Page 60 of Run, Run Rudolph
“For you to drop this so I can take care of my cat.”
“I’ll go home if you promise to go to the Boxing Day bash with me.”
“Kade!” I exploded, suddenly out of patience. “You never listen to me, or take into account what I want or I need. I don’t like big parties!” My hands were shaking and my voice trembled. “And right now, I just want you to leave so I can take care of Boots.”
“Fine. Why didn’t you just say so?”
“I’ll help you find the door.” Haden stepped into his younger brother’s space, making him back up, moving him closer and closer to the barn door with every step. Now that I’d spoken my piece, he no longer had that prowling vibe to him, but rather was more protector, shoulders squared as he escorted Kade out.
“Dude, I know where the door is. What are you? Her bodyguard?”
“I have a cat to heal.” Haden gestured toward my cat as though illustrating evidence. He spotted Boots being held up by Santa, who was touching noses with him, and quickly turned back to Kade, angling himself between the cat and his brother.
Boots was purring loudly and rubbing his chin and cheek against Santa’s beard. I frantically snatched my cat back in case Kade saw something. He’d been around the reindeer for a while now, and with that thin veil between the worlds, or whatever it was, what if he grazed a reindeer, and suddenly saw what Haden and I did?
“I have a cat to heal,” Kade mimicked, making his voice high, and very unlike Haden’s timber tone.
“Yup.” Haden’s chest was practically touching Kade’s. He reached around him and opened the door, letting in a blast of winter air along with a flurry of snowflakes.
“You’re up to something, and Tamara…”
“Tamara what?” Haden nudged Kade’s chest with his own, causing his brother to stumble over the barn door’s threshold. Wide-eyed reindeer squeezed through the doorway whenever there was a chance to get by.
Kade was trying to form words, but Haden cut him off. “I have work to do. So, if you’ll excuse us.”
“I’m telling Mom you’re acting like a?—”
Haden closed the barn door on him with a curt, “Fine. Drive safe.”
I sagged in relief as I heard Kade’s truck start, then the crunch of snow as he drove away, into the storm and away from the magic in my barn. Haden reopened the door once the truck sounds had faded, letting the few remaining reindeer that were still outside come in with us.
Boots squirmed in my arms, trying to get back to Santa, and I set him back on the straw bale so he could do just that.
Haden was giving me the side eye, his shoulders still puffed up, his hands clenching and unclenching.
“I know! I know,” I said wearily, feeling the weight of his gaze. “I’m a pushover. So shoot me.”
Haden's eyes were dark, brows low. The intensity of his gaze was like a pin, poking into me, and reminding me that I often failed at standing up for myself, or at making my voice heard without causing a big stir.
“Do you still love him?”
“What? No.”
“But you did?”
“Of course. We were together for years.” And it hadn’t been all bad. We were simply at the crazy-making stage of being in a former relationship.
Haden stepped closer, cupping my chin with his large, warm hand. His eyes looked so serious, I felt shaky.
“Love shouldn’t hurt like that.”
“Like what?”
“Love shouldn’t hurt like that,” he repeated quietly, releasing me and stepping back. I had to take a step forward to regain my balance.
“Oh,” I said softly. I felt like I’d been kissed. The way that left you breathless, wondering if the world always felt this warm, always this beautiful.
My mind eventually found its way back to my worries, like there was a well-trod groove to them from every happy thought I ever had.
