Page 11 of Feels Like Christmas
He didn’t care how old they were. He did not want his kids muttering and whispering about his sex life. Or lack of sex life, as it were.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and then he walked far enough into the bushes so he could water a tree in relative privacy.
He took his time walking back, hoping the kids would forget about his private life by the time he reached them. They’d gear up and start moving and he could pretend he’d never learned his kids thought he was hard up.
“When’s the last time you went on a date?” Maddie demanded as soon as he reached his sled. So much for changing the subject.
“I date.”
She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows in a skeptical challenge that mimicked her mother so perfectly, Ian almost laughed. “When’s the last time you asked a woman who wasn’t already an acquaintance of yours out on a date that was more than drinks or a burger?”
“Probably when I asked your mother to go to prom with me, since our first date was me buying her a burger after a group of us went to the movies.”
“Dad, be serious.”
“I am being serious.”
“How many women have you gone on a second date with since you and Mom divorced?”
“This is starting to feel more like an interrogation than a conversation.”
She hit the button to turn on her phone’s flashlight function and shone the LED beam into his eyes, making him see spots. “How many, Dad?”
“None.” He jerked the phone out of her hand and turned the flashlight off.
“It’s been three years,” she reminded him, as if he’d somehow forgotten how long he’d been alone.
Maddie might look like a grown woman, but she was still his little girl, and Ian wasn’t entirely comfortable having this discussion with her.
“We’re not going to get anywhere standing around this intersection,” he said. “We’ll go left here and head out to the big lake.”
As he expected, the mention of a lake deleted all thoughts of her father’s dating life from Maddie’s mind. “I’m not going on a lake. I told you that. No ice, and you promised.”
“Andy said it’s a ‘can’t miss view’. Mountains in the background. It’ll be perfect for your Instagram or whatever it is you take pictures for.”
“I’m not going on the lake.” When she cocked her head and folded her arms across her chest, Ian had to bite back a smile. It was her body language forand you can’t make me, and he knew better than anybody that there was no making Madeline Emerson do anything she didn’t want to do.
That’s why he’d spent a few minutes with Andy after breakfast going over the map so he could make sure the loop he wanted to do was possible without crossing any bodies of water. Not only because it was far too early in the season to trust the ice, but because his daughter had a fear of it he couldn’t explain, but didn’t push her on.
“The trail goes around the lake,” he admitted. Father of the year, he thought, scaring his daughter to avoid talking about his personal life. “I didn’t forget my promise. I never do.”
The loop took longer than he’d expected since they kept finding cool spots to explore and take pictures, but Ian didn’t mind the delays. That’s what they were out there for, not just racking up miles on their odometers.
They ate a deli dinner from the market where they gassed up after Ian sent a text to the lodge to let them know they were running late and were eating on the trail. And by the time they emerged from the private trail onto the lodge’s property, he was beat.
But they hadn’t been in the room for more than a few minutes before he started wondering what Nola was up to and thinking about her was an even better pick-me-up than a cup of strong coffee. Maddie was in the armchair, going through her photos from the day to share on her social media, and Jacob was on his back on the bed, holding his phone up over his face as he scrolled through who-knew-what.
“I’m going for a walk.”
“A walk to the bar,” Jacob said, with all the innuendo an eighteen-year-old guy could pack into five words. It was a lot.
“Tell Nola we said hi,” Maddie added and, unlike her brother’s, her expression was almost ridiculously innocent.
He might have closed the door a little more firmly than he intended to on his way out.
Nola wasin the kitchen with Rosie when she heard somebody crossing the living room and tried to ignore the tingle of anticipation that heated her cheeks and all points south. She failed.
Since the other guests staying in the lodge were out in Andy’s garage, trying to fix one of their snowmobiles and she hadn’t heard the door, she knew there was a good chance the footsteps on the hardwood floor belonged to Ian.
