Santa's Pet (9 page)

~ Brittney ~

It sucks not having a cell phone, a purse, a wallet, or even spare change. I dig in the glove compartment of Ben’s truck and collect a handful of coins.

I can’t believe I threw myself at him and he rejected me. Flat out walked away without even an explanation. No matter. I’m not sticking around where I’m not wanted.

I peel myself from the blanket, wipe my eyes and take off Ben’s jacket. My oversized t-shirt is thin, but all I need to do is run back into the hospital and make a phone call.

There’s no point in locking the door with a busted window, and I doubt any carjackers are around. Our town is relatively small and safe.

“Where are you going?” Ben’s voice booms from the dark, startling me.

“Away from you.” I turn toward the elevator in a jog.

“I’ll take you home.” He cuts me off, barreling all two-hundred plus pounds of him, but stops short of smashing into me.

“You don’t have to. I’ll call Lacy, or my parents.”

“It’s well after midnight. It’s a short drive and I’m sure Grandpa’s still in the middle of the operation. No news is good news, right? It means he’s doing okay.”

“Right. I’ll pray better at home.”

“I agree. Let’s go. I won’t have you running around in the middle of the night.” He grabs my upper arm and pulls me as if he’s escorting a criminal.

Of course, he’s right. I can’t wake Lacy or my parents. Besides, her car’s still back at my work. I’m sure she noticed it missing, but didn’t say anything. She’s always telling me to let my hair down and take her wheels. According to her, my life is too boring—just like that reliable white Toyota I drive.

Meanwhile, I’m being herded by Neanderthal to his truck.

If he was friendly before, he’s not showing it now. He opens the door and leaves to go to his side before waiting for me to get in. I pull it shut and refuse to look his direction.

He plops into the driver’s side and turns the key.

Nothing happens.

Of all the freaking coincidences. It’s like there’s a giant cosmic joke on me. Despite everything that happened at the tree farm, the police station, and now at the hospital, I have to face the facts straight on.

I wish Ben liked me. I wish he’d notice me, and I wish he’d let me peek beneath his armor. He might look like a big, hulking, scary defensive linebacker on the outside, but inside, he’s a boy who loved his mother and baby sister and still misses them. I bet he wasn’t given the chance to mourn. I bet his father told him to get over it, to move on, like he did, marrying the first woman he came across.

Ben pounds on the steering wheel and curses. “It’s not the battery. So, why isn’t it turning on?”

He flicks on the dome light to prove his point.

“The starter?”

“There’s not even a click. It’s like it’s dead. Like the wires are cut.”

“Who would have cut the wires? I was only gone a few seconds.” I huff in case he thinks I played any tricks.

“I’m not accusing you, okay?” He looks at me, all gruff and glowering, all two-hundred-plus pounds of steely muscles, bunched up like a grizzly bear.

“I’m not accusing you of anything either.” I look away. “But if we’re stuck here, may I borrow your phone? I need to check in with my team and find out if they’ve fixed the build, or if they left the building five minutes after I did.”

“Sure. After I call the tow truck.” He flips his phone from his pocket and speaks to an operator to connect him.

“There’s nothing worse than being stuck in a parking garage with a grouch who can’t stand you.” I shake my head and lean back, putting my feet on the dashboard.

“I didn’t say I couldn’t stand you.” He hands me his phone. “Look, it’s been a long day for both of us.”

“You can say that again.” I text Samantha and ask for the build status. “Lacy got me up early to squeeze me into her elf costume.”

“Same here. Woke up at seven so Grandpa could stuff me into his suit, and even then I couldn’t button it.”

“Tell me about it.” I text Lester, the build engineer, since Samantha hasn’t responded. “Then she cakes all that yucky makeup over me.”

“Huh, nothing’s worse than that glue Grandpa painted over me. Medical grade, he says, but it’s sticky and tacky and gums up your pores. At least you didn’t have to wear yak’s hair.”

“Yak’s hair?” I stifle a chuckle, and text Holly, the test engineer, asking her if automation passed.

“Yep, the best Santa’s beards are made of real yak’s hair. It’s getting harder to come by these days due to conservation, but Grandpa gets his from a ranch in Mongolia. Ethically harvested when they shave the beasts in the summer.”

“How’d you know all this?” I frown at the phone.
Why isn’t anyone answering my texts?

“He told me while he slowly glued and pressed each hair in place.”

“Had to make you look real.” I try to remember the numbers for the other two engineers, but can’t. Sighing, I go back to the main text screen.

“Do I look like a real Santa?” He stares at me.

The dome light is still on, so I take the opportunity to get a good look at him. His big, lustrous brown eyes and features chiseled in stone look more like Conan the Barbarian than a warm, fuzzy old guy from the North Pole.

“Depends on what real means. I think you’d make a great Santa.”

“I’m not sure my goal in life is to be a Santa Claus.” Ben smiles warily.

“Really? I would never have guessed.” Somehow, his reluctance to admit how hard it was for him to help his grandpa has me teasing him. “I’d say you’re a natural.”

“And you? Are you always so, so, uh, elfy all the time?”

“Elfy? What are you really saying?”

“Nothing.” There’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead and the truck cab seems to be hotter. “Grandpa thought your sister would be the elf.”

“She usually is, and in case you’re wondering, that’s her outfit she stretched over me and her makeup she plastered on me. What I can’t believe is that woman who got us arrested said Lacy was a sweet and helpful elf, whereas I’m a sluh—never mind …”

“You don’t usually dress like that?” Ben’s right eyebrow rises, and his eyes are roving over my face—my unmade face. I probably look like a lab rat right now with no color, not even mascara to highlight my light-colored lashes.

“What you see is what I am.”

“Why’d Lacy dress you up then?”

“She thought I’d need help to make a good impression and be more attractive.”

“And you’re not attractive the way you are?”

Ugh. I hate rhetorical questions. Of course he knows the answer. I lower my face, unable to bear his scrutiny. Face it. I never had a chance with a hunky football star like Ben. He never noticed me years ago, and the only reason he notices me now is because we got into trouble together.

“Brittney, I think you’d make a great elf the way you are. Don’t let Lacy or anyone else tell you otherwise.”

“Yeah, okay, a great elf.” I stare at his phone, wondering who else I can text. It’s obvious I’ve been relegated to nice-elf-status, several steps below the dreaded friend-zone.

A new text message rolls across the screen and I open it. It takes me a second before I realize it’s for Ben.

Call me, will you? Susanna

I drop the phone like it’s a hot potato. No wonder he didn’t want what I was offering. He already has a girlfriend.

Ben bends down to pick up the phone at the same time I try to retrieve it.

Our heads bang together with a pop.

“Ow.” I rub my head. “You have a message. Someone named Susanna.”

“Suz, what’s she doing up so late?” A grin splits his face, and even in the dim light of the cab, I can feel the warmth he has for the woman he calls Suz.

“She wants you to call her. Don’t mind me.” I push the door open.

“I’ll call her later. Stay.” He picks up the phone and reaches across me to close the door.

His body is so large, it squeezes me into the seatback, and I can’t help inhaling his scent, full of musk and adventure.

Except he’s a good guy because he apologizes for encroaching into my space, and then puts as much distance between us as he can. “You still need the phone?”

“Nope, no one’s answering. I’m going to have to fire the whole worthless lot.”

“Said like a Scrooge. It’s Saturday night, actually Sunday morning. No one should be awake.”

“Except Susanna.”
Oh gosh. Am I now going to bitch about it, too?
I might as well drop into a hole and disappear.

“She keeps weird hours.” He chuckles. “Don’t worry about her.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Good.”

He obviously holds a lot of affection for her. I really shouldn’t intrude any further. My wishes don’t mean a thing, and even though he jokingly asked me to be his pet, he only wanted to pet my big pom-poms—as I suspected.

Still, it’s not harassment, just flirting, because ever since he touched me, so gently and in a nonsexual manner, all I can think about is how much I want him to touch and tease, lick and suck, maybe even run his rod between my mumbo-jumbos.

Holding onto the fantasy, I close my eyes and pretend to sleep, wishing like heck he’d seen something in me he liked, not just someone who made a great elf.

This year, I’ll tell Santa what I really want, instead of being the good girl who tells him what I think he wants to hear.

~ Ben ~

Ben’s eyes snapped open, and he raised his hand to block the sharp beam of a flashlight.

“Oh, it’s you two again,” the police officer who’d arrested them said with a sneer.

Ben swept Brittney’s hair from his face and would have tossed her to her side of the truck if she hadn’t been asleep. How did she end up in his arms?

He didn’t want to let her go, to lose the feel of her body curving into his, as if she belonged nowhere else but by his side, close to him, with him.

Why were the police here? Couldn’t they stop disturbing him? What time was it? Wait, what were they still doing in the truck?

Fully awake, Ben carefully moved a limp Brittney to the passenger side, taking care to tuck a pillow to rest her head against the passenger door.

“What’s going on?” he said to the officer shining the flashlight in his face.

“You tell me.”

His partner, the guy who’d leered at Brittney, pulled open the passenger door. Ben’s reactions were so fast, he didn’t realize he’d grabbed ahold of her until the officer stepped back and shined his light on her face.

She woke with a start, moaning, “Go away. Leave me alone.”

Assbite. He was going to let her tumble onto the concrete without even trying to catch her.

“We got a complaint about two people loitering in the parking garage,” the jerk of a cop said. “Didn’t you two cause enough trouble at the Christmas tree farm?”

“You two weren’t planning on indecently exposing yourself here, were you?” the officer on Ben’s side asked.

“For your information, his grandfather’s in the hospital.” Brittney regained her facilities, including her all important tongue.

Ben glanced at his phone. There was a single new text.
Surgery successful. In recovery. Will let you know when he’s awake.

“Everything okay?” Brittney’s compassionate eyes were on him.

“Yes, he’s in recovery.”

“Oh, Ben.” She reached across the seat and hugged him. “That’s wonderful.”

“Hate to break it up, folks,” the cop on Brittney’s side said. “But I need you two to step out of the truck.”

“Step out? What did we do?” Brittney turned toward the cop.

“Are you disobeying a direct order from a police officer?” The jerk glared at her.

“No, sir. I just want to know what you’re charging us with.”

“Loitering, trespassing. Didn’t you see the sign? No overnight parking?”

“You too,” the officer on Ben’s side said. “Out of the truck, nice and slow.”

“Sir, my truck won’t start. That’s why we’re stuck here. We tried calling a tow truck.”

“Get out of the cab.” The policeman opened his door.

Meanwhile, Brittney remained sitting with her arms crossed over her breasts and that cute, utterly kissable pout plumping her lower lip.

“You probably should get out,” Ben said, noticing the crowd of people starting to gather around. “I think they mean business.”

“If you’re not getting out, I’m going to make you,” the bully on her side threatened. “That is, unless you want to flash me those honkers you were showing off at the tree farm.”

“What did you just say?” Brittney’s jaw hit her knees. “Aren’t you wearing a body cam?”

“Oh shit.” The policeman jumped from the side of the truck. He turned and smacked into a cameraman from the local news. Behind him was the stern looking woman in a gray suit who’d reported them at the Tree Farm. Who was she and why was she siccing police and reporters on them?

Ben slowly stepped from the cab and spread his hands on the hood. If that reporter was recording, he might as well catch all of the police harassment. Let them frisk him or rough-handle him.

“Let me have your key,” the policeman on Ben’s side said in a genial manner, noticing the reporter. “I’ll get her started up for you in a jiffy.”

“Won’t work. Nothing happens, but the battery’s not dead,” Ben said.

The policeman lowered his head toward the passenger side and leaned over Brittney whose eyes popped wide with shock. He dug between her legs and hooked his hand under the glove compartment.

“Sir? What are you doing? Don’t touch me,” Brittney shrieked. She stumbled from the cab and fled around the cameraman to Ben’s side.

Automatically, he drew her in his arms and hugged her, rubbing her back. “It’s okay. They have nothing on us. My truck wouldn’t start.”

“Got it.” The policeman sat up and turned the key. The engine kicked and started. “Bet you didn’t know you had an ignition cut-off switch. She probably flipped it to keep you stuck with her all night.”

“I did not,” Brittney protested. “I was trying to get comfortable because I couldn’t sleep. Maybe my leg hit it by accident.”

“I’ll bet.” The officer said, turning to a small crowd that had gathered. “Okay, folks, show’s over. Nothing to see here.”