Romancing Rudolph - Chapter 5

(If you’re just joining us, the story began on December 15th–click here to start at the beginning.)

Chapter 5

Mandy was exhausted. Not only had the past five days been filled with non-stop tests of the Flying Team, she hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since she arrived in Christmas Village.

It would’ve been easy to blame the hotel. Strange bed, and all that.

But that would be a lie. Mandy was plagued by thoughts of Rudolph.

Something had changed between them. He still baited her with sarcasm and gave her a hard time about every single test, from take-off jumps to speed trials. But ever since they’d locked antlers on Tuesday morning, he’d been acting a little strange. For example, on Wednesday he’d insisted Blitzen apologize to her for swearing a blue streak. Yesterday, he actually smiled when she made a joke. Smiled.

Strangest of all, every once in a while when she glanced up, she caught him staring at her with an odd look in his eye. A look that made her go all soft and warm inside. A look that was pure male possessiveness.

She hauled herself off the cozy straw bedding, brushed her fur, and tugged on a plain red leather harness.

Oh, for Heaven’s sake. What was she thinking? Rudolph being possessive? Of her?

Hah!

Her imagination must be affected by the lack of sleep. It was more than likely just annoyance in his gaze. Really. The guy could have any female on the planet, and he worked side by side with a talented stunner like Vixen. Why would he be interested in her?

Plus, there was that little issue of him being an overbearing, opinionated, control freak. Over the past few days he’d kept that poor team hopping to his demands, day and night. Late yesterday, he’d snarled at Comet, who by her standards was the sweetest reindeer you could ever meet. Snarled at her.

Yeah, Comet had been out of formation, and they’d made a hard veer right as a consequence, but Comet had looked so wounded at the criticism it hardly seemed fair.

Not that she could argue with the result. After that the Team had flown with admirable precision, landing on rooftop after rooftop with little more than a soft patter and a gentle stirring of snowflakes.

If she was honest, she’d have to admit that Rudolph was a good team leader.

She smiled as she remembered the praise he doled out at the end of every day, not gushing praise, but simple, honest comments on what each member had done well. Praise that straightened shoulders and washed away weary expressions. It said a lot that his team members never argued with his orders and often came to him for advice, even about things that had nothing to do with pulling a sleigh.

Ok, ok. So maybe he was a great team leader.

She grabbed herself a triple latte on the way out of the hotel.

Today, she really needed to be alert. Today, they were testing the Team’s lift capability. First with an empty sleigh, then with a full sleigh. Not full of toys, of course–the elves still had a lot of work to do between now and Christmas Eve–but full of lead weights.

Mandy shook her head as she strolled under the carved-ice archway of the Airfield. No small feat lifting a full sleigh these days–the elf engineer told her each of the three bags of toys weighed roughly 2.3 billion pounds. Yikes.

She glanced up as she crossed the airstrip.

To no surprise, the entire Flying Team was already assembled and harnessed. They were warming up with a few sleighless lift-offs.

Her eyes were drawn, as usual, to the powerful, well-honed form of the Team’s leader. Not an ounce of fat there. She ought to know. When she’d checked him out at the beginning, she’d almost swooned at the abundance of the rock-hard muscles under silky, springy fur.

Mandy gulped at her latte and burned her tongue.

Rudolph paused and looked up as she approached. His expression was unreadable.

This was what it all came down to. This test. Today. All the other tests had verified that the Team was in peak condition, as fast and as efficient as they had ever been. But none of that would matter if the Team couldn’t get the sleigh off the ground. It was 200,000 pounds heavier than the one they’d pulled last year.

Mandy nodded to him. “Let’s get started.”

(To go to Chapter 6, click here)