Chapter 3
Valerie
“Competitors, take your mark!” The shout echoed through a bullhorn, and I glanced at Sage Bennett, my fellow miracle agent turned today’s tug-of-war judge, perched in the lifeguard chair.
She slid her sunglasses down her nose and gave me a questioning lip curl when she spotted an armband matching mine circling Grant’s bicep.
I returned her expression with one of my own that read: I’ll explain this horror show later.
Sage was a Snowbelter, but we’d become close friends when I went undercover during a ski lodge rescue mission.
The agency, in its infinite wisdom, had sent Sage back to her hometown on sabbatical and needed an agent she wouldn’t recognize to meddle with her love life.
My cover? Playing personal assistant to Leo—the town villain—while sneaking in a little matchmaking and saving a town landmark on the side.
That was before my magic went haywire, and now Sage was the only one I’d confided in with the extent of my glitch.
It was her idea to hire that medium and those blasted ghosts.
She even got a kickback for the referral while I still checked the shadows for ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future night terrors.
But Sage was my friend. She’d keep my secret.
I broke eye contact and focused on the arena: the swimming pool. It had been filled with ice cubes and rigged with two raised platforms sitting above the water. A rope of prickly garland stretched between the bases. Anyone who lost their footing was in for a polar plunge.
On one side of the pool sat an inflatable bin packed with snowballs. Ammo for our junior agents, who’d love nothing more than to take the upper ranks down. We’d have to dodge the frosty obstacles they pelted at us and try not to take any to the face.
Sage raised her bullhorn. “All right, miracle-makers! Rules are simple. Two teams on the platforms, one extra-bristly strand of garland between them, no gloves! Yank your opponents into the ice tank before they dunk you. Each winning team will have ten points added to their island score.” She smirked and turned toward the crowd.
“What do you think? Should I make things more interesting?”
The agents roared their approval. Sage swept her arm into the air, flicking her wrist and fingers into a spiral. The sun dimmed. Clouds formed overhead. Then giant flakes fell in a dizzy swirl as the wind whipped across the pool.
I crossed my arms tight against my chest and stifled a groan. Sage had conjured a blizzard in paradise.
Unfair advantage to the Snowbelters.
“You gonna make it, Spells? You look cold.” Grant stood by my side, cocky as ever. He was built for this kind of weather. The man probably wore shorts in sub-zero temperatures. I was built for a sauna.
“We’re on the same team, Delaney. If I go into frozen convulsions and topple into the pool, we both lose. Aren’t you trying to beat your score from the last retreat?”
“Sunbelter’s,” he grumbled. “Weaklings with a suntan.” He clapped his palms over my shoulders. A muttered spell later, and heat radiated beneath his hands, sending warmth all the way to my toes.
I swallowed a different kind of groan. Who knew the man had Kryptonite in his fingers? Forget a sauna… I could get used to—
A snowball whizzed past my face. Grant’s grip tightened as he yanked us back a step.
“You’re going down, Delspell.” Some guy I recognized from Mistletoe Logistics hefted another snowball, then glanced at my armband defaced in permanent marker. “Or is it Spellaney? Either way, you two are popsicles.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Hit me with that thing and I’ll curse you to die alone.”
Mr. Mistletoe winced and lowered the snowball.
Grant chuckled low in my ear. “You’re savage.”
I wriggled out of his heat cocoon, irritation thick in my tone. “Like I haven’t already done that to you. Ever wonder why you’re still single?”
The heat vanished from Grant’s touch, and in the split second before he lifted his palms, a revenge-laced zing of ice shot through my veins. I shuddered and nearly nose-dived into the pool.
Lesson learned: don’t taunt the human furnace.
We climbed onto our platform and squared off against our opponents: Mr. Mistletoe and Nancy, the sweet older lady who played Mrs. Claus at holiday parties. Nancy bared her teeth and jerked hard on the garland, nearly ripping it from my fingers before I’d even planted my feet.
Geez… Mrs. Claus definitely had a gym membership.
“Players ready?” Sage boomed into her bullhorn.
I shot her a glare and waved at the flakes still falling from the angry sky.
She just shrugged and leaned back in the lifeguard chair like the queen of the Arctic. Somebody save me from weather witches and their spells. She owed me a balmy breeze and a cauldron of hot spiked cider after this.
Grant was braced behind me, his stance wide. Wind and snow whipped through his hair as he clenched the garland in his fists.
“So, what’s the plan?” I asked, hunching against the cold.
“Pull and don’t fall in,” he said, nodding at the ice cubes floating in the pool below.
“How strategic,” I mocked over my shoulder. “You’re going to make a brilliant leader.”
Grant cocked his head, his expression pure spite. “At least if you fall in, you don’t have to worry about getting stung by any jellyfish.” He paused just long enough to twist the knife. “In the face.”
It took every ounce of self-control not to throw the round and shove him into the pool.
Sage’s bullhorn blared the signal.
Game on.
The garland jerked, prickling my palms with pine-scented needles. I stumbled toward the edge of the platform, breath puffing white as I squinted against the snowsquall. Cheers erupted from the crowd, then turned into a roar as a snowball smacked me hard in the hip.
“Hey! That hurt!” I shouted, lurching backward to dodge another frozen projectile. My heel slammed down hard on Grant’s toes.
He hissed in a breath and shoved me forward. “I’m going to need all those toes, Spells.”
A snowball zoomed between us, splashing into the pool. My fingers slid along the slick garland.
This was chaos, and Team Mistletoe wasn’t faring any better.
“Nobody can even get a grip!” I yelped as slush exploded at my feet. My sneakers skidded on the wet platform, dumping me on my backside with a thud that sent ice up my spine.
“You’re pulling it wrong,” Grant barked over the wind.
“How does one pull wrong?” I snapped, scrambling upright as the garland went taut. “You pull. That’s it!”
Another snowball burst against my side, icy water seeping through my shirt. I flinched, then jolted as Grant shifted behind me. A snowball meant for my head bashed into his shoulder instead.
I blinked. The next shot hit him square in the back, his sizable frame blocking me from the frozen shrapnel.
For a heartbeat, everything slowed, and the world narrowed to my private snow globe of protection. Ice pummeled the glass, but none of it reached me.
Why did he do that?
Because he wants to win, you fool! He’s a three-time Snow and Sun team champion. Focus.
I let out a growl and pulled with everything I had. Nancy shrieked as her feet shot from under her, plunging her into the pool with a cannonball splash.
Triumph sparked right before Mr. Mistletoe dug in his heels and yanked so hard my grip tore loose. Grant cursed, trying to catch me, and suddenly we were the ones flying off the platform.
We hit the water together in a tangle of limbs. The shock stole the breath from my lungs, icy bubbles fizzing past my ears. I surfaced, sputtering, hair plastered to my face.
Nancy was treading water nearby, her victorious cackle competing with the cheering crowd. It was official. She was off my Christmas card list this year.
Mr. Mistletoe pumped his fist into the air as Sage’s voice boomed through the bullhorn.
“Team Mistletoe wins!”
Grant shoved wet hair out of his face. Water streamed down his jaw, and his polo clung to his skin.
I stabbed a finger at him. “You distracted me.”
“Me?” He swiped his arm through the water, sending a wave of frozen cubes in my direction. “I saved your—”
“Out of the pool before you turn into ice sculptures, and we have to stick you near the shrimp!” Sage crowed. “Winners, take your victory lap. Losers, hit the cocoa station and dry off.”
I climbed out, sneakers squelching against the cement. Goosebumps raced across my skin as the wind cut through my drenched clothes.
Nobody was surprised that our first challenge had been an epic failure.
Staged whispers followed us as we slogged toward the warming tent, and Joan from HR shook her head like she planned to add this failure to communicate to our ever-growing file.
Grant trailed behind me, dripping water everywhere.
He shot Joan a playful grin as he passed.
“Hope there’s more where that came from,” he quipped, then turned his head toward me with a wink. “We’ll get ’em next time. Won’t we partner?”
Joan actually laughed and scribbled something onto a clipboard. Fantastic. We lost team points, but Grant was clearly racking up bonus points with HR and making me look like the grumpy sidekick.
I grabbed a towel and watched as another team took their turn. The snowballs flew fast and furious, and the round was over in seconds. Much quicker than ours. Then again, nobody tried to play the hero.
“It was all for show,” I muttered. “Everything with Grant is an act.”
A masculine hand shoved a cardboard cup of steaming cocoa under my nose, a peace offering, complete with bobbing marshmallows. I looked up. It wasn’t Grant. A seed of disappointment bloomed inside my chest.
Mr. Mistletoe gave me a sheepish smile. “Sorry about all that. I got caught up in the challenge.”
“It’s fine…” I hesitated, accepting the cup and staring into the marshmallows as if they might rearrange and spell the man’s name.
“Tom,” he said. “I work in logistics, Snowbelt division.”
“Valerie,” I offered, lifting my cup in a half-salute before thinking better of it. With my glitch lurking, the universe might mistake this for a meet-cute and force me to splatter cocoa down Tom’s polo.
“Everyone knows who you are.” Tom grinned, angling his head closer. I braced for impact, but the universe left him unscathed. “And Grant, too. Especially now that the board’s letting him roll out Matt’s miracle cold case team.”
A prickle raced across my skin that had nothing to do with the wind. Matt Delaney had been Grant’s cousin. He was the agency’s golden visionary until the accident that took his life the year before I joined the agency.
Grant never talked about it, but everyone knew their grandfather had been grooming Matt to take over Snowbelt. Now Grant was the one in the hot seat, carrying Matt’s dream and trying to prove he could do more than skate by on charm.
My eyebrows pulled together. “That’s happening now?”
Tom nodded. “It’ll be Grant’s first official task as acting director. The plan is to announce the news along with his promotion at tonight’s luau. They’re already compiling names for the new team.”
I chewed on a marshmallow, letting that sink in. Matt’s dream of a cold case team had been floating around forever. It was a way to combine the best of Sunbelt and Snowbelt and tackle the cases no one else could crack. The miracles everyone else had written off as lost causes.
The idea had always intrigued me, and I told my boss that if it ever happened, I wanted in—even if it meant moving. The new team would be based at the East Coast headquarters, home turf for the lifers who still believed Christmas magic worked best in below-freezing temperatures.
Amateurs.
The holidays still counted, even with heatwaves and iced spiced-rum lattes. But a team dedicated to giving lost love stories and fading traditions a second chance? That hit close to home. I wanted the chance to prove that faith, and a little stubborn determination, could outlast failure.
Tom’s grin turned conspiratorial. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but your name’s on the shortlist. Logistics already got the memo.
” A warm rush of pride lit my chest. Then Tom added, “As long as everything checks out, you’re in.
But it’ll mean high visibility. The board will be watching every move you make. ”
The warmth fizzled, leaving behind a cold knot of dread. Extra eyes on me were the last thing I needed while my magic was glitching. Not to mention my disastrous public display with Grant.
Tom must’ve read my face. “Don’t take it personally.
We all know Grant. Everybody likes him.” He coughed lightly into his fist when he noticed my nose scrunch.
“Well, almost everybody. Grant’s great at the holiday party circuit, but no one expects him to take this seriously.
There’s an agent pool going around that he’ll tank it, in case you want in. ”
I bounced my soaked sneaker against the pool deck, considering it. It was a solid bet, and I could use the extra money, but something about the way Grant had shielded me on the platform made me reconsider. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
“Suit yourself. If this plan goes sideways, the board won’t let him try again. They’re watching him and everyone involved extra close.”
My gaze swept the tent until I found Grant. He had a towel slung over his shoulder as he followed a tall, silver-haired man away from the pool. His grandfather and head of the board was recognizable even from a distance.
Of course, Grant had to make this work. It must be killing him that my name was on the list to join his new team.
The next few days would be tricky.
Tom tipped his head toward the beach as Grant and his grandfather disappeared behind a cluster of palm trees. “See you at the luau?”
I tossed back the last of my cocoa and managed a smile. “Wouldn’t miss it.”