Page 40 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

“Correction: we should eat,” she retorted breezily. “I’m not facing a ‘we should talk’ conversation on an empty stomach, and that nutritional smoothie turned to fumes hours ago.”

She made an excellent point. “I’ll call for a table at—”

“No.” She still had her hood up, and now she peered at him from under it, her brown face like a pixie staring out at him from inside some sort of fluffy flower. “Come on. Really?”

“Really what?”

“We’re not getting atableanywhere. We’re going to do the thing.” She got out of the car and started hurrying down the street.

He followed her, confused. “What—”

“TheChristmasthing. Come on, Mr. Sad-Eyes. After what you said about your grandmother, I think you’re well overdue some Christmas cheer, of the tinsel-est, carol-est sort available.” She danced her fingers at the street ahead, where a sign claimed they were approaching the Featherwell Christmas Market.

When Mordecai had plugged the last delivery location into the GPS, the map had shown this street in bright red: impassable. Now he saw why. The whole street and the plaza beyond was blocked up to make space for a huge Christmas market.

“This is perfect. Ice-skating! Hot cocoa! Look—I’m pretty sure they recycled that booth from the haunted house market at Halloween. Maybe we can even get someone to rustle us up some Christmas ghosts.”

“I take it I’m the Scrooge in this situation.”

“I didn’t say that.” She trapped his arm in hers. “Comeon.”

He could have argued. He could have planted his feet on the sidewalk and refused to move. The timer in his head was ticking closer and closer to zero. He was running out of time to figure out how to make things right.

Especially now he knew just how wrong they were.

But then Peony shot him a grin that was pure mischief, and tugged him towards the Halloween-esque ticket booth. The bright-eyed reindeer either side of the entranceway had a distinctly demonic look.

“I thought Rudolph had a red nose, not glowing red eyes,” he muttered to Peony, who giggled.

“Pretty sure the Santa behind them was the Headless Horseman last time I saw him.”

“He’s looking good for a corpse.” Mordecai paid for the entry tickets and frowned as the ticket seller handed him a map. “What sort of a market needs a map?”

Peony raised one eyebrow at him. “You’ve never been to the Featherwell Market before?”

“What sort of a name isFeatherwell?” He avoided answering her question because he didn’t know how to tell the truth in a way that wasn’t depressing.

He usually spent the Christmas season preparing for Christmas dinner with his grandmother and then recovering from it. The last thing he would have done any other year was remind himself of how other people’s Christmases went by visiting a celebration like this.

“They used to make pillows here. Proper duck-down ones.” Peony plucked the map from his hands and unfolded it. “But there wasn’t a lot of space, so instead of duck ponds, they kept the ducks in wells.”

“You’re making that up.”

“No, why would you think that?” She turned the map around a few times. “Think about it. Instead of spreading the ducks over the flat surface of a pond—such an inefficient use of space—you pack them into a well and make the most of your square footage. Ooh, candy apples!”

“I refuse to believe anyone stacked ducks in wells here at any time in history.”

Peony shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

A dozen steps into the market, and Mordecai suddenly understood why they needed a map. This wasn’t the quaint scattering of stalls he’d imagined; it was a miniature town. Food and craft stalls crammed together like something out of Dickens. The walkways between them were more like alleyways, twisting and turning. Cider donuts, mulled wine, funnel cakes, some sort of potato twist on a stick—one turn and he’d never find his way out again.

Why find our way out when there’s so much here to eat and share with our mate?his dragon asked, confused.

Peony nudged him. “What do you think? Lunch, hot cocoa, games, and then shopping?”

“Shopping?”

“Well, yeah.” To his surprise, she looked nervous. “Christmas is tomorrow. You’re going to have to meet my family. And like I said, they’re going to be extremely excited to meet you. It’ll be a lot. I recommend bringing enough gifts to throw at them and run away if it gets too bad.”

---