already got it. You don’t need anything else.”

Marsh narrowed his eyes. Clearly, he knew that Wade was humoring him, and all it did was irritate him.

Wade guessed that if you imagined yourself as a man of truly singular vision, you didn’t really want too many people appreciating you, at least not without them being humbled into it. Marsh wasn’t letting this go until Wade fell to his knees and begged forgiveness for not seeing how great all Marsh’s plans were ... which meant he wasn’t going to let this go, period.

“You will take photos with the reindeer,” Marsh said. “I’m sick of everyone’s excuses. After lunch, you are going to play Santa right .”

Mira flared up in Wade’s defense. “Kids want a Santa who will listen to their Christmas lists. Wade is playing Santa right. Anything else is just a bonus.”

“It’s interesting that you’d use that word, because that’s what’s at stake here for you,” Marsh said. “I told you, your bonus depends on this situation going perfectly .”

Wade couldn’t sit here and watch him talk to her like this.

“Why are you like this?” he said bluntly. “Mira’s done good work for you all season. I’ve seen her doing it, these last few days. Maybe the costume means she doesn’t look like it, but she’s the best Christmas elf anyone’s ever seen. Why are you punishing her for wanting the reward for it? It’s not even like it comes out of your salary. Honey Brook pays the bonuses.”

“She should be devoted to Christmas , not herself,” Marsh said.

“And you think that everyone else here would work for free, and she’s the only one who needs the money? That’s ridiculous. And don’t you get an end-of-season bonus too?”

Marsh’s face was turning purple. “I deserve it!”

Ah. And everyone else was supposed to just be a minion dutifully carrying out his plans with no hopes, dreams, wants, or needs of their own.

Maybe it was easier for Marsh to dismiss the kids because they were, well, kids, but Mira was too obviously her own person for his tastes. And no matter how much he made her put up with, he couldn’t break her down or make her grovel. She stuck it out, but she didn’t yield. She didn’t make him feel superior, and he hated her for it.

Marsh mistook Wade’s disgusted silence as appeasement, and that, of course, cheered him up. “Then it’s settled. After lunch, you’ll do what you’re supposed to do.”

“He still can’t,” Mira said, her cheeks blazing with color. She was as defensive of Wade—and of the reindeer’s peace of mind—as he was of her. “He doesn’t want to upset the reindeer, can’t you understand that?”

Marsh scoffed. “Get your story straight, Mira. A minute ago it was that the reindeer upset him .”

“ Wade and reindeer are a bad combination ,” Mira stressed. “We’re trying to tell you that it won’t work.”

“For your sake,” Marsh said, “it had better.”