Page 31 of Sweet Christmas Comeback
A slow smile spread across Mabel's face, the defeated slump of her shoulders straightening. "That's my girl."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Leo stood in the barn, staring at the sleigh he’d spent three hours polishing yesterday. The wood gleamed, the brass fittings caught the morning light, the red cushions looked like something out of a Christmas card. Ready for Sunday’s Tree Lighting ceremony.
Ready for a festival he wasn’t going to be part of.
He turned away from it, grabbed a pitchfork, and started mucking out Comet’s stall with more force than necessary. The physical work felt good. Gave him something to focus on besides the hollow ache in his chest.
He’d done the right thing yesterday. Said what needed to be said. Jade was already halfway out the door—might as well face facts now rather than wait for the inevitable. Better for everyone.
Better for Lila, who’d already lost one person close to her. No point letting her get attached to someone else who was just passing through.
Comet snorted from the doorway, shaking his head hard enough to make his harness bells jingle.
“What?” Leo demanded, jabbing the pitchfork into the hay.
The reindeer just stared at him with those dark, knowing eyes.
“Fine. And maybe better for me too,” Leo admitted, his voice rough. “There. Happy?”
Comet turned and walked away, which felt like judgment.
Leo went back to mucking, but his gaze kept drifting to that sleigh. All polished and ready for a partnership that was over before it really began. He should feel relieved. Should feel like he’d dodged a bullet, protected himself from the kind of pain Steve had gone through when Lisa left.
Instead, he just felt empty.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, saw Mayor Clark’s name, and silenced it without answering. It rang again immediately. Silenced.
Then a text:
Leo, urgent. Need to discuss Sunday’s schedule.
He shoved the phone back into his pocket.
The truth was, he couldn’t face Jade. Couldn’t look at her and see the hurt he’d put there. Couldn’t stand in that bakery and pretend to discuss cocoa stations and sleigh routes when every word between them yesterday had been designed to wound.
Better to just... not. Cancel the whole thing. Stay here with his reindeer where things made sense.
Vixen wandered over and nuzzled his arm. He scratched behind her ears absently, his mind circling.
He didn’t owe Jade anything. They’d worked together for a few days, almost kissed once in a moment of Christmas-fueled insanity, and then reality had crashed back in. That was it. That was the whole story.
A clean break now meant no messy complications later.
His phone rang again. Different number this time—probably someone from the town council. He ignored it.
The sleigh sat there in the center of the barn, mocking him with its readiness. All that work, all that planning. The route they’d mapped together, the timing they’d calculated, the wayher face had lit up when they’d figured out the perfect loop through town.
Leo grabbed the harness he’d been conditioning and started working saddle soap into the leather with aggressive circular motions. The familiar smell of leather and oil was grounding. This was real. This was solid. Not feelings, not maybes, not the risk of caring about someone who’d probably be gone by Valentine’s Day.
“It’s better this way,” he said aloud, as if saying it would make it true.
Comet snorted again from his stall.
“She was going to leave anyway,” Leo continued, working the soap harder into the leather. “Better now than later. Better before Lila gets more attached. Before?—”
Before I get more attached.
