Page 7 of Snowed in at Santa's Lodge
I jumped up from the table, eager to help him. “I’ll get dressed. I was actually hoping to help you today.”
Ragnar got up and began clearing the dishes. “You don’t have to help if you don’t want to. You can relax. Please don’t feel like you owe me anything. I am happy to help you.”
Help me. Not help people or just help but help me.Goddess, maybe I was reading too much into this. This morning, he was wearing a hoodie and jeans that had seen some things. They had paint stains and more than one patch. I had always been attracted to the rough-and-tough blue-collar types, but he was the epitome. He was a hard worker and somehow still managed to be soft and kind and gentle? Yeah, I’d definitely died and stumbled into the afterlife.
“I would like to. No paybacks just…I would like to help you and spend the day with you.”
He turned around, smiling. The alpha had a great smile. “All right. Get dressed. I’m working on the second-floor rooms today. But promise to let me know if you get worn out or if I’m giving you too much. I tend to work myself into the ground and then have to recover instead of taking it slow and easy.”
I crossed my heart. “I promise.”
He waited for me to get dressed and, when I emerged, he nodded his head. “Come on. I have a big dream of opening before Christmas but that’s not going to happen. Still, it seems a shame not to decorate for the holidays, and I thought you might want to.”
“Really?” I may have bounced up and down. “That sounds not like work at all.”
“I have a feeling with you, nothing feels like work, Aspen.”
“We’ll see.”
On the way, we stopped in the room with all the boards and paint and he got me a pair of gloves.
“Christmas decorations require gloves?” I asked.
The alpha shrugged. “Can’t be too careful with you, omega.”
Him calling me that did something serious to my insides. I’d stopped here out of an emergency situation, but it wasn’t until that moment that it hit me. Maybe this was Fate. Maybe she’d pushed me here on purpose to meet Ragnar.
An omega could hope.
Anyone would be lucky to be mated to him. I barely knew him, but there was something about the way he talked, moved, looked at me, that made me feel wanted and cherished.
“Any chance you have some nutcrackers? I don’t like those things.” I caught up to him easily, though I suspected he was going slow on purpose.
“Why?” He chuckled. “They’re soldiers. They’re cute.”
“I don’t know. Something about the way the mouth moves. It creeps me out.”
Ragnar laughed and it bounced off the walls. “I’ll protect you from the creepy nutcrackers. Don’t you worry.”
Chapter Seven
Ragnar
Santa’s Lodge held a butt ton of Christmas items. Granddad had collected them since buying the lodge, and each time I visited, he brought out everything he’d purchased since my last visit and showed them to me. We would make notes on the plans as to where they would go, and dream of the day when we opened the doors to customers who would ooh and aah over the magic we created. But, that was as far as we ever got.
Before Aspen arrived, I had no intention of doing any decorating because who would be here to appreciate it? Also, with so much work left to do, it would be like decorating a haunted house. When I received the notice that Santa’s Lodge was mine, I’d had a dream of opening in time for Christmas, but of course that wasn’t possible. So I’d shelved the thought of getting out all those items until next year.
All that changed when my omega arrived. My reindeer, an oddly big fan of Christmas for a beast, put up a fuss about the whole thing. He insisted that our mate get to enjoy everything Granddad had bought, including the items he and I purchased together at yard sales and thrift stores on my visits. The local town’s vintage vibe extended to what people pulled out of their garages and basements to sell or donate over the summer months.
“I forgot something.” Leaving my omega standing at the foot of the stairs, I dashed into my project-supply slash organizing room and came back with a couple of masks. “Here you go.” I handed him one.
“Gloves aren’t enough?”
“Probably not. The Christmas decorations are all stored in the attic, and I haven’t even been up there since I inherited the place, but dust seems likely.”
Aspen placed the mask over his nose and mouth. “I feel like a bandit.”
“As long as you don’t steal all of the hoard, we’ll be fine. You don’t want to breathe a bunch of dirt into your lungs. If we get up there and it’s miraculously not unhealthy for inhaling, you can always take it off.”
