Reindeer Wrangler (Christmas Card Cowboys #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Tessa Mitchell had a mouth problem.

Not the kind the needed medical care, though her dentist might have opinions about her stress-induced teeth grinding. Nope, truth be told, her mouth wrote checks her skills couldn’t cash.

That morning on the tenth of December, she trudged through ankle-deep snow toward the barn, regretting her life choices.

Three days until the Evergreen Springs Christmas Parade, where she promised to deliver nine miniature horses, dressed as reindeer, pulling Santa’s sleigh like something from a Hallmark movie.

Her minis who possessed the collective discipline of a frat house on spring break. Her fault. She indulged the little buggers. It was impossible to be strict with so much cuteness.

“This time it’s not a joke.” She yanked her scarf higher against the wind. “I will finish what I started and make Rent-a-Reindeer a real business!”

The whole disaster initiated three weeks ago at Zeke’s Diner, where she and her best friends had met for their weekly girls’ night out. She was nursing her second, okay, third, hard cider and opened her big mouth.

Note to future Tessa. Do not drink and dare.

“You??” Megan hooted. “Miss-Can’t-Sit-Still-Long-Enough-To-Finish-A-Cup-Of-Cocoa?”

Back in high school, Megan was head cheerleader, student council president, and editor of the school paper while Tessa was the girl who got suspended for releasing crickets in the chem lab.

At twenty-nine, ambitious, competitive Megan was now the principal of Evergreen Springs Elementary and gunning to become the youngest superintendent in the district.

Fiona, a single mom struggling to provide for her seven-year-old son, Jamie, leaned forward, her phone already out.

As the marketing director for the Chamber of Commerce, she was also searching for things to post on the town’s social media page.

She also worked at the movie theater on weekends and during tax season, temped for H&R Block.

“So you’re going to what, dress up your ponies for birthday parties?” Fiona asked.

“They’re miniature horses, not ponies.” Okay, she was defensive. “There’s a difference.”

“Sure there is.” Megan took a long sip of wine. “Just like there was a difference between your dog grooming business and your mobile car detailing venture and your, what was it last year? Organic soap making?”

Tessa’s neck burn. “Those were learning experiences.”

That’s when Eliza spoke up. Quiet Eliza, who taken over her gram’s bakeshop and somehow made the pastries even better. Eliza, who never said an unkind word about anyone.

“You guys, if Tessa really wanted to, she could do it. She just hasn’t found what sticks yet.” Eliza patted Tessa’s hand.

Eliza meant to offer support, but the words stung worse than Megan’s teasing. Eliza was right. Tessa had the resume of someone who couldn’t commit to a breakfast cereal, much less a career.

“You know what?” The words burst out before Tessa’s brain could stop them. “I betcha I can turn those miniature horses into a full sleigh team, antlers, bells, the whole production in time for the Christmas parade.”

The diner went silent. The dangerous kind of quiet that meant everyone was listening.

“I dare you,” Megan said.

“I’ll take some of that action.” Fiona grinned, pulled out a ten-dollar bill, and slapped it on the table.

The place erupted in cheers and chants of “Do it, do it.” As people sauntered over to give Fiona, the de facto bookie, money to hold.

And Tessa’s pride, which was trying to kill her, said, “You’re on!”

The Chamber of Commerce president, who’d been eating chili fries at the bar, popped over to offer her a spotlight in the parade and to join in the pool with a twenty against Tessa’s succeeding.

Darn it!

In the end, twenty-seven people slapped down five hundred and fifty dollars for Tessa to fail and two, exactly two, people put up forty bucks for her to succeed.

Eliza and a town newcomer.

Now, trudging toward the minis who believed “teamwork” was a four-letter word, she wondered if pride did indeed go before the fall.

Or in her case, utter public humiliation.

She and the minis had practiced since the middle of November, and they were no closer to being able to pull Santa’s sleigh than on the first day.

Tessa shouldered open the barn door, and nine heads swiveled toward her in perfect synchronization.

The only synchronized thing they’d done all week.

“Don’t look so excited to see me.” She stomped slush from her boots.

Her first official booking had been at Santa’s Workshop last week at the community center. Just three minis, a cozy Christmas backdrop, photo op... Easy-peasy.

Except she brought Biscuit.

Bad move. The irascible gelding dove face-first into a tray of frosted sugar cookies, smearing icing across his nose like war paint.

Kids shrieked with delight, parents whipped out their phones, and Fiona, for the Chamber, posted the entire spectacle with the caption When Reindeer Attack! #SantasWorkshop #HorsesGoneWild.

But Chamber board hadn’t laughed. Neither had the Evergreen Springs Library.

Her first real booking should’ve been foolproof. A thrice weekly stint through Christmas. Einstein in antlers while she read The Polar Express at the library. Then Carl Wykoski’s text pinged:

Tessa, we need to cancel storytime. Our insurance advisor has concerns after your Santa’s Workshop fiasco. Maybe next year when you have more experience.

The library gig had been her chance to prove she was legit, and now poof! Gone. All she had were nine unruly minis and a parade barreling toward her like it was the Polar Express.

She squared her shoulders and looked at the lineup of stalls. Each horse watched her with varying degrees of suspicion and mischief. Three days left to turn these chaos agents into something resembling Santa’s reindeer.

“Okay, Einstein.” She grabbed his halter from the hook. “You’re up first, buddy. You’re my Rudolph. The headliner. Our star.”

Einstein, a chestnut with one white sock and the escape artist skills of Houdini, eyeballed her as she led him down the middle of the barn to the sleigh.

She clipped him to the cross-ties and held out a peppermint. His lips peeled back, revealing teeth that looked too huge for his tiny head.

“That’s my boy. Now, let’s get you dressed.”

The harness went on easier than expected. Einstein only stepped on her foot twice, which was progress. She fastened the traces to the sleigh, a candy-apple-red Victorian-style beauty that cost more than she’d probably make off this endeavor, but hey, tax write-off.

For three seconds, everything was perfect.

Then Einstein shook. Hard.

The jingle bells exploded into sound like someone kicked over a shelf of wind chimes in a hurricane.

The barn erupted.

Pickles pawed at his stall door. Biscuit lunged against the bars, trying to bite the wood.

Marshmallow rolled, coating herself in shavings.

Tater Tot and Domino began what could only be described as a scream-off, their whinnies climbing to pitches that shouldn’t be possible from anything with hooves.

Junebug farted. Snickers ran circles in his stall, and Cupcake, sweet, supposedly calm Cupcake, reared up and slammed her hooves down with a bang that shook the walls.

“Like herding caffeinated squirrels,” she muttered, wrestling Domino’s halter on as he tried to spin away.

It took forty minutes to get them all out and tied to the sleigh. Forty minutes of dodging teeth, hooves, and what she suspected was a deliberate attempt at murder.

Domino kept crowding Einstein, shoving his rump and trying to establish dominance. Marshmallow locked her knees and refused to move. Biscuit discovered he could lean against the shaft and hem Tessa in.

The others squealed, reared, and acted like she asked them to walk across hot coals.

Sweat gathered under her Christmas sweater with the light-up Rudolph nose that seemed so festive in the store. Her patience unraveled but stupid, stubborn pride kept her moving. She bent to adjust Domino’s trace.

She would not throw in the towel.

Without warning, Domino kicked her backside.

Pain exploded through her hip. She yelped and stumbled forward, windmilling her hands and tumbling face-first toward the sleigh’s runner.

She caught herself at the last second, palms slapping against the metal, the nose of Rudolph on her sweater blinking like a warning light.

The humiliation stung worse than the bruise already forming. She could imagine Fiona’s caption now: Local Woman Kicked by Christmas.

“Reset.” She straightened despite the throb in her hip. “We’re gonna reset.”

The horses ignored her. Einstein shook his bells. Domino nipped Marshmallow. Biscuit sat down. Just sat like a dog.

Megan’s laughter echoed in her head. Fiona’s dare. Eliza’s pity. The whole of Zeke’s betting against her.

“Fine.” She bared her teeth in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “You want chaos? Let’s dance.”

She yanked out her phone and jammed it into the ancient speaker dock inherited from Papaw. His barn, his dreams of her taking over the family farm, all for naught as she played at being something she wasn’t.

“Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” blared through the barn, tinny and absurdly cheerful.

She rolled her eyes. “On the nose, but okay.”

Like a conductor facing the world’s worst orchestra, she stepped into the absurdity. If she was going down, she might as well make it memorable.

She spun in a pirouette, her sweater blinking. She danced her heart out. Wild, unrestrained. Flashdance. Manic laughter bubbled up from somewhere deep in her chest. For one wild, dizzy moment, she could almost see it working.

Almost believed her own hype.

Then her foot hit a pile of sawdust.

Her leg went out from under her. This is going to hurt. She landed flat on her back.

The impact knocked everything out of her. Air. Pride. Sanity. Her teeth clacked together, and her chest seized.

She tried to inhale. Couldn’t. Panic clawed at her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Could only lie there while her body trembled, mouth gaped, and spots danced at the edges of her vision.

At last, her lungs remembered their job. She dragged in a ragged gulp of dusty, horse-scented air.

That’s when she heard it.

The unmistakable sound of liquid hitting the floor. She turned her head to see Marshmallow peeing on her boots. The acrid stench of horse urine filled her nostrils.

“Perfect. Just perfect.”

The horses loomed over her, bells jangling like laughter. She could picture it all. Fiona’s viral post, Megan’s smug “I told you so,” Eliza’s gentle disappointment that would somehow hurt worst of all.

A laugh clawed its way up, but twisted into a sob halfway through.

She was twenty-seven years old, lying in horse pee, covered in sawdust, with a blinking Rudolph nose on her sweater and a bruised hip, about to fail at yet another dream because she was too proud to admit—

“I need help.”

The words ripped free, hoarse and stripped of all bravado. For the first time in her life, she admitted it out loud to nine miniature horses.

The barn fell silent except for the faint music still playing. Even the horses stopped moving, as if recognizing that something had shifted.

Dust drifted down from the loft. She watched, mesmerized, as something slipped loose from between the rafters and floated down.

A piece of paper landed in the sawdust beside her, just missing the horse pee.

She eased into a sitting position, ouch, and picked it up.

A Christmas card.

Warmth seeped into her fingers, which made no sense. It was barely above freezing in the barn.

The card was hand-painted. The signature of the artist in one corner: Jeb. Old, edges soft, as if it had been touched by countless hands over many decades.

On the back, written in brown ink:

Cade Sullivan, wrangler, Dec. 10th, 1878.

The image on the front stole what little breath she had left.

A drop-dead handsome cowboy sat astride a palomino, his duster flaring in the wind. His hat brim cast his eyes in shadow, but his mouth tipped into a half-smile that felt intimate. Even the horse looked alive, muscles bunched, ready to move.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. Her throat clogged. Tears stung her eyes.

Why? She didn’t know this cowboy from another time, but something in her heart blew wide open with recognition, as if she’d been missing him all her life and just now realized it.

A memory jolted. Sunday. At Eliza’s bakery. A tearful Eliza, in a hushed whisper, told her something impossible.

Wyatt McCready, the man who swept into town and stole Eliza’s heart, wasn’t a hired historical reenactor as she’d told everyone. He was a cowboy chuckwagon cook from 1878.

And the portal he used to time travel was a hand-painted Christmas card just like this one.

Now, holding this card at the exact moment she asked for help, goosebumps raced up her arms.

Just as Mariah Carey belted, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”