Page 9 of Run, Run Rudolph (Fairy Godmothers and Other Fiascos #2)

Dancer, stockier than the others, and his coat, mostly a pale brown other than a flash of white on his chest, spoke up. “We were celebrating.” He had a heavy Swedish accent, and the way he weighted his words, it gave them a certain gravitas.

“Christmas?” I asked.

“Christmas Eve is tomorrow night. I need to be able to fly,” Rudolph said. “Do you know someone who could help me feel well enough to do that?”

“I’m so sorry.” Guilt instantly overtook me for my distraction, and I crouched beside him. “How are you feeling?” I tentatively stroked the spot between his ears. “Is it okay if I pet you? Who should I call? Santa? How do I do that?”

I looked up to find the other deer watching Rudolph, eyes wide. Then they broke into a chorus of comments ranging from “You’re okay. Walk it off, man” to “Are you sure?” to “Mrs. C. can not find out.”

“Um. So?” I asked tentatively.

“Let the elf out of your trunk,” Rudolph said.

The others gasped.

“Not on your life!” Donner grumbled.

“Might be,” Rudolph said ominously.

I felt a fizz of panic taking an unpleasant meander through my nervous system. “Sorry, what am I doing? Am I letting him out?”

Releasing the elf was going to make this difficult evening a lot worse, but I supposed I couldn’t lock him up forever. The magical world was particular about their rules, and I was sure that holding an elf hostage would make the lengthy list of no-nos.

Donner told Rudolph, “We don’t need him.”

“He’s locked in her trunk,” Rudolph said pointedly. “Mrs. C. will be very angry.”

“It’s unkind,” Prancer added primly. “You know the rule about kindness.”

“Wet blanket,” one of them muttered.

“Killjoy.”

One of the reindeer made some poorly disguised mutterings under a fake cough that sounded a lot like “The elf’s a narc.”

“Mrs. C. won’t stand for it, and you know he’ll tell her,” Rudolph pointed out, putting an immediate halt to the insults and digs.

Donner grumbled, “He’s just got to ride in the seat that suits him best.”

Dasher snickered. “How’s he going to tell her if he’s in the trunk?”

“Yeah, he’s stuck here. He can’t go tattle.”

“In my trunk?” I confirmed, getting the feeling that the elf was stuck here in more ways than one. “He’s not really stuck. There’s a glow-in-the-dark emergency pull cord that will release the trunk’s latch. It’s dangling beside him. I can’t imagine it taking him much longer to find it.”

More elf-directed insults started up again, these ones centred around Hugo’s intelligence or, rather, lack thereof.

I opened my mouth to ask more questions, but Rudolph piped up with a plaintive, “I hurt.” His big deer eyes turned to me. “Especially where you hit me with your car.”

“I know. I’m so sorry. We’re going to get you fixed up. I promise.” I stroked his flank. “Can Santa help you? Should we call him?”

“No.” The reindeer surrounding me all shook their heads.

Okay, so that pretty much confirmed that they had been out doing something bad and could get in trouble for it. Got it.

“What do I do?”

“Call a doctor?”

“Oh. Um.” Haden. Ugh, no. “Can a veterinarian even see you?”

“Not a good idea, boys,” Prancer said under his breath. “Repercussions.”

“What kind of repercussions?” I asked, imagining Estelle’s ogre in accounting with the big slobbery mouth. I shivered involuntarily.

I reminded myself that this had all been an accident, and that I was doing the best I could to help the herd. Nothing bad would happen to me. I hoped.

But I was starting to get frustrated with the lack of forthcomingness, my imagination, no doubt, acting on a much more grand scale than reality.

“What do you think I should do?” I asked. “Can you come to a consensus?”

Rudolph sighed into the straw. “Resting isn’t helping me feel better. A vet is the answer, and we all know it.”

Mentally, I ran through all the reasons that was a bad idea. There were a lot. More so, now that I knew the other reindeer felt it was a bad idea, too.

On the flip side, the consequences of not getting Rudolph proper medical treatment as Christmas Eve reared up on us was possibly worse.

The reindeer had fallen silent, and Rudolph’s word appeared to be the final say.

I sighed. “Okay. I’ll call Haden. He’s a vet.” The idea left a leaden feeling in my stomach. “You’ll make sure he can see you, so I don’t look crazy?”

“Call him,” Rudolph said wearily.

“Oh, boy,” Prancer muttered.

“Other ideas?” Rudolph snapped at him.

He received a lengthy sigh in reply. Then Prancer said, “Told you tonight was a bad idea.”

“Shut up,” Blitzen sniped. “There’s no rule we can’t go out and party. We only work one night of the year. We have the best job in the world, but not if we sit at home with our rule books stuck up our furry little?—”

“Enough!” Comet barked. “We are a team.”

I began backing away from the brewing fight, patting my parka, wondering which pocket I’d dropped my phone into.

My bulky coat was far from flattering, but it was warm and had a plethora of giant pockets, making it ideal for Canadian winters.

I found a wad of clean tissue, lip balm, cat treats, Benjamin’s fob, numerous hair elastics, a gas points card I used as a windshield scraper, and then finally my phone.

I waved it in the air. “I’ll just go over there and… .”

I marched myself to the other end of the barn, scrolling through my contacts until I found the name of the local, large-breed veterinarian. I closed my eyes and sighed in defeat. Haden Powell.

Did I even have enough in my bank account to pay him?

I wasn’t totally broke, but what did it cost to fix up a magical being, especially as an after-hours emergency?

Maybe I could ask Haden to work as fast as humanly possible, and then kick him out.

That was probably the best plan—just hurry him along to save both my wallet and our tentative friendship.

Friendship? It wasn’t even that anymore. If it ever had been. More like once was (one-sided, of course), never to be again, and relegated to acquaintances who knew each other fairly well. Was there a word for that type of relationship?

Sighing, I skipped over Haden’s personal number, opting to try his clinic first. Pretty much every cat, dog, goat, horse, sheep and cow in the county were all getting way more check-ups these days than the average Canadian animal did, and would until the man was married off.

But I bet nobody had ever brought him a reindeer emergency before.

While I waited for the clinic’s after-hours recording to pick up, where I assumed I could leave a message, I put my phone on speaker and read through the GAL PAL texting string.

My friends didn’t have anything helpful to offer in regard to my reindeer problem, so I scanned through Samantha’s current list of relationship issues.

None of them would be big in my world, and I started to grumble over her lack of gratitude.

She had no idea how lucky she was to have such a sweet boyfriend who wanted to keep her.

Although, I did understand her annoyance with him not getting her parents a gift even though they were spending Christmas Day with them.

Samantha came from money and manners, and while she acted like a regular gal, and not a woman who was independently wealthy, she had a tendency to forget herself and brought hostess gifts to friends’ houses, even when said friend still used a cardboard box as their coffee table.

I hoped Malachi was currently running out to pick out a gift.

I was annoyed at how easily Samantha found great men, but never kept any of them. Meanwhile, I was floundering about as a single woman—probably for the rest of my life.

Me

He loves you. Nothing of this matters.

Gabby

I agree. It’s hard to find a man who loves you back.

Poor Gabs. She was in love with her bestie, Lamonte, and her feelings weren’t returned. She said she’d moved on, but I think she’d just done a good job of burying how she felt. When it came to love, she was in the same boat as I was. So single it hurt.

Josie

Listen to really loud, angry music. You’ll be fine.

She attached a link to a playlist, which I was pretty sure was the one she sent me when Kade and I broke up. Music was her solution to everything.

Me

Love’s hard to find. Hard to keep. Malachi doesn’t have to be perfect. None of us are.

I could see the line of dots indicating that Samantha was typing up a reply—probably something that would annoy me and my lonely heart even further, so I typed one last thing as fast as I could and jumped out of the thread.

Me

Char—still waiting to hear from Santa. Reindeer said to call Haden.

I should have sent the text to only Char. Now, next time I opened the group chat, I’d have an annoyed Samantha still complaining about how much her boyfriend loved her, and Samantha or Gabby mocking me for believing in magic.

What if Haden actually got my message and came here?

My heart thumped at the thought of spending one-on-one time with Haden, and without a distraction, such as his brother, to hide behind.

I avoided Haden as much as I could, along with that penetrating gaze of his that went right through me like an x-ray machine, seeing everything. And I meant everything.

So it was wholly unfair, seeing as he looked at everyone with shuttered eyes, allowing nobody to see even one speck of his kind-hearted soul.

Realizing that the clinic’s emergency line was waiting for me to record my message, I quickly explained that I’d hit a deer, and that I had it in my barn, and could Haden come look at it.

Mulling over the recording I’d left, I winced. It sounded like I was going to be here, waiting for him in nothing but lingerie, tempting Mr. Hot Bachelor to visit my little love trap.

I was certain he already thought I was loony. Now, saying I’d hit a deer, had brought it home, and was requesting Haden, specifically? Yeah, that was bad.

No, he knew me.

He knew I’d spent too long dating his brother when we clearly weren’t a strong enough match.

His gaze made that clear. The way he’d look at me when I’d roll over and let Mr. Gregarious Kade take over our social life.

Not only was I an ooey-gooey animal lover softie, I was a softie with his brother, too.

I guess tonight would be just one more thing Haden could add to his list.

And anyway, it didn’t actually matter what he thought. He already knew I was a bleeding heart when it came to animals, so my message wasn’t that weird, was it? He understood that I sometimes treated animals like they were my non-human children.

Not that I would ever take a dog for a walk in a stroller—they had legs, and even I had my limits. But I did believe that animals had rights, and should be treated as though they had feelings. Because they did.

Honestly, I think he agreed with me on that one.

Although, he hadn’t thought it was cute—at all—that I’d dressed up my rescued tomcat for Halloween.

I mean, a black cat was just begging to wear a Batman costume, right?

Everyone had agreed he was adorable. Well, everyone except Haden.

He’d been the one bit of rain in the comment section of my kitty’s social posts.

Ugh. Why did I even care what he thought? I mean, he was following my cat’s account. What did he expect?

And my voicemail had been to the point, which was something he appreciated.

Although, maybe I’d given him too much information, or the wrong kind of information, and now he was going to have me put on Fish and Wildlife’s Wild Animal Bad People list for hurting and transporting an undomesticated wild animal without a license or whatever you needed.

I wouldn’t blame him if he reported me.

I dialled the clinic again, leaving a new message, telling him to contact me before anybody else.

I groaned as I repocketed my phone. That was worse. Now I sounded suspicious. He probably thought I was going to make venison stew or something. Bringing the animal home… Could that be construed as poaching?

No. Only if it was dead.

I glanced toward the back stall, surrounded by arguing reindeer.

Rudolph had better not die.