would have done a few things to bring a holiday mood to the house but considering her marriage was in trouble and she was pregnant with twins, perhaps she hadn’t quite had the energy.
Not her business, Devin reminded herself. She had done her kind deed for the day, gathering freezer meals for him in an effort to take one thing off his plate until he could hire a housekeeper. She couldn’t jump in and start decorating his house.
Why was she so drawn to help him?
The children, she told herself. It was all about the children. Cole Barrett could sit here in his cold, cheerless house for all she cared, but these children needed more.
“Do you have a Christmas tree?” Ty asked her, his breath coming in puffs as they pushed the big ball across the yard one more time, working together to pat on more snow as they went.
“I do. I have a couple of them, one in my bedroom and one in my family room. They don’t have very many decorations on them. I have two cats named Seamus and Simone, a tiger-striped and a black cat, and they like to knock off the ornaments.”
“You don’t have a little boy or a little girl?” Ty asked.
Devin forced a smile, ignoring the familiar crampy ache around her heart. “No. I’m afraid not.”
“But you have two cats,” Jazmyn said. “I’d like to have a cat. If I did, I would name her Penelope and call her Penny.”
“Sounds like you’ve given it some thought.”
“I have. I’d like a cat or a puppy.” She went on about the time she, Ty and their mother had lived in an apartment building and the lady next door had four cats and let Jazmyn come over sometimes to pet them and help give them food and water. From there, she chattered about how easy school was for her because they were behind the school where she used to go, about her favorite TV show, about the trip to Disneyland her grandmother had apparently promised her.
Whenever his sister stopped to take a breath, Ty interjected his own occasional commentary—about the new brick set he wanted for Christmas, about the horse his father said he could get someday and about his new friends at school.
In the process, they finished the midsection of the snowman and worked together on the final ball.
“That is the perfect snowman head,” Jazmyn declared. “It’s not too square and not too tall.”
“I agree. Can you help me lift it up?”
The two of them worked together to heft the large ball onto the top of the snowman and pat a little more snow in to anchor it in place. Then it was time for the finishing touches.
“What a good idea you had to bring out a scarf. That’s just what he needs,” Devin said, which made Jazmyn preen. Devin wrapped the scarf around, even giving it a jaunty, complicated knot.
“We have to put on a face now! I’m going to go see if there’s a carrot in the refrigerator.”
“Good thinking. While you’re doing that, we’ll look for some sticks for the arms and something to use for eyes and a mouth.”
She and Ty easily found sticks as well as an abundance of pinecones perfect for crafting the snowman’s face and buttons down his front. She was lifting the boy up to wedge in a couple of pinecones for his eyes when Jazmyn returned from the house.
“No carrots,” she said in a tone of deep disgust. “All we had were dinky baby carrots and that would just look stupid. But I did find an orange plastic cup. I thought that might work.”
“Nice save.” Devin smiled. “I think that should do very well.”
“And look what else!” She pulled a battered black cowboy hat from behind her back. “This is the perfect hat for a snowman who lives on a ranch like us.”
“As long as that’s not your dad’s best hat.”
“He never wears it. He has a different one. I think this is an old one.”
She could only hope so. Cole could always take it down if he didn’t want it on the snowman. With a mental shrug, Devin pointed to the cowboy. “You’d better do the honors and put on the finishing touches.”
Looking much less surly than she had when they started, Jazmyn reached as high as she could to shove in the nose but she couldn’t reach the top so Devin scooped her up and held her while she positioned the cowboy hat at a jaunty angle.
“There. Perfect.”
“It’s the best snowman ever,” Ty declared.
“I don’t know if it’s the best one ever but it’s the best one I’ve ever built,” Jazmyn agreed.
Devin fought a smile. Beneath her contrariness, Jazmyn was actually a very sweet girl. She simply had strong opinions and wasn’t afraid to share them. That wasn’t a bad trait at all, only one that perhaps needed tempering. She needed to learn that her viewpoint didn’t necessarily trump all others.
“We should build a friend for him,” Ty said.
“Looks like he already has some.” Devin pointed to a couple of finches who had fluttered to a landing atop the snowman’s hat.
Both children giggled and they stood still for a moment, watching the birds hop around the hat, while the beautiful view of the lake and valley stretched out below them.
“Can we build another snowman?” Jazmyn asked. “That way he won’t have to be alone here when the birds fly away and it gets dark.”
“It can be smaller. Maybe like a big brother and a little brother,” Ty said.
“Of course. Now that we know how to do it, we should be able to make one in a snap.”
They had finished the bottom two balls when she noticed a man come out of the small house not far from the main house. He picked up a snow shovel from the porch and started working on the small driveway and walkway, all of which looked mostly clear.
He seemed to be watching them all intently. When Jazmyn spotted him, he waved. She returned it kind of halfheartedly, then dropped her hand quickly.
Even from here, she thought the man’s shoulders slumped a little.
“Who’s that man?” she asked Jazmyn.
“Oh.” The girl shifted her gaze guiltily. “That’s our grandpa Stan. Don’t tell my dad I waved at him, okay? We’re not supposed to talk to him, never ever ever. We’re supposed to pretend he’s invisible.”
Ty glanced down at the little house. “Dad says if we ignore him, maybe he’ll go away, like a stray dog.”
“But then he said we shouldn’t say that because it’s not very nice to stray dogs,” Jazmyn added.
She remembered what Tricia had said the night before. I’m not saying Cole doesn’t have his reasons for being angry, but people can change, right? Dad is trying.
What problem did Cole have with his father? It must
