When the heir to Christmas falls for a girl who hates the holiday, he risks losing his birthright to a trickster cousin unless he (and his magical friends) can melt her bah-humbug heart.
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With his pet reindeer, grumpy...
Noelle recognized it immediately. It was the exact same sleigh Nick had been driving when they met a few days earlier. She'd taken it to the Aurora Inn that first afternoon.
She'd ridden in freaking Santa Claus's sleigh!
As she willed her breathing to steady from the excitement, the tonttu strapped Petteri into the lead spot before a tall man in a thick coat walked around the vehicle, examining its sturdiness. Contrary to popular belief, Sinter Klaas—dressed to deliver gifts to children around the globe—looked nothing like a department store Santa.
There was no cherry red velvet pants and jacket, no black boots and gloves. And there certainly was no floppy hat with a big, white tuft at its tip. Instead, the physical embodiment of Per Noël, Father Christmas, and Saint Nicholas wore a thick, sheepskin robe with the wool lining the inside and the exterior, supple leather embroidered with rich threads of gold and silver. The ornate designs took motifs from nature—trees and mountains, snowflakes and sunshine, stars and the moon—to tell a story that few people would truly ever know. Sinter's boots, gloves, and hat were all of similar furs made to keep out the cold rather than strive for style, yet the entire outfit gave off an air of authority.
"Is . . . is he about to set off for his Christmas Eve journey?" Noelle asked, as Nick's father climbed onto the front bench of the sleigh and adjusted the reins.
Nick looked at his watch. "It's just about midnight in Christchurch, which is the first destination, so yes," he said.
"But I thought you told me that things work differently now and you mainly just manage delivery for things that parents buy. Isn't that what all of your computer stuff is for?" Noelle asked right before a set of bright lights placed in a circle around the sleigh turned on. "Oh. What's going on? What are those for?"
Nick took her hand and nodded toward the clock that was now counting down from ten seconds. "You'll see."
Nine. Eight. Nothing changed. Six. Five. The reindeer began anxiously stomping. Three. Two. The lights became blindingly bright, washing the whole screen into whiteness. Zero.
The spotlights lights went out, and it took Noelle's eyes a second to readjust. After the yellow clouds cleared from her vision, she blinked in confusion at the empty plot of snow in the middle of the screen.
"Where . . . where did they go?" she asked. There was no running start or any hovering. It was as if Nick's dad, the sleigh, and the fourteen reindeer had all just vanished.
Nick pointed to the satellite image of the Southern Hemisphere. "New Zealand. And to answer your question about why: dad is a sucker for tradition. Even though he doesn't deliver every present any more, he thinks it's important to follow the original method. So one night a year he still makes the same trek that he did a millennium ago."
"But they just all disappeared," Noelle said, still baffled by what she'd seen.
Nick laughed. "Well, okay. That part's new. Teleporting to the first place that experiences Christmas is just an extension of the original magic, but it took a little tinkering with the technology to perfect," he said. "It saves dad a few hours, though, and he's not getting any younger."
"What do you mean? There's a chance that Santa will one day be too old to make his Christmas Eve runs? That he's going to retire or something?" Noelle asked jokingly as she remembered the bit about immortality falling upon anyone within the city, but Nick gently grabbed her elbow and led her out of the others' earshot.
"Not immediately, no," he said. "But my parents chose to leave Keskitalvi to be able to have and then raise me, so it's just a matter of time before they'd want to take the next step."
Noelle was baffled by what that would involve. "Like what? Move to Florida and play shuffleboard?" she asked with a snicker. Somehow she couldn't imagine the dashing Sinter—or the badass Fanny, for that matter—pushing pucks around a game board while sipping margaritas.
Nick smiled, but kept his voice to a whisper. "Of course not. But I think eventually dad would like to pass on running Christmas to me. Officially, that is, since I manage most of the work already," he said.
"Hmm. So you're the heir to Christmas," Noelle said, not quite able to imagine the young, handsome man in front of her in the role of a pelt coat wearing world-traveler who answers kids' wishes for the latest toys. Those were definitely some big shoes—er boots—to fill. "What if you didn't want the job? Would that mean Christmas would forever be cancelled?"
A loud gasp rang through the room as everyone suddenly stopped what they were doing and turned toward Nick and Noelle. She must have said the words Christmas and cancelled too loud, prompting a mini panic among the control room staff.
"No worries everybody. False alarm. Please, get back to your tasks," Nick said, waving his hands apologetically.
When he turned his attention back to her, Noelle cringed. "I'm so, so sorry. I didn't mean to—"
He cut her off with a kiss. "It's fine. I don't know why they would overreact like that. Dad's just a figurehead, and this place practically runs itself already. As if Christmas could actually ever be cancelled," he said with a laugh before kissing Noelle once more.
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This was my #NaNoWriMo2019 project, but because November is so hectic (seriously, who thought it would be a good idea to have NaNo this month?!) this story is spilling into December. No worries, since it's Christmas themed and it will definitely be finished before the end of the month. While I absolutely love all of my silent readers, I would LOVE to get your encouragement while writing this story. So please, please, please add it to your libraries, vote on the chapters (I'm striving for daily updates once again!) and leave me comments. <3
