One Frosty Night

“We could go sledding once we finish here,” Ben suggested. “What do you say, Olivia?”

She hadn’t felt even the tiniest spark of pleasure this morning when she’d looked out the window and saw the snowy landscape. All she’d been able to think was that they’d buried her father a week ago today. So it felt really good now to see the wonder in it.

“I say yes. Except first you have to come in and have coffee and a goodie Mom is baking right now.”

Ben laughed, his teeth a brilliant flash of white. “I think we can manage that. We’ll have worked up an appetite.”

Olivia looked at the expanse of pristine snow marked only with their parallel tracks. “Maybe I should start on this end while you take up where you left off.”

“No fun. We’re here now. Might as well work our way back to the road.” Ben yanked off the red fleece hat he’d been wearing. “Your ears will get cold.” He put the hat on Olivia, tugging off one glove so he could smooth her hair beneath it. “There. I’m already warm.”

Had his fingers lingered momentarily? She hoped the color in her cheeks could be explained by the cold. “Thanks.” She turned a smile on the teenager. “I’ve seen you, but I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Olivia.”

“Carson.” He grinned. “Dad said this was our good deed for the day.”

“In lieu of church attendance,” his father said with mock solemnity.

“Rescuing the little women,” she said.

“Right,” the boy agreed.

“Except the little woman isn’t so little,” she pointed out.

“Did I tell you Olivia took our girls’ basketball team to a league championship her senior year?” Ben asked his son. “She was a heck of a center.”

That caused a sting. Suddenly she wasn’t smiling. “How would you know? You were long gone.”

They stared at each other for a moment. “I...actually came to a couple of games. Anyway, Mom kept me up-to-date,” he said.

He’d come to watch her? Probably only because his parents were going to the game anyway and he was home, so why not?

“You were a center?” Carson studied her with open interest. “I guess you are tall for a girl.”

Olivia laughed. “And that’s a compliment, right?”

He really looked like his dad right now. “Right.” He spoiled his solemnity with a big grin. “Who likes little bitty girls anyway?”

Olivia mumbled, “Most men,” at the exact same moment when Ben said something under his breath that might have been, “Not me.”

His kid smirked.

“Work,” Ben reminded them.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_3ae1d007-4665-5f08-83dd-baed903ca680)

THEY DID SHOVEL, working as a team except for the occasional impulse to pack a snowball and chase each other all over the yard. By the time they actually made it to the road, they were all breathing like dragons, red-cheeked and good-humored. Olivia, at least, was feeling the strain in her shoulders and upper arms.

She turned and surveyed their accomplishment as well as the trampled front yard. “If only it weren’t still snowing.”

“Yeah, but it’s not coming down that hard.” Ben groped in his jeans pocket and produced his keys. “Catch,” he told Carson. “Why don’t you move the Cherokee up here?”

“Me?” The boy’s face brightened. “Yeah! Cool.” He trotted toward the SUV.

“Does he have his license yet?” Olivia asked.

“No, but he’s taking driver’s ed this semester. I’ve been letting him practice.” Ben grimaced. “Not so much in the snow, though.”

Olivia suppressed her smile as they both watched Carson give a cheerful wave and hop into the red Jeep Cherokee. “There’s not much he can run into between there and here.” She turned on her heel. “Except the garage doors, I guess. Mom might not appreciate that.”

“Yeah, and us.” Ben’s hand on her arm drew her up the driveway. “Although I have taught him to brake.”

“You were such a stodgy driver for a teenage boy.” Olivia cursed herself the minute the words were out. Reminders of their past were not a good idea.

“That’s a compliment, right?” he said, deliberately echoing her from a minute ago.

She had to laugh.

“He’s doing okay for a kid. In fact, he’s sure he has it all down pat, which means he’s cocky.”

She wondered at the shadow that crossed his face after that. What was he thinking as he watched Carson carefully maneuver the Cherokee up the driveway, braking neatly in front of the garage only a few feet from them?

“He’s on the basketball team, right?” she asked.

“Huh?” He turned his head. “Carson? Yeah. He’s not real happy because he didn’t start Friday night. There’s something going on with the team. I don’t know what.”

“You can’t exactly go berate the coach because your kid didn’t get enough playing time, can you?”

He made a sound in his throat that she recognized as frustration. “No, I have to step carefully. In this case...”

The driver’s side door slammed. Carson ostentatiously stashed the keys in his own pocket. Ben’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t say anything.

“Did your dad tell you he helped me learn to parallel park?” Olivia asked.

“Sort of,” Ben muttered, and she elbowed him.

“I passed the driver’s test, didn’t I?”

“Pure luck.”

Her elbow brought a sharp exhalation this time. “Skill.”

Carson watched them with obvious interest. “You guys, like, hooked up when you were in high school, didn’t you?”

“A very long time ago,” Olivia agreed, not looking at Ben as she led the way onto the front porch. “I got together with a bunch of old high school friends Friday night. Nicki was in town,” she said as an aside to Ben. “It got me thinking. I was sixteen years old when your dad and I broke up, and that was sixteen years ago.”

“You were my age?” The horror in the teenager’s voice made both adults laugh, although Ben’s was more subdued than Olivia’s.

“Well, I was a little older.” Ben’s tone was cautious. “Eighteen.”