Christmas Carol

“Fuck.”

“Just suck it up, big boy. Sometimes you have to do what you don’t want to. It’s part of life. Call me after you meet with the team Monday.”

“Fine,” I grit out between my clenched teeth.

“And Cyrus?”

“Yeah?” I respond, grudgingly.

“Merry Christmas.”

“Fuck—” She hangs up before I get the word you out.

I hate Christmas.

I hate it.Carol“Jack Frost, nipping at your nose…”

I’m just singing along with the music blaring in my ears, when the sound of a horn blaring scares the beejesus out of me. The bottle of water I was holding slips free, falling to the ground, but not before splattering against my pants leg. I let out a startled scream and look over to see a sleek black Corvette in front of me. The driver is still laying on his horn. I wince as I pull my earphone out and look at the car.

“Do you mind?” The driver growls out the window. I look around behind me and back to the car, not quite understanding. That’s when I see Abominable standing behind me, her tongue hanging out to the side, slobber, adding to her crazy, and her big blue eyes looking triumphant. I sigh.

“How on earth did you get out of the fence again, girl?” I ask, rubbing her head softly. The guy blasts the horn again. Making poor Abominable and me jump. Abominable turns on the car and growls at it. This would be enough to make most people back off—or shake in terror, because my Abominable is intimidating to say the least. She’s chunky at one hundred and twenty pounds, a big white fur ball, with soft blue eyes, and two and a half feet tall. Her teeth are pretty scary to look at too—especially when she’s baring them and growling like she is right now.

This guy must feel pretty safe in his fancy sports car, since he just revs up his engine and yells out the window again.

“Get out of the fucking way!”

I blink, momentarily stunned. I live in laid back, rural Mistletoe, Montana. It’s definitely not some high-powered area where people live on the clock. Hell, even our bank opens late some days, early others. We don’t have rush hour, and if we did it’s most likely because the reindeers at the petting zoo have gotten loose again. Even in December—which is the height of our tourist season—you rarely see anyone in a great hurry, or a lot of traffic. It’s just one of the many reasons I love my town.

“She escaped from—”

“She needs to be on a leash!” the man barks.

I wince, because I know what’s coming next. The guy said the “L” word.

“Now, Ab—”

I can’t even get her name out before her massive paws jump on the hood of the sleek, shiny metallic black car. She growls like she wants to tear the man apart—and she just might.

“Get this beast off my car!” the man yells and slams down on the horn yet again.

I jog over to the car, reaching through the window to grab the man’s hand.

“Will you stop that! You’re upsetting her!”

“Upsetting her?” he asks, like I’m insane. “Lady, she’s on the hood of my damn car!”

“That’s your fault!” I accuse, and really it is.

“It’s my fault your damn moose is on my car?” he asks, incredulously.

“Abominable is not a moose,” I deny. And she’s not. She doesn’t have horns for one. I will admit that she might qualify as a pony…

“Abominable?” he scoffs.

“You know like the abominable snowman in the cartoon? I call her Abbie for short,” I confirm, kind of proud of the name.

“The…” he stares at me blankly and I just wait. Surely he can see that the name is awesome. “Lady get your damn dog off my car,” he orders through clenched teeth, because apparently he fails to see the genius of Abominable’s name.

“Listen, you upset her, so her being on your car is not my fault. I can calm her down—”

“I upset her?” he literally screeches.

“You said the L word,” I respond with a sigh.

“The L word?”

“Leash,” I whisper, practically mouthing the words. It doesn’t do any good. Abominable has the hearing of a big-eared mouse. She can hear a pin drop on a pile of pillows—the soft fluffy ones that cost more than some people make in a month’s time.

The minute Abominable hears me say the word leash, she slaps her paws against the hood of the expensive sports car. Her big toenails dig into the metal in a way that I know it’s scratching deeply, making me wince.

“Fucking hell! Get your mutt off my car!”

“She’s not a mutt! She’s a Great Pyrenees!”

“She’s an unhinged dog and if this is how you keep your pets under control, then you shouldn’t have one,” he snaps.

I think Abominable must be afraid that the guy might hurt me, because when he goes to open his door Abominable shifts gears, bounds around the car and pushes the door closed by thrusting her weight against it. I flinch because now the door has matching scratches to the hood.