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Nova blinked, her eyes adjusting to being uncovered. And her brain adjusting to something that shouldn’t have been possible. Arlo was standing in front of them with Atlas and Hercules hitched up to the sleigh, grinning. And while she couldn’t make out much in the dark, Nova could tell by the spots of brightness and color in the distance that the light displays were still up.
“How…” She turned to look at Linc, who had a smile she couldn’t quite decipher on his face. “How did you do this? Everything was supposed to have come down today. They’re short staffed and they’re not going to have time to—”
“How about you let me worry about that?”
“I wish I could, but it’s going to bother me if I don’t know,” she confessed, and Linc grinned.
“Always needing to know the answers, always needing to solve puzzles. You haven’t changed much.”
Nova crossed her arms and she had to imagine she looked kind of silly with her fluffy knit mittens and the giant pom pom on her hat. She’d probably looked even more ridiculous with a blindfold on, but nothing to do about that now. “So are you going to tell me or not?”
“Looks like I have to if I don’t want all of my evil machinations to go to waste with you using that Mensa brain of yours to try to figure out how I pulled this off.”
She glared at him. “Definitely more annoying.”
“All I did was offer my services,” he said, spreading his hands wide. “They were only taking the displays down early because they didn’t have enough people to take care of that and get everything set up for the concert the day after tomorrow. So I solved their problem. I’m fucking amazing at taking down lights.”
“You’re supposed to be on vacation!” she sputtered while also feeling a glow of warmth in her chest. He’d done this for her?
“Yeah, but my whole life is kind of a vacation, so I’m not great at separating business and pleasure.”
Maybe that’s why he’d decided this was the best way to find a wife.
Her thoughts were interrupted by someone clearing their throat. Arlo. Well, of course he was still here.
“Could we maybe get this show on the road? Herc and Atlas are kinda chilly and I shouldn’t keep them out for too long.”
Linc smiled down at her and held out an arm. “Shall we, shortcake?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
It turned out that Linc had thought of everything. There were blankets and a hot water bottle, a thermos of hot cocoa, and even heated bricks for their feet.
“Let’s get you tucked in properly, I won’t have you getting chilled again.”
He helped her into the sleigh, and she winced when she sat down. The seat was padded but her butt was sore and putting weight on it smarted. But then Linc set the hot water bottle in her lap and tucked an enormous blanket over them both before drawing her under his arm.
If her body could be as warmed as her heart was right now, she wouldn’t need any of it, but alas the heat was only metaphorical. Then again, if the heat were real, it would probably melt the snow and trick the plants into thinking it was spring, so probably for the best that she could only feel it in her heart.
Linc had donea lot of stupid shit in his life, made a lot of mistakes. He’d cleaned up his act a lot, but he still messed up sometimes. One thing he knew for sure that he’d gotten right was arranging this sleigh ride for Nova.
Having her tucked in beside him was fantastic, and even more so because she’d quickly dropped into Little space. She was so freaking cute when she did that, it killed him.
When they started out, it took them a few minutes to cross a field over to the trees where most of the lights were set up. As he’d suspected, even though it was the first time the displays had been put up at Rawhide, they looked phenomenal.
There were a bunch of different scenes, some of which had animatronic animals like the arctic scene with its mama and baby polar bear, and others where the lights were programmed to light up in different colors and patterns that were set to music. There was a tree filled with icicles in white and silver and blue, and they looked like they were dripping with the way the lights cascaded down. He thought it was all pretty cool but it seemed like his Little girl thought it was flat out magical. Indeed, Nova tugged on his coat sleeve for what must’ve been the twentieth time.
“Daddy, look at the snowflakes!” she exclaimed, pointing out the dozens of brightly lit decorations of all different colors and sizes in a grove of evergreens. The smallest figures were probably six inches across whereas the biggest could’ve been six feet. He was gonna have his work cut out for him helping out disassembling this stuff, but it would be a thousand percent worth it. “There are so many of them!”
“Sure are, little girl. How are your fingers doing? Okay?”
She looked down at her mittens as if they would tell her the answer. So goddamn adorable he was going to expire. Then she smiled up at him, her cheeks a pretty pink.
“Yes, Daddy.”
When they got back to the starting point, Nova beamed at him and sighed. “I loved it. I’m just sad it’s over.”
A voice piped up from the front of the sleigh. “Doesn’t have to be. Since there’s no one else here I could take you around one more time. But then I oughta get the beasties into the barn.”
