“Oh god, not you too.”
“I’m serious! Some successful city woman goes back to her small hometown for the holidays, meets a burly Christmas tree farmer or whatever, and suddenly remembers there’s more to life than spreadsheets and conference calls.” I could hear the slight smile in her voice. “Though knowing you, you’d probably try to negotiate his tree prices and end up reorganizing his entire business model.”
“Grandma, the chances of me meeting someone in Pinewood Falls are basically zero. Everyone my age is married with kids, and the rest are either eighteen or eighty.”
“You never know, dear. Sometimes the universe has a sense of humor about these things.” There was something almost nostalgic in her voice now. “Besides, a little romance might begood for you. And if some flannel-wearing local does manage to sweep you off your feet, just…try not to over-analyze it to death.”
“Who are you, and what have you done to my grandma? I seriously doubt?—”
I was about to tell her exactly how unlikely a Christmas romance was when I rounded a bend in the road and saw something large and pale directly in my path.
“Shit!” I yanked the wheel hard to the right, my car sliding sideways on the slick asphalt. For a heart-stopping moment, I was certain I was about to become intimately acquainted with the nearest pine tree. The BMW fishtailed, tires spinning uselessly, before finally coming to rest in a snowbank on the side of the road.
“What happened?” Grandma’s voice was frantic in a way I rarely heard.
I sat there for a moment, gripping the steering wheel and breathing hard. My heart was doing its best impression of a jackhammer. I looked around, expecting to see deer carnage on my windshield—or worse—but there was nothing except snow and the sound of my engine idling.
“Please tell me I didn’t just commit vehicular deerslaughter,” I said. The thought of explaining to a Vermont state trooper why I’d taken out Bambi’s cousin was almost worse than the prospect of family dinner.
“That’s not funny.” Ah, the Rose I knew was back.
I put the car in park and grabbed my phone, using its flashlight to peer out the passenger window. There, maybe twenty feet away in the beam of my headlights, was the largest deer I’d ever seen. And it was completely, impossibly white.
“I’ll see you soon, Grandma.” I hung up before she could respond.
I shoved open the car door, pushing snow out of the way. The cold evening air hit me like a slap. I shivered and slowlyapproached the creature, barely keeping myself upright in my stilettos on the icy road. Note to self: next time, wear flats for mid-snowstorm animal husbandry.
The deer wasn’t moving, but I saw a small rise and fall in its chest. It was beautiful—pure white. Not the kind of white you got from albinism, which I’d seen once at a petting zoo and found sickly and strange. This was pristine, snow-bright white that seemed to glow in the darkness. The deer was also massive—easily the size of a horse—with an impressive rack of antlers that caught the light, the frost on them glittering like crystal.
More importantly, he was lying on his side in the snow, clearly hurt.
“Oh, come on,” I groaned. “This is not happening.”
But it was happening, because apparently the universe had decided my day needed to get worse. I scrambled back to my car, grabbed the emergency first aid-kit from the trunk—thank god for my paranoid tendencies—and trudged through the ankle-deep snow toward the injured animal. My shoes were definitely ruined, and my toes were already turning to ice.
What are you doing? You’re a lawyer, not a doctor. Or a vet.But I couldn’t just leave him there.
The deer’s head lifted as I approached, and I found myself looking into the most unusual eyes I’d ever seen. They were pale blue, almost silver, and held an intelligence that made me pause midstep. Most deer looked at humans with blank, startled incomprehension. This one studied me with what could only be described as wariness mixed with…resignation?
“Hey there, big guy,” I said softly, crouching a few feet away. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay? I just want to see how badly you’re injured.”
The deer didn’t bolt, which was strange enough. Instead, he continued to watch me with those unsettling pale eyes. Up close, I could see a long, partially healed scar running across hismuzzle and what looked like older injuries along his flanks. This was clearly an animal that had seen some rough times.
“Geez, what happened to you?” I murmured, noting fresh blood on his left hind leg. “You look like you’ve been through a blender. Multiple times.”
I unzipped the first-aid kit, moving slowly and talking in what I hoped was a soothing voice. “I’ve got antiseptic here and some bandages. I know it’s not exactly veterinary care, but it’s better than just leaving it, right?”
The deer’s ears flicked, and I could’ve sworn I saw something like curiosity cross his expression. Which was ridiculous, because deer didn’t have expressions. They had two settings: grazing and panic.
I settled down beside his rear leg, and the size of him suddenly sank in. He could kick me to smithereens if he really wanted to. I looked back at his pale eyes, which were watching me, unblinking. I slowly unscrewed the cap on the antiseptic and held it over his leg, ready to dump it and run.
He let out a pained whine but didn’t move. Maybe he was more injured than I thought. I kept my voice low and calm.
“You know,” I continued, carefully cleaning the wound on his leg, “with that white coat and those antlers, you look like you should be pulling Santa’s sleigh. Are you Rudolph having an off night? Did you get into a fight with the other reindeer because they wouldn’t let you join in any reindeer games?”
The deer’s entire body went rigid, and he lifted his head to stare at me with what could only be described as offended dignity. His nostrils flared as he snorted.
“Okay, okay, sorry,” I said, holding up my hands. “Didn’t mean to wound your pride.”
