“Reindeer snappers?” He seemed perplexed as he examined a square box with some sort of Christmas-wrapped tubes vaguely shaped like large Tootsie Rolls. I didn’t recognize what they were.

“Uh-huh. Snappers.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” he argued. “Reindeer don’t have beaks. Or snap.”

Skunk-haired woman shrugged an I only work here, what do you want from me? shrug. “They’re $39.98 for a pack of eight.”

Arthur shook his head. “Outrageous.” Then he placed two boxes in his pile before adding a pair of men’s socks.

I pointed to the pile. “You’re getting all that?”

“I am, yes.”

Plop! A small birch-bark reindeer joined the rest.

“Why?”

“Because though I am relatively young with my whole life ahead of me, I can say with complete confidence that I will never come back here ever again.” He held up a pea-green sweater with a brown reindeer vomiting Christmas tree ornaments woven onto the front. “Brilliant.”

On the pile it went.

“I don’t get it,” I said, as I examined a coffee mug with a sexy lady reindeer. “Do you have a thing for reindeer?”

“God, no.” His back was to me.

“Then why . . . ?”

“I simply find them”—he turned abruptly to face me and said in a voice devoid of humor—“hilarious.”

I blinked. Because he had somehow slipped on a red nose. It was incongruous in general, but on Arthur it was baffling.

And then the red nose lit up!

I was startled.

And then—God help me—I let out a deeply unattractive spontaneous giggle/snort that really should have been mortifying.

But then the most amazing thing happened—Arthur laughed, too.

He actually laughed!

Not at me, either, but with me, and easily, and it changed his whole face. Softened it, made his dark eyes sparkle and emphasized his perfect, straight white teeth.

My attention was drawn to the dimple in his left cheek I hadn’t realized existed—I was a longtime sucker for a good cheek dimple—and I noticed the hint of a cleft in his strong chin.

I felt an entirely unexpected and unwelcome pang land in the center of my chest.

Blinking a few times, my smile fading quickly as my brain struggled to catch up to . . . something. Something that had happened, was still happening?

But that was impossible!

My gaze swung back to Arthur, who, thankfully, had already returned his attention to his task of clearing out half of the gift shop.

I was grateful, because I was spiraling into a borderline meltdown, which I kept neatly tucked away from view. Because no one developed a crush in the middle of a reindeer gift shop.

That—that was bonkers!

No, no. I was clearly reacting to the shitstorm that had rained down on me ever since I came back to Christmas. Maybe even earlier. Maybe since the bee incident, when Arthur had been so helpful and cute and—