A Weaver Holiday Homecoming

Kathleen’s lips thinned. “Pretending to wax philosophical won’t wash with me, child.” She pointed at the closed front door. “You’re messing in a lot of lives because of this fixation you’ve got about Chloe and her father.”

“It’s not a fixation.”

Kathleen’s white eyebrows climbed. Ire filled her eyes. “Really, now. It’s been your obsession since Chloe was born. When you should have been finding a man of your own, you were focused only on him.”

“I’m a working single mother,” Mallory returned. “I’ve never had time for a man.” Ergo, the exit of Brent. The fact that she hadn’t been left brokenhearted at the time had seemed to prove that it had been for the best. She’d never been tempted to put a man before her career. “And we’ve talked about this many times.” She’d never made a secret with her grandmother about the reason behind their temporary transplant to Weaver.

“Aye. We have. Yet you’re still determined to do it your way.”

“If I had my way, Cassie would still be here,” Mallory pointed out, struck with pain that was only slightly dulled by the passage of time. “Raising the child she loved enough to die having.” But, of course, Cassie—adventurous, go-with-the-moment Cassie—hadn’t believed she’d ever face that most final result despite Mallory’s warnings. “And choosing what to do about Chloe’s father would have been her decision.”

“She made the decision,” Kathleen reminded. Her face had softened, but her voice was still firm. “She had nearly the entire duration of her pregnancy to contact him. She chose not to.”

“I believe she would have changed her mind.” And arguing the point with her grandmother was as fruitless as the internal debate that had gone on for years inside Mallory about that very point.

She grabbed her coat off the coat tree and shoved her arms into the sleeves. “You seemed to like Ryan just fine, yesterday when he was here. So what’s bothering you about him now, anyway?”

“It’s not me that he’s bothering,” Kathleen said pointedly.

Mallory focused on working her hands into the gloves she pulled out of her coat pockets and tried not to blush. “All I care about is Chloe. Once I’m certain she’s ready for it, I’ll tell her about him and we’ll take it from there.”

“Right. And then it’ll be time for us to go back to New York. And how do you think Chloe’s going to handle being taken away from the father she’s just met, then?”

It wasn’t a new concern, nor was it one that Mallory hadn’t already given plenty of thought to. “She’ll still be able to talk to him. To see him during school breaks.” She pushed her pager and her cell phone into the breast pocket of the wool coat. “I knew before we got here that if…everything worked out…it would ultimately mean coming up with some sort of visitation agreement.” She reached for the door.

“What if you’re the one who ends up on the visiting side?”

“That’s not going to happen,” she said surely, and pulled open the door.

Ryan and Chloe were bent over an enormous snowball, pushing it together across the yard. The expressions of concentration on their faces were nearly identical.

Mallory swallowed the unease that whispered through her and stepped outside. Chloe had on her coat, her mittens, a scarf and a cap that Kathleen had knitted for her. Usually, she managed to forget the scarf or the hat. “Gram’s going to be popping the corn soon for garland,” she called out to them, “so we’d better come back with a worthy tree.”

Ryan looked over his shoulder. His head was bare. He wore no scarf tucked around his neck. His only concessions to the cold were the gloves on his hands and the scarred-up leather jacket zipped halfway up his chest. “Popcorn garland?”

Chloe straightened away from the snowball that was easily as tall as her knees and held her hands wide as she bounced around, full of energy. “We use Grammy’s needles on long string. It’s fun.”

Ryan continued pushing the snowball toward the house. “If you say so. Where do you want your snowman, Chloe?”

“Right here.” Chloe dashed over to a spot near the steps. “I asked him if he’d ever made one and he said he did, and so we’re getting one now,” she provided needlessly. “I never had a snowman before.” She beamed at Ryan when he nudged the ball to a stop. “Can I have a carrot for his nose?”

The delight in Chloe’s expression would have been impossible to resist, even had Mallory wanted to. “I imagine we have a carrot to spare,” she assured. “But your snowman still needs a little more body before he needs a nose, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Ryan scooped up a large handful of snow before straightening, and packed it between his gloved palms until it was the size of a healthy grapefruit. “Might as well finish it now, kiddo.” He cast an eye toward the sky. “It’s going to be snowing by the end of today—tomorrow at the latest—judging by the sky and then it might be a while before the snow is wet enough again to pack well.”

“What about the tree?”

His gaze skated over Mallory, leaving heat in its wake. “We’ll get to it. Here.” He tossed the snowball toward her and she didn’t react quickly enough to catch it.

It landed harmlessly against her chest and burst into a spray of clumps.

“Mo-om,” Chloe groaned. “You were s’posed to catch it.”

“Sorry.” Mallory went down the steps and scooped up her own snowball. She eyed Ryan, speculatively. He was a perfect target, leaning over, gathering up another handful of snow.

“Wouldn’t try it, Doc,” he warned, without looking at her.

She tossed the snowball from one hand to the other. “Try what?”

He straightened and gave her a glance that succeeded in making her mouth feel parched. It also made a mockery of her innocent claim. “Here.” He handed his latest snowball off to Chloe. “You can do this one on your own. It’s going to be the head, so it doesn’t have to be as large as the base.”

Chloe knelt down and began scooping snow around her assignment. The tip of her tongue peeked out from between the corner of her lips.

Before Mallory even knew he’d moved, Ryan plucked the snowball from her hands. “I’ll take that,” he said, and began adding to it.

Within minutes, both he and Chloe were rolling their snowballs across the yard and right into the neighbor’s property, picking up snow as they went. Mallory smoothed her coat beneath her and sat down on the porch steps, watching.

But Chloe wasn’t having any of that. “Mom, you gotta help!”

So Mallory dutifully rose again and walked over to her daughter.

“Not me,” Chloe said. “Him.” She waved toward Ryan, who, in Mallory’s estimation, needed no assistance whatsoever with maneuvering his snowman-middle even if it were already twice the size of Chloe’s somewhat sausage-shaped head.

It was only the flash of amusement she caught on Ryan’s face—as if he fully expected her to refuse—that made Mallory move over beside him and plant her hands next to his on the snowball. “For someone who didn’t seem very enthusiastic about today,” she said under her breath, “you seem to be ending up quite entertained.”

“And we haven’t even left your neighborhood, yet.” His hands steered the snowball toward the left, circling back in the direction of her house and the snowman’s base.

“Are we really going to find a Christmas tree today?”

“I said we would.” His shoulder brushed against hers. “When I say I’ll do something, I’ll do it.”

“Even if you didn’t want to,” she concluded, her voice just as low.

His jaw tightened. He stopped pushing the snowball, which was easily the size of three watermelons. “What do you want from me?”

She looked at him. The answer should have been so easy. A father for Chloe. Better yet, an…interested and caring father for Chloe.

So why wasn’t it easy?

“Mom. Mr. Ryan. Look at my head!” Chloe stood over her lopsided snowball with pride. “Is it big enough?”

“Looks great,” Ryan answered. He rolled the snowball he and Mallory had formed the last few yards, then picked it up and settled it on the base before adding Chloe’s to the top. “There you go, kiddo. Your first snowman,” he told Chloe.

“I wanna get his face now,” Chloe said, dashing up the stairs and disappearing through the front door that she threw open.

“If I hadn’t wanted to take you out to find a tree, I wouldn’t have offered in the first place,” he told Mallory the second Chloe was out of earshot.

She shoved her hands inside the side pockets of her coat, hiding the fists they had curled into. “Then why did you tear out of here yesterday the way that you did after offering?” Her voice had risen, and she swallowed, looking around.