was working hard enough on the base before you appeared.” She set the mug on one of the porch steps.
Did he really think she was pretty?
Embarrassed by her own thoughts, she scooped up a handful of snow, packing it down tightly to start the midsection. Sloan added to it until it was so large she needed both hands to hold it. Then they rolled it around on the ground until it was almost as big as the base and they had to wrestle it into place. Once they had it where they wanted it, Sloan lifted Dillon so he could put the head he’d formed on top.
When they were done, Abby stood back and laughed. Dillon’s snowman head was woefully small in proportion to the rest of the monster.
“I’m gonna get the carrot!” Dillon raced into the house.
Sloan moved next to Abby, and she went still when he unwound the scarf from her neck. “What are you doing?”
“Not trying to undress you in the middle of your front yard,” he murmured dryly.
Her 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
