Page 10 of Chocolate Cherry Cabin

Cassandra laughed. “He’s making you want things, isn’t he?” She waved her cowboy hat at him when he looked over, as though sensing he was being talked about. “Mmm. He’s yummy all the way from head to toe. Is he single?”

Hannah yanked her inside before she could cause trouble, Dusty and Obi on her heels.

“Hey, how are you feeling, Dusty?” Hannah bent down, studying the small boy. He’d been diagnosed as having a heart issue a few weeks ago, something that had been overlooked since his difficult birth but had recently grown problematic. Cassandra, insistent that her son shouldn’t be so small, pale or winded, had pursued the problem until she got his care into the right hands.

The current challenge was the cost of surgery to remedy his condition. Landon, Cass’s new boyfriend, wanted to help, but she had reservations about borrowing six figures from the NHL goalie—even for her son. The boy, however, seemed to be running at about half volume compared to usual, and Hannah hoped that Landon would be able to strong-arm her friend into accepting so the surgery could happen soon, and Cass didn’t end up buried in debt.

“I saw Dezzie at the hospital,” Dusty announced.

“Really? That’s so cool.” Hannah smiled, knowing that inside the Dragons mascot costume was her friend Violet Granger, who worked for the hockey team.

Thomas came running up, carrying a Batmobile toy in each hand, passing one to Dusty. Her eldest son was nowhere to be seen, which meant he was enjoying his first day of Christmas vacation with his nose in a book or absorbed in a video game Calvin had bought him. Hannah considered calling him out to say hi and play with the other boys, but decided to let him be, knowing her sons were reaching an age where they didn’t always want to do the same things, or do them together.

“Quiet play today, please,” Hannah warned, nervous that Thomas might tire Dusty out.

“Thanks for letting us stop by,” Cassandra said, hanging her farm coat at the door as the boys headed to Thomas’s room. She was wearing a red sweater sporting a fuzzy reindeer, complete with a blinking light for a nose. The woman was as into Christmas as Hannah was. In fact, she was even selling beautiful Christmas trees out at her ranch to make a little extra holiday cash. “Dusty’s been going stir-crazy out there.”

“I thought Rylnn was spending more time out at your place,” Hannah said, referring to Landon’s young daughter. Landon and Cass were pretty new as a couple, but seemed to be blending their families fairly well. It gave Hannah hope that if she found someone for herself it would be just as seamless.

“She’s so girlie Dusty tends to go a bit crazy after playing with her for days on end.”

“Alexa needs to adopt some boys Dusty’s age.” Cass’s sister lived just down the road, but so far she and her husband didn’t have kids.

“Cash is on board, but I don’t think Alexa’s ready.”

The women moved toward the kitchen and Hannah tipped her head in the direction the boys had gone. “How is he?”

“Good. There’s no rush for the surgery other than the fact that I want to see him strong as soon as possible.”

“If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”

“Thanks. Hey, did you hear the news? Polly’s expecting!” Her sister’s hired hand, Nick Wylder, and his girlfriend, Polly, lived next door on Alexa’s ranch.

“That’s great!”

“April’s planning a baby shower for her.”

“I heard a rumor we may need to plan a shower for April, too.” Everyone in town was having babies, it seemed. Hannah hoped her cousin Athena and her sister put in a baby section in the shop they planned to open next month. “Maybe one for you, too?” She waggled her brows at Cass, who laughed.

“Yeah, we’re not going there.”

“I thought things were good with Landon.”

“They are. But no. We’re not doing the whole…thing.” She scrunched her nose and Hannah let it go, curious as to why kids seemed to be off the table. Then again, she hadn’t even seen Cass and Landon kiss or hold hands yet, so maybe it was too soon to start talking babies. She just hoped the two single parents weren’t using each other as parenting pinch-hitters to make their lives easier, and giving up on love in the process.

Although she could definitely see the appeal of bringing in a pinch-hitter—especially since they both had busy lives and neither had their baby-daddy or baby-mommy in the picture.

In the kitchen, Hannah turned on the coffeemaker, then the kettle, and leaned against the counter.“ I heard you two are going to the Dragons’ Christmas gala on Friday.”

“Yup.”

“Do you have your dress yet?” Hannah could imagine the black tie affair, the dresses that Cass and her friends Violet and Daisy-Mae planned on wearing. They’d be gorgeous. Hanging out with NHL stars in a beautiful ballroom. It was all so far away from the life Hannah lived that she wanted to soak up every detail.

“Yup. We’ll have to find you a date for next year.”

Hannah laughed. A date? She could be living in France by then if Calvin liked what he saw when he met with the engineering firm that was calling him over there for meetings. The deal was that if the job looked good the whole family would move so they could still be geographically close to each other. It was an exhausting thought, but she wanted Calvin in her boys’ lives and would do whatever it took.

“Find you a yummy hockey player,” Cass added.

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