Epilogue
The day after Christmas in Northern Idaho
Billy Edge
Billy trudged home from the sledding hill, his head low and his spirits even lower. He’d hoped the new sleigh would help the other kids see that he was just like them, but they’d laughed and called to one another and ignored him like always.
He hated it here.
In his old school, he had lots of friends. He wouldn’t be alone the day after Christmas; he’d be at Jeff’s house, building whatever giant Lego set Santa brought him that year. Or he’d be in Cade’s garage, fiddling with the scooter they almost got going. According to the YouTube videos, they only needed one more part.
He hated his dad. If he had just stuck around a little longer, then Billy and Mom wouldn’t have had to move to this tiny town.
Sniffing loudly, he swiped at his face. He hated crying. He hated feeling like he was out of control and that no one cared. Mom did, but she was stressed all the time and not the same as she’d been before Dad had left.
Neither of them were.
A whimper reached his ears, pulling Billy up short. He glanced behind him, expecting to see Jordan, the biggest bully in class, mocking him for crying. But Jordan wasn’t there, and his were the only footprints in the snow.
He stepped, and the sound came again. This time he thought it came from the right. Leaving his sled, he stepped off the path and into the brush. There might be a rabbit caught in a trap, or a wolf. He stopped and pulled his arms up to his chest. Wolves were dangerous enough when they were healthy, but a wounded one would bite him just to protect itself.
The sound came again, desperate and afraid. His little boy heart couldn’t take it anymore, and he moved faster, pushing branches aside. He stumbled into a clearing and froze at the sight of a reindeer tangled up in a harness attached to a sleigh. A real, honest-to-goodness Santa sleigh.
The reindeer met his eyes and pleaded for help. He held up his hands. “It’s okay.” He didn’t know why he wanted to speak to her, but he’d felt her tell him she needed help. “I can get you out.”
She held still as he approached, tracking his movements.
As he got closer, he noticed her leg was wrapped up in the leather. It was swollen and raw. “Oh man.” He fell to his knees and started pulling on the strap, looking for a way to loosen it. His eyes landed on a buckle, and he undid it.
The reindeer cried out when freed, and she sagged, breathing heavily against the snow.
“Sorry,” he apologized, and he worked with more thoughtfulness, making sure the rest of the harness unwound without jerking her. When he’d taken off everything but the harness around her face, he stepped back. “Okay, can you get up?”
She drew in a breath and struggled to stand. After a painful attempt to put weight on her back foot, she fell over again.
Billy went to her head and knelt down. He ached for her, hating the idea that she was going to die. “Please don’t leave me.” His tears fell on her cheek, and she turned to watch him. “I don’t want you to die. Please get better.”
She nuzzled his knee, and he rubbed her neck. “We have a barn. No one uses it but me.” He wiped his cheeks. “If we can get you there, I know you’ll be safe.” As if accenting his words, a wolf howled in the distance. “I can’t leave you here. Please, you have to walk.”
With a worried glance over the ridge where the wolf howled, the reindeer lifted off the ground.
Billy got to his feet and rubbed his eyes. “You’re—you’re floating.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him, asking him to rephrase that.
He looked at the sleigh. Santa’s sleigh. “You’re flying.”
She bobbed her head.
Billy grinned. For the first time since he’d learned the meaning of the word divorce and they’d come to this podunk town, he felt happy. “Come on. Let’s get you home, and I’ll find something for you to eat. Do you like carrots?”
Her eyes brightened.
“We have a bag in the fridge.” He started off, thought better of just leaving her to fly behind him, and found a long strip of leather, which he tied under her chin. “Don’t want you floating away.” He wasn’t sure how this flying reindeer thing worked, but he’d figure it out.
She came with him, her head moving slowly up and down as she limped through the air.
He retrieved his sled, dragging it behind him. “Do you have a name?” He checked to see if she responded.
She nodded.
“Hmm. I’m not sure how you’re going to tell me. Can I call you Candy?”
She blew out her lips, making the raspberry sound.
He laughed, the sound foreign after so many months of not hearing it. “Dasher? Dancer?”
He went through all the reindeer names he knew before making it to the barn. But once they got there, it became more important to make a bed for the reindeer and get her settled than figuring out her name.
He pulled open one of the stalls in the back. “Will this work?”
She limped inside and inspected every corner before settling against the far wall.
“That doesn’t look very comfortable. I’ll be right back.” He took off for the house, making sure to shut the barn door so she didn’t wander out.
He pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and gathered it against his chest. He was almost out the back door when his mom called, “Whoa there, speedy. Whatcha doing?”
Billy turned around and stared at his mom—a big debate happening inside of him. He could tell her a quick fib and be on his way. But when he really looked at her, he saw the worn-down slope of her shoulders and the circles under her eyes. He thought of how he’d laughed and felt happy around Santa’s reindeer, and he wanted to see the light in his mother’s eyes again.
“Can you keep a secret?” he asked her.
She cocked her head. “I’m actually a pretty great secret keeper.”
“Follow me.” He motioned for her to follow. She took for-ev-er getting her snow boots on, but they finally made their way out to the barn. At the door, Billy put his finger over his lips. “You have to be quiet—don’t scream.”
Mom grabbed his shoulders. “Billy Edge, please tell me you didn’t trap a coyote in the barn.”
He shrugged off her hold. “No, Mom. She’s not dangerous—but she’s hurt.”
Mom’s forehead wrinkled. Before she could tell him he couldn’t go inside, he pushed the door open wide enough for him and the blanket to fit and then squeezed through. Mom was right behind him, a hand on his shoulder—probably so she could yank him away from whatever was in there.
Billy tried not to shrug her off, because he wanted her to say he could keep the reindeer. He made his way to the last stall, Mom creeping behind him like she was in a Scooby-Doo movie. Moms!
He opened the door, half expecting the reindeer to have disappeared and left behind a pile of glitter. But she was there, looking at him with a lot of curiosity. “I brought you a blanket.” He walked in, holding it out so she could sniff it.
The reindeer turned and looked at Mom, asking him, Who is she?
“That’s my mom, Mitzi. She’s kind of nervous. I told her you wouldn’t hurt us, though.” He turned to face Mom. “It’s one of Santa’s reindeer. I found her in the woods with a sleigh. She’s hurt.” He pointed to her leg.
Mom approached slowly. “Can I look at it?” she asked the reindeer.
She blinked a yes.
Billy hugged the blanket tight as Mom’s hands moved over the leg. When it got to the spot where the leather had wrapped tight, the reindeer sucked in quickly.
Mom yanked her hands back. “Sorry. I know it’s tender, but I need to check for a break.”
Billy watched in awe. “How do you know what to do?”
Mom smiled, a real one with teeth and everything. “I grew up on a farm, silly. We had to know all sorts of things about animals.” Somehow, she looked younger when she talked about growing up in North Dakota. She used to te
ll him stories all the time about her horse Buttercup, but she hadn’t in a long time. He missed those stories. “Hold her harness for me, would you? I don’t want her thrashing while I probe the bone.”
Billy did as he was told. “Hold still now. Mom’s good at fixing things. I had a cut once, right here.” He pointed to his head. “She used glue to put it back together, and you can’t even see a scar because my hair covers it.” Talking kept the reindeer’s gaze on him and not on what Mom was doing.
Mom finished her exam and rocked back on her heels before sitting crisscross on the dirty floor. Billy bit his cheek to keep from saying something about getting dirty. If she wasn’t worried, then he wasn’t going to bring it up. “I’m afraid you’ve fractured your leg.”
The reindeer laid her head down as if the news was devastating.
He patted her neck. “We’ll help you get better.”
Mom considered the two of them, like she was looking to see how a puzzle piece fit in a certain spot. “We’ll have to brace it, and she won’t be able to walk for at least three weeks. Maybe it would be better if we called animal control and let them take care of her.”
Billy wrapped his arms around the animal’s neck. “No. I found her. I promised I’d help. Besides, she can fly. We can’t let someone else take her. They’ll sell her to the circus or something. She has to get back to Santa.”
Mom reached over his back and took his shoulders, pulling him into her for a hug and rocking like she had when he was little. “Okay. Okay.” She stoked his hair, and his frantic feelings of loss abated. “I’ll make you a deal. We’ll do what we can. If she doesn’t show improvement in a week, we’ll find someone who can do more than we can, okay?”
“Sure.” A week was for-ev-er.
“What are you going to call her?” Mom asked.
He shrugged. “She has a name, but she won’t tell me.”
Mom moved so she could see the reindeer’s face. She reached out and traced the star on her forehead. “Star?” she asked. “Wait.” She moved her fingers over two smaller lines. “It almost looks like a snowflake.”
The reindeer’s eyes widened, and she nodded her head quickly. Mom laughed at her antics, the sound better than bells on Christmas. Billy’s heart swelled. It worked. The magical reindeer could fix them; he just knew it.
“I think we’ll call her Snowflake.” Mom ran her hand down Snowflake’s neck. “I’ll be back in a minute with some first-aid supplies.” She stood up.
Snowflake nudged his leg.
“And carrots,” he called after Mom. “She likes carrots.”
Mom smiled, lifting both her hands as if she didn’t know what to make of all this. “Carrots it is.”
Billy listened as Mom left, and then he rubbed Snowflake’s snowflake. “Promise me you’ll never go away,” he begged. “Even if Santa comes back for you.”
Snowflake touched her nose to his, and he felt the promise all the way to his snow boots.
“You’re my best friend, Snowflake.” He hugged her as tight as he dared. “You’ll always be my best friend.” He kissed her cheek and took in the earthy smell of her fur. “Nothing’s going to tear us apart. We’re going to have a lot of fun together. And I’ll read you all my favorite books while you’re getting better.”
Mom reappeared, and he clammed up, embarrassed that she might have heard him.
“You know, I used to talk to Buttercup all the time.” Mom worked without looking at him.
The embarrassment wisped away like smoke. “What would you talk about?”
“Everything.” She laid a wooden ruler over Snowflake’s leg and eyed it for size. “I’d tell her about my day at school, my fight with your aunt Barbara. Just about anything. She was a great listener.” She set the ruler in place and began wrapping a bandage around the ruler and the leg. “I’ll bet Snowflake is a good listener too. Her ears are the perfect size for it.”
Snowflake flicked one ear in response. Billy met his mom’s astonished gaze, and they laughed together.
Once the wrapping was done, she pulled a long carrot out of her inside coat pocket. “Go ahead, give this to her for being such a good patient.”
Billy held out the carrot. Snowflake sniffed the air around it before using her lips to draw it into her mouth and crunching loudly. “Can we keep her, Mom?” As much as Snowflake’s promise to stay filled him up, Billy understood that there as a more powerful force in the universe—a mother’s decree.
“Let’s take it week by week, okay?”
“Okay.” He hugged her. “Thanks, Mom.”
She ruffled his hair. “Thanks for trusting me with your secret.”
Mitzi helped Billy get settled in the barn with the reindeer for an afternoon of storytelling and healing. She found herself chuckling as she stood at the kitchen sink to wash dishes and keep an eye on the barn.
The reindeer was something special. She reminded her of the reindeer from Sleigh Bell Country, where she’d grown up. Man, it had been years since she’d thought of the reindeer and the wranglers.
Forest Nichollas. The name sent a shot of heat through her belly. She’d spent many hours telling Buttercup about the stupid things Forest did in class. Looking back, she’d probably had a crush on the boy. He’d be a man now.
Turning her thoughts back to her own barn, she contemplated where the reindeer had come from. They were too far from Reindeer Wrangler Ranch for it to be theirs. The harness indicated that she was domesticated, and her way of communicating showed she’d spent a lot of time with people. People who were looking for her, no doubt.
Billy thought she was one of Santa’s reindeer. Her heart ached for all that her son had lost over the last year. Saying no to helping the wounded animal wasn’t even an option. If Mitzi could, she would have given him everything on his Christmas list and more. Between the sporadic child-support checks and her minimum-wage job, she was lucky to make ends meet, let alone spoil her son.
She reflected on their time in the barn and the sound of laughter that filled the air. Maybe this was a good thing. Dad always said animals had a way of healing the soul. Billy seemed like his old self this afternoon. And she’d remembered what it felt like to let go of the clouds and let the sunshine through. Her sunshine.
She turned on an Elvis Presley Christmas playlist and swung her hips to the up-tempo beat.
When the song ended, she blew a kiss towards the barn. “Thanks, Snowflake. You reminded me of the child I was.” Which made all the difference in deciding what kind of woman she wanted to be.
Heaven help the man who tried to come between her and her reindeer.
They were keeping Snowflake, and that was that.
Find out what happens when Forest Nichollas comes to town looking for his lost reindeer in A Nutty Christmas Reunion.
If you haven’t read the Marrying Miss Kringle series, you can pick up with Santa’s five feisty and funny daughters in Marrying Miss Kringle: Ginger.
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Blue Christmas
One Tough Christmas Cookie (The Reindeer Wrangler Ranch Christmas Romance Book 1) Page 24
