Page 56 of Run, Run Rudolph (Fairy Godmothers and Other Fiascos #2)

~ Haden ~

S omeone was knocking on the clinic’s back door, and I grumbled over the interruption.

Every Christmas Eve, my clinic was my sanctuary.

I’d hide out until supper, then slip into my spot just before grace to avoid Tamara and her cocoa-butter scent.

But mostly to avoid seeing my brother fawn all over her.

Every Christmas, I was on edge thinking that this could be the year he’d pin her down with a ring.

Even though she wasn’t coming this year, and even though a proposal wouldn’t be happening, I was still avoiding the house out of habit.

It didn’t help that I couldn’t get Tamara out of my thoughts today. Every time I got close to thinking about something else, my groggy mind would pull up snippets of daydreams that felt like reality.

I opened the metal back door, realizing I should be grateful for the distraction and my increasing insanity.

I mean, I’d bought her a Nerf gun today?

Why? All I could say was that I’d been compelled by some unexplainable inner compunction.

Why a Nerf gun? Were we twelve? No wonder she’d spent the past few years avoiding me.

Not only did I mansplain veterinarian facts to her as if she was a curious little kid, and not a grown woman capable of researching things on her own, but I acted like a fool.

A blast of icy December air hit me as I peered out at my visitor. I took an involuntary step back. Tamara. Cheeks flushed, bottom lip clamped between her teeth, brown eyes round and worried.

I immediately stepped forward, wanting to take her into my arms.

“That’s not safe, you know.” She came inside, gliding past me.

“What isn’t?” I felt a stab of panic, and fisted my hands so I wouldn’t grab her, wrap her in my arms and protect her from whatever danger she thought might be lurking in my perfectly safe back alley.

She ignored my question, patting my chest with a gloved hand as she passed.

“I like the Christmas colours.” I watched her touch my red and green flannel shirt, and felt as though I was having an out-of-body experience.

We didn’t usually touch. In fact, we very carefully avoided each other. She looked cautious, but also like…

I couldn’t put my finger on it, which was odd. Usually I could read her.

“Well, not everyone dresses like their Oma,” I quipped, thinking about her adorable sweater tradition with her grandmother.

Tamara snorted, trying to hold back a laugh.

“Something wrong with Boots?”

“My animals are okay.”

A pressing need to touch her was rendering me mute. Finally, I asked, “What’s dangerous?”

“You shouldn’t open the door without knowing who’s out here.” Her tone turned playful. “It could be a black witch, or a lawyerly goat set on eating you out of house and clinic.”

Something wasn’t adding up. She was watching me incredibly carefully, her words echoing through my mind like a joke where I’d once known the punchline, but now couldn’t retrieve it.

I nodded, holding eye contact with her for longer than we usually did. She didn’t look away, didn’t pretend she didn’t see me watching, or quickly start talking about something random.

“I have a camera that overlooks the alley.”

“Did you check it before opening the door?”

“Never.”

“And you always open it?”

I shrugged. Only deliveries came to the back. “Pretty much.”

She was running a hand over a metal gurney—the one for large animals that had been left out in the middle of the room for some reason. “Ever had Rudolph come by in need of an x-ray?”

I slowly shook my head. Her question felt like a secret password, meant to unlock something. But I couldn’t find the box it would open.

I felt a warmth gazing at her. I didn’t bother looking away, and took her in. Why did it feel as though that old curtain that had always hung between us, making everything with her feel forbidden, had been lifted?

“What do you need? Are you okay?” I was growing concerned by her unorthodox visit. We were out of pattern in nearly every way.

“It’s fine. You’re busy.” She was heading for the door she’d just come through. Her voice wobbled, becoming quiet. “I don’t… I don’t want anything. Thanks.”

I caught her arm, knowing she’d come here for something. Something pivotal. “What you want right now is more important than anything else.”

Tamara’s face went pale, and she slowly turned to me, looking as if she’d seen a ghost. I dropped my hand. “What I want?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

“Yes.”

“It’s important?”

Her words felt like an echo. “What you want right now is more important than anything else,” I repeated, something stirring inside me. Another password, another key, another mystery.

“Even more than what you want?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“You heard me say that to your brother.” There was a wonderment in her voice, and I nodded, her statement ringing true, even though I couldn’t remember when we might have said such things.

“You heard me?” she repeated. “And you remember?”

“Tamara, when you’re talking, I’m always listening.” It was the truth. The tender, honest truth.

Before I could follow my instinct to draw her close and cup her jaw, she suddenly spun on the heel of her clunky winter boots, racing back outside.

I followed, unsure if I should apologize.

She placed a knee on the driver’s seat, reaching into her mom’s car.

“What happened to Benjamin?” I called, referring to her Sebring.

“I hit a reindeer with it last night.” She climbed back out of the car, returning with a sprig of mistletoe that I swear had been hanging from her rearview mirror at some point. Now it was in her mom’s car. Everything felt slightly out of place today.

“Wait. Did you say reindeer?” I asked, as she hurried to the clinic. “This isn’t their usual range. Did you report it? They’re a species at risk.”

“Rangifer tarandus,” she confirmed, delighting my nerdy veterinarian heart. “Woodland caribou. He’s okay.” She lifted the mistletoe above her head. “Also, I feel bad that I didn’t get you a Christmas gift, too, so I thought I’d say thanks…” Her voice faltered.

My eyes slowly moved to the sprig of green above us. I repeated her words over and over in my brain. Thoughts that felt like memories came tumbling through my mind. Reindeer. Kisses in the hay.

Tamara. Tamara in my arms. Tamara laughing. Tamara kissing me.

Her cheeks started to flush, and I could tell she was about to leave, embarrassed.

Instinctively, I grabbed her around the waist and drew her tight to my chest, kissing her long and slow, the feeling both familiar and new. But also, so very right.

My lips were bruised, my heart happy, and my brain confused by a flood of impossible memories. I pressed Tamara against the clinic door and kissed her again.

Memories were everywhere in this room.

X-raying Rudolph. Trying to offer Tamara my leftover Christmas baking from a client, and Rudolph eating them all. The herd out in the alley. I chuckled, a memory of Tamara driving Rudolph around in her convertible in last night’s blizzard.

She was amazing.

And we’d kissed.

I’d felt things.

I pulled her back for another kiss, confirming to myself that she was real, and so was this.

I’d secretly thought about this moment for a long time.

“Haden?”

“Shh. Kiss me again,” I growled, pulling her tight to me. I needed about a million more of these moments with her.

Finally, breathing hard, we pulled apart. My nerve endings were singing. How had we gotten here, her and I? How had we gone from avoiding each other, to kissing like we were made for each other?

And what were all these crazy images in my head?

“I had the wildest dreams last night,” I said, leaning my forehead against hers, hoping she’d help me sort out the impossible insanity I was facing. We’d lost the mistletoe, and I planned to find it later and keep it so I could reinvent this moment over and over.

My hands had wound their way through the hair framing her face, and I was holding her like a lover would. I wanted to kiss her again. I wanted to be her everything. I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to leave this moment in time, even though I didn’t understand it.

“What was the dream?” she asked.

“It was about you. We had to…to save Christmas.” My thoughts were cloudy, memories not yet settled. It all felt too make-believe to be real. And yet…it felt real. Like a true memory.

“And?” she asked impatiently.

I tentatively grazed her jawline with my thumb, still unsure how we’d become so comfortable in each other’s arms. I’d missed something big.

Tamara leaned in, inhaling me.

“Rudolph could talk,” I said.

She nodded. “Yes. He can.”

“He can,” I repeated.

“Because he’s real.”

“He’s real?” I felt like a parrot echoing her, trusting her.

I savoured Tamara’s warmth, the feeling of her in my arms. This was real. Not a memory. But it was also a memory, too.

“In Justin’s store this morning, I kept having weird flashes.” It was unsettling. They weren’t memories, but more of a shifting sense of déjà vu. “You and I had broken in. No, not broken in. But we were in there and we shouldn’t have been.”

“And we made out?” The corner of her mouth lifted, her eyes glittering with devilish sparkles.

“Yeah.” I gripped her elbows, pulling her against me as my lips instinctively found hers.

It was like my body remembered last night, and wanted to recreate the moments, make the memories more vivid and strong.

The kiss was long and slow, her tongue meeting mine, our bodies humming as if they were singing the same song, one composed just for us.

The gauzy mist that had been holding me all day was releasing its hold, almost like a waning spell.

My memory flashed open, revealing one of those secrets it had been keeping. I blurted, “Mrs. Claus is a witch.”

“What else do you remember?” Tamara asked, her words quiet and soft, similar to the way I spoke to an injured animal.

Had I been hurt? Was that why my brain felt so fuzzy today?

“What happened last night?” I asked.

“A lot.”

“Did we save Christmas?”

“I hope so.”

A flood of memories rushed through my mind, little vignettes of Tamara being her sweet self. Helping the animals, trying to right a mounting pile of accidental wrongs.

And locking a cranky elf in the trunk of her car.

I tipped my head back and laughed. This woman. Oh, this woman.

“Tamara,” I asked her softly, “why didn’t I meet you first?”

Her expression softened, her gaze tracing a line across my brow, down my cheek, over my lips and back to my eyes where they locked in place. “You did meet me first. We just weren’t ready for this yet.”

She stepped tight against my body, pressing into me. Her hands slid up my chest with a practised and surprising confidence, as if she knew exactly what was in my heart and welcomed it.

“And how about now? Are you ready now?” I whispered.

She kissed me like this was real, not a dream, and like it could never be taken away.