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Next, she was on her back and scooting under. There was a potential crack in the axle, but it looked like some old wear that would have gone soon anyway, sans Captain Jack’s big adventure.
Still, it would have to be replaced.
Vi turned the flashlight off and just lay there under the cool undercarriage, not ready to face the hopeful crowd above her.
“Well?” Ms. Angie shouted as if she had gone into another room, not just lay on the ground.
“Well.” Vivian scooted back out, wiping her hands down her jumpsuit pants as she did. “It’s not pretty. I don’t think we can get this done quickly. I mean, I’m not even sure how I’ll handle the bodywork. The list of potential issues is long at just a glance.”
The group who had been cracking themselves up with sleigh puns fell silent.
Santa’s sleigh was a big deal in these parts. It was one of the symbols of Christmas they kept out in an obvious way—the one true kitschy thing they did was have Santa drive through town for any active Christmas weekend.
They’d also had a bride arrive to the church in it, the new town manager driven to their inauguration, and a few other local events.
Let’s just put it this way, renting the sleigh wasn’t cheap and that kept the wear and tear down.
Obviously, Captain Jack hadn’t filled out any rental forms or waivers.
And it wasn’t like they could move Holiday weekends. She’d seen the schedule. They had a military family of nearly twenty people coming in fourteen days—eight of those were kids under twelve.
Not that they needed kids to be involved.
Any reason to crack the sleigh out was a good one.
Of course, this isn’t how they had wanted it cracked.
Ms. Angie glanced down at the sleigh and then smiled. “Don’t worry about the bodywork. I made a call.”
That was something. Vivian wasn’t sure who Ms. Angie knew who had “professional sleigh repairman” on their résumé, but it was better than her trying to figure out how to bend wood like that.
“I’m going to need to go get the wrecker.”
“Oh, dear! No. We don’t want to wreck it!” Ms. Angie threw her body in front of the sleigh. “Fix it, dear. We want to fix it.”
“I know, ma’am. Don’t worry. The wrecker is just what they call the tow truck I’m going to bring back.” Vivian was packing up her tools, ready to head home and finish the day’s work—not to mention have a heart-to-heart with Tyler and figure out if she could really trust him in a woodworking shop.
And if she wanted to trust him with Cam.
“Great.” Ms. Angie gave her a bright smile. “I’ll wait here.”
Vi stopped as she pushed the tool kit into the back of her truck.
“What do you mean, stay here?”
“Well, you’ve got to come back and I want to hear about the plan and stuff too.”
Vivian glanced around and realized the entire town was not going to take no for an answer. She was a single mom, with a full load at her garage already. She had no idea where she’d find the time.
If the town really wanted the sleigh done pronto, some of them were going to have to live without their cars for a bit.
She glanced up at the sky, wondering how she was going to fit in more time with Tyler—which was obviously a must since he’d decided listening was optional—and keep on her client schedule while making it all work together.
It was all adding up around her as she stood in the bright sunshine, a dead sleigh resting on the deader tree stump behind her with the town looking on as if she were Wonder Woman.
“Well, now. It’s not every day I’m asked to work as an elf to Santa.”
She should have known who the sleigh fixer was. It was stupid in retrospect not to, but her day had been spiraling from the second she woke up—missing sons, ridiculous, uncalled for I love yous, sleigh-crashing dog drivers.
