cheeks went hot. “I didn’t—”
“Not that undressing you doesn’t hold plenty of appeal.”
Her lips snapped shut. She feared her face was as red as her coat.
He smiled slightly. “But a snowman needs a scarf, doesn’t he?” He finally turned away and wrapped the scarf around the snowman’s neck. The candy-cane-striped knit fluttered cheerfully against the enormously oversize midsection.
Dillon’s boots clomped on the porch as he returned. He clutched a long carrot in his fist and reached up to jab it squarely in the center of the snowman’s face. “What’re we gonna use for eyes?”
“When I was a kid, we always used buttons. But we don’t have any spares anymore.” Abby thought about the old jelly jar her grandmother had once used to store spare buttons.
Even though she looked away quickly, Sloan still caught the sudden shimmer in Abby’s eyes.
Fortunately, Dillon hadn’t noticed because he was too enamored of his snowy creation. Sloan gestured at his house. “I have a bag of cookies on my kitchen counter,” he told the boy. “Run over and grab a few. They’ll work for eyes.”
But the boy didn’t race off the way Sloan figured he would. He sidled next to Abby. “Should I?” he heard him ask under his breath.
She brushed her fingers over the cap on his head. “Do you want me to go with you?”
The boy ducked his chin into his coat and gave Sloan a look from the corner of his eye. “He’s really a deputy?”
Abby nodded. She smiled at Sloan, but it didn’t hold a fraction of the brilliance that he knew it could. That it should.
“Look at the truck in his driveway,” she told her brother. “It says Sheriff on the side and everything.”
Dillon looked. After a moment, his chin came out of his coat. “I can go myself,” he announced. Evidently, deputy and sheriff were the encouragement he needed.
“Bring a couple extra cookies,” Sloan suggested. “I think we need to eat a few after all this hard work.”
Dillon nodded and headed across the yard with the care of someone crossing a minefield.
“He’s pretty serious for a little kid.”
“You would be too if you’d had a mother like ours.” Abby didn’t look at him but fussed with the scarf around the snowman’s neck. “I was lucky. She dumped me off on her parents when I was a baby. She chose to hold on to Dillon until he was four.”
“And then she booked.”
Abby nodded. “Don’t know where. Don’t care why.” Her face was open. Honest.
“But you care about buttons.”
“Dillon’s too serious, and you’re too observant.”
“County pays me to be observant.”
Her lips curved sadly. “This is the first New Year’s that I haven’t spent with my grandmother. Every year before she got sick, she’d make black-eyed peas for good luck and roast a turkey with all the fixings.” She looked past him toward the door that Dillon had disappeared through. “She used to save her buttons in a jelly jar. When I was little, I’d string them into necklaces and bracelets.” She shrugged. “Probably sounds silly.”
“Sounds like good memories.”
Her expression softened. And he had a strong urge just to fall into the soft, gray warmth of her eyes. “They are good memories. Thanks for reminding me of that.”
He took a step toward her, not even sure what he was after, but Dillon returned with all of the speed that had been missing when he went into the house. He was holding up a handful of chocolate sandwich cookies. “We gotta put the eyes in! Otherwise, Deputy Frosty can’t see anything.”
Abby caught the corner of her lip between her teeth, and her eyes smiled into Sloan’s. “He’s been promoted to deputy already? What are we going to do for a badge?”
“I’ll draw him one.” Stretching, Dillon worked the cookies into the snow above the carrot nose. They were a little uneven but seemed to suit the small-headed, big-bellied guy.
“What about his mouth?” Abby asked.
“He don’t need a mouth.”
“Sure he does,” Sloan argued. “What if a pretty snowgirl came by and wanted to kiss him?” He enjoyed watching the pink color bloom in Abby’s cheeks.
Dillon, however, wrinkled his nose. “Kissing’s gross.”
Sloan hid a smile. “Depends on the snowgirl, kid.”
“Now I see why you’re not still hanging around the office on your day off.”
Sloan looked over his shoulder to see Pam Rasmussen sitting in her SUV, the window rolled down. She was grinning like the cat who’d gotten the cream. “Looks like y’all are having fun.”
He didn’t want to imagine the speculation going on inside the dispatcher’s busy mind as he started to provide the briefest of introductions.
But they turned out to be unnecessary when Abby crossed the lawn and shook Pam’s hand through the opened window. “I think we actually know each other through an old friend of mine from high school,” she told her. “Delia Templeton?”
Pam clapped her hands together. “Of course!” Her gaze went past Abby to Sloan. “Delia’s my cousin,” she told him. “Well, my husband Rob’s cousin, anyway. And now here you are, playing in the snow with one of our very own deputy sheriffs. What a small, small world.”
Sloan could practically see the wheels turning inside Pam’s head. “What’re you doing here, Pam?” She and Rob lived on the other side of town.
“Doing a favor for my mom. She’s been keeping an eye on her uncle’s house while he’s been gone.” She gestured toward the house on the other side of Abby’s where old Gilcrest lived. “He’s coming back tomorrow, and she wanted the heat turned up for him. Told her I’d take care of it when my shift ended. Never expected to find a little romance brewing right next door.” She smiled slyly as her SUV began slowly rolling forward. “Better get that heat going.”
Sloan managed not to groan. “Don’t pay her any attention,” he told Abby as Pam drove a little farther and stopped in front of her uncle’s house. “She’s always like that.”
“I know.” Her head bobbed quickly. “Delia has shared loads of stories about her family. Everyone is into everyone’s business.” She looked over at Dillon, who’d lost interest in what the adults were doing and was sitting on the porch steps holding two chocolate cookies in front of his face as though they were his eyes. She grinned at the sight and looked back at Sloan. “Do you have plans for dinner today? I’m not fixing anything fancy—nothing like a turkey or black-eyed peas, but—”
“I do have plans,” he cut her off abruptly then felt like a heel. He was aware
