Twelve Days of Christmas Chaos

  12 Days of Christmas Chaos

  by Wendy Knight

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS CHAOS

  Copyright © 2020 WENDY KNIGHT

  Edited by Laura Heritage

  Cover Art by P.S. Cover Design

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cleo loved animals. Always had. Fur, scales, gills, shells, sweet, sullen, broken, or lost, she loved them.

  Except birds.

  Birds, Cleo did not love.

  Birds scared the Christmas spirit right out of her.

  When Charlotte called asking for help retrieving a pet trapped in a tree, Cleo had assumed she meant a cat. Maybe a possum or a sugar glider. She’d had to rescue those before. Once, she’d even convinced a goat to climb down from the tippy top of a maple tree.

  But when she got to the cold mountain slope in the middle of Edelweiss ski resort where the injured animal waited, scared and alone and waiting for rescue, she discovered it was none of those things at all.

  It was a partridge.

  A partridge in a tree. Had it been a pear tree, maybe things wouldn’t have been so dire, but it was a forty-foot pine, and the partridge was clear up at the top, making all its horrific bird sounds and generally being terrifying.

  Cleo stood at the foot of the tree, staring up through the snowy branches with her gloved hands on her hips. Skiers raced past her on all sides, some so close they sprayed her with snow. Cleo had never been a skier despite the fact that she’d grown up in a town famous for its world-class resort. She didn’t like to leave fate to gravity and the snow gods. She preferred to be in control, and when she wasn’t, bad things happened.

  That was how she’d broken her ankle in fourth grade.

  And her thumb her junior year.

  And her collarbone on the night of high school graduation.

  Cleo ignored the flying snow and the daredevil skiers and raised her phone to her ear. “Red, I can’t. This is a bird. You know I don’t do birds.”

  Birds had played a major role in the ankle break incident.

  “I know,” Charlotte, or Red, as friends and family knew her, was Cleo’s boss and owner of Red’s Animal Sanctuary. “I’m sending help. He should have been there by now.”

  “How is it possible you can be obsessed with bats but hate birds? It doesn’t even make sense.”

  Cleo nearly dropped the phone.

  She knew that voice.

  She strongly disliked that voice, deep and smooth and beautiful as it may be.

  Slowly, she turned, her boots sinking in the fresh powder.

  Kayne.

  Kayne Frost.

  “I didn’t realize you were back from your fancy private university,” Cleo said stiffly, dodging out of the way as a clump of snow fell from above.

  Probably pushed by that dang bird.

  Didn’t it know birds flew south for the winter?

  “Winter break.” Kayne closed the last few feet between them and hefted the ladder off his shoulder. He leaned it against the tree and peered up into the branches. “Partridge? Since when do we have partridges in this area?”

  “Apparently it was raised as a pet with a flock of chickens, but it escaped.”

  “Wild birds aren’t meant to be pets,” Kayne muttered. In high school, he’d been the strong, silent type with a wicked sarcastic streak that all the girls swooned over, but he’d been more interested in football and getting out of their small town. It didn’t seem as though much had changed in the three-and-a-half years since their high school graduation. He grabbed his ladder and set it firmly in the snow without a word, even though Cleo was the senior rescuer and should have been consulted. Never mind that Kayne had started working at the sanctuary right after it had opened and been one of their best every summer he’d come home for school break.

  Cleo had been a constant. She hadn’t escaped to fancy schools. She’d stayed and worked and saved, surrounding herself with animals who would never judge her for not leaving their small tourist destination.

  Unlike most of the humans she knew.

  “I’m surprised you came to a rescue without a ladder when you knew it was stuck in a tree.” Kayne climbed easily up the steps and reached for the bottom-most branch. “You’re usually more prepared.” He glanced over his shoulder at her before he swung up into the tree like some sort of gorgeous and obnoxious ninja.

  “I am prepared,” Cleo snapped, dodging falling snow from the branches he shook. “The ladder is in my jeep. I was scoping the area out and making a plan before I acted rashly and—”

  Kayne swore as the branch broke beneath him and he plummeted down into the heavy powder, snow billowing up around him like a thick cloud.

  “—plummet to my death.” Cleo fought to control laughter she knew Kayne would not appreciate.

  She failed.

  He did not appreciate it.

  He glowered at her as he sat up, wiping snow off his face and shaking it out of his hat. Cleo tried for her best, most innocent look, but he didn’t seem to appreciate that either.

  “Here,” she held out a hand and he grudgingly took it, struggling to his feet.

  “I’m too big to climb into the tree. You’re going to have to go up there and get the bird.” Kayne didn’t immediately let go of her hand, too busy trying to beat the snow off his heavy black winter coat.

  “Then why are you even here?” Cleo asked, exasperated. “If I have to go up there anyway?”

  Kayne eyed her, thick eyelashes sparkling with snow. “Moral support. Which you suck at, by the way.”

  Cleo shook her head. “I am not going up there after that bird.”

  “You can do it. Rah-rah.” Kayne waved his hands in the air like unenthusiastic pom-poms. “See? Excellent moral support.”

  Cleo rolled her eyes and inched toward the ladder. “I hate birds.”

  “I know.”

  “They knocked me out of the tree—”

  “On graduation. I know. I was there. To be fair, you were in their tree.”

  Cleo shuddered. She’d forgotten Kayne had been there. Everyone, since the second-grade holiday play, had called them the Christmas Couple because her last name was Klausse, which was far too close to Claus, apparently, and his was Frost. She’d spent her life trying to get away from it.

  Kayne hadn’t ever seemed to notice.

  However, on the night of high school graduation it had reared its head again and her friends had insisted they go find Kayne for one last Christmas Couple hurrah. Kayne had been trying to rescue a cat in a tree, and Cleo had been worried that he was taking too long and had gone up after him.

  The birds had not appreciated it.

  Or maybe they hadn’t appreciated being startled out of their own nests, and had dive bombed her. Cleo had fallen, and the rest was history. Kayne had also fallen out of the tree trying to get down to see if she was okay, but he hadn’t broken his collarbone.

  And he still got more flowers and get-well cards than she had.

  “Look. Look how terrified that poor partridge is. Are you really going to let it suffer?” He leaned a shoulder against the ladder. “The girl who climbed to the top of a barn to rescue a bat can’t climb half that distance to save a bird?”
<
br />   She scowled at him. “I hate birds.”

  He waited.

  Cleo huffed, realized she had no choice, and clambered up the ladder before she could change her mind. She jumped for the lowest branch, swung herself up and caught the next branch with her foot. It was like being a kid all over again.

  A kid climbing toward her worst fear, but whatever.

  She was several branches high before she dared look down at Kayne. He gave her a thumbs up and a sarcastic smile. She furrowed her brow and bit her lip, turning her attention up toward the bird. Only a few more branches away. It did look hurt, its wing sitting awkwardly against its side. So maybe it did need rescuing after all.

  She reached for the next branch, hating that her fingers shook.

  They were cold, that was all.

  She wasn’t scared.

  And her head spinning, and the breath freezing in her chest, and her heart racing…that was just exertion.

  Just exertion.

  “Kayne?” she whispered.

  “Yeah?” He sounded completely unaffected.

  “I’m panicking.”

  Panic attacks had been the bane of her existence for years. She took her medication, she had learned the tricks, but in the heat of the moment, she was lost.

  “Okay, you’re fine. Just stay where you are.”

  Cleo squeezed her eyes shut tight, listening to the racing of her heart. Focus on ten things. Ten things besides the fear. She listened to the skiers, counting different voices. She listened to the wind in the trees and the snow falling in clumps from all around them. She listened to Kayne cursing Red for sending her to go after a bird, didn’t she realize Cleo was terrified?

  It was more than terror. Cleo knew it was irrational. Her brain didn’t care.

  She felt his gloved fingers on her still-extended hand before she realized he had somehow climbed up next to her.

  On the branches that moments ago had been too weak to hold him.

  Suspicious.

  “You’re okay, Cleo. Look at me. Count my adorable dimples.”

  Cleo peeked at him through slitted eyes. “You only have two dimples.”

  “Freckles?”

  “You have no freckles.”

  “Eyelashes. Count my eyelashes. They’re ridiculously long and thick.” He grinned, a rare, real smile. “Or so I’ve been told.”

  “You’re impossible,” Cleo said, but she felt her racing heart slow, and suddenly her chest didn’t feel like it was going to constrict until her lungs burst. She could almost breathe again.

  “I’m actually a delight, according to most everyone in this village. I’ve seen seven skiers go past. How many have you seen?”

  Cleo looked down the mountain, counting quickly. “Nine.”

  Breathing slowed. Hands stopped shaking.

  Kayne nodded. “I’ll get the bird. Can you get down by yourself?”

  Cleo nodded, feeling ashamed and grateful and exhausted and ashamed again. Conquered by fear.

  Again.

  She scrambled down the tree, her cheeks flaming but too grateful for escape to care. She readied the carrier and made sure the fluffy towel she’d stuck inside was still dry. Kayne landed next to her only moments later and tucked the bird safely inside the carrier before it could attack.

  It didn’t actually look like it was in any position to attack, but still.

  “There. All tucked away. You good?”

  Cleo nodded and looked away.

  “There’s nothing wrong with—”

  “I know,” she interrupted, her face flaming. “We should probably get this little guy in to Red’s vet. Can you take him?”

  Kayne nodded, lifting the carrier out of the snow. Cleo got the ladder and followed him silently down the mountain.

  She only fell twice and nearly took a skier out with the ladder once.

  Kayne, of course, didn’t fall at all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Kayne set the carrier on the vet’s table and stood out of the way, letting Stacey do her thing. He was happy to rescue and administer first aid where he could, but she was the real expert and broken wings or collarbones or whatever was wrong with this bird was way over his head. “This is the tame partridge Cleo was after?” she asked, opening the door and reaching slowly inside.

  Kayne nodded. “It was really high. Don’t know how it got up there.”

  She brought the bird out, settled securely in her hands, and smoothed back the feathers on its head. “It looks like a broken collarbone. We’ll take care of her, but she’s going to need a lot of rehabilitation.”

  “Thanks Stacey,” Kayne said. “I’ve gotta talk to Red. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Will do,” Stacey said absently, already engrossed in the partridge who sat obediently on the table, waiting for help. Cleo had said it had been raised with chickens, but it seemed tamer than any chicken he’d ever seen.

  Charlotte “Red” Luca, the owner of Red’s Animal Sanctuary, sat in an office overrun by cages and paper and random pet food samples scattered across the floor. She looked up when Kayne walked in, her flaming red hair shoved into a messy, mostly falling, loose bun. “How bad was it?”

  “She had a panic attack twenty feet up a tree.”

  Red shook her head, absently shoving the pen she’d been holding into her hair. “I was so busy I didn’t even think about it when I sent her out. It’s lucky you came home when you did.”

  Kayne leaned against the doorjamb, crossing his arms over his chest. “She would have gone after that bird on her own, and who knows what would have happened. She did go after it because I fell out of the tree like a bad apple. But once she got there, she froze. It was pretty brutal watching her, Red.”

  Red rubbed her temples. “I can’t believe I was so clueless.”

  Kayne shrugged. “It’s like watching Achilles fall. She’s fearless until she’s not, you know.”

  Red nodded. “She’s definitely our best. Especially since you off and left us on your quest for a fancy biologist degree.” She smiled, her dark eyes sparkling. “But the world definitely needs more conservation biologists, and you will be fantastic.”

  “Thanks, Red. I’m heading home for the night. I haven’t even dropped off my luggage yet.”

  Charlotte pulled the pen out of her hair, eyes widening. “I didn’t realize you were just barely getting back to town! And you just swooped in to Cleo’s rescue. How heroic of you.” Her lips spread into wide smile.

  “Don’t start, Red.”

  She shrugged, spreading her hands wide, a perfect picture of innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Kayne shook his head. Red had been trying to hook him and Cleo up since Cleo had started at the sanctuary while they were both in high school. Her husband, Greyson—or Grey, ironically enough, given Charlotte’s colorful nickname—got involved in their shenanigans every summer. It hadn’t worked then, and it wouldn’t work now. “I’m heading home. Call if you need me.”

  “Of course. Thanks for your help, Kayne.” Red gave him a quick wave and turned back to the computer. It was suspicious that she would let it go so easily.

  Kayne was halfway down the hall when he heard her singing softly, “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…”

  Sighing, Kayne shrugged into his coat. If she only knew.

  Kayne had always been a dog person, and when Red had told him there were two dogs in bad condition in the abandoned house a few miles out of town, he hadn’t hesitated to volunteer, along with a couple other rescuers. The house had been lost to a fire about fifty years before, but no one had ever torn it down. Now, it was mostly used for wild teenage parties when it wasn’t so cold, and waystation of sorts for the homeless traveling from one big city to the next. Animals on the run seemed to be drawn to the shelter from the wind and snow as well, and it wasn’t the first time Kayne had gone out there. He had hamburger and dog food and water and leashes and rope, plus his winter coat and glo
ves and hat because it was below freezing and the windchill was worse. He wasn’t used to the cold, not when he went to school in Arizona where the coldest it had gotten in his college town that winter was sixty-two.

  He pulled into the unplowed driveway and cut the engine, staring at the condemned house. It had been huge, once, but never well cared for, at least not according to local legend. The man who had built it lost interest after it was finished and left it to rot, only visiting occasionally to go skiing at the huge Edelweiss Ski Resort in Huckleberry Falls. “I don’t see any sign of the dogs.” Mrs. Stradley peered through the rapidly fogging windshield. Three bodies breathing in the quickly cooling truck caused a lot of condensation. She was a fifty-three-year-old retired seamstress who volunteered at the sanctuary because she had too much time on her hands and a heart of gold. Being almost three times everyone else’s age didn’t seem to slow her down at all though.

  Kayne rubbed a circle in his window, watching. There were tracks in the snow, so the dogs had been there recently at least. Big tracks, which fit the description someone had given Red. They weren’t sure what kind of dogs, but they were big and fluffy.

  Very helpful.

  “They must be in the house,” Kayne said. “Let’s go see what we’re dealing with.” The icy wind blasted through the truck as he swung the door open. Mrs. Stradley gasped and pulled her scarf tighter around her neck as Dustin slid out of the passenger seat and landed in the thick snow. Dustin was in his thirties, a father and an editor for Being Beautiful, one of the most popular lifestyle magazines in the country. He volunteered at the sanctuary and often brought his small son along, but not when big dogs were involved. They never knew what to expect with dogs. Or any of their animals, really; although, angry partridges were far less threatening than angry dogs.

  Unless one asked Cleo.

  The snow was deeper here than in town, but still manageable. They grabbed their gear from the back and trudged across what must have been a lawn once and up to the garage—or at least, where it would have been. Now, it was a gaping hole into the dark recesses of the house.