It’s just him and me.
The PR elf and the sleigh man.
The content creator and the man who somehow became my favorite story.
“Tonight,” he says, keeping his eyes on the tree being decorated in the square, “after all this—sponsors, lights, whatever the mayor has planned—if you’re not too busy being famous…”
“Yes?” I prompt, heart skipping.
He squeezes my hand. “I’d like to take you for a real ride. No cameras. No campaigns. Just us.”
Warmth floods me, soft and deep. “I’d like that,” I say. “A lot.”
“Good,” he says.
For a second I imagine it—the town quieting down, the stars coming out, just the two of us and the horses and the bells and a stretch of snowy road that doesn’t feel like an ending, but a beginning.
My phone buzzes again.
Another notification.
Another share.
Another stranger rooting for a mystery couple in cozy socks.
Let them.
They don’t know our names, but they know the feeling. The quiet. The warmth. The way something soft can find you in the middle of a storm.
I squeeze Rhett’s hand and smile up at him.
“Ready to sleigh this?” I ask.
He groans. “You had to.”
“I did.”
He shakes his head, but he’s smiling.
And for the first time all week, the idea of going back to Saint Pierce tomorrow doesn’t feel like walking away from something.
It feels like step two in a story that’s just getting started—one where the road between Chimney Gorge and home is just another path we’re going to figure out.
Together.
FOURTEEN
RHETT
The bells blur together after a while.
Ring, jingle, murmur of voices. Thank you, beautiful, magical, like a postcard. Load up, tuck blankets, check straps, watch the horses’ ears, twelve minutes around the loop, back to the square. Repeat.
Sponsors. Donors. Journalists. Influencers, whatever the hell that means.
All of them want The Experience.
Which apparently is me, my horses, and sixty-plus years of tradition packaged into a tidy three-minute video and a tax write-off.
