Page 4 of Naughty Santa

Paris carefully got out of the truck, clutching her bag with Louis close to her chest. She used the side of the truck to aid in her cautious walk down the little alley and around to the front of the store. Her heels sank into the snow, and she kept her eyes firmly trained on each precarious step she took so she didn’t go down in a heap. She would never forgive herself if Louis got hurt.

When she finally reached the sidewalk in front of the store, covered with little pellets of something that crunched beneath her feet, she lifted her gaze triumphantly. She’d made it without incident. Three pairs of male eyes were watching her. One looked skeptical, eyebrows raised. Another looked amused. The third looked like he thought she was too stupid to live.

At the moment, Paris agreed with him.

Why on earth had she thought she should come here?

“Hi,” she said, striving for cheerful. “I’m Paris.”

Before any of them could respond, Sandy took charge. “Get out of the way, boys. Let the girl inside. She’s been traveling all night. If you want to make yourselves useful, go get her bags out of my truck.”

“Oh, I can get the bags,” Paris lied because she really couldn’t. There was no way she could lift those suitcases out of the back of a pickup. Not even with all the yoga she did.

The man who had looked amused and was probably in his early forties gave Sandy a nod. “No worries. I’ll get them for you, ma’am.” Dressed in work boots and a thick coat, he moved easily across the sidewalk.

Sandy opened the front door and gestured. “There you go, folks. Jim, Bob, your orders are behind the front desk. Paris is going to ring you out. I have a date with Dr. Olsen to get my tooth fixed.”

Sandy really was leaving her alone? Paris swallowed hard and reminded herself that she was an entrepreneur. She ran her own business. She dealt with entitled customers on a regular basis. These guys couldn’t be any worse than a snotty housewife in Santa Monica.

They all stepped into the shop, and Paris scooped Louis out of his carrier and set him down on his leash. He immediately began sniffing like nobody’s business. Like he couldn’t imagine where on earth she had taken him.

Paris had the same thought.

The Holly Jolly Seed and Feed was divided in half. The left side of the store looked like the holidays had vomited fake snow and mistletoe all over, while the right side had…stuff. Farm stuff. In those big bags that in Southern California they used to recover shabby chic breakfast nook chairs. Just rows and rowsof stuff that farmers and hunters knew what to do with, and holy shit, was that an entire row of knives?

It was like Lydia had drawn a line down the center of the shop. Even the checkout counter strictly adhered to the “the sides shall not touch” rule. Because it wasn’t like the feed side had a Santa in camo or the Christmas side had the reindeers perched on some grain sacks. Nope. She was in the middle of a real-life yin-yang, one half red and green, the other…well, brown.

Determined not to look like a twenty-something female who needed help, Paris marched behind the counter and did a sweep of Lydia’s checkout procedure. There was no electronic tablet, no scanner, no register. Did Lydia take orders on her phone?

Paris bit her lip. “Um.” She looked up at Jim or Bob or whoever the man standing in front of her was. It was the scowling guy, unfortunately. “Do you know how Lydia’s system works? How do I check you out?”

His big meaty finger, with dirty nails, stretched out and tapped a notebook on the counter. “She writes it down.”

For a second, Paris wasn’t even sure what the hell he was talking about. Then she realized with dawning horror that Lydia had no cash register. Nothing that would automatically tally her sales and receipts and give her an inventory.

Not wanting to insult her recently deceased relative, with great bravado Paris flipped open the book. There it was. Presumably it was Sandy who had penciled in the most recent orders. “Are you Jim, Bob, or Daniel?”

“Bob.” He handed her the exact amount of money in cash to match what it said in the ledger. Right down to the penny.

“Excellent. Thanks, Bob.” Where was she supposed to put the cash? She glanced around for something, anything. Her eyes fell on a firebox, and she flipped it open. Yep. There was the cash. She shoved the money in and was about to ask Bob whatnext when she realized he had already come around the counter, grabbed a bag of feed, and tossed it over his shoulder.

Okay, then.

Paris repeated the process with Jim and Daniel, both of whom at least attempted to be friendly with questions like, “You ever seen any famous people?” and “What kind of dog is that?”

Once she was alone, she did a bad thing. She strode down the Great Divide to the front door and locked it. She couldn’t help it. She was exhausted to the point of swaying on her feet, and there were two more names marked down in that book.

Then she found the back room, which seemed to serve as an office and break room. There was a refrigerator, a dinette table, a desk, filing cabinets, and a TV. There was also, praise Great-Aunt Lydia, a sofa. Paris opened the other door in the back room and discovered that it led to a warehouse, but she didn’t care enough to explore it fully. She just retreated to the couch, peeled off her coat to use as a blanket, and divested herself of her boots. She checked the heels for damage from the snow and discovered some sort of white film on them.

She tried to wipe it off, and it sort of came off. She would have to Google how to treat snow-damaged designer boots. Later. Much later.

For right now, she was going to close her eyes for five minutes. Okay, maybe twenty. A power nap, then she would unlock the door again.

Paris fell asleep instantly, Louis curled on her chest under her cheetah print coat.

She was woken up when her dog let out a rumbling growl. She jerked awake, panicked, knowing that was his warning for another person or animal.

Sitting up so fast she got light-headed, Paris assessed the danger, then tried to remember where her purse containing mace was.

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