Sleigh Bell Sweethearts. Teri Wilson

      Chapter Two

       “North Pole Nails? Really?” Zoey glanced at the sign on the door of the nail salon where Anya and their mutual friend Clementine had suggested they meet for an emergency pedicure session. “I thought the purpose of this mission was to make me forget about reindeer.”

      Anya opened the door and nudged Zoey inside. “That’s our intention. I promise. But it’s not like Aurora is teeming with day-spa options.”

      “Try to pretend it’s called something else, something non-Christmasy,” Clemetine said.

      Try not to think about Christmas? When it was less than a month away? That idea only made Zoey feel worse. “I love Christmas. I just never imagined I’d be spending it with my very own herd of reindeer.”

      Or that they were such expensive creatures.

      She would have been perfectly happy to stop thinking about her reindeer’s spending habits. But that wasn’t possible. She’d even declined the pedicure offer at first. Surely she had something else she should be spending her money on. Like reindeer chow or something.

      What do they eat, anyway? I don’t even know.

      She really shouldn’t be here. This afternoon was one of her regularly scheduled volunteer shifts at the church thrift store. Staffed entirely by volunteers, the thrift shop raised money to help a few of the impoverished, hard-to-reach communities out in the bush, the area of Alaska that was inaccessible by roads. Having flown with Gus on numerous missions of mercy to such villages, Zoey had a heart for the people of the bush. But her pressing need to see her lawyer had thrown a wrench into her afternoon plans.

      Since when had she become the sort of person who met with lawyers?

      Since she became an heiress.

      One thing had become crystal clear over the course of the morning—being an heiress wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be.

      “Sit down and take off your shoes. And smile. This is supposed to be fun. Remember?” Anya steered Zoey by her shoulders to one of the sumptuous leather spa chairs.

      Zoey sank into it, and Anya flipped a switch. The chair hummed to life. “What’s that noise?”

      “It’s a massage chair. Relax. Please.” Anya sank into the next chair.

      “Are you sure your mom is okay with this?” Zoey frowned. Anya’s mother headed up the church thrift store. As a seamstress, it was pretty much her baby.

      “She’s fine. I just talked to her. She’s got more volunteers there this afternoon than she has customers. The thrift store is fine. Everything and everyone is fine, except for you, apparently.” Anya pointed at Zoey’s feet.

      She took the hint. She removed her snow boots, dipped her bare feet in the tub of warm, bubbly water in front of her chair and said a prayer of thanks that her friends had insisted on treating her to this little luxury.

      “Did you get a chance to meet with the lawyer yet?” Clementine asked as she settled into the chair immediately to Zoey’s left.

      “Yes. I just came from his office, actually.” Zoey nodded and selected a color from the tiny bottles of polish the nail technician offered up for inspection.

      Anya chose next—fire-engine red. “What did he say? Could he shed any light on the situation?”

      “He apologized for misleading me into thinking there were only a few reindeer on Gus’s property. Apparently, thirty is a modest number as far as reindeer are concerned.” So was thirty-one. Zoey couldn’t help but wonder where Palmer, the errant reindeer, was right now. Should she be concerned?

      She hoped not. She had more than enough on her plate without having to worry about a defiant reindeer roaming the city streets.

      “Really?” Clementine’s eyes grew wide. “What’s a large number, then?”

      “A hundred or more.” Zoey supposed she should be relieved. A hundred? She couldn’t even imagine. Although if she couldn’t afford thirty, what difference did it make? She might as well have inherited five hundred of them.

      “Did he mention your mysterious employee?” Anya’s lips curved into a smirk.

      “There’s an employee, too?” Clementine asked.

      Anya’s smile grew wider. “Oh, yes. His name is Alec, and he’s rather handsome.”

      Handsome?

      Zoey couldn’t argue against that assessment, but she considered it far too tame an adjective to apply to Alec. She could think of a few words that fit, however—dangerous, moody...tempting.

      “He’s also borderline rude, so you can wipe that grin off your face.” Zoey’s cheeks grew warm. She blamed it on the bubbly footbath and the heated massage chair. “And I happen to owe him a thousand dollars.”

      Anya’s smile morphed into a frown. “That was real?”

      “Unfortunately, yes.” Zoey had pretty much committed to memory the itemized list the lawyer had shown her—fencing supplies, food, hay, straw and yet more fencing supplies. Apparently Palmer’s urge to escape ran deep. He wasn’t about to let something as silly as a fence stand between him and his freedom.

      Clementine reached over and gave her arm a squeeze. “What are you going to do?”

      Zoey inhaled a deep breath. Could she even bring herself to utter the lawyer’s suggestion aloud?

      “I have a few options,” she said cryptically.

      Anya and Clementine exchanged confused glances.

      “Such as?” Anya asked.

      “There’s a log cabin on the property. I thought I could move in there. With the money I save on rent, I might be able to reimburse Alec sometime this century.”

      “And then what?” Clementine said, leaning her head back against her comfy leather pedicure chair and closing her eyes.

      Zoey stared down at her feet in the soapy water. She couldn’t even look her friends in the eyes. How could she possibly go through with it? “There’s a buyer who’s interested in the herd.”

      “Really?” Clementine’s eyes popped back open. “That sounds promising. Maybe you could keep a few—two or three, possibly—and sell the rest. Or do you think they’d miss one another? Do reindeer form attachments like that?”

      How would Zoey know? She didn’t know the first thing about the interpersonal relationships of reindeer. And she certainly couldn’t afford a reindeer psychiatrist. “Missing their friends would be the least of their concerns.”

      Anya’s gaze slid toward Zoey. “What aren’t you telling us?”

      Zoey inhaled a deep breath. She decided to just spit it out. “The prospective buyer is a commercial reindeer breeder.”

      Clementine frowned as she appeared to turn Zoey’s words over in her head. “What does that mean, exactly?”

      Anya, born and raised in Alaska like Zoey, knew precisely what it meant. “If a commercial breeder buys the herd, they’ll end up as reindeer hot dogs.”

      Clementine winced. “Oh.”

      “I don’t know if I can do it.” It wasn’t as if Zoey hadn’t eaten her share of reindeer