Page 20 of Here Comes Santa Paws

“I hope so. If I’m lucky, she’ll bring me some homemade cookies next week as a thank you.”

Elias bit his bottom lip. “Is that the way to your heart, Roman? Cookies?” He leaned in. “I make a mean sugar cookie.”

My mouth went dry at the brazen invitation in his eyes.

Elias looked over my shoulder and waved. “Welcome! Ready for photos?” He winked at me before heading over to the new group.

The next couple of hours passed surprisingly quick.

“He’s good, isn’t he?”

I jumped at Nancy’s voice to my right. She’d busted me watching Elias as he chatted with a feminine-presenting couple, each holding a hairless cat in a festive sweater.

I cleared my throat. “He is. How are the calendar sales going?” Nancy and I had just met this morning, and I wasn’t about to have a gab fest with her about Elias.

She beamed under her elf hat that matched Elias’s. “Nearly sold out. Elias could sell anyone on nearly anything.”

I snorted. “He’s trying to sell me on fostering Carol.”

“Are you thinking of doing it?”

Did I really want to? Kind of, but it didn’t make sense. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be in Christmas Falls, and she needed stability. Even if I wasn’t planning on leaving, I didn’t know the first thing about caring for an animal. Elias would be there with advice, but what the hell would I do when it was just me and Carol? Stare at each other?

Nancy patted me on the arm but said nothing.

Fifteen minutes before the event was supposed to end, several groups of stragglers joined the line. I sighed and resigned myself to remaining in the cold until Elias got every person who wanted a photo through the line.

He worked his way along the line with expert precision as he informed people we’d be closing soon and would move quickly to get everyone in. Then, he adjusted the rope to indicate the line had closed.

Once again, Elias proved my assumptions about him wrong.

I’d finished photos of the last pets in line—two Dobermans with shiny coats and pointy ears who looked like Santa’s security squad—when the clock struck noon and two couples with pets raced over.

Elias immediately approached them.

“Happy holidays! Thank you so much for coming today. We closed at noon, and I need to let Santa and our photographer go, but I can take photos with your cell phone if you’d like to get pictures with your animals in the sleigh.”

Fucking-a. How did he manage to be so thoughtful all the time?

I gritted my teeth. “I can take a few more photos.”

“I can stay for a few more minutes too,” Santa said in a jolly voice as he waved the next group over.

Elias smiled gratefully at both of us, his gaze lingering on me several beats longer. “All right. Let’s get you some pictures.”

A few minutes later, we finished, and Nancy and two other volunteers swept in and began dismantling the setup. I packed up my camera equipment while Elias talked to another volunteer about how well the adoption portion of the event went. It sounded like they’d gotten a half-dozen applications.

After Elias said goodbye to the volunteers and Santa, he approached me. The gratitude in his smile had my stomach uselessly flip-flopping.

“Thank you so much, Roman. I am so grateful to you.”

“No problem.” I hefted my camera bag on my shoulder and remembered a passing thought I’d had earlier. “What about photos with you and your pets?”

Elias blinked at me. “What do you mean?”

“You organize an event to get photos of pets with Santa, and you, the most animal-obsessed person I’ve ever met, don’t get photos ofyourpets with Santa?”

Elias shrugged. “I’m here to work and make sure our visitors have a great experience. I don’t know how I’d get them here anyway, and I wouldn’t want to leave them crated the whole time. Someone might try to adopt my cuties.” He smiled wryly.

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