The Working Elf Blues by Piper Vaughn Page B

dry, so he left those where they were. The boots he'd removed earlier, right after placing the man in bed.
    Doing his best not to gawk at the lean body he'd revealed, Wes quickly dressed the man in one of his own heavy sweatshirts and matching sweatpants. He completed the outfit by slipping another pair of warm wool socks over his slender feet. That done, Wes set to tending his head wound.
    It was only once Wes had washed some of the blood off, avoiding the ears aside from wiping the right one clean, that he finally got a really good look at the man's face—and felt a flash of recognition.
    As he'd worked, the man's coloring had improved. Previously pale skin became creamy peach liberally smattered with cinnamon-colored freckles. His eyes still hadn't opened, but Wes didn't need to see them to know they were green. They'd met before, Christmas Eve, half a decade ago.
    Back then, he hadn't been wearing an elf costume, just jeans, a winter jacket, and a beanie that covered his ears and hair. It had happened near Wes's cabin when Micah was a puppy, only a few months old. He'd gotten away from Wes and in his exuberance, tumbled down a steep incline. Wes was about to run back to the cabin for some rope when this man appeared—Garnet, he'd said, when Wes asked his name—with Micah cradled safely in his arms.
    That wasn't the first time Wes saw him either. The previous occasion had been five years before that, when Wes was thirteen, the first Christmas after Wes's adoptive father, Mitch, had died. Garnet found him in the park, rocking on a bench, tears frozen on his face. He'd taken Wes to a diner nearby, plied him with hot cocoa and pie, and kept Wes company all night. Then in the morning, he was gone, apparently vanished into thin air as he had again that evening he rescued Micah.
    This made the third instance they'd encountered each other on Christmas Eve. Coincidence? Impossible. But who was Garnet, this man who'd apparently been driving—flying?—a sleigh through sheer force of will? Not to mention the clothes and the ears, which Wes had never seen before tonight. None of it made sense, unless he gave credence to the idea of real elves, red-nosed reindeer, and a fat man named Santa Claus. Which… no. He'd had too difficult a life to believe in some white-bearded guy who shouted "ho ho ho" and shimmied down chimneys delivering presents across the globe one night a year.
    Only children blindly believed in those sorts of things—and no part of Wesley was a kid anymore.
    *~*~*
    When Garnet woke, he realized he was in too much pain to be anything but alive. He welcomed the white-hot bolt of agony in his skull and the ache in his rib cage as his chest expanded with a breath. Somehow, even smiling hurt. He did it anyway.
    Because breathing meant living, and living meant he still had a chance. A chance with Wes.
    But first he had to figure out where he was.
    Garnet peered around the dimly lit room and lifted an arm to finger the tight pressure at his temples. The too-long sleeve of the sweatshirt he wore pooled around his wrist as he felt the material of what must be some type of bandage on his forehead. That explained the pain, then. Not that it was much of a surprise with what he remembered of the accident.
    Someone had obviously come to his aid, and already he could feel his magic at work, mending his wounds in a fraction of the time it would take an ordinary human to recover. Garnet didn't have much power, but healing was intrinsic to elves. Even the least talented could summon basic curative spells.
    Garnet lifted himself on one elbow, wincing at another flare of pain in his chest. Probably a broken rib, or at least badly bruised. Nothing to be done but let his healing magic run its course.
    It took some doing and a lot cringing, but Garnet managed to get his legs over the side of the mattress and sit upright. Nausea slithered in his belly by the time he was done, and suddenly, the path to the door looked a lot longer than