Page 48 of Never Kiss a Krampus

“Yep.”

Neither of us moved.

“We should?—”

“Probably.”

More silence.

His tail unwrapped from my waist slowly, reluctantly. Like it didn’t want to let go. I understood the feeling, but I forced myself upright, climbing off his lap with all the grace of a newborn deer. He watched me stumble to my feet, his expression unreadable.

“Thank you,” I said. “For the warmth. And for not letting me freeze.”

“It was practical.”

“Right. Practical.”

We stared at each other. I broke first, turning towards the bathroom. “I need to freshen up. And then we should probably get the shop ready to open.”

“As you wish.”

I fled.

The bathroom mirror confirmed what I’d suspected: I looked like I’d been through a blizzard, slept on a Krampus, and lost a fight with my own hair. All accurate.

I took a quick hot shower, then pulled on a soft cream sweater and a long plaid skirt. By the time I was ready, he had already gone downstairs. I fed Jingle, who’d finally deigned to emerge from under the covers, then carried two cups of coffee down to the shop.

“You have an unhealthy obsession with warm beverages,” he muttered, but he took the coffee anyway. He was standing by the window, looking out at the transformed town.

The blizzard had dumped an impossible amount of snow. Main Street was buried, drifts piled halfway up the windows of the shops. The world outside was hushed, muffled, beautiful.

“Nobody’s getting here today,” I said, my stomach sinking. “The shop might as well be closed.”

He turned from the window, the early morning light catching the silver in his fur. “Perhaps.”

“What does that mean?”

He ignored my question. “The blizzard was not natural.”

Of course he wouldn’t let it go. “How can you possibly know that?”

“The energy signature was wrong. The cold was too deep, too sudden. It did not grow from the natural progression of weather patterns. It was… manufactured.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Crazy does not preclude accuracy.”

I moved past him, straightening a display of snow globes that was already perfectly straight. Anything to avoid looking at him. “You’re saying someone intentionally summoned a blizzard to bury my town?”

“To disrupt your businesses at the very least.”

“Who would do that? Why?” My mind jumped immediately to the most obvious suspect. “Grinchly? But what would he gain from a blizzard?”

“To stop your recovery. Perhaps even to stop the Good Deeds Extravaganza. If it is a failure and the town can’t attract visitors, the property values decline. He acquires them for pennies on the dollar. Then he can do as he wishes with them.”

“Like tear them all down and build expensive condos for weekend visitors.”

“A logical, if uninspired, business plan.”