Chapter 2
Vaughn glanced at the clock as the video call program connected. He had an hour until the bar opened. Although he and Jack were hired for weekends only, he wanted to help Holly out as much as possible. It had everything to do with the fact that the beautiful human was his likli fanna – his fated mate.
Vaughn was a quad, a rare type of shifter who could change into four animals. His favorite of the four – polar bear, arctic fox, snowy owl, and reindeer – was the arctic fox because it was a fast runner. But without the reindeer, he wouldn’t be a quad and wouldn’t be part of Santa’s sleigh team. He lived in NPC, otherwise known as North Pole City, with other quads, shifters, and elves. His father was a shifter but not a quad, and his mother and sister were elves. Only males were shifters.
Santa and Mrs. Claus, known as SC and Mrs. C to their people, were the leaders of NPC. Mrs. C had a special sort of magic known as mate-magic; which she used to bring together two people who would be perfectly matched as mates. His parents were mate-matched, but quads, unlike the other shifters and elves, had the ability to find a special sort of mate called a fated mate, the one female on the planet perfect for each quad. There were eight quads on the sleigh team, and he and Jack were the last two unmated.
Christmas Day morning, when the team returned from delivering gifts, Mrs. C brought him and Jack together and explained that she believed they would find their fated mates in Holly’s bar. She wasn’t sure if the two sisters were the mates or if they would simply meet their mates in the bar at some point, but it had been a no-brainer for him and Vaughn. They’d packed up immediately and said goodbye to their families, moving into a two-bedroom apartment in the same town as the bar that had previously been rented by Declan’s human mate.
Mrs. C had arranged for Jack and Vaughn to apply for jobs at the bar. They’d shown up the day after Christmas, and the moment he walked into the bar, he’d known immediately that Holly was his fated mate. It took every ounce of his willpower not to throw her over his shoulder and take her somewhere private to mate and mark her. But she was human, and shifters, and the whole truth of SC and the North Pole, were unknown to her world. He couldn’t simply tell Holly he was a shifter – he had to make sure she was ready to be his mate. Risking the welfare of his people wasn’t anything he wanted to do. The question was how to get the prickly female to open up to the possibility of getting into a romantic relationship with him.
The video connected, and he smiled at his parents.
“How’s it going down there?” his father, Abe, asked.
“Not too bad.”
“Did you find your fated mate yet?” Penny, his mother, smiled hopefully.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did. Her name is Holly Donovan, and she owns the bar where I’m working as a bartender.”
His younger sister, Violet, leaned into view. “You found her? That’s wonderful news!”
“Thanks. She’s pretty standoffish, doesn’t seem to want to get to know me any more than as an employee.”
“You’re a wonderful male,” Penny said. “She’ll come around. The trick is not to push too hard or you might push her away.”
“You have a year at any rate,” Abe added.
Vaughn nodded. NPC was magically protected and closed every day of the year but one, the twenty-four hours from dawn on Christmas Eve to dawn on Christmas Day. He hoped Holly would want to move with him to NPC next Christmas so he could keep his job as the Comet position on the sleigh team.
She loved the bar, though. That much was clear.
And if, once they were mated, she wanted to stay here and not move to NPC, he’d stay for her.
He desperately wanted to tell her that there was a tavern in NPC that needed someone to run it. That he’d happily help her, and even build her a damn patio there, too. But, of course, he couldn’t, at least not right now.
“I know,” Vaughn said. “I promise I won’t come on too strong.”
“You’re wonderful,” Penny said. “She’s a lucky female.”
“Speaking of lucky females, your sister has some news,” Abe said.
“What’s up?” Vaughn asked.
“I’m going to ask Mrs. C to mate-match me.”
His brows rose. She’d just turned eighteen, but she looked so happy that he knew if he said anything about her age, she’d get mad, so he smiled instead. “Whoever he is, he’ll be lucky to have you in his life.”
“Mom and Grandma both were mate-matched at eighteen,” Violet reminded him.
“I didn’t say anything,” Vaughn said.
“You were thinking it, though.”
He laughed. “Yeah, but I just want you to be happy, and if it’s the right time for you, then Mrs. C will have the perfect male for you. Just be sure to let him know you have a protective older brother who expects you to be treated like a queen.”
“I wish you could be here for our mating ceremony, but I don’t want to wait until next Christmas. No offense.”
“I understand. I can be there remotely with the video app, though.”
“That would be cool!”
He glanced at the clock and said, “I’m going to head into work. Good luck with your mate-matching.”
“Good luck with your fated mate,” Violet said.
He said goodbye to his family and turned off the app.
“Did I hear that right?” Jack asked from the doorway. “Your sister’s getting mate-matched already?”
“Yeah, she just turned eighteen.”
“Well, if it’s not the right time for her, Mrs. C won’t match her with anyone. That happened to my cousin. Mrs. C told him to come back in a few months. He was pretty devastated, but when he went back, she matched him right up.”
“Did she ever say why he had to wait?”
“No, just that the magic only worked when it was the right timing.”
“That makes me feel better. At least if she does find a match for Violet, it’ll be perfect.”
Jack’s phone buzzed, and he looked at the screen. “Ivy said that Holly’s going to come up with a special drink for New Year’s Eve for a big party.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“I’m going to have Ivy come here and see the setup I did for recording her music. Are you going into the bar?”
Vaughn nodded as he stood. “Yeah.”
“I’ll come back with Ivy when we’re done here. You make any headway with Holly last night?”
“Not in getting her to see me as anything but an employee. But I did offer to work on the patio for her, so that’s something. She just needs to figure out how to move beyond the issues in the past and start fresh. New Year’s Eve seems like as good a time as any.”
“Agreed. I’ll see you later,” Jack said.
Vaughn headed to the bar, arriving just as it opened for the night.
“What are you doing here?” Holly asked.
“I came to help out,” he said as he hung up his coat.
She frowned as he joined her behind the bar. “I can’t really afford to pay you full time right now.”
“I didn’t ask for payment. I said I came to help.”
She gave him a curious look. “Why?”
“Because I want to.”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and then she smiled. “Wanna help me dust off the dartboards and get them hung up?”
“I’d love to.”
* * *
Vaughn spent the rest of the week helping Holly get the bar ready for the weekly dart tournaments, the first of the new ideas she was rolling out after January first. He’d started coming into the bar earlier in the afternoon to work on the patio. It appeared that the only thing the original contractor had done was hang up plastic sheeting to enclose the space. It was cold out there, but he didn’t mind the low temperatures because it was far colder in NPC. Besides, his body wasn’t as affected by cold because of his shifter nature.
He’d started off by clearing out the junk, leaving the area empty. Holly had wanted an open, airy space for outdoor dining, along with a small bar for specialty cocktails and wine.
After pricing out vinyl flooring that looked like well-worn hardwood, he purchased a roll and spent several days working on laying it. On Friday, he was finishing up the floor when he heard Holly calling him. He wished he’d been able to move things further with her romantically since their first night working together, but although she was happy to chat with him about anything related to the bar, every time he broached the subject of getting to know each other better or going out on a date, she clammed right up.
“Out here, Holly,” he called, sitting back on his heels and rolling his shoulders.
“Oh, wow,” she said as she pushed aside the plastic sheeting and walked onto the patio. She stopped in the middle of the newly laid floor and turned in a slow circle. “Vaughn, it’s amazing. You didn’t have to do all this.”
“I just cleaned it out and laid vinyl flooring.”
She swallowed audibly and turned to face him. “How much do I owe you?”
“I’ll put it on your tab.”
She made a face. “Is that your way of saying you don’t want me to pay you back?”
“Maybe. Or maybe I’ll really run you a tab but never collect. I didn’t ask for money because I have savings of my own. Once the bar’s back on its feet financially, then we can talk about repayment.”
She looked at him in silence. He stood and moved to her, closing the distance between them until there was only a bare foot separating them.
“Are you okay?”
She blinked her big blue eyes up at him. “Ivy and I used to make Christmas Eve wishes every year. It was a tradition our mother told us about. We followed her instructions to the letter every year, but I never did get the pony I wanted. We kept doing it, even after our parents died. It became as much a part of our Christmas as decorating the tree and giving presents to each other. Ivy told me that she didn’t make a Christmas wish this year. I was surprised, because we’ve been doing it so long. But I did.”
“What was your wish?”
“For someone to help me carry this burden. There are times I want to throw in the towel and do something else, but I don’t because if the bar goes under, we lose our home, too. I need it to succeed so Ivy doesn’t have to worry about the roof over our head. I feel like you’re the answer to my Christmas wish, and now I feel kind of silly for thinking that anyone ever even answers those sorts of things.”
He wished he could tell her that yes indeed, SC did answer Christmas wishes when the person making them honestly believed. Maybe a part of Holly really did believe in Christmas wishes and miracles, and that’s why Mrs. C came to the bar and sent him and Jack here.
“I don’t think Ivy even realizes how tied into the bar we are, not only financially but also just in living arrangements. I’ve spent a lot of time wallowing. You were right to push me earlier this week, so thank you for being blunt and honest enough to tell me.”
“Can I tell you a little secret?” He tucked a lock of her blonde hair behind her ear and smiled inwardly when she shivered at his touch.
“Yes.”
“I believe in Christmas wishes, too.”