Chapter Seventeen

“And a beluga whale,” the boy on Wade’s knee said. His cheeks darkened with embarrassment. “I mean, a stuffed one. I know I can’t have a real one.”

Wade nodded. “We definitely have stuffed beluga whales at the North Pole.”

He wanted to be encouraging. The poor kid’s older brother had apparently spent the car ride over roundly mocking his Christmas list, despite their parents’ protests, so he’d seemed grimly resigned to the idea that Santa might call all his wishes silly and babyish. Wade was going to make sure he left here feeling better about himself and knowing that Santa was on his side. Nothing wrong with a stuffed beluga whale. The real ones lived up in the Arctic circle, on his polar bear’s native ground, so Wade felt a certain kinship—

Oh, shit.

Marsh had taken one of the reindeer out of its pen. And Wade had been so busy talking to the boy that he hadn’t noticed Marsh bringing it over. They were already close, and they were getting closer by the second.

Marsh saw Wade see him, and he offered him a smug, toothy smile that said, See, I win.

“Son,” Marsh said with obnoxious heartiness, “would you like a picture with Santa and, um, Masher here?”

Dasher. The name he was trying to think of was Dasher . So much for Marsh’s claim to have more Christmas expertise than anyone else.

The boy tentatively stretched out a hand.

The reindeer’s nostrils flared.

And Wade realized that the cologne he had practically bathed in this morning had taken a beating over the course of a long, hot workday. His scent may have been a little muddled, but it was still coming through.

The reindeer freaked out .

It stamped its hooves, bringing one of them right down on Marsh’s wingtip and making him yelp. It let out an ear-splitting, outraged bleat that made everything in the Christmas Village stop dead.

Then lowered its head, huffing hard and turning its rack of antlers towards Wade like it was ready to gouge him right in the heart. Wade needed to get the child on his lap safely out of its way stat .

Wade had to stay calm. “Here,” he said, in a low and level voice, “why don’t you go back to your mom?”

He helped the boy down over the side of the Santa chair, not wanting to even temporarily put him in the path of the furious reindeer. The ashen-faced mom mouthed a heartfelt thank you to him, gathering the boy up in her arms and hugging him tight.

“Masher got cranky ,” the boy mumbled into her shoulder.

He was partly right. Masher—God, of course Marsh’s slip-of-the-tongue there had been uncannily prophetic—did look like he wanted to mash them all. He was on the attack, and a heightened sense of outrage went along with that. But at heart, this was an herbivore who was terrified of coming face-to-face with an apex predator. It may have chosen fight rather than flight, but it was still scared.

Wade didn’t know if he could possibly calm it down. Unintentionally or not, he was what was scaring it.

He’d love to try to give it some space, but if he made any sudden moves, there was every chance it would barrel into him. His polar bear could withstand that, but he couldn’t.

“Milo, try to get everyone out of here. Show the parents where the back exit is, have the elves escort any unaccompanied kids. Start clearing everything out.” He could see Mira already starting to direct people towards the closest exits. “Do whatever Mira says.”

“Will do, boss,” Milo said nervously, clutching his book like a security blanket. He vanished into the crowds and started thinning them out.

Okay, that was something. That was progress.

“Marsh,” Wade said through gritted teeth, “take the reindeer back to the pen. It’s nervous.”

Understatement of the century.

Marsh tugged at the bridle, but he wasn’t making any progress in dragging the animal backwards. It was planted in place, ready to fight and die if it had to.

And behind it, back at the pen, something even weirder was happening.

The remaining reindeer were whipping around in a circle, their hoofbeats rising to an unstoppable clamor. There were only three of them there, but as they turned into a dusty brown whirlwind, Wade could have sworn there were a hundred. There was something awe-inspiring about it—but that came a distant second to the growing alarm that they might bust down the walls of their pen and take off on a rampage, leaving trampled Honey Brook shoppers in their wake.

Marsh turned his head to gawk at the reindeer tornado. It looked like all the blood had run out of his face, leaving him a bleached white.

Wade knew why: the remaining Christmas Village guests were either running away in a panic ... or snapping pictures. This was going to wind up on the news, and the story would be Marsh’s catastrophic decision to bring wild animals he couldn’t control into an event with children. Not only was he not getting a promotion, he was going to be lucky if this didn’t follow him around for the rest of his life.

It was definitely going to follow him around if he couldn’t defuse the situation, but he seemed too shocked and horrified to try. Wade said his name again, more loudly this time.

“Marsh. You have to get it back to the pen. Maybe they’ll all calm down once they’re reunited and they can see that this one isn’t in any danger.”

Marsh gave him a stunned nod. He yanked on the bridle again, pulling as hard as he could, but the reindeer wouldn’t budge.

“It’s stuck !” Marsh shouted.

Suddenly, Mira was there, putting her hands on either side of Marsh’s and helping him pull.

Wade didn’t know what did the trick. Maybe it was just having Mira’s additional strength. Maybe it was the fact that she’d been taking care of the reindeer all day, so they were familiar with her and found her soothing.

Wade suspected that it was just her . His gorgeous, strong Galadriel, who was passionate and loyal and kind. Wouldn’t anyone or anything rather go with her than with Marsh?

Step by step, the reindeer followed her back to its pen. Eventually, Marsh even let go of the bridle, and Mira was still able to lead the reindeer on her own.

Meanwhile, back in the pen, the cyclone was slowing down. It was easier to distinguish the individual reindeer now, and they were starting to look almost sheepish. It was like they were admitting they had gotten a little carried away.

By the time Mira got the loose reindeer back with its fellows, the storm had completely broken.

Not that too many guests were around to see that. Almost all of them had hightailed it when it had looked like they were all going to get—per the Christmas song—run over by a reindeer.

Wade exhaled. He breezed past Marsh, ignoring the irate sputtering sounds the man was making, and went and wrapped his arms around Mira. She was shaking.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You did great. You calmed it right down.”

“I thought it was going to stab you with its antlers,” she said into his chest, the words a muffle sob.

“It didn’t. You didn’t let it.” He kissed her forehead. “You’re a magical reindeer charmer.”

“What the hell is going on here ?” an unfamiliar voice suddenly bellowed.

Wade untangled himself from Mira to check it out.

A tall, sharply dressed man stood there with his arm around the mom whose son had been on Santa’s lap when the reindeer riot had started. She looked a lot calmer now, but she was still holding her son tightly ... probably to prevent him from running back over to the reindeer pen. He still looked like he wanted to pet them.

That was good, honestly. At least the kid seemed mostly unfazed by what had happened.

The man in the suit went on: “Stampeding reindeer? Santa almost getting shish-kabobbed? Our son right in the middle of it all?”

Of course, he was the dad. No wonder he was so outraged.

Even though Wade didn’t think he’d ever met this guy, something about him rang a distant bell. Then it clicked, and with a dark flash of humor, he knew why Marsh had been so rabidly insistent on dragging that reindeer over to Santa’s chair right at that moment.

And, as the awful cherry on top, why he was so thoroughly crushed now.

This was Alexander Arbogast, the founder of Honey Brook mall. The boy who’d longed for a stuffed beluga whale was his son, and the terrified mom was his wife and fellow member of the board.

Marsh had tried to impress his ultimate boss’s family, and in the process, he had risked getting them gored to death by a reindeer in the process.

“Mr. Arbogast, I—” Marsh took a shaky breath.

Was he going to apologize? Throw himself on Marsh’s mercy?

Nope. Instead of doing any of that, he pointed at Mira.

“I left this young woman in charge of the reindeer. I warned her—”

Wade wasn’t going to listen to another word of this.

“That’s b—ridiculous,” he said, censoring himself for the sake of the little kid. “He’s been blaming Mira for everything, and it’s never been fair. He did ask Mira to look after the reindeer—because she had warned him that this was a bad idea. She’d told him something could go wrong. He didn’t care: all he said was that it would be her responsibility if it did. But it wasn’t, not even close. She’s not the one who let the reindeer out of the pen, he was. He led it right up to your son. It wouldn’t have gotten upset if he had left it alone.”

“You’re the one who made it upset!” Marsh said.

“That’s not true,” Mrs. Arbogast said, and Marsh’s mouth snapped shut. He was fine with rebutting Wade and Mira, but he wasn’t going to argue with the mall’s leading family. “Santa here is the one who stayed calm and got Billy off his lap. He told one of the elves to start ushering everyone out. And this young woman was the one who finally got the reindeer back in the pen.” She gave Marsh a withering look.

Little Billy was starting to get restless in his mom’s arms. He was too big to be carried around, and he knew it. Wade suspected that, with more empathy than most kids his age could have mustered, he’d been putting up with the post-reindeer coddling for her sake, but he was hitting his limit.

“Mommy,” he said, wriggling. “Let me down.”

“I can look after him,” Mira offered. “Way away from the reindeer, obviously. There are plenty of leftover cookies at the bakery stall, if you’re okay with that.”

Mrs. Arbogast sighed, half in reluctance and half in relief, and let Billy down to join Mira. “Thank you. It’s very much appreciated.”

Mira took Billy off to get some gingerbread. Wade wanted to join them, but he needed to hear how this whole thing with Marsh played out.

“We’ve been hearing rumors all season that you’ve been mismanaging this place,” Mr. Arbogast said, looking around the Christmas Village. His lip curled with sorrowful disgust.

Wade could see why. The village had been shiny and festive this morning, but the crowd’s mass exodus had taken a toll. Even though the Elf Mafia had tried to keep the process smooth, people had still knocked things over. The garlands and candy cane poles that cordoned off the edges of the line to see Santa had fallen into a messy red and green tangle. Hastily dropped gingerbread had been stepped on and smashed into crumbs. Spilled hot chocolate made sticky patches on the cobblestones. Someone must have run into the tree, making ornaments fall and shatter.

It was sad in a way he hadn’t expected. When he had agreed to step in for Petey, the Christmas Village hadn’t meant much to him. He had vague memories of coming here as a kid, but that was all. He had never made a habit of stopping by as an adult, not even for a peppermint mocha or free gift-wrapping, even though it obviously would have been convenient enough. It had always seemed too busy, too loud. Maybe even a tad too cheesy. And when he’d needed to play Santa in it, he’d mostly just thought it looked like a stressful place to work.

But over the last few days, the Village had become special to him.

Now, even though it was hectic and loud, it felt like the heart of the mall. It was where the air smelled like gingerbread. It was where he’d discovered he was actually pretty good with kids after all.

It was where he had met Mira. Where he had fallen in love with her.

He didn’t like seeing it like this. It was like a natural disaster had hit it. He wasn’t going to wait for the custodial staff to come around tonight and clean it up, even if the Arbogasts closed it off for the rest of the day. He could do some of the work now—

“You were hired because you said you had a sense of vision,” Mr. Arbogast continued, “and the board thought that might help revitalize the Christmas Village. For years, this place has been busy, but guests have consistently filled out comment cards saying that it’s not a good experience. You promised to change that.”

“I tried,” Marsh said plaintively. “One misstep—”

“One misstep that could have gotten my son hurt! That could have gotten your Santa Claus killed! And then you didn’t even take responsibility for it. You tried to shove the blame off onto the people who actually helped.” Mr. Arbogast shook his head. “That’s it. I’m sorry for the disappointment it’s going to cause, but this is the end of the Honey Brook Christmas Village.”

Wade was sure there was some misunderstanding. “For this year, you mean? We aren’t going to open tomorrow?”

“We aren’t going to open tomorrow, and we aren’t going to open next year, either,” Mr. Arbogast said. “I’d like the staff to assemble so we can thank them all for their hard work, but this is it. The Christmas Village is done.”