by Starla Night
Her laptop had been in the kitchen. If the fire hadn’t destroyed it, the gushing hose did.
Her bedroom was wrecked. And the COACH bag Peridot had bought. Her chunky shoes.
A commotion—screaming and struggling—drowned out the sirens.
Two men in impeccable business suits marched a bedraggled, grimy woman through the disaster scene and presented her to a police officer guarding the perimeter.
“This human female originated the fire,” the blond man said. “We observed her on our sensors.”
“Let go of me!” the woman screamed. “I did nothing. This is an outrage. Libel. Assault!”
Recognition jolted Karmel.
It was Legal Lori. Or, whatever her name was. She was even wearing the same navy blue pantsuit but her heels were no longer white.
“You have any proof?” the police officer asked her captors.
The businessmen—tall, they must be Peridot’s dragon coworkers—looked at each other.
“I am an innocent victim,” Legal Lori said. “They chased me. Arrest them!”
The two dragons turned to Peridot for guidance. The older woman followed their gazes. Her eyes rested on Karmel.
Recognition twisted Legal Lori’s face to hate. She screamed. “You selfish, house-wrecking witch. You were supposed to die!”
Karmel went cold.
Peridot turned protectively, hiding her from the toxic woman behind his steady shoulder.
“It’s your fault my son and daughter-in-law have turned against me. You sent police to embarrass me in the middle of my party. I shouldn’t have destroyed your trashy salon last night. I should have set it on fire while you were inside!”
The police officer got out his cuffs. “Time to go to the station.”
“Christmas is ruined, you witch!” Legal Lori shrieked.
Deep anger welled in Karmel. She raised her voice over Peridot’s protective shield. “Christmas isn’t ruined. I’m having the best cookie exchange ever. Surrounded by my friends and loved ones. You’re the one who will be alone. I will be fi—”
Coughs shredded her throat. She hacked and gasped. Tears burned her eyes.
Officers forced the woman into the police car. Karmel got in the last word. It was worth it.
The dragons nodded at Peridot and flew like super heroes off into the gray skies.
Peridot stroked her back through the blanket. “Now let me heal you.”
She gasped. “I need … to see … what I can salvage…”
His jaw tightened.
“What, Peridot?”
He shook his head. Grim.
Faster than it seemed possible, the fire department extinguished the fire and allowed them to return for the essentials. He flew her up to her apartment.
It stank like a dumpster fire.
Flames had charred the refrigerator. Curdled linoleum crunched beneath her feet. Black scarred her ceiling and walls, and smelly ash dusted every surface.
She picked up the package from her parents under the tree. Soaked paper flaked off.
Everything she had planned with such excitement had burned. The community she’d craved would never happen.
She’d be angry if she wasn’t so numb.
Karmel rubbed her dress. It was stained.
Wasn’t it funny she’d awoken early? She’d prepared. This fire proved she would never manage her life’s chaos. Not even if she stayed awake for a million years. She should never have tried.
The cookie exchange. She still had a responsibility. The homeless pups were relying on her. Criminal selfishness couldn’t win.
Karmel swallowed a harsh cough. “New decorations?”
“Not delivered.” Peridot looked pained.
Their lateness had saved them. “Deliver them to a new location. To … uh … to the pet salon.”
He winced.
No, the pet salon had been ruined last night. By the same short-sighted, cruel, uncharitable Grinch.
“To … somewhere else.” She really needed to see his doctors for the smoke inhalation. It was so hard to think. “Call the delivery. Redirect to…huh.”
“I can’t.”
She looked up at him. “Peridot?”
“I can’t help you, Karmel. I must pilot a ship to Draconis. I will return after the New Year.” He swallowed. Pain broke his voice. “I’m sorry.”
Outside, stained snow flakes flurried.
Chapter Eleven
Peridot saw Karmel’s shoulders slump and the light go out of her soot-rimmed, honey-brown eyes.
“No. Of course not.” She stared dully at the ash-covered, soggy living room.
The wreckage was so different from the bright, cheery space he had left only an hour before.
“I’m very sorry,” he said. “I cannot attend the cookie exchange or spend Christmas with you.”
She sniffed. “I’m … disappointment.”
Pain stabbed him. “It will not happen again.”
She nodded and scratched at the stain on her new dress. Her voice dropped quiet. Mournful. “What am I going to do now?”
Her mournful tone held the same fears as her boss, Monica, the night before.
He was practical. “You must find a new living situation.”
She closed her eyes as if shutting out the truth.
He’d never seen her so lost. She always bounced back. Resilience was her core strength. It hurt him to see her desolation.
She rubbed her face. Black smeared her nose. She didn’t seem to notice.
I’m disappointed.
He shook himself. Peridot needed her to rally. Rise like a phoenix from the ashes. Smile again.
Because if she could do it, then so could he.
If she couldn’t…
He shoved away his old memories and focused on the sweet, kind, hurting woman before him. “Where can you host the cookie exchange?”
She snorted. “The exchange is canceled.”
“Just because I can’t come—”
“No one can come!” She scrubbed angry tears from her cheeks. “Look at this mess.” Her face slid into the lost expression again. She dropped her head into her hands. “It’s useless.”
Useless.
Fear slipped between his ribs like a cold, hard blade.
He gripped her shoulders. “This is the event you’ve been working for.”
“Ruined.”
“You can overcome this setback.”
She dropped her hands. “I can overcome a lot of things, Peridot, but not my apartment literally burning down. The blizzard is coming anyway.” She looked away. “‘Disaster’ is my middle name.”
He couldn’t accept that answer from her. “You’ll figure out a way.”
“What’s the point?”
“Karmel.”
“Don’t you see? This is a sign. Only kids get excited by Christmas. I need to grow up.” She hugged herself. “Christmas is dead.”
How could he help her?
Karmel. His mate. The female he wished to provision with a lair, clothe in the best fabrics, worship with gems and candies.
Think. How had she comforted him?
Ah. Touch.
He pulled her into his arms and stroked her softened hair.
She coughed. “I’m not the resilient person you think I am.”
But she was. She couldn’t disguise her sparkling goodness.
“I will help,” he murmured, into her hair. “For the exchange, what do you need?”
“Everything. A location. Forget it.” She hiccupped. “I don’t even know where I’m going to stay tonight.”
“You will stay with me.”
As soon as he said the words a deep certainty filled him. Yes. She would stay with him. He would ensure it.
“With you?”
“Until I provision our lair, you will stay in our dormitory.”
“Lair?”
“We will create our fortress together. On the top of a mountain or deep cavern.”
H
er lost expression faded. She seemed to wake up. “So then your dorms are?”
“On our spaceship.”
“Oh. That’s, uh, a commute.”
“I will show you.” He lifted her into his arms and flew her to the spaceship.
Her eyes were round as wreathes.
First, they stopped in medical. A mist-shower removed the fire stench. It dampened her clothes and evaporated. She breathed in the soothing mist.
“Menthol,” she commented, rubbing her throat. “So this will regrow any missing or scarred throat and lung tissue? When?”
“It should already be working.”
She limped. “Good to know.”
The med bay identified exposure and mild frostbite injuring her feet. He applied healing gel, picked her up, and flew her down the glowing passages to Sard’s office. “You will heal within the hour.”
“Wow.”
He landed at Sard’s office and received permission to enter. Karmel held back while Peridot supplicated his boss.
“We discovered your mate’s attacker and turned her over to human authorities,” Sard growled, making Karmel shrink behind Peridot. “Why are you not finishing the final check for the shipment to Draconis?”
Peridot’s nerves formed a tight, hot ball in his belly. His palms sweated. But his mate needed his protection.
“My mate needs emergency shelter. She will stay in my dorm.”
Sard stood and crossed to the map of the ship’s dorms on the wall. “She will be stranded in your dorm until your return.”
“Th-that’s fine,” Karmel mumbled. “I, uh, won’t have a job until the salon is fixed up anyway.”
“And she needs the common room to host her cookie exchange.”
Sard turned on his black steel-toed boots. Dangerous red gleamed in his eyes. “Needs?”
“Yes. This charity is her Christmas tradition.”
His lips flattened. “You will not be here to assist.”
Peridot’s heart beat faster. “I understand.”
“All other dragons have requested this time to experience a human Christmas. None are here to convey guests or ‘decorate’ or so forth. I will announce this event but possibly no dragon will come to serve for free.”
“I understand,” Peridot said again.
His boss considered his unorthodox request! Before Karmel, he would never have dared to ask. But because of Karmel, he tested his boss’s kindness and found that Sard truly cared for him. His heart beat so fast it almost raced out of his chest.
“How about for cookies?” Karmel said.
Sard had been poised to dismiss them. His teeth shut with a click. “Excuse me?”
“The exchange is for charity so I can’t pay but maybe your dragons would pitch in for free cookies?”
“Sugar and truffle,” Sard mused.
“Those were ruined in the fire. Monica, if she comes, will bring gingersnaps and dip. Eva’s making Russian tea cakes. You can look forward to peanut butter balls, triple-chocolate fudge, gingerbread men, jam pockets, Dulce du Leche shortbread, Christmas tree cookie stacks, Snowman popcorn balls, blueberry meringues, and no-bake pretzel stacks. That’s just the ones I know are confirming.”
Sard stuck out his lower lip. “I do not know if those offerings will compel my dragons—”
“I will convey guests,” one of the dragon guards said from the doorway. “For one cookie?”
“I’m sure you can have more than one,” Karmel promised.
The second guard stepped into the office. “I, too, will convey guests.”
Peridot’s throat closed. The kindness of his coworkers made his heart burst.
“Thank you,” Peridot told them. His voice growled, rough, with gratitude.
Sard’s brows lifted. “There. Two dragons will convey your human guests.”
“And dogs,” Karmel said.
Sard’s frown returned. “Dogs?”
“It’s a holiday cookie exchange to benefit ‘Home for the Howlidays.’ So, it’s open to people and their pets. Is that a problem?”
“If you will find dragons to convey humans and their pets, then no problem.”
Both dragon guards volunteered.
“I will put out the call.” Sard returned to his desk and pressed his communicator. “Peridot. You may have five minutes to settle your mate. Then, you must be gone.”
Karmel’s bitterness tainted her last moments with Peridot.
He showed her his quarters, promised another dragon would convey her around the massive, blinking-metal-funky-corridors spaceship, and scraped off the gel he’d put on her feet. It tickled and her skin was a reassuring pink.
He then dropped her in the empty, echo-filled common room.
“I will be here for you next year,” he promised.
“Yeah,” she said dully.
“Do not feel sad. This room has a secret.” Peridot glanced at his bare wrist—no Rolex—and took her to a complex control panel. “This button will allow your holiday lights to glow.”
“I don’t have holiday lights.”
He winced. “You will soon. I think.”
Karmel tried to shake off her blues. But it was no use. “Can’t you put off leaving just a few more hours?”
“No.”
“This holiday is important.”
“I understand.”
“Working on Christmas is a break-up-able offense!”
“Yes, I—”
“Agh!” She scrubbed her cheeks. “Leave. Just go. Don’t get in trouble because of me. This time.”
He backed away. “Your exchange will go well.”
“Whatever.”
With many backward glances, he left.
“I’m not going to save you any cookies!” she shouted at the hallway.
Silence.
Why was this any surprise? She was always alone on Christmas. No one cared.
No one.
Well, except Peridot had saved her life. Saved her cookie exchange. Saved her.
Wasn’t she an ungrateful Grinch?
You are the most resilient person I know.
“Argh!” She rubbed her bare face. “I’m not resilient. I’m pissed off!”
When would she accept that life never granted her wishes? Family, community, happiness would never surround her at Christmas. That had died with her grandmother. Even if she did get talked into another cookie exchange it would never match the fantasy in her head.
She would be alone. Even Peridot becoming her mate hadn’t changed that. She could still see the taillights of her dad driving away, leaving them at Christmas.
It tasted bitter as the ash in the back of her throat.
Karmel pulled the stained yellow emergency blanket off, folded it, and set it on the counter.
She needed to do … something … with this sad school cafeteria.
Her phone rang.
Oh, so she got cell service inside the Independence Day-sized ship.
Eva gasped onto the phone. “Syen heard the message, and I saw the news. Are you all right?”
“I survived.” Karmel rubbed her throat. Thank goodness for Peridot or she’d be dead. “Did you know the location changed?”
“Yes! We’re on our way. Oh, I hope it’s okay, but Syen told a lot of dragons about the cookie exchange. You should get plenty of help.”
After the big boss’s bored dismissal, Karmel suspended her belief. “That’d be great.”
“See you soon.”
Karmel hung up, posted she was alive, and then called her confirmed guests with the bad news.
While sorry for what had happened, every single guest was gracious about changing locations.
“I can’t believe you’re still hosting,” Monica said when she called. “It’s inspired me to pack up Princess and head over. Are there any restrictions on what we can bring?”
“Nope,” Karmel said. “The dragons will convey anyone who arrives at the blocked-off street. Er, the decorations might not inspire you.”
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“You lost your house. I’ll give it a pass. Oh, and I’ll look forward to the secret project you’ve been hinting at for weeks.”
Karmel’s belly squinched nerves. “Right. Uh, you’ll see.”
She hung up.
Her secret project. The dough paw prints that never dried.
Just one more reason to panic.
Oh! She should have told her boss to never mind, the prototype had gotten charred in the fire. But then Monica would ask what it had been, and then she’d be in the same place of having a decent idea but no way to execute it.
Bad planning.
One thing at a time. She’d deal with her embarrassment later.
Her greatest fear was that no one would come and look! That fear had disappeared. She should—
No, wait.
That wasn’t her greatest fear.
Her greatest fear was that everyone would come … and they’d be disappointed. The cookie exchange wouldn’t be any fun. She didn’t deserve it.
Just like, deep down, she didn’t believe she deserved any Christmas presents. If you kids didn’t ask for such expensive presents, your dad wouldn’t have to work! After that year, she’d requested nothing for Christmas. Her parents complained she was so hard to buy gifts for. Her siblings didn’t bother.
But her dad had continued to work.
And it was not her fault.
This cookie exchange wasn’t her one and only chance to show how magical the holiday season could be.
She did deserve love.
Chapter Twelve
Karmel stood. “Need Christmas music…”
A dragon peeked in the door.
She waved him over with a welcoming grin. “Thank goodness you’re here! How can I hook up my phone to stream holiday music?”
He strode across the space and examined her phone. Like all dragons, he dressed impeccably in a dark blue business suit that highlighted his lithe, muscular form. His hair was white blond and eyes so pale blue they were almost clear.
After he examined the signals, I’m dreaming of a white Christmas crooned over the speakers. Three dragons arrived with giant boxes from the department store. She spilled the contents and ordered them to find, move, and decorate furniture. Before she knew it, a half-dozen had arrived to soldier for her.
