by Wendy Knight
A masterpiece.
She slid the satin and tulle over her head, and it fell into place like a dream. Red buttoned it up, exclaiming in awe under her breath.
Cleo grinned at her over her shoulder. “Didn’t know I could be so pretty, did ya?”
Red squeezed her shoulders, suddenly very quiet. Cleo panicked, wondering what she could have done to upset her.
Finally, Red spoke softly. “Cleo, your soul is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The rest of you matches, whether in a gorgeous dress or dog-slobbered jeans.”
For the second time in twenty minutes, Cleo burst into tears.
Red led the way back into the front office where Kate and Mrs. Stradley were waiting. Mrs. Stradley squealed, and Kate took pictures while Cleo spun and twirled like a princess, posing at every angle.
Suddenly, Red gasped, slamming the front door. “Go change.”
“What?” Cleo froze mid-twirl. “Why?” She really, really didn’t want to change out of that dress. In fact, she was sort of planning to wear it every day for the rest of her life.
“Kayne’s coming! Go change!” Red hissed, shooing her toward the bathroom. Mozzie, seeming to think Red was distressing Cleo, came bounding in to the rescue, teeth bared.
“I got this,” Mrs. Stradley said, hurrying outside to sidetrack Kayne while Cleo danced away from Mozzie to protect the dress and Red tried to not get eaten by the very protective dog.
“Mozzie, down,” Cleo finally commanded, regaining common sense. She said it firmly but not angrily, and Mozzie responded, looking back at her as if to say, Are you sure? She looks pretty suspicious to me. “She’s a friend, Moz. Calm down.”
Mozzie backed off, following Cleo to the bathroom. He lay outside the door as Cleo swung it shut, but she talked to him through the crack the entire time so he knew she was still there. Once changed and dress tucked safely back in the bag, she emerged just as Kayne came in, eyebrows drawn. “Everything okay in here?”
“Yep. Just trying on my dress. Mozzie thought Red was after me.”
“To be fair,” Red said, completely unbothered by the whole situation from where she sat at the front desk, talking to Kate about Huckleberry Falls. “He didn’t attack. He just got between us and kept me from coming closer. That’s a good sign.”
Cleo scratched Mozzie’s head. “It is. And he stopped as soon as I told him to. He’s making amazing progress.” She decided not to tell them about the dress he ate the night before.
“I thought we could ride to the veterans home together. Jayden brought Glacier in to get some socialization.”
Mozzie must have smelled her the second Kayne said that, because he bounded to his feet and raced from the room into the yard, where Jayden had just pulled Glacier in her pretty pink wagon. Red smiled. “I’ll watch him.”
Cleo put the dress in her jeep and followed Kayne to his truck, annoyed at the way her pulse seemed to speed up with every step closer to him she took. This was Kayne, for heaven’s sakes. She’d known him since Kindergarten. She’d seen him fall off the monkey bars and cry for an hour. She’d seen him pass out at the third-grade choir performance because there were so many people in the crowd. She’d seen him yell at a ref and get kicked out of the game because of his temper tantrum.
She’d also seen him carry an injured fawn three miles to the sanctuary for help because he’d found it on his run and hadn’t been in the car. He’d been covered in blood and had strained his arm so he couldn’t play football the next week, but he’d never complained. She’d seen him dodge in front of Mrs. Stradley and take a dog bite meant for her and never say a word. She’d seen him show up in the wee hours of the morning, still bleary-eyed and wearing Snoopy pajama pants, to help rescue a malnourished cat stuck in a drainpipe.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Kayne said. They were halfway to the veterans home and she hadn’t even realized they’d pulled out of the parking lot. “Something wrong?”
She bit her lip, staring at him. I think I’m falling hard for you and you’re so out of my league. Also, you’re leaving to go back to school. And you don’t know I exist beyond our little animal world.
“Mozzie ate my dress last night.”
Kayne’s eyebrows clashed. “Oh no. Is it fixable? I can sew. Maybe we could—”
He could sew. Of course he could.
“No, Kate made me a new one.”
“Kate?”
“Yes. She’s the woman who was with Mrs. Stradley at the office. She’s a designer from New York.”
Kayne tipped his head in confusion. “That was nice of her.”
“Immensely. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Then why are you upset?”
Cleo laughed. “I’m not upset.”
“Then why—” He sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and shrugged. “Never mind. Can I see it?”
“My dress?”
Kayne nodded.
“The chewed on one or the dream dress?”
Kayne snorted. “Either? Both?”
“Well,” Cleo played with her seatbelt to keep her hands busy. “You can see the chewed on one, but you have to wait for the ball to see the dream dress.”
Kayne steered the truck into the parking lot. The veterans home was a retirement home for men and women who had served in the military and now couldn’t live alone for whatever reason. Cleo had been to a lot of retirement homes in her life, and many had been dismal places of despair. The veterans home was not. It was bright and well-maintained. The staff was kind and caring and the residents all seemed happy and well-cared for. Cleo loved visiting and was grateful for the chance to serve them for their Christmas party that day.
The staff showed them where the community room was. Kayne and Cleo donned aprons and started helping with the food Le Chalet Genéve had catered. Malen was barking orders at everyone who would listen. “Well, well, well, look who showed up,” she said snidely as Cleo walked past, tying her apron behind her back.
“How are your swans?” Cleo asked sweetly. Malen sputtered and hissed, much like her swans, actually, but couldn’t get a proper response out before Cleo disappeared behind lines of food.
Everyone else showed up just as the residents started coming in. “Okay,” Malen said with her hands on her hips in front of their tables. “You serve the food to the old people and—”
“I mean this most respectfully, Ms. Malen, but I’ll take it from here,” the director, Mr. Claypool, said as he paused next to her. As Malen opened her mouth in outrage, he turned to the rest of them. “Please take your time, chat with each table, and enjoy yourselves. Our veterans are amazing people if you get to know them.”
The rest of them nodded easily, even though Malen still looked annoyed at losing her sense of authority. Cleo eagerly picked up her first tray of food and hurried out to the tables. She used to visit the veterans home regularly when her grandfather had lived there. She still knew most of these people and it was fun to catch up with them. The next two hours flew past as she took out plate after plate and talked to as many veterans as she could. “Malen, we’re ready for dessert,” Mr. Claypool said after the last table had been cleared. Malen stood in the back of the room, whispering angrily into her phone.
She stopped, slowly lowered the phone, and stared at their assembled court group as her cheeks flamed red. “We… uh… we have a problem.”
Kayne stopped next to Cleo, frowning, and Malen motioned at him frantically. He heaved a sigh under his breath and followed Malen to the corner. As he bent his head toward Malen, Cleo tried to stamp down on the twinge of jealousy. She’d watched them like that so many times in high school without ever realizing how much it bothered her. But now that she looked back on it, she saw it all. She had always had a thing for Kayne Frost. No wonder she was always so belligerent toward him. Her breath caught at the realization and she pressed a hand to her chest, wondering how she was going to handle it if he went back to Malen. Or when he left to go ba
ck to school and things went back to normal. When he was gone again.
He looked up, his eyes amused, and motioned toward Cleo. She set her tray down and went to join them, wondering how her brain had taken off on such a tangent.
“What’s up?”
“We have an animal situation. Some shrews,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to hide the grin curling his lips. “Nine of them, it seems. From the looks of the video, they’re doing the conga.”
Cleo gasped, hands clapped to her mouth. “Nine dancing ladies! Twelve Days of Christmas, Kayne!”
He lost his battle to hide the smile and grinned.
“We don’t know if they’re female,” Malen grumbled. “But they’re holding our desserts hostage at the restaurant. My sister won’t retrieve them from the kitchen because the shrews are in there.”
“Shrews have to eat constantly to keep up their metabolism, so they’ll go wherever there’s food and won’t leave unless they’re relocated. They form a conga line and ‘dance’ so that the young don’t get lost,” Cleo said.
“Relocated,” Malen growled. “I want them killed. Every last one of them.”
“We can help get them out of there and get the desserts. But I won’t kill them,” Kayne said. “You want them dead, call an exterminator, not a rescuer.”
“Fine, whatever,” Malen huffed. “You’ve always been too soft.”
Cleo thought he was perfect.
“Ready?” Kayne asked. To Mr. Claypool, who waited nearby, he said, “Can you distract the residents for a bit? We’ll hurry.”
Mr. Claypool nodded. “I’ll think of something.”
Rose and Farrah glanced at the remaining guys of the Christmas Royalty court, who stood waiting for the next round. “We got this.”
“They’re in the kitchen,” Malen’s younger sister, Jessa said. Le Chalet Genéve didn’t open for several more hours, but the staff was already hard at work readying for the evening rush.
Well, they would have been, but they were all in the dining room, avoiding the kitchen like the shrews carried the plague.
Which they probably didn’t.
“Okay, I’ll go get the dessert and bring it out to you,” Kayne said. “Cleo and I will catch the shrews, but you need to get the treats back to the veterans home.”
“Cleo? You’re not afraid?” Jessa asked, eyes wide as if she somehow thought the shrews had wicked teeth and poisonous claws.
Which they probably didn’t.
Kayne snorted as he strode into the kitchen. “She’s only afraid of birds.”
Cleo rolled her eyes, following him. “Not all birds. I’m fine with the big ones,” she retorted to his back.
“Oh, the ones that can claw out your eyes or run off with your puppy are fine, but the little ones that only want to sing pretty songs are evil. Got it.” Kayne laughed, glancing at her over his shoulder. His dark eyes sparkled mischievously as she considered throwing a French bread loaf at his head.
Kayne rescued the desserts and delivered them to Malen to take back to the banquet while Cleo looked for the shrews. On the video Jessa had sent Malen, they had been in the cupboard by the freezer, dancing their little conga line back to a nest, probably.
Nine of them. No one could deny her Twelve Days of Christmas theory now.
Shrews were easy enough to catch. She just needed a box and some peanut butter. But finding peanut butter in a high-end restaurant was harder than she expected. She finally poked her head out just as Kayne came back in. “Do you have peanut butter?”
“Here?” the head chef asked indignantly. “Never.”
“What about bacon?”
It got her a similar look.
“Tuna? Anything smelly?”
“We have escargot,” the chef sniffed, striding toward her. He stopped in the doorway, peering into the room. “and many different kinds of fish. But not tuna.” He had a distinctly Swiss-French accent, but Cleo wasn’t entirely sure it was authentic.
“We’ll just raid the fridge,” Kayne said, already opening the doors. He pulled out several random containers, opening lids and smelling everything until he found what he wanted. Cleo had no idea what it was, but it looked delicious.
The shrews would love it.
She laid it near the cupboard, opening the door wide, and created a path to the box she’d found in the back. And then they waited, leaning against the cabinets and sitting on the pristine white floors, their feet tangled together. “You’re really great with the veterans,” Kayne said quietly.
Cleo flushed under his praise. “They’re heroes. They deserve all the respect we can give them.”
Kayne nodded. “You’re really great with everyone, actually.”
Cleo laughed, “Malen would not agree, Kayne.”
“I think she can’t help but, even if she wanted to. Everyone loves you.”
And you, Kayne? Does that everyone include you?
She almost asked but lost her nerve at the last minute. “Well, I can only aspire one day to be as well-liked as you in this quaint little village of ours.”
Kayne rolled his eyes. “You’ve far surpassed the master on this one, little apprentice.”
Cleo laughed out loud, clapping a hand over her mouth as she jerked wide-eyed toward the cupboard where she suspected the shrews hid. They were never going to come out if she kept making so much noise.
“What are your plans after school?” she asked slowly. It was something she’d been obsessing about for days, almost as much as she was obsessing about him.
Which was all very new and confusing.
He hesitated. “I’m still trying to figure it out. I always hoped I could come back here, or at least nearby. My family is here, the sanctuary is here. You’re here.” He gave her a lopsided grin and her heart skipped a beat. “I just hope I can find a job with the forest service.”
“And you have one more semester, right? Until graduation?”
He nodded. “How about you?”
“One more also.” Thank the heavens. She was ready to put college behind her and move on with her degree. Although she wasn’t quite sure what moving on entailed. She also wanted to work for the forest service, tracking the wolf population and making sure it could thrive. “Eighteen credit hours though.”
Kayne nodded. “And then… are you sticking around here?”
Cleo hesitated. “I—I don’t know. This is my home. I love it here. But everyone else moved on. I feel like maybe I shouldn’t be so content, you know?”
Kayne shook his head. “If you’ve found a place where your soul is at peace, stay there.”
Cleo looked at him in surprise. “You’re surprisingly wise, Mr. Popularity.”
Kayne inclined his head. “I am.” Suddenly, he froze, and then nodded toward the cupboard. Cleo followed his gaze just as the little shrews, long noses leading the way, scrambled out of the cupboard, each holding on to the tail in front of it. “Nine dancing ladies,” Cleo murmured, counting as they emerged.
“That makes tomorrow ten lords a leaping. How are you gonna manage that one, Cleo?”
She shrugged, careful to not move and scare them away. “Only the Twelve Days of Christmas knows.”
The shrews crawled into the box, eager to eat whatever exotic Swiss-French dish Kayne had found. Cleo pounced, closing the box lid and locking the shrews inside. “We’ll take them back to Red’s. She’s probably got somewhere we can stash them for the winter until they can build a new nest.”
Jessa and the kitchen staff cheered as Cleo and Kayne carried the shrews out of the restaurant. She climbed into Kayne’s truck, suddenly exhausted. “The ball is in two days,” she said around a yawn. “And then we can forget this whole thing ever happened.”
“Not hoping to win?” Kayne asked, turning her heater up. The skies had been clear, and the chill in the air was more biting than usual without the clouds to muffle the cold.
Cleo shook her head. “Of course not. No one even knows I exist, and you have to have the
most votes to win. Which you know, being the reigning champion and all.”
Kayne shrugged, turning toward the sanctuary at the far side of town. “Maybe you should have played football. Make some amazing plays that have more to do with the team than you and that’s all anyone remembers you for.”
“You made those amazing plays. Your team supported you, but it was your talent, Kayne.”
He glanced over at her. “You watched me play?”
Cleo snorted. “Every game. The whole school did.”
“I didn’t know you ever went. You never mentioned.” His voice was softer, gentler than she was used to. “I mean, I know there were like four guys on my team that were fighting over you, but—”
Cleo laughed. “Not true.” The shrews scurried around in the box on her lap, as if agreeing with her.
“I think I know, being on their team and all. You always had your head in a book and had no idea how many guys were falling at your feet.”
Cleo raised an eyebrow. “I think we aren’t remembering the same high school.”
Kayne regarded her thoughtfully for several seconds before he turned his attention back to the road. “No,” he said slowly. “It seems we are not.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cleo’s Twelve Days of Christmas continued when Kayne got the call early the next morning to help save frogs. Ten of them, all “rescued” by local high school kids who were trying to save them from dissection in science class. They released them into the pond outside of town, except that the pond was frozen and the frogs had nowhere to go to hibernate. Without rescue, they would all die. Luckily, the freezing temperatures made them slow and catching them was easy. He and Dustin did it in less than an hour and reinforcements weren’t needed.
Or maybe unluckily, because then he had no excuse to see Cleo.
The ball was the next day. Someone would be crowned royalty and then the pageant would be over. Soon after that it would be Christmas and if Cleo was right, her animal rescuing spree would slow down substantially as well. And then he would go back to school and who knew where she would be by the time he came back. Every time he left, he was afraid he would lose her while he was gone. He made grand plans and wrote long emails but every time, he lost his nerve because she seemed to barely tolerate his existence. The pageant or her animal curse, he wasn’t sure which, had forced them closer than they’d ever been. If he was ever going to make a move, this was it.
