Sleigh Bell Sweethearts. Teri Wilson

look filled with blue-eyed ire. “Are you walking back with us, or will you be arriving via your private plane?”

      Just how had he spent his afternoon off? Investigating her? “It’s not like you think. I’m not a spoiled heiress.”

      He shrugged. “So you keep saying.” Zoey braced herself for another sarcastic sweetheart. It never came. She was almost disappointed.

      She counted to ten before she did something stupid, like blurting out that he was fired again. Because clearly she needed him, as much as it pained her to admit it. By the time she got to five, they were engulfed in a throng of people. Zoey found herself with two television cameras and half a dozen microphones in her face. Everyone wanted a sound bite, something clever and quirky for the evening news. Because this was Alaska, where things like renegade reindeer made the front page—just one of the myriad reasons why she loved Aurora. She blinked against an assault of flashbulbs.

      When her vision cleared, Alec and Palmer were nowhere to be seen.