Page 37 of Almost Perfect
“Just fine. I’m about to make a snowman.”
“Man? Not woman?”
“Yeah. Getting snowwomen anatomically correct is a lot harder than you’d think.” I sat up, and he reached out a hand.
A wish that we weren’t wearing gloves shot across my mind like a wayward burnt-out star. He hauled me up but pulled with enough force that I stumbled into him. He grabbed my jacket with one hand and clutched me close with an arm around my back to steady me.
“You okay?” he asked, those bright blue eyes more gray today to match the snow sky.
“Yeah, of course.”
He nodded but didn’t release me. Our breaths mingled in the chilled air between us. A beat passed, and my heart took off from the starting line. Suddenly, every molecule in my body was screaming,Kiss me!Like that was something we’d gotten even remotely close to. Like that was something he would do.
But the look in his eyes…wow. It promised things. It threw me over his shoulder and carried me to a warm bed. It activated a part of me I generally ignored.
At the intensity in his gaze, my stomach dropped down into the packed snow at my feet.
He let me go, and I stepped back.
“Need help? With your snowman?”
I smiled at the earnest tone. “Why yes, kind sir. I do find rolling balls of snow to be particularly troublesome.”
He shook his head, not amused, but dropped to his knees next to me and began packing a ball of snow. I got to work too, more pleased by his choice to help me than I should’ve been, and soon enough, we were both shoving ever-growing boulders along winding paths. His came up to his waist before he stopped. “This looking big enough for a base?”
I beamed at him. “That looks amazing, and I’m not sure how we’re going to get a third one on top if we use mine.”
Rolling my giant snowman’s torso along, I savored the squeak and crunch of the snow. It was perfect packing snow. By the time I reached him, I was grinning to myself and felt his eyes on me.
“What’s got you so smiley?” The tilt of his head to one side was, for some reason, adorable.
“I was just thinking how this whole afternoon has taken me back. The last time I played in the snow, I was a kid. It feels a little bit like that, and the snow is perfect. The sky is perfect.”
You’re perfect, I didn’t say, because that was just ridiculous.
“We used to play out here. Warrick broke an arm. Wilder broke his nose. I got frostbite on my big toe because I was too stubborn to come in during a day-long snowball fight.” He shook his head as he gazed out at the space between the barn and the main house.
“Your poor mom. I bet you three boys were a handful.”
He gave me a boyish grin and raised a brow. “You have no idea.”
There it went again—my body tightening under his attention, anticipating. Instead of saying something like “Maybe you should show me,” I returned his smile and smoothed a hand over one curve of my creation. The man muddled my mind, smashed my reason like a trampled patch of grass. I couldn’t think straight when he shared a smile with me, especially now that I knew how rarely he did so.
Soon, we heaved the middle onto his larger base roll, and it stood just shorter than him. Gazing up at our creation, the giggle burst out of me. And yeah, it was an actualgiggle.For the second time since arriving here in Silverton.
“What?”
“Something tells me this snowman is going to remain headless.”
Wyatt adjusted his stance, folding his arms over his wide chest. “Maybe he’s a two-level kind of guy. I mean, he’s nice and tall. He’s a good height.”
He brushed a gloved hand over the top of the snowman and pulled it across like he was measuring how tall it stood compared to him. It came to his forehead.
“I do like ’em nice and tall,” I said, almost under my breath but not quite.
“Do you?”
The tone of his voice caught me off guard. He had been joking, but this came out low and quiet. It came out like he wondered what I liked, as though knowing mattered to him.
