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The children cheered happily.
“Leo, hold Charlotte’s hand on the way back across the street,” she instructed. “And look both ways before you cross.”
Leo made an exaggerated show of taking his little sister’s hand to lead her across the empty street to their own yard. Smiling, Stevie closed her door and turned toward the bedroom.
Half an hour later, she was breathless and covered with snow from the bright blue knit cap on her head to the waterproof pink boots into which she’d tucked her jeans. Her hooded jacket was yellow, her gloves the same blue as her hat. Charlotte told her she looked like she was wearing a rainbow. Laughing, Stevie showed her how to make a snow angel, adding to her frosty coating.
With the thin layer of sleet beneath, the snow crunched when they played in it. Gray clouds hung low above them, but happy laughter reigned in the Bristol’s front yard. From inside the warm house, Lori and baby Everly appeared occasionally in a window to watch, and Stevie waved to them. Next year that little angel, too, would be out playing in the snow. And she would have a baby of her own to watch, she realized with a hard thump of her heart. To soothe the fresh attack of nerves, she focused on the Bristol kids.
The boys had nearly cleared the front lawn of packable snow in the quest to make their snowman “supersized.” It was so big that Stevie was elected to lift the giant head onto the body. She drew a deep breath and prepared to give it her best shot. Two strong, black-gloved hands came from behind her to offer assistance. She looked over her shoulder and smiled when she saw Cole standing there. He wore a black watchman cap over his thick dark hair, a black jacket and black boots—a more somber, coordinated ensemble than her own.
His chocolate eyes gleamed with amusement as he grinned down at her. “Need a hand?”
“Or two,” she agreed. “These kids like their snowmen on the larger side.”
“We’re building a snow giant!” Asher exclaimed eagerly, carrying a large stick he’d found in the backyard. “This can be one of his arms. Leo’s looking for another.”
With Cole’s help, they made short work of completing their snow friend, accessorizing with a battered ball cap and frayed scarf donated by Lori. They created facial features with decorative river rocks filched from the flower beds. It had started to snow again, to the children’s delight. Another half inch was predicted on top of the six inches that had collected during the night. Stevie figured the snowman would survive a day or two before the warmer temperatures forecast for later in the week melted him away.
After being summoned for lunch by their mother, the siblings politely thanked Stevie and Cole for their assistance in building “the best snowman ever!” They tramped reluctantly inside their house when their mother called out again. Stevie grimaced sympathetically as she imagined the wet mess of clothing and puddles Lori would deal with, but maybe the busy mom would consider it a fair trade-off for the hour of volunteer babysitting. From the open doorway, with Everly on her hip, she called out an offer of hot chocolate, but they declined cordially.
“Though, actually, hot chocolate sounds like a good idea,” Stevie confided to Cole as they tramped across the street. She wiped snowflakes from her eyelashes with the back of one damp glove. “I’m freezing.”
“Your jeans are wet from rolling around in the snow with Charlotte. You should get into dry clothes.”
She noted he’d stayed much drier, maybe because he’d been a little less enthusiastic about getting down in the snow, she admitted with a grin.
“Come in, if you have time,” she said, motioning toward her house. “I make a mean mug of cocoa.”
“That sounds really—”
His right foot slipped on a slick spot on her driveway. Flailing comically, he went down flat on his back in the snow. Stevie almost burst into laughter at the funny expression he made as he lay there, but she managed to contain her amusement to a grin.
“Are you hurt?” she asked, though she could tell at a glance that he’d damaged only his pride.
Very deliberately, he spread his arms and legs into Vs, then climbed to his feet, surveying the resulting snow angel with a nod of satisfaction. “I meant to do that.”
Delighted by his quick wit, she laughed and tucked a hand companionably beneath his arm. “Let’s go get warm.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said, covering her hand with his own. And though they both wore gloves, she could still feel the warmth of his touch spreading through her.
* * *
Having shed their wet boots on the porch, Cole insisted that Stevie change into dry clothes before she played hostess. She left him to wash up in the guest bath while she ducked into her bedroom to change into a loose sweater and leggings. Fluffing her curls with her hands, she gave herself a quick once-over in the full-length, silver-framed, art deco mirror that coordinated with her sage, silver and cream French deco bedroom furnishings. Her cheeks and nose were still pink from the cold but she resisted an impulse to touch up her minimal makeup for her guest’s benefit. After all, it was just Cole, right?
Her country French kitchen was her favorite room in the house. The walls were warm sage, the cabinets knotty pecan with leaded glass inserts, the counters brown-and-tan granite with antique bronze hardware. Cole joined her there, looking casually at ease in his sweater, jeans and wool socks. His dark hair was disheveled from the hat he’d removed, and her fingers itched with a sudden urge to play in those thick, unruly waves. She opened the refrigerator instead. “How about a sandwich before we drink our cocoa? Playing in the snow always gives me an appetite.”
“Sounds good, if it’s not too much trouble. What can I do to help?”
When they sat down to lunch, to her relief, he didn’t bring up her pregnancy. He merely ate his grilled cheddar-and-tomato sandwiches and munched salt-and-vinegar chips while she babbled nervously about everything and anything—except her predicament.
After the dishes were cleared away, they moved to the living room with steaming cups of cocoa topped with marshmallows. She’d indulged her love of eclectic European and American deco design in here, too. Flames crackled among the gas logs in the fireplace framed in white-painted carved wood, spreading warmth through the room. With her feet curled comfortably beneath her, she sat on the dove-gray couch that faced the fireplace. Cole had settled in a tapestry armchair near her end of the couch. She couldn’t help admiring the way the firelight brought out the highlights in his hair.
“I’ve always liked this room,” he commented, stretching his legs in front of him toward the fire. “It always impresses me that it can look so classy yet still be so comfortable. Not fussy and formal like some people’s decorated places.”
Pleased by the comments, she beamed. “That’s exactly what I aim for in my decorating. Stylish, but welcoming. Home design is meant to be enjoyed. Lived in, not just admired or photographed.”
He nodded in approval. “That’s as it should be. I’ve always said it was a waste to have furniture you can’t sit on or carpet you feel guilty walking on. Tasha—”
He stopped talking and took a sip of his cocoa.
She swirled her beverage gently in her mug to better distribute the melting marshmallows. “Natasha agreed with your design aesthetic?” she prodded gently. She was curious to hear more about the woman he’d married, but she didn’t want to cause him pain talking about her.
He shrugged, his expression wry. “She wasn’t really into decorating. As long as she had a comfortable chair for reading, she was happy.”
“She liked to read?”
“Almost obsessively, especially as her health declined and there was little else she could do.”
“Was she sick for a long time?”
“Yes,” he replied quietly.
And Cole had taken care of her during that time. She had no doubt that Natasha had received the best of care from him. Unlike most of the men in her own past, Cole wasn’t the type to walk away from his responsibilities and commitments, even when those challenges were daunting. Any woman who captured his heart would be very fortunate, indeed, she thought a bit wistfully.
“Do you have plans for the day?” he asked, and it couldn’t be more obvious that he wanted to change the subject.
She obliged. “I was going to spend a few hours at my office, but I think I’ll just work at home this afternoon instead, considering drivers around here go insane when there’s snow on the roads.”
“Good plan. So, are you, um, feeling better today?”
She managed not to grimace in response to the oblique reminder of last night’s meltdown, but it still embarrassed her. “Much better, thank you. I had fun playing with the Bristol kids this morning.”
“Nice kids. They’re obviously crazy about you.”
“I like them, too.”
He finished his cocoa. A dab of marshmallow dotted his upper lip when he lowered the mug. She eyed it from beneath her lashes. She wasn’t sure why she wasn’t teasing him about it. Normally she would have, but something held her back just then. Maybe it was the crazy image that popped unexpectedly into her head—herself licking away that tempting smudge and then sampling the taste of chocolate on his firm lips.
She blinked rapidly, shocked at the direction her thoughts had taken. Hormones. That had to be the explanation. Sure, she’d always been aware of Cole as an attractive man, not to mention his other fine qualities, but she’d deliberately avoided thinking of him in that way. She’d made some really bad decisions when it came to romance, leading, if not to heartbreak, at least to frequent disappointment. Tragically widowed, Cole had shown so signs that he wanted more from her than friendship. And besides, she treasured their relationship too much to risk ruining it by trying to convince themselves they were a compatible match. Most especially not now, considering her awkward predicament.
He wiped off that distracting bit of marshmallow with a napkin, then stood to carry his mug to the kitchen. She followed with her own. He turned just as she approached the sink, and they very nearly collided. With a low laugh, he caught her shoulders. “Steady there.”
Heat flared from his touch. For a moment, her mind went blank. She took a jerky step backward, then tried to cover her discomfiture with a laugh. “Were you afraid I was going to knock you over?”
He smiled. “Maybe. I’ve already landed at your feet once in the past twenty-four hours. And there’s no snow in here to give me a credible reason for being on the ground.”
She laughed and moved to rinse her mug in the sink. When she turned back around, she found Cole looking up at her high ceiling with a frown. “You have a bulb out,” he said.
She followed his glance and saw the dark bulb in one of the recessed canisters that provided auxiliary lighting to the pendant lamps over the island. “I thought something looked different in that corner.”
“Do you have a spare bulb?”
“Yes. I’ll change it later.”
He was shaking his head before she’d completed the sentence. “You don’t need to climb ladders in your condition. I’ll take care of it.”
She had to admit it was difficult for her, at five-two, to change the bulbs in her nine-foot kitchen ceiling. Grateful for his assistance, she fetched a bulb and a stepladder, then turned off the light switch. She leaned against a nearby counter while Cole climbed onto the stepladder and reached overhead. For a self-professed “computer nerd,” the man did stay in good condition, she thought, watching muscles ripple as he stretched upward and his shirt exposed part of what looked to be a perfectly formed six pack.
“Well, damn.”
She lifted an eyebrow in response to his growl. “What’s wrong?”
“Bulb broke off in my hand and now the cap’s stuck in the socket.”
“Hang on, I’ll grab a potato.”
He stepped off the ladder to toss the broken bulb into the trash, watching while she sliced a fat potato neatly in half. “So you know that trick.”
She smiled as she handed him one half of the potato. “I’ve broken a few bulbs in my time. My mom taught me this trick years ago. Our budget was usually tight, so she was the ‘handyman’ around here when we were growing up, at least until my brother and I were old enough to do our share of maintenance.”
“She sounds very self-sufficient.”
“I suppose she had to be. I’ve told you, of course, that Mom never married the fathers of either of her kids. She had issues with commitment, and she said neither of them were the home-and-hearth types, anyway. My father died when I was just a toddler, leaving nothing for my support. Mom didn’t get much help from my brother’s dad, either, but she supported us well enough on her own. She put a down payment on this house with a small inheritance from her parents when Tom and I were very young, and then paid it off over the next ten years with her salary. She was a shrewd budgeter. She gave us a good home here—even though working nine to five in a state job smothered her gypsy soul, as she informed us too many times to count.”
Back up on the ladder, Cole glanced down at her when she stopped for a breath. “She sounds like a unique woman.”
She smiled. “She is that.”
Practically the day Stevie had graduated from college, her accomplished but unconventional mother had announced she was retiring from her job with the state and moving to Hawaii. Upon her retirement, she’d sold Stevie this house for a bargain price and had gone off to find herself on a warm beach.
She turned to pull a bottle of water from the fridge, speaking almost to herself as she twisted off the cap. “I only hope I can handle the challenges of single motherhood as well as Mom did.”
“You’ll be great.” He pushed the potato into the broken bulb and twisted. The resulting metallic squeal made them both grimace, but the trick worked. Stevie held up a wastebasket for the potato and broken parts, then handed him the new bulb.
“Thanks,” he said, reaching up again before asking in a conversational tone, “Do you remember your father at all?”
“No. Like I said, I was just a toddler when he was killed in a car wreck, and he’d never even seen me.”
“And your brother’s father?”
“Tom’s dad is still living, as far as we know, but they’ve never had a relationship. It was just the three of us here.”
She gave a little sigh. “I have to admit I was always envious of my friends who had fathers in their lives. Jenny grew up without a dad, too, so she and I bonded in childhood over that, but we were both a little jealous of the girls who had dads to take them to father-daughter dances or even to give their boyfriends the third degree,” she added with a rueful laugh. “I know Tom would have liked having a father to play catch with him and take him fishing and other male bonding stuff. Mom threw a mean curve ball and taught us to ride our bikes and drive and do basic home and car maintenance, everything we needed, really...but I’ve always thought if I ever had a kid, I’d give him or her the one thing missing from my own otherwise happy childhood. A dad.”
Dusting off his hands, Cole climbed down and folded the stepladder. “Not everyone is lucky enough to have a close relationship with their father,” he muttered as he carried the ladder toward the laundry room.
She watched him thoughtfully. Though he hadn’t said much about his family issues, she knew Cole wasn’t close to his father. He’d told her his parents were divorced, and both remarried. His mother had moved to another state several years ago, and he’d spent most of his childhood with his paternal grandparents—the “country grandpa” he quoted often—but he hadn’t given details of his estrangement from his dad.
Maybe it was just as well she was doing this on her own, she thought with a sigh. Her child’s biological father had no interest at all in fatherhood. Had she been with someone different, someone more steady and reliable and responsible—someone like Cole, she thought with a hard swallow—well, that could have had a very different outcome.
Rejoining her, Cole glanced around the kitchen. “Is there anything else I can do for you before I go? Any more repairs you need seen to? It’s the least I can do in return for all the cat sitting you’re doing this week.”
She smiled. “No, that’s it, thanks.”
“You have food and supplies so you don’t have to go out this afternoon? The roads are still a mess.”
She patted his arm. “I’m good, Cole, thank you.”
He caught her hand in his, gave the fingers a little squeeze, then released her quickly and took a step back. “I’d better go, then. I have a conference call later this afternoon and I need to get ready for it.”
“You have a conference call on a Saturday afternoon?” she asked as she followed him into the living room.
He reached for his coat and hat. “Yeah. A lot going on with work this week. I’ll probably be tied up for a couple hours, but if you need anything don’t hesitate to let me know, okay?”
“I’ll be fine. Be careful walking home. I think we have enough snow angels out there.”
He made a face that drew a laugh from her. “I’ll watch my step.”
His faint smile fading, he paused with his hand on the doorknob, looking as though there was something on his mind. Her fingers laced tightly in front of her. She waited, but he remained silent.
His gaze lifted, locking with hers. Lost in his bottomless dark eyes, she stared back at him. It felt as though something important hovered between them, but she couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Something he wanted to say? To do? Something he was waiting for her to say or do?
“Call if you need me,” he said and opened the door. He was gone before she could even respond.
Biting her lip, she locked the door behind him, then crossed the room and sank onto the couch. Something had changed between her and Cole since she’d shared her news with him, she thought wistfully. She couldn’t define it, exactly. Cole certainly wasn’t showing disapproval. Just the opposite, in fact; he’d been supportive and considerate. He’d sounded sincere when he said he had faith in her. As the first of her friends she’d told, he’d reacted exactly the way she hoped they all would.
And yet, something was different. She could only describe it as an awareness she hadn’t acknowledged before. Whether it was only on her part, she couldn’t say, but what else could it be? Maybe it was all in her head. Maybe those wonky hormones and jumbled emotions were making her imagine things that weren’t real. Whatever the reason, she had to get a grip. She’d made quite a few foolish mistakes in the past few months, but she would never do anything that would put her treasured friendship with Cole at risk.
* * *
Her phone rang some three hours after Cole left. Looking away from the kitchen design on her computer monitor, she glanced at the ID screen on her phone. She smiled when she saw Cole’s name. Was he checking on her again already? Very sweet, but she’d have to convince him she was fine so he would stop worrying about her. It hadn’t helped, of course, that she’d blubbered all over him last night, she thought with a wince.
With that embarrassing memory in mind, she answered cheerily. “Hi, Cole. What’s up?”
“Just letting you know I’m going to have to catch a plane to Chicago first thing in the morning.”
She frowned. “I thought you weren’t leaving until later in the week.”
“So did I. But the conference call I mentioned was a nightmare. I have to go sort out some stuff. And try not to knock heads together while I’m there,” he finished grimly.
She giggled, but a bit wistfully. He’d only just gotten back from the last trip. She wished he didn’t have to go again so soon. She was sure he felt the same way, though probably not for the same reasons. “I’ll take good care of Dusty.”
“You always do. I’m pretty sure you’re her favorite person. Which I understand completely,” he added, and she could hear the smile in his voice now.
“Why, thank you, kind sir.”
His low chuckle rumbled pleasantly in her ear. “The roads should be much better tomorrow, but don’t take any chances, okay? Be careful.”
