Chapter 2 Rhett
TWO
RHETT
I don’t believe in omens, but if I did, they’d look a lot like a city girl in traction-adjacent boots cracking the runner on your best sleigh and calling it “holly heck.”
I’m not happy she’s here. I’m not happy she’s cute. I’m definitely not happy that my horses like her, which feels like a personal betrayal.
“Left,” I say, because Ivy is about to walk Comet into a rake.
She squeaks, corrects course, and gives me a thumbs-up with the hand not holding the lead rope. The gloves I shoved at her are two sizes too big, and they swallow her wrists and make her look like a kid playing barn dress-up. Adorable. Fantastic. Exactly what this week didn’t need.
“Is this…content?” she asks, dipping her chin at her phone where it’s clipped to some little handheld stabilizer thing. “Or is this, like, pre-content? A content amuse-bouche?”
“Walking a horse,” I say. “That’s what it is.” I don’t look at her phone. I don’t look at her eyes. I look at Comet’s ears, at the snow, at the sky that’s gone steel gray over the ridge. Work. Not faces. Work.
She hums, which, unfortunately, is also cute. “Do you mind if I get some audio? The bells when she shakes her head, the crunch of snow, your…uh, instructions.”
“No faces,” I remind her.
She mimes zipping her lips. “No faces. Got it. Hands, horses, bells. Your hands are—” She stops. “Capable. That’s what I was going to say. Very capable. This is going great.”
Jared snorts from where he’s sweeping by the fence. “This is my favorite show.”
“Keep moving, Jared,” I say.
The kid grins and scoots.
We circle the paddock, Comet’s breath puffing in slow, warm clouds.
Ivy keeps pace, knees slightly bent the way I told her, boots squeaking on the packed snow.
She listens. I’ll give her that. Most city folks nod while you talk and then do whatever they were always going to do.
Ivy stays a half step behind Comet’s shoulder like I told her, doesn’t tug, doesn’t chatter too loud.
She whispers her puns under her breath as promised, and it’s absurd and… fine. I guess it’s fine.
“Why Christmas?” I hear myself ask, which is stupid because I’d planned on a day of minimal syllables. “PR can choose anything to shine up. Why this?”
She glances at me. A curl has escaped her hat and is doing some kind of ribbon thing against her cheek.
I hate that I notice. “Because people pay attention when something sparkles. And once I have their attention, I can point them toward the good stuff. Toy drives. Local businesses. Donations that actually matter.” She looks back at Comet.
“And because I like it. The lights. The cookies. The way people soften around the edges.”
I grunt. I don’t say anything about how I used to like it too.
The last real Christmas I enjoyed I was wearing tan instead of flannel, and the nearest tree was a sun-bleached palm.
We did a half-hearted “Jingle Bells” in a plywood rec room and tried not to look at a chair no one was using anymore.
Bells don’t always sound festive. Sometimes they just sound like… bells.
“Does the sponsor know you plan to be a human sugar cookie?” I ask, because we’re not going there. Not today. Not with a storm coming and a thousand things to do.
“They hired me because my conversions are delicious,” she says, dead serious, and then winces. “That came out weird. You know what I mean.”
“I try not to,” I say, but the corner of my mouth betrays me.
She catches it. Of course she does. “Was that a smile? Quick, Jared, mark the calendar.”
“Calendar’s already full,” Jared calls. “We hit a smile quota last June.”
“Keep moving,” I repeat, but it’s less bite and more habit.
We swap Comet for Donner, who immediately noses Ivy’s candy-cane scarf with predatory interest.
“Don’t,” I tell him.
“It’s okay,” Ivy says, laughing. “If I die in the line of content, tell my boss I went out festive.”
“Donner,” I warn. The gelding sighs like he’s the one burdened with foolish city folk and reconsiders scarf dining.
I check the buckles on his harness, fingers moving without thought.
Leather, brass, wool—things that make sense.
The world is quieter when it’s this—weight and purpose and a loop that fastens the way it did yesterday and will tomorrow.
Ivy angles her phone to catch the close-up of my hands on the strap.
She doesn’t shove it in my face or ask me to redo anything.
Just…films. Like she’s trying to catch the truth of it instead of posing it.
“Can I get your voice?” she asks. “Just a few sentences while you work. Why you check the way you do. What you listen for.”
“Why would anyone care?”
“Because people forget,” she says. “And you make them remember.”
I hate that she’s quoting me back to myself.
I hate more that she’s not wrong. I clear my throat.
“I check because something that goes wrong in here goes wrong out there.” I flick my chin toward the trail.
“A bell that’s loose can spook a nervous horse.
A strap that looks fine can crack in cold if it’s dry.
You keep your hands on what you’re responsible for. ”
She’s quiet. The phone stays low. I keep talking to shut myself up.
“You listen for evenness. Bells that sound like they belong together. You watch the ears, the tail, the breath. You don’t rush. The horse tells you what they need if you’re paying attention.”
“Okay,” she says softly, and I don’t look up because I don’t want to see whatever is in her eyes. “That was perfect.”
“It was factual.”
“Sometimes those are the same thing.”
We lead Donner out. Snow starts in soft, drifting flakes, one catching on her eyelashes. She blinks and the flake melts against her skin, and I decide whoever at the sponsor’s office picked “send Ivy” owes me hazard pay. Did they have to send someone that looks like an angel ornament come to life?
“Where do you want your b-roll?” I ask, because business feels safer than whatever that thought was.
She brightens. Of course she does. “If we can walk the lane by the birches, that’d be great. The white trunks will pop, and we can get that soft light through the branches. I’ll keep the angle low and cut with wide shots of the snow falling. Title card can be ‘Why We Sleigh.’ Kidding. Maybe.”
“No slogans near me,” I say, but I guide Donner toward the birch lane anyway because she’s right about the light.
We pass the bake shop delivery cart as Mrs. Olsen trundles by, dropping off boxes at the Peppermint Inn.
She waves so enthusiastically I worry she’ll tip over the whole sleigh of snickerdoodles.
“Rhett!” she calls. “Tell that pretty girl I’ve got hot cocoa bombs at the bakery if she needs props.”
“I’m good on bombs,” I say before I can catch the word, and my jaw goes tight for a beat too long. Ivy glances at me, then at the snow, and says nothing. Good. Thank you.
Mayor Turner pops out of nowhere like all mayors do in small towns. “Everything merry?”
“Medium merry,” I say.
“Climbing,” Ivy adds. “Thank you for the intro earlier, Mayor Turner. We’re getting great…audio of horse bells.”
“Marvelous!” The mayor claps, her mitten bells jingling. “The seniors at Pine Hollow want to come for a ride tomorrow. Do we still have the quilt from Mrs. Hadley?”
“We do,” I say. “And we’ll keep the loop short if the wind picks up.”
“Look at him, already taking care of everyone,” the mayor stage-whispers to Ivy, as if I can’t hear them. “He’s a marshmallow center under all that grump.”
“I can hear you,” I deadpan.
“We want you to,” she sings, then swans down the street in a trail of tartan.
Ivy covers a smile with her scarf, which, mercifully, Donner does not eat. “You okay with that tomorrow? Seniors?”
“I’m okay with people who don’t point cameras at me,” I say. “And I’m okay with doing this for them. I’m not okay with Christmas trying to turn my barn into a movie.”
Her voice gets quiet again, winter-soft. “I can keep it small. I promise. We can make something beautiful without making you miserable.”
I don’t say what I think, which is that misery isn’t really about the camera.
It’s about the way December presses on all the places you thought you’d scarred over.
It’s about the music that starts in grocery stores and the red caps on gas station coffee cups and the cheer that asks for a version of you that doesn’t fit anymore.
It’s about remembering sand instead of snow and faces you don’t see in chairs.
We reach the birches. Snowflakes collect on the black-and-white bark, a living photograph. Ivy crouches to get the bells, to let the flakes drift through her shot. She stays off the horse’s path like I told her. She mutters something about “soundbed” and “loopable” and “pacing like a lullaby.”
“You’re going to fall,” I tell her, because her boots are doing that slide-to-doom again.
“I’ve got it,” she says, and immediately slides.
I catch her elbow without thinking. Her laugh bumps against my shoulder, warm, ridiculous. She smells like cinnamon and…something else. Hope? I shake it off. No. Absolutely not.
“Traction,” I say, steadying her.
“Noted,” she says breathlessly. “I’ll put ‘buy sensible boots’ on the shot list.”
“Put it on top,” I say. I don’t let go right away. She doesn’t pull away. Donner tosses his head and bells sing, and I let go.
We finish the walk and circle back. She gets footage of brushing out Donner’s mane, of Jared filling the water trough, of my hands fitting a new strip of felt under a chafing strap.
The world narrows to the work and to her almost-silent running commentary.
It’s not awful, which I resent on principle.
When we’re done, I lead Donner back into the barn and loop the lead rope over the hook. Ivy pockets her phone like it’s glass. She looks at the sleigh we’ll have to fix and then at me.
“I’m sorry about the runner,” she says again, earnest in a way that’s hard to argue with. “I’ll call the artisan you mentioned. I can drive out. I can wait. Whatever it takes.”
“You’re not driving anywhere in the storm,” I say. “We’ll see. He’s more likely to make room if I show up in person.” I rub a hand over the back of my neck. “I’ll handle it.”
“Let me at least cover the cost,” she says. “I broke it.”
“I’ll send an invoice,” I say, which is my compromise. “You should get to the inn before the roads glaze.”
She nods, tucks a curl behind her ear with a gloved finger. “Can I come back after lunch tomorrow? Seniors ride at two?”
“Come early,” I say. “Morning’s better if the wind goes mean.”
“Okay.” She hesitates, then adds with a smile that’s somehow both bright and respectful, “Thank you for letting me be a human sugar cookie in your barn.”
“You’re welcome,” I mutter, which is not quite the same as “please never say that again,” but we both pretend it is.
She backs toward the door, nearly collides with a hay bale, catches herself, and offers me a two-finger salute that’s all moxie and mittens. “Bye, Comet. Bye, Donner. Bye, Jared. Bye, capable hands.”
Jared chokes on a laugh. I stare at the rafters until she’s gone.
“She’s fun,” Jared says. “And cute.”
I point a finger at him. “There’ll be none of that.” I know he’s young and nowhere near old enough to ask her out, but for some reason Jared calling her cute does something to me.
Jared holds his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m just saying.” He laughs. “C’mon, like you didn’t notice it either.”
I shake my head. I’ll be damned if I’m going to discuss Ivy’s beauty with Jared. I grunt which he takes as an end to the conversation, and he exits the barn, leaving me in peace.
The barn settles around me, warm and familiar. Leather creaks. Horses shift. Bells go quiet. I breathe, slow and steady, in for four, hold for four, out for six. It’s an old trick, older than Iraq, older than this barn. It works.
I’m not happy she’s here. I’m not happy about sponsors or deliverables or storms or any of it. The town needs the money; I need the quiet; those two truths are going to fight for the next three days. And I’m not happy that the person I have to fight beside is…well. Ivy.
Cute is not strong enough for what she is. She’s cheerful weaponized, and I don’t know if I’m the target or the collateral. Either way, I’ll keep the horses steady. I’ll keep the rides safe. I’ll fix the sleigh.
And maybe, if I’m careful, I won’t let Christmas crack anything that matters.