Sleigh Bell Sweethearts

She made little progress. Even when her foot massage got under way, she was still distracted by thoughts of reindeer chow, moving from her apartment into the cabin on the ranch and what would happen on Friday when she was supposed to deliver the check for the down payment on her airplane. A Super Cub, just like her father’s. She was so close to making her dreams come true. At last.

Perhaps Alec would be open to some sort of payment arrangement. Somehow, she doubted it. He’d been pretty blunt about asking for his money. And though she was loath to admit it, she found him a little intimidating. After her grand speech about how he’d misjudged her, she’d fled. Fled! As if all the reindeer weren’t enough of a handful, she had Alec Wynn’s brooding intensity to contend with.

From the depths of her purse, her cell phone rang. Alec’s chiseled face flashed in her mind, although why she’d want to hear from him was a mystery.

She fished her ringing phone out of her purse with the intention of simply turning the ringer off. But when she saw all the missed-call notifications on the screen, she paused. “I have five missed calls.”

Clementine looked up from the magazine in her lap. “Who from?”

“I’m not sure.” Zoey answered the call before it rolled to voice mail again. “Hello?”

“Is this Zoey Hathaway?” It was a man. He sounded exasperated but polite, which ruled out Alec entirely.

“Yes.” She was hyperaware of everyone’s eyes on her. Clementine, Anya and even the manicurists were all watching her with mounting curiosity. “How can I help you?”

“This is Chuck Baker, out at the airfield.”

Zoey bit her lip. Chuck was the head air-traffic-control officer at the town’s one and only airport, located at the back of the Northern Lights Inn, the heart of Aurora. For years, she’d poured Chuck’s coffee from behind the hotel’s coffee bar. Double espresso in the morning. Decaf in the afternoon. And she’d spoken to him countless times from the cockpit once she’d started her flying lessons.

But he’d never called her before.

“Chuck, hi.” Nerves bounced around in her stomach for reasons she couldn’t quite pinpoint. “What’s up?”

“It seems we’ve got a situation down here at the airport.” The frustration in his tone kicked up a notch.

Zoey gripped the phone tighter. What if there’d been an accident? Lord, please no. Not again. Somewhere in the logical part of her brain, Zoey knew this wasn’t the case. Why would Chuck call her, of all people, if there’d been a tragedy? “A situation? I hope no one is hurt.”

“No one’s hurt. It’s nothing like that. But we’ve had to ground all flights. It’s chaos down here, and if we don’t get things under control you’ll be facing a hefty fine from the FAA.”

Hefty fine?

She blinked. What could she have possibly done to incur a fine? She was in the middle of a foot massage. What might the Federal Aviation Administration have against pedicures? “I don’t understand. Have I done something wrong?”

“Not you, per se.” He released a sigh. “It’s your reindeer.”

Zoey’s panicked gaze darted up to Clementine and Anya. “My reindeer?”

“Yep. There’s a big, fat reindeer parked in the middle of the runway. He won’t budge, and rumor has it he’s yours.”

Palmer.

Oh, please, God. No.

* * *

Alec slid onto a barstool at the coffee counter at the Northern Lights Inn and fought the urge to drop his head into his hands. Exhaustion had worked its way deep into his bones. The past six days had been a killer. Not that he was complaining—he’d always relished the opportunity to lose himself in a hard day’s work. There was a sweetness to forgetting...forgetting the past, the present, the future and living fully in the moment. And forgetting had never come easily to Alec.

Growing up in a home with parents who struggled with addiction had provided him with a laundry list of things he’d just as soon forget. At the best of times, his mom and dad had been too out of it to function. In the worst, there’d been the beatings—usually a product of sweaty, heated withdrawal from all the drugs. Alec had witnessed the angry cycle for seventeen years until he’d finally made the decision to leave home and never look back. The leaving had been easy. It was the looking back he sometimes still struggled with.

Since arriving in Alaska, he’d almost managed it. That was a good thing, since he’d traveled to the literal edge of the continent. If he couldn’t outrun his past here, there was nowhere else to go without falling into the stormy waters of the Bering Sea.

Finding Gus Henderson sprawled facedown in the snow hadn’t been the best of starts. It was a stark reminder to Alec that he could run all he wanted, but wherever he went, trouble would always be there to find him. Ironically, it was the reindeer that had kept him sane in the aftermath. He couldn’t very well leave. Who would care for them?

“Can I get you something?” the barista asked.

Alec looked up. “Sure, thanks. Coffee. Black.”

“Tough day?” The guy seated two barstools away glanced in Alec’s direction. He had a red parka slung on the back of his chair and a copper-colored dog curled at his feet.

Alec noticed they both looked vaguely familiar. “You could say that.”

Working for the forest service in Olympic State Park back in Washington had prepared him somewhat for the brutal weather, but he’d been completely inexperienced in the reindeer department. He’d gotten himself up to speed on the reindeer soon enough, but traveling north through Canada on his bike, the sudden death of his new employer and the daily demands of running the ranch solo were beginning to catch up with him.

And now there was the farm’s new owner to contend with.

Alec couldn’t help but wonder if she would prove to be far more trouble than she was worth.

“You new in town?” the stranger asked. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”

“I just moved here a week ago.” Alec accepted his coffee from the barista and took a long, hot swallow. It burned its way down his throat. “Alec Wynn. I’m working at a reindeer farm up in the hills about five miles from here. Nice dog, by the way.”

“Thanks. Brock Parker.” He offered his hand over the empty barstool between them. “Welcome.”

“Thank you.” Alec frowned. Brock looked familiar, and Alec was almost certain he’d heard the name before. Just what he didn’t want, or need—a face from his past.

Brock appeared to study him for a moment. He took a sip of his own coffee and grinned. “I think you may have met my wife earlier today out at the reindeer farm.”

Wife?

A wholly unexpected pang hit Alec in the chest. Could Zoey Hathaway be married?

Then he remembered the rather heart-wrenching look in those green eyes of hers when she’d unleashed her I’m-not-your-average-heiress outburst on him. She couldn’t possibly have a husband. Not a decent kind of guy, anyway. A decent man wouldn’t make her feel as if she hadn’t come from a loving home, even if it were the case.

He swallowed. What did he know about decent guys? It wasn’t as if he would ever be that kind of man, considering where he’d come from. He’d tried the decent route before—the Sunday-school, one-woman kind of route. He’d even gone so far as to put a ring on the woman’s finger.

Marriage. He’d thought it was something he could do. Not like his parents, of course. Better. He’d reveled in the idea of doing it the right way—two people bound together by God.

He’d never gotten the chance. His fiancée’s family had made sure of it. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, they’d said.

She’d believed it. Why shouldn’t Alec? He’d be lying if he said he’d never wrestled with the fear that he would one day end up like his parents.

He turned his attention once again to Brock. “Your wife?”

Brock nodded. “Her name is Anya.”

Anya. The friend. Of course. “Yes, we met. Very nice lady.”

“She and Zoey are good friends. I think they’re out getting pedicures right now, actually.” Brock shrugged. “They worked together for a while here at the coffee bar, before Anya started up full time with the ski patrol and Zoey decided to buy her airplane.”