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  But Mesilla Plaza was alight in its full Christmas Eve glory, thronged with people. Snow still fell, dusting the cobblestones of the plaza a ghostly white. Luminarias burnished the stately square with carpets of flickering gold-red light. Grady spared a few seconds to appreciate their beauty, but mostly she concentrated on keeping up with Elena and her squeaking bundle.

  “I’m glad she’s strong enough to cry. She needs food badly,” Elena said. “Grady, you’re out here in shirtsleeves. Put my shawl on, if it isn’t too damp.”

  Grady did, watching a small black nose poke inquisitively out of Elena’s arms. If this was a certain breed of dog, its identification might remain forever a mystery. From what Grady could see, its fur was a motley collection of black and brown and white, and it had outsized floppy ears. The puppy peered up at her with anxious brown eyes, its forehead wrinkled. After a brief glance, it rested its head against Elena’s breast again, shivering. Grady understood the comfort of laying her head on that breast. She hoped the puppy would survive.

  Elena smiled at Grady and indicated the shadow cast on the ground before them. The faint luminaria light outlined their figures—Grady’s tall, shawl-cloaked form walking close beside Elena’s smaller one, carrying a fragile little life in her arms. They formed an unnerving image of the Holy Family. The light from the luminarias faded behind them, and they entered the darker neighborhoods near Elena’s shop.

  Grady brushed snow off Elena’s dark hair. Elena’s fine-boned hand cradled the puppy’s head as she murmured calm, soothing words to the little dog. Grady couldn’t imagine a woman more naturally born to parenting than Elena. Somehow Elena had grown beyond the needy example of Inez Montalvo. She would be a strong and loving mother. And Grady owed her a Christmas present.

  “A puppy is a little more appealing than an iguana,” Grady said.

  Elena looked at her with a question in her eyes.

  “A puppy is also a lot more tangible than a promise.” Grady saw no one else on the dark street and draped her arm around Elena’s shoulders. “If we keep this wee mutt, we’d need to make a home for her. We’d want to start making it now, working together on that. A home that can also welcome our kid, some year soon.”

  Elena was silent, but the shining in her eyes dazzled Grady’s heart. At that moment, they turned a dark corner and were suddenly bathed in a glorious light. Grady stood transfixed.

  At the end of the small road, Elena’s shop was festooned with shimmering luminarias. They stood three deep on the roof, and two perfectly aligned rows of them began at their feet and led directly to Elena’s door. By comparison, the rest of the neighborhood dimmed into obscurity. A crew of five or more would be needed to prepare such a display. Many ladders would be involved.

  Grady swallowed. “Do you think your mother—”

  “Not one chance in hell,” Elena whispered.

  Frowning, Grady remembered coming upon this wondrous sight just as she voiced her promise to Elena. “Is Brigid known for making cheesy and dramatic gestures?”

  “We’ll have to Google her.” Elena leaned against Grady with a contented sigh and held the puppy up to see the glowing bags. “Look, little one. Holy lanterns lighting your way home. Do you have something to tell us? Like perhaps you are a very special dog?” She touched her nose to the puppy’s, looking at her seriously. “Use your words.”

  As they walked together down the luminous path leading to Elena’s home, Grady heard Spanish Christmas carols blaring loudly behind closed shutters on the second floor. She stepped up onto the boardwalk and opened the door for Elena.

  “Welcome home, little dog,” Grady said. “We’re going to call you Inez.”

  D. Jackson Leigh works as newspaper journalist in North Carolina. She shares her life with her wonderful partner, her Jack Russell terrier, and “the cat” that made herself at home when Jackson and the JRT weren’t watchful. Her Bold Strokes novels include Bareback and Long Shot. This story, “Reindeer Roundup,” revisits the characters featured in Long Shot. Her third novel, Call Me Softly, is scheduled for release in 2011.

  Reindeer Roundup

  D. Jackson Leigh

  Tory cursed when still another string of red and green lights blinked off. She flung the garland in her hand to the floor and turned to get the box of replacement bulbs from the coffee table, groaning at the sound of glass ornaments crunching under her foot.

  “I give up,” she shouted to the empty room. She flopped down onto the couch and stared out the window at the eight inches of fresh snow.

  What the hell was she thinking when she let Leah talk her into buying all these decorations? Oh, yeah. She was thinking they would be sipping warm spiced wine and stringing lights together to celebrate their first Christmas.

  Four months had passed since she and Leah admitted their love for each other and openly began their courtship. Three of those months had been the most exhilarating of Tory’s life.

  They had taken a day-long horseback ride in the Appalachian Mountains when the leaves changed to an autumn palette of red, gold, and brilliant yellow. They’d shared afternoon picnics and candlelit dinners, art exhibits, and shopping trips. For one cozy week, they’d hidden out at a private cabin and skied the slopes at a nearby resort.

  What she’d loved the most, though, were the simple moments when they cuddled on her couch to watch a DVD or laughed together at the antics of their overly curious Chincoteague foal, Sure Thing.

  Those nights when they opened their hearts and shed their clothes to explore their passion in every soft curve, every sensitive pulse of each other’s bodies, were wonderful beyond description.

  There wasn’t much about them that was similar. Leah was a petite brunette, while Tory was tall, athletic, and blond. Leah was an outspoken steel magnolia whereas everyone described Tory as laid-back. As a journalist, Leah took things apart to expose what was wrong. As a veterinarian, Tory put things back together and made them right again.

  Despite their differences, like two polar ends of a magnet, they were drawn together by a force too powerful to resist. That’s why the past few weeks, when work had pulled them in different directions, had been pure torture. Leah had recently won a new contract to help shape a new legislative proposal on extended home care and was busy lining up witnesses to testify before the Virginia General Assembly in January. Tory was glad that Leah’s new venture—consulting work based out of Cherokee Falls—was already paying off. But damn it, it was hard to be apart so early in their relationship.

  Leah had first said she’d only be away a week, and they’d talked on the phone several times a day. When the work took longer than expected, Tory had driven to Richmond for a promised two days of making love and ordering room service in a fancy hotel suite. The weekend of passion had melted away on Saturday morning with the fifth phone call for more information. Tory ended up watching television alone while Leah spent most of the weekend working at her laptop with an apologetic, but very attractive and openly lesbian lawyer.

  Tory had returned to Cherokee Falls on Sunday night, clutching to her heart Leah’s vow to be back home before the next weekend. But by the end of the second week, Leah’s phone calls had become less frequent, and when they did talk, Leah was too tired to carry on much of a conversation. On Thursday, she had called to say they still had not finished their work. To make it home in time for Christmas, she would have to work through the weekend again and most of the next week.

  So, here it was Sunday afternoon and no Leah. Tory surveyed her halfhearted attempt to decorate the tree alone, her heart growing heavier with each wink of the cheerful lights. Their last conversation on Friday kept replaying in her mind, awakening every devil that had ever plagued her.

  “We’re working every minute of the day, honey,” Leah told her on Friday night, but she sounded distracted and Tory could hear giggling in the background. She had hung up without the soft sighs and confessions of love and loneliness that usually concluded their phone calls. The real knife in her gu
t, the ache in her chest, came from the fact that Leah hadn’t seemed to notice.

  Her depression was a heavy weight. Lugging it around the past two days had exhausted her. Tory leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She imagined Leah calling to say her work in Richmond had reminded her why she liked living in large cities. She imagined Leah saying things just weren’t going to work out for her to live in Cherokee Falls.

  Those thoughts were her last until cold hands and warm lips feathered across her face and drew her from a troubled doze. She blinked several times to focus on eyes the color of dark honey and realized the weight pinning her legs was Leah straddling her lap.

  “There they are,” Leah said softly. “I’ve been missing my leprechaun’s green eyes.”

  “You didn’t call me yesterday,” Tory said, her voice gruff. How much have you really missed me?

  “You hung up Friday without telling me that you love me,” Leah said, her words more of a question than an accusation.

  Tory didn’t answer and averted her eyes, ashamed for Leah to see the mistrust in them.

  “You hung up before I could tell you how much I was missing you,” Leah said, stroking Tory’s cheek.

  “You sounded busy…and distracted. You sounded like you weren’t alone.” Tory scowled, still refusing to meet Leah’s gaze. “I could hear someone laughing.”

  “Ah. I see.” Leah shrugged. “You caught me. I met another woman in Richmond. She’s very cute and blond like you. But her eyes are blue. The prettiest color blue I think I’ve ever seen. I fell in love with her the first time I met her.”

  “I don’t want to hear about it.” She couldn’t believe Leah could be so casual about another woman. She couldn’t look at her and didn’t want to be touching her. Tory tried to push her away.

  But Leah locked her hands behind Tory’s neck and hung on tight. “And she’s ten years old.”

  Tory stopped her struggle. She blinked back tears and looked up at Leah. “Wha…what?”

  “That was Alisha’s ten-year-old daughter. We were working at their house because her partner had to attend a fund-raiser and they couldn’t find a sitter.”

  Relief and embarrassment flooded through Tory. She buried her face in Leah’s neck. She felt like a big baby, a big jealous baby.

  “Oh, sugar. This is my fault.” Leah tightened her arms around Tory. “I know there were times when we first met that I pushed you away. But that was before I gave you my heart, darlin’. Don’t you know you own me?”

  Leah stroked Tory’s back. “I’ve always been able to lose myself in work. But when you didn’t call me at all yesterday, I told Alisha that I had to go home. If the snowplows had cleared the roads sooner, I would have been here last night.”

  “Really?”

  Leah chuckled at Tory’s muffled voice against her neck. “Really, sugar.”

  “I was afraid you had changed your mind about us. That maybe you decided Cherokee Falls was too small and dull for you.”

  “No, baby, never. Christ almighty. I missed you so much I actually had a wet dream about you. It was so real I woke up in the middle of a huge orgasm.”

  “You dreamed about me?” Her dark cloud lifting, Tory pulled Leah closer.

  “Night and day.” Leah slipped her hands under Tory’s shirt and raked her nails along her spine. “Now, what are you going to do about making those dreams come true?”

  Tory nuzzled Leah’s neck. “You smell like chocolate.”

  Leah leaned back and lifted her chin to expose a tiny reindeer tattoo on the pulse point just below her jawline. “Compliments of my young girlfriend. Taste it.”

  Tory sniffed at the reindeer, then tentatively stroked it with her tongue. “Mmm. Chocolate mint.” She couldn’t resist planting kisses along the length of Leah’s neck. “My favorite flavor on my favorite person. I love early Christmas gifts.”

  “Oh, no, sugar. This gift is for me.” She hummed with pleasure when Tory’s mouth found the tattoo again, then gasped as Tory sucked hard. Leah rubbed her crotch against Tory’s stomach. “I’ve got Santa’s whole team hidden all over my body. It’s your job, lover, to find every one of those little fellers and lick it off before you get me so hot they melt.”

  Tory growled, her mouth never leaving Leah’s neck as she stood and wrapped her arms under Leah’s hips to carry her to the bedroom. No one but Leah had ever provoked such an aggressive need to possess and protect.

  Dasher was nothing but a lingering bruise on Leah’s neck, and when she spied another reindeer nestled in Leah’s cleavage, buttons flew across the room. A scrape of her teeth, a lashing of the tongue, and Dancer was a casualty, too.

  Leah’s body was her battlefield and each tiny reindeer devoured was another doubt conquered. Leah belonged to her. No job, no other woman was going to steal her away.

  It took some effort, but Tory slowed her attack when she discovered Prancer covering a puckered nipple. Torture by tongue was to be his sentence for hiding in such a coveted place.

  “God, I’ve missed your mouth on me.” Leah moaned as Tory freed her breast of the invader.

  She found Cupid prancing low across Leah’s soft, lean belly, his antlers poised to guard what Tory came to claim. She attacked swiftly, wielding her tongue with deadly accuracy and moving on.

  Vixen was patrolling the inside of a firm thigh and Tory pushed Leah’s knees apart to pounce. The sweet mint that coated her lips mingled with the heady scent of Leah’s arousal. She nuzzled into that wet heat, painting her lips, chin, and cheeks with the spoils of her campaign.

  “Tory, oh, God.” Leah’s hand was on the back of her head, urging her to engage the final skirmish.

  She licked her slick entrance clean, then plunged her tongue inside.

  “Yes,” Leah hissed, lifting her hips and opening her legs wider. “Please, baby, I need to come so bad.”

  She laved her tongue alongside but not touching Leah’s turgid clit. She loved it when her normally bossy lover was reduced to begging.

  “More,” Tory growled.

  “Anything. Anything you want. Just make me come.”

  “There are four more.”

  “No, don’t stop,” Leah pleaded as a bite to her thigh signaled Tory’s retreat. “Oh!”

  She gripped Leah’s knees and flipped her over to attack the rear guard. She stalked her next victim, nipping and sucking upward from the ankle.

  Leah squirmed as Donner quickly surrendered his post behind her knee, then grew still when she felt Tory pause. Hot breath bathed the backs of her thighs and she shuddered.

  Comet had been spied.

  Tory knew exactly why Comet was stationed on Leah’s right butt cheek, inviting ambush. Leah loved Tory’s teeth on her sensitive buttocks, relished Tory’s assertive tendency to bite when they made love in this position.

  “Look what I found,” Tory whispered.

  “God, I want your hand between my legs, your fingers inside me. I need you to make me come.”

  Leah jerked when Tory bit down hard on the hapless reindeer and moaned as Comet was devoured in one huge sucking assault. Tory’s attack didn’t stop with the tattoo. Leah writhed as every inch of both cheeks was licked and nipped.

  “God, touch me before I come without it.”

  Tory stroked the inside of Leah’s thighs and Leah reflexively opened her legs in offering. When she stopped caressing her, Leah’s hips pumped, as if begging for more.

  “Please, baby. I need you. I need you now.”

  Tory didn’t answer, but pushed between Leah’s legs and under her thighs. With her face pressed into the bed and her thighs draped over Tory’s shoulders, Leah was totally open, totally exposed and dripping wet.

  “Oh, please lick me.”

  Again, Tory denied her. She worked upward to thrust her tongue inside and Leah groaned. Tory inched her tongue higher and Leah’s breath hitched.

  “I’m gonna come. I’m gonna come,” Leah panted.

  “Wait.” Tory pushed up and c
overed Leah with her weight. She rubbed her swollen clit against Leah’s firm thigh and filled her with her fingers. She stroked her inside and out, pumping her hand in rhythm with the rolling of her hips against Leah’s leg.

  Tory’s orgasm gathered and began to swarm through her belly as Leah matched her movements, pushing backward to meet each thrust.

  “I can’t wait. I can’t wait,” Leah cried.

  That’s when she saw Blitzen, the last reindeer sentry, protecting the juncture of Leah’s shoulder and neck—Tory’s claiming spot.

  “Now. Come now,” Tory commanded, biting down hard and holding Blitzen in her teeth as she thrust with her hips and hand.

  Leah’s cries mingled with Tory’s howl as they released together and rode out the waves of pleasure. They collapsed in a heap, their hearts pounding in perfect sync.

  Tory lazily licked at the remnants of Blitzen and smiled to herself. Her very creative lover had so many facets to her personality, she looked forward to a lifetime of discovery.

  She rolled onto her back and pulled Leah into her arms. They were both sweaty and parts of Leah were still sticky, but Tory didn’t care. She kissed her slowly, tenderly. “I love you.”

  Leah rose up on her elbow, her eyes searching Tory’s. “I love you, Tory.” She combed damp tendrils of Tory’s hair back from her face. “I don’t like being away from you. I know we’ll probably get better at it after a couple of years, but not now, not yet.”

  “I don’t want to keep you from your work,” Tory said. “I’m afraid you would resent that somewhere down the road.”

  “I’ve already decided on my next project, and the research won’t take me any farther than the Equestrian Center.”

  Tory frowned. “You’re investigating our friends?”

  Leah laughed softly. “No, sugar. Alisha told her daughter that I had a baby pony and that’s all the kid wanted to hear all about. So I told her a few stories about Sure’s adventures and she said, ‘You should write a book about your pony.’”