Santa' Wayward Elf

Being one of Santa’s elves isn’t all sugar plums and candy canes.

At least not for Sosie. Taller than the other elves, she’s always
had a problem fitting in at the North Pole, so when the transport sled she’s on
breaks down in New York City on Christmas Eve, she can’t resist slipping away
to explore the world of the “big people.” While she’s having fun, the transport
sled takes off, leaving the naïve elf stranded.

Fortunately, handsome police detective Derek Clayton comes to her
rescue, offering to let her stay at his apartment. Having heard horror stories
about the big people, Sosie is both surprised and relieved to meet such a kind,
sweet man. Not to mention one so gorgeous and well-built.

Even though Sosie expects the North Pole to send out a search
party any day, she finds herself falling for Derek. She desperately wants to
tell him she’s an elf, but knows he’ll never believe her. When the lies and
omissions start to pile up, Derek can draw only one conclusion—Sosie is working
for the mob boss he’s been after for years.

Just when things seem like they can’t get any worse, the chief of
elfin security shows up to drag Sosie back to the North Pole. How is a runaway
elf supposed to overcome a determined security elf, dangerous mobsters and a
suspicious boyfriend all while keeping her pointed ears a secret?

Copyright © 2013 by Paige Tyler

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any

form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying recording, or by

any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission from the author.

Cover Design by Ramona

Dedication

With special thanks to my extremely patient and
understanding husband. Without your help and support I couldn’t have pursued my
dream job of becoming a writer. You’re my sounding board, my idea man, my
critique partner, and the absolute best research assistant any girl could ask
for!

Thank you.

And thank you to the wonderful
fangirls on my Street Team. You all rock!

A Note from Paige Tyler:

I came up with the idea for the
book while hubby and I were watching Disney’s Christmas special
Prep and
Landing
on television. It follows an elite team of Santa’s elves on
Christmas Eve who get to each house ahead of Santa to prepare for his arrival.
I said to hubby, wouldn’t it be cool if elves really did come down from the
North Pole and do that. Being his practical self, hubby said they’d have to
modernize their transportation and the kinds of toys they made (hobby horses
and wooden dolls aren't in big demand much these days). They’d have sleds that
went into stealth mode (think the Romulan cloaking device on
Star Trek
)
so no one would see them. And they'd need to have material and supply contracts
with humans to get raw materials up to the North Pole. Plus, those poor elves
would have to work really hard to produce enough toys for everyone. And as we
talked about what elves would really do in the workshop and how they’d keep up
with global demands for products, I came up with the idea of an elf named Sosie
who feels like she doesn’t fit in at Santa’s workshop anymore. She’s taller
than all the other elves, so her social life is almost nonexistent. There
aren’t a lot of elf guys who want to date an elf girl they have to look up to.
And after making literally thousands and thousands of toys, the thrill is gone.
Not even a move to the coveted sex-toy department helped. So, she requests a
transfer to the workshop in the South Pole, hoping a change of scenery will do
the trick. This is where the spirit of Christmas romance jumps in…because on
the way to the South Pole, her transport sled breaks down in Manhattan and
while the engineering elves are repairing it, Sosie sneaks off to do some
exploring, sure she’ll be back before they take off.

But it wouldn’t be a very exciting
story if she made it back to the sled before it took off. If she did, she’d
never meet Derek Clayton, the hunky police detective who comes to her rescue.

Just imagine yourself in the
booties of a completely guileless elf who’s never experienced the big city, the
big people, or big romance…and you can probably figure out what kind of fun
Sosie is in for. I think you’ll love reading my story as much as I loved
writing it.

So, get a cup of hot chocolate, a
warm throw, and let Sosie whisk you off into a magical Christmas romance.

Happy Reading!

5
Hearts from Sizzling Hot Books!

"I have to admit that I read Santa’s Wayward Elf in
one sitting—I couldn’t walk away from Sosie. This is one of the most unique,
sweet and yet still sensual holiday stories I have read in a long time. There
wasn’t a slow point to be found in Santa’s Wayward Elf as Paige Tyler weaves
for us remarkable characters within a fairytale life that really embraces the Christmas
spirit and spreads it to everyone that touches the pages!"

Chapter One

Sosie let out a bored sigh as she flipped through the old
copy of
Working
Elf
someone had wedged in the seat pocket in
front of her. She’d already read the magazine cover-to-cover twice, but it was
either that or stare out the window at nothing but the night sky. She paused
when she came to an article about which products were going to be a big hit for
the current holiday season. It would have been a lot more riveting if she
hadn’t spent the last four months up to her elbows in the exact same stuff the
author—an elf named Zowie—claimed were so wonderful. After making three
thousand copies of anything by hand—even the Happy Rabbit Clitoris Vibrator she’d
helped design—the thrill was gone.

How had that happened? She used to love coming up with ideas
for new toys, then building them to see if her visions were as good in real
life as they’d been on the drawing board. But after seventy-five years of
working in Santa’s workshop, making Tickle Me Elmos and high-tech video games
had gotten old. Even a move to the coveted sex toy department four Christmases
ago hadn’t been enough to get her back in the groove. Which was why she’d
finally requested a transfer to the South Pole.

That had definitely raised a lot of eyebrows among her
fellow elves. No one ever volunteered to go to the South Pole. It was where
elves went when they got on Santa’s bad side. But she had to do something or
she was going to go crazy, and leaving the North Pole for a change of scenery—even
if that scenery did happen to be in the armpit of the elfin world—seemed like
the only way to stop from going insane.

So now, on the night before Christmas, after months of
waiting for her request to be approved, she was in a transport sled on her way
to her new home. Armpit of the elfin world or not, she was determined to make
the best of it.

Dear Santa, how she wished she could talk to her mother and
ask for some much-needed advice. But her mom had moved to the elfin retirement villa
in the Swiss Alps. Well, it wasn’t really in the Swiss Alps—that was just where
the gateway was. Once had elf had moved there, there was no way to communicate
with them. Sosie wouldn’t see her again until she retired herself.

Turning the page, she glanced up from the magazine to check
the computer monitor displaying their geographical position. She groaned.
Figgy, they hadn’t even reached Canada’s southern border yet. As fast as the
sled moved, she thought they’d be halfway to the South Pole by now. Then again,
it was rather far. She nibbled on her lower lip as she tried to remember what
she’d learned in her geography classes. The classes had been decades ago and
geography hadn’t exactly been her favorite subject in school, so it took a
minute for the lessons to come back to her. From what she remembered, they had
to go down the eastern coast of the United States, then skim over the Caribbean
and finally fly the long way across South America to get where they were going.
Santa’s beard, she hated flying. It always took so long.

Sosie turned her attention back to her magazine when she
noticed two male elves peeking at her through the space between the two seats
ahead of her. Though she couldn’t completely see their faces, it was obvious
they were embarrassed at getting caught staring because they quickly turned
around the moment they realized she’d seen them. They were probably petrified
she might actually say something to them. She shook her head as she went back
to flipping through her magazine. She was used to that. Elf guys had always
been…well…intimidated by her. She wasn’t exactly a normal elf girl. At a few
inches under five foot, she was on the tall side compared to the rest of her
kind. Okay, maybe more than a little tall. She was practically an Amazon next
to them.

She’d been taller than everyone else ever since she could
remember. At first, it’d been fun being special like that. Until she went to
school. By the age of eight, she’d been as tall as any adult elf she ever met.
By the time she’d finished her technical training at age fourteen, she towered
over her classmates by more than a foot. It hadn’t been so much fun then, especially
when the other elves pointed and laughed at her, calling her hateful names like
snow giant or yeti girl, and implying her mother had slept with one of the big
people while she was out on a supply run down south. Sosie tried not to let it bother
her, but their words had hurt all the same.

Her mother had told her the other elves were jealous of her
because she was so pretty and unique. Sosie wanted to believe her, but their
insults were still hard to take, especially the ones about her dad being
something other than an elf. Her father had died in a freak sledding
malfunction before she was born, but no one believed it. She didn’t care what
they thought. She knew she was a real elf, through and through.

Being taller than everyone else hadn’t become a major issue
until she began her advanced technical training in toy design and manufacturing,
and started noticing the opposite sex. Then she had to deal with a whole new
dilemma—dating.

There weren’t many elf guys confident enough to go out with
an elf girl who was literally head-and-shoulders taller than they were. The
ones who thought they could handle it quickly found out how wrong they were
when they realized they had to look up at her all the time. It had put a real
damper on her social life.

Her pathetic luck with the opposite sex was part of the
reason she’d asked for a transfer to the South Pole. According to her mother, the
men down south were bigger and more masculine. If that was true, maybe they
wouldn’t be so intimidated by her four-foot-eight-inch frame.

Sosie was still daydreaming about the possibilities of
meeting a big, handsome elf who might actually be able to look her in the eye
when the transport sled suddenly bucked so hard it almost knocked her out of
her seat. She gasped and grabbed the armrest. Figgy, if it wasn’t for the
restraining lap belt, she probably would have bounced right off the ceiling.
What in Santa’s name was the pilot doing up there? It felt as if they were
sledding down a hill of snow moguls.

“Excuse me, elves and elfettes, this is your pilot
speaking,” a calm, male voice said over the intercom. “We seem to be having a
few minor mechanical issues with the sled, so please make sure your lap
restraints are securely fastened. Things could get bumpy.”

At that announcement, the other elves around her began to
babble nervously. Sosie would have done the same if anyone had been sitting near
her. Instead, she tightened her grip on the armrest and tensed in her seat,
preparing for Santa only knew what.

Within minutes, however, the pilot had the sled on a more
stable—and thankfully less bumpy—flight path. Relaxing her grip on the armrest,
Sosie cautiously peeked out the small, round window beside her and gulped.
Santa’s reindeer, they were as low as a snowman’s butt. A few minutes ago, she
hadn’t been able to see anything but the heavy cloud cover that blanketed the
northern hemisphere in the winter months. Now, she could see the motorized
sleds moving about on the streets below. She didn’t know a lot about flying,
but she knew that couldn’t be good.