Cole brushed snow from his jeans. “I’m afraid I’m not dressed very appropriately for this.”
It was true. He wore the same thin jacket he’d worn the night she’d met him. No hat, no boots, and just a thin pair of gloves. It was a good look for him, though, and the snow settled well on his dark hair. She supposed she could have given him some warning, but none of this was really planned until about an hour ago.
“Move around more,” said Parker, staring up at him. “Moving keeps you warm.”
“True,” said Cole, plodding over to the mound she and Parker had been building earlier. “Is this your fort?”
Parker dusted snow off his black mittens. “Yeah, but it’s not a very good one.”
Cole crouched to inspect the structure. This was his area of expertise, after all. He patted a hand along the snowy turrets. The one on the end crumbled into a sad heap. He gestured to Parker with his chin. “I bet we can do better. Come on.”
Chapter Ten
“You realize you’re helping us beat you,” Saylor said, folding her arms and crossing to the small, pathetic fort she’d built. “I mean, look what you’ve got to work with.”
Cole flashed that smile at her, the one that severed any and all access to her brain and left her just nerves and pulses. They stared for several seconds, eyes locked. The cold air nipped at her cheeks and neck, while snowflakes spilled down around her. Though her face, hands, and toes were beginning to icicle over, sweat beaded down her back. Her coat with its fur-lined hood was doing its job.
“You really should work on Mom’s,” Parker said. “She needs it.”
“It’s a plan,” Cole said, breaking away from Saylor’s gaze.
Heat flooded to her cheeks anew, but she scooped more snow into the bucket she’d brought out, packing and dumping it to make her little wall of snow taller. Cole began packing snow against their existing fort. Together, they built two forts, one for Parker and Saylor, and one for Cole.
“When I was a kid, we built a fort we could crawl into,” Cole said as they went.
“Like an igloo?” Parker asked, stopping to rub a glove against his red nose.
“Sort of. We crawled in through a hole and would sit inside, telling jokes.”
Parker dropped his bucket, dumping the snow to the side. Saylor scooped it and packed another snowball to add to the cache she had behind the wall. “Let’s build an igloo! Please, Mommy, can we?”
Cole laughed, blowing air onto his gloved hands. Chunks of snow clung to the thin fabric. He pumped his fingers. He must be soaked through. His nose and ears were bright red as well, and he sniffed a few times. Saylor’s fingers equally burned with cold; the wet was seeping through her gloves too.
“How about another day?” she said, staring at their forts and the snowballs assembled there. “We might finish our battle later. I think Cole is cold.”
Parker considered this. “You’re cold?” he said, turning to Cole. “You should have dressed warmer.”
They all laughed at his innocent way of stating the obvious.
“What about our forts?”
“They’ll keep,” Saylor told Parker, bending to his level. “How about some hot chocolate?”
“Yeah!” Parker jumped up and down excitedly, pumping his arms.
Cole patted his hands together several times. A few snow chunks fell off, but several more still clung to the gloves.
“What do you say?” Saylor asked, crossing their playground to him. “You want to come inside?”
He sniffed again, his eyes twinkling at her. “Hot chocolate sounds great.”
She was transfixed by him, by the warmth in his gaze and the curve of his smile, and the fact he actually meant to come into her house, to spend time not only with her, but with her son.
Too soon, reality sank like an icicle down her back. There was a pile of dishes in her sink. Parker’s things were still strewn across their small living room.
Cole had said he wanted to get to know her better. She supposed this would be an all-inclusive trip into her life, messes and everything.
Warmth burned into her cheeks and ears the second they walked through the back door. For once, Saylor was grateful for the retro-orange linoleum in the small wash space. Linoleum was easier to mop up than wet carpet would be.
An old washer sat with its lid open. To her horror, a bra dangled out from a basket filled with dirty clothes. She hurried to toss her coat on top of it and then bent to help Parker unzip.
“Put your wet things in the washer,” she told her son, sliding out of her snow pants. Their boots were already beginning to leave a puddle of melting snow on the floor, and she reached for a towel on the shelf and set it beneath them.
“Here,” she told Cole, taking his coat and hanging it behind the door. His t-shirt emphasized the line of his shoulders and chest. She swallowed, her mouth going dry. He ran several hands through his soaked hair, making it look more tousled and tempting than ever.
The bottoms of his jeans were soaked through. “Your pants,” Saylor said with regret.
“They’ll dry.” He took Parker’s gloves and tossed them into the dryer, too.
“Come on in,” Saylor said. A wave of self-consciousness spilled through her. She stepped out into the living room and gestured to the small tree and the few Christmas decorations hanging around.
“This is home?” he asked.
“This is home. It’s probably time to take all of these down.” She gestured to the decorations.
“Do we have to?” Parker whined, kneeling to play with the robot.
“You’ve still got time,” Cole said, stepping over to examine the pictures hanging on the wall. Parker’s school picture from this year, when he had all of his teeth; one of her parents; one of her and Parker at the lake last year. The last was a snapshot her dad
