Olivia glanced at Gabriel and found he was staring at her. His intense gaze caught her off balance, and so she was unprepared for the signal beginning the race.
Not far from them, the starter’s gun cracked.
With an indecorous squeak, she jumped, stubbed her toe on the curb and fell against Gabriel’s chest. He was rock solid and smelled just good enough that in an instant she stopped thinking of him as the father of two of her students, or even as a childhood friend, and instead thought of him as a man. Plain and simple.
Although he definitely wasn’t plain, and the situation sure wasn’t simple. On top of which, the crowd pressing closely around them made it impossible to extricate herself.
In Katrina’s aftermath, Gabriel had thought he was immune to the unexpected, but surprise didn’t describe how it felt to find Olivia Marshall up against him. With so many layers of cold-weather clothing separating them, you’d think he wouldn’t be able to feel her heat. But he did. Or maybe it was his own.
For more than two years, he’d been so busy eking out an existence for the boys and himself that he’d had no time for women. No time to acknowledge that he sorely missed their company. No time, now, to separate, as you might under normal circumstances, the simply social or the mildly amusing from the purely physical. He’d been without for so long, his reaction automatically skipped to physical want.
Olivia felt damn good.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding breathy and smelling of peppermint. She struggled to pull away, but the crowd pushed them closer.
He could kiss her, she was that close. And if this had been a New Orleans Mardi Gras, no one would even blink. But this was the Turkey Trot in Hennings. A different atmosphere altogether.
“Daddy! Look at us!”
As Gabriel turned to look at his sons, his mouth grazed Olivia’s forehead and created a spark of static electricity. She gasped and managed to free herself from his embrace—because embracing her was what he found himself doing. What he found himself wanting to do, until he noticed the openmouthed gazes of two adolescent girls, paint palettes and hand mirrors frozen in midair.
“Did you trip?” Justin asked Olivia, innocent curiosity lighting his face.
“Y-yes…I’m afraid I did.”
The girls dissolved in not-so-innocent giggles.
“Because your shoe’s untied!” Justin exclaimed as Jared pointed to Olivia’s hiking boot, its lace dangling.
“That must be the reason,” Olivia replied, red-cheeked.
Gabriel really couldn’t have said why he bent to tie her shoe. Reflex, perhaps. Because in the past four years he’d tied so many, at the twins’ insistence. Anyway, as he bent on one knee and she did the same, their heads met in a painful bump.
“Ow!” Justin shouted in empathy.
“I second that,” Olivia said, rubbing her head.
“Do you two need ice?” one of the face-painting girls asked.
Gabriel rubbed the already rising lump on his forehead. “That would be a good idea.”
“We’ll get some,” the second girl offered, and both headed for the concession stand.
“If this was a typical November,” Olivia remarked, tying her boot, then rising, “we could stick our heads in a snowbank.”
“They have banks for snow?” Justin asked.
Gabriel thought of the difficulty of explaining this concept to kids who’d been raised in a warm Southern climate. “I think this is something that gets explained in kindergarten.”
Olivia gave him a “gee, thanks” look before turning to the boys. “When we get snow—which we should by Christmas—you’ll see that the snow on the sides of the road gets pushed into big humps called banks.”
“If there’s money in them,” Justin replied solemnly, “maybe Daddy can get some for us. We need money.”
Gabriel felt a sudden rush of shame, not at his son’s honesty but at the fact that Justin—five years old—knew they were strapped.
“Everybody needs money,” Olivia said, as if the statement was no big deal. “But you can’t get it out of snowbanks. They’re not regular buildings.” Gabriel liked how she looked at Jared, as well as Justin, when she spoke. Including him, although he let his brother do all the talking. “Maybe they’re called banks because that’s where the snow gets saved until spring comes.”
“I don’t know,” Justin said, shaking his head. “I’m just gonna hafta see one of these things.”
Olivia laughed, and the sound on the crisp, cold air was genuine and refreshing. “After the first snow, your dad is going to have to take you sledding on Packard Hill.”
“That’s what I told them,” he said, suddenly imagining how she’d looked on the Radio Flyer. Her gap-toothed smile lighting the way. Pigtails flying.
“What if it doesn’t snow?” Justin asked. “What are we gonna do then?”
“Well, not sledding,” she replied, “but there are lots of other fun things to do here. In fact, I was just about to ask your dad if he’d let you be in one of them.”
“One of what?”
“It’s our community winterfest pageant,” she said, massaging her head. Her forehead had to hurt as much as Gabriel’s did, but it was apparent she was trying to minimize the pain in front of the boys so as not to worry them. “You get to dress up and sing and celebrate the first day of winter and our famous cold weather. This year, we’re going to have animals, too.”
“Elephants?”
“No elephants, but farm animals like—”
“We’re not theatrical,” Gabriel said. Brants never had been. Walter, maybe. But only for a home audience. “Thanks, anyway.”
“I wouldn’t consider Ty Mackey theatrical,” she replied, with an edge of determination Gabriel found challenging, “but he’s the one providing the animals. Just think about it.”
“Omigosh, we had to chip this out of the concession-stand cooler!” One of the face-painting girls returned with two paper cups of ice. “It’s so cold today nobody’s ordering anything but cocoa and coffee, and the ice had turned to one big lump.” She handed a paper cup each to Gabriel and Olivia. “Whoa, I’m just in time. You guys have matching goose eggs.”
“Thanks for the first aid, Sheria,” Olivia said, pressing her cup to the lump on her forehead.
“No problem.” Sheria waved to Justin and Jared as she melted back into the crowd, which now swept along in the wake of the racers. “Have fun, little Spidey dudes. Hope you like the webs we painted.”
“How do we look, Dad?” Justin asked, turning his cheek for inspection.
“Awesome.”
Sitting in the wagon, the boys threw their shoulders back and their chests out in minimacho postures, clearly pumped by their new superhero markings.
“Are you going to be all right?” Gabriel asked, turning to Olivia. She’d been so plucky as a girl, but there was something unexpectedly fragile about her as a woman.
“Of course,” she replied, as if she read his thoughts and still wanted to appear tough as nails. “You’d better get going. I hear the lawn mowers revving up. And I think Ty’s brought his llamas. The boys won’t want to miss them.”
“Are you going home?”
“No.”
“Then you’re coming with us. So that we can keep