Page 31 of Run, Run Rudolph
He shook his head, but the twinge of twinkle didn’t leave his eyes.
“What?” I insisted.
“Nothing. You’re just…different. That’s all.”
Oh, no. We were not going there. That was the whole break up song between me and Kade. How much I’d changed. Like having a surer sense of myself was some sort of betrayal.
Reading my body language, Haden added smoothly, “It’s good.”
“It’s good?”
“It’s good,” he confirmed, not looking up from the message he was typing on his phone.
I leaned into the car, trying to puzzle that one out, and flipped the front seat forward for Rudolph with more force than was needed. A loud bang came from the trunk.
I jolted, having forgotten about the trapped elf. He still hadn’t found the trunk’s safety release, and I was lucky he hadn’t frozen to death.
I moved in front of the trunk, watching Haden with a stiff smile. Could he hear Snarky? He hadn’t seemed to have noticed the herd of reindeer behind him. They were doing an incredibly poor job of staying hidden. Their large antlers kept peeking out here and there, and every once in a while, their small cloud of murmurings rose when they thought we wouldn’t overhear them. Which maybe Haden couldn’t.
Hugo however…
Haden stalked over to the back of my car, hands going to his hips. “Do you have an animal stuck in there?”
I backed against the trunk, patting it loudly with a flat palm to warn Hugo to shush. “What? No. The car’s just really old.”
He was giving me that ‘what on earth are you up to now?’ look of his. I hated that look. It made me feel like I was up to something stupid.
And usually I was. Kind of like now.
But in my defence, my actions always made sense to me in the moment. Like pushing the elf into my trunk. Or the time Kade, Haden and I were trying to find a reported injured porcupine as part of Haden’s summer job for Fish and Wildlife while he was in vet school. Kade and I had been bickering while walking through the fields. He’d been complaining about my lack of adventure, and I’d set out to prove him wrong when we’d come across an old swing rope at an irrigation lagoon. Feeling brave and adventurous, as well as soaring on the success of my anticipated vindication, I’d leapt up onto the rope, swung far out over the lagoon in my cutoffs and tank top. Then, when the rope broke, I’d belly flopped onto the water’s surface so hard it had stolen my breath.
Haden, ever the hero, had pulled me to the pond’s edge, shoulders stiff and fists in a bunch, giving me that look—the look he was giving me now. Like he couldn’t track my thinking, and maybe he didn’t want to.
“It’s old?” Haden was coming closer, amusement burning in his eyes. He’d been checking his phone’s notifications when I’d brought the car in—you know, being on call for animal emergencies pretty much 24/7—and it was with great satisfaction that he put the phone away, ignoring it over me and this awkward moment where I might be busted for mistreating one of Santa’s grumpy elves.
Oh, why did he have to notice me right now? And why was he enjoying this so much? Why couldn’t the elf stay invisible and silent to him like the herd was?
“Yeah. Um… You should probably return all of those messages or something, right?”
If Haden met Hugo… Well, nothing could prepare him for that. And I needed him here and helpful, not turning into a babbling bag of testosterone, and thus unable to take charge and save Christmas for me. Because if that happened, then where would the world’s children be, come Christmas morning?
Haden narrowed his eyes, and I quickly scrolled through a list of possible excuses for the loud banging and swearing that was coming from the trunk.
I’d tried lying earlier and had failed. Honestly, why would a car, even an old one, make thumping sounds when it was turned off?
“My cat sometimes manages to climb into the trunk—because the car is so old.” Oh, I was good. So good. “There’s a hole.”
“That could be really dangerous for Puss in Boots.”
“No, no. It’s okay,” I said quickly, worried he’d think I didn’t care about my cat, while wanting to purr over the fact that he remembered my rescued tomcat’s name. “I’d never let him get hurt. He mostly just climbs in there when it rains, and there are blizzards and stuff.” Ugh. Now it sounded like I left him out in horrible weather to fend for himself. “But usually he’s inside the house. I don’t want him to lose an ear to frostbite.”
Haden bent over, checking the wheel well for a cat-sized rust hole. I thanked my lucky stars that my car was likely to have such a hole.
He straightened. “How does he get in?”
“Oh, um. It’s just when I have the roof down, and I never leave it down. He must have zipped in when I was getting Rudolph out. If you go check on him,” I tipped my chin toward the hobbling reindeer, “I’ll let the cat out of the proverbial bag—er, trunk.” I gave a weak, lame laugh at my equally weak and lame joke.
Haden shifted, stepping sideways toward the reindeer, keeping one eye on me. I shot him a stupid smile and moved around to the driver’s side to pop the trunk. I was going to have to move fast. Snarky was going to fly out as soon as that latch let go.
