Tropical Holiday Tails - Zoe Chant Page 0,12
horror.
The she raised her head, and Lars could see the trails of tears down her cheeks. “I’m a terrible person,” he said in agony. “I’m sorry for lying. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Before he could continue, Julie began to laugh out loud. “A moose,” she choked. “You’re a moose!”
Lars blinked. “Yes,” he said. “I should have told you.”
She punched him in the shoulder, but it was gentle. “Yes, you should have.”
“Please forgive me,” Lars said desperately. “Tell me you will forgive me and come live in New York with me and be mine forever and please don’t let me spend Christmas without you.”
Her laughter faded to something like wonder. “You mean that? You really mean that?”
“It is my first American Christmas,” Lars said, hoping it sounded convincing. “Your brother could come. I have an empty house and an oven that isn’t in Centigrade. I have no idea how to make a turkey.”
“The first thing you do is lie about being a bear,” Julie suggested archly.
Lars stared at her in confusion a moment as she dissolved into laughter at her own statement. “Because I am a turkey?” he guessed, trying to figure out the joke.
“Oh Lars,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him on the forehead. “You need me.”
Lars caught her in his arms. “That,” he agreed, “is the truth.”
When he finished kissing her, they rose from the flowerbed at last, and he found his jacket lying in the middle of the gravel path.
“Oh dear,” he said, surveying the garden. “I fear I am going to get another nasty note from the gardener.”
Epilogue
As Julie clopped from the ice, tossing her head and making the bells on her harness ring merrily, the gathered children behind her clapped and hollered happily. The music rose as the next part of the entertainment continued on the open-air rink behind her.
Lars met her with a bundle of her clothes. Out of sight behind the bleachers, she shifted, slipped out of the belled harness, and dressed quickly, shivering.
“Your brother seems really grumpy about this,” he observed.
“He’s cranky because he doesn’t have antlers at this time of year, so he doesn’t feel like he can really be part of the festivities.” Julie pulled the sweater down over her head, and when she struggled out of the neck hole, Lars was waiting there for a kiss.
“It was so sweet of you to give up your last few days at the resort to come here,” she said, when he had finally released her lips and pulled a knit hat down over her chilled ears. “The community center kids were really excited to meet a real famous hockey player.” Together, they pulled the tiny sleigh to where Tom waited with the trailer in the parking lot.
“I’d rather have Christmas here, with you,” Lars said sincerely. “And Montana is beautiful and reminds me of home. Of Sweden. Which isn’t really home now.”
“New York will feel like home before you know it,” Julie told him reassuringly, slipping one mittened hand into his.
“Anywhere that you are will feel like home,” Lars said solemnly, and they stopped to exchange another lingering kiss.
The kiss was interrupted by a loud honk as Tom reached into the open truck window and leaned on the horn.
“Let’s go, lovebirds,” he scolded. “The community center gets charged double if the sleigh isn’t back by eight for the next event.”
Julie giggled into Lars’s scarf. “Let’s go. He’s also grouchy because his Christmas present to me this year was to quit smoking.”
Lars nodded approvingly. “That’s a fine gift,” he said. “I hope you find mine half as good.”
Julie gave a little caper better suited for her caribou form. “I’m so excited,” she said. “I get to give you yours tonight after we drop the sleigh off.”
“I will love it,” Lars promised, as they hauled the sleigh up onto the trailer.
The hall of the tiny apartment that Julie shared with her brother was piled high with shipping boxes already marked with Lars’s New York address. Nearly all of them had the word BOOKS scribbled on one end. They would be leaving the following week, and Lars could not wait to make his sterile apartment across the country into a home with the woman who had taken his hand and was dragging him into the kitchen.
“Cover your eyes,” she commanded, as they rounded the corner.
Lars stumbled over the edge a box and recovered by ‘accidentally’ catching Julie in an embrace.
“Whoops,” she said without remorse.
Lars’s nose had him guessing what his gift was before Julie