not.” He reached the end of the driveway, pitched the snow to the side with enviable ease and turned to make another pass in the opposite direction. At the rate he was going, the driveway would be clear of the snow that reached halfway up her calves in a matter of minutes.
She ought to be grateful. Instead, she just felt inadequate. And she hated feeling inadequate.
Short of trying to wrestle the shovel out of his hands—which was a shockingly intriguing idea—she could either stand there watching or do something productive.
Like checking the fire and unpacking.
She went back inside. The fire had already started warming the room. Dillon had shed his coat and was sitting on the beige carpet, setting his video games neatly inside the cabinet. “When’re we gonna visit Grandma?”
Abby stepped around his plastic crate and went to the fireplace. “I thought we’d go next weekend.” She moved the fire screen aside and took a piece of wood from the stack. She jabbed the end of it against the burning logs, sending up a blur of sparks before tossing it onto the top. Then she replaced the screen and straightened. “We can’t go every day like we used to.”
“I know.” He pushed out his lower lip, studying the cover of his video game. “Would she ’member us if Grandpa hadn’t died?”
Abby sat down on the floor next to him, pulled off her coat and put her arm around him. “No, honey. Losing Grandpa has nothing to do with it. But we remember her.” She ignored the tightening in her throat. “And we’ll visit her every chance we can, just like I’ve told you. Okay?”
She felt his nod against her cheek.
“Okay.” She pressed her lips to his forehead before pushing to her feet. “Why don’t we leave the rest of our unpacking until later and get the television hooked up. I’m finally going to beat you at ‘White Hats.’”
He snorted softly. “Yeah, right.”
Which just eased the tightness in her throat and made her smile instead. She turned away from him only to stop short at the sight of Sloan standing inside the door. She hadn’t even heard him open it.
“Driveway’s clear.”
She pulled at the hem of her long sweater. “Thank you. I’ll have to figure out a way to return the favor.”
His dark gaze seemed to sharpen. And maybe it was her imagination that his eyes flicked from her head to her toes, but then that would mean it was also her imagination that her stomach was swooping around. And she’d never been particularly prone to flights of imagination.
“That might be interesting.” Then he smiled faintly and went out the door again, silently closing it after him.
Abby blinked. Let out a long breath.
If Mr. Just-Sloan did have a wife, he had no business making new neighbors feel breathless like that.
“Come on, Abby,” Dillon said behind her. “I wanna play ‘White Hats.’”
“I know. I know.”
And if he doesn’t have a wife?
She ignored the voice inside her head and pulled the television out of the box.
Whether the man was married or not didn’t matter.
All she wanted to do was start her new job at the elementary school and raise Dillon with as much love as her grandparents had raised her.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
So she carried the new television over to the cabinet and began hooking it up. In minutes, the distinctive music from Dillon’s video game was blasting through the speakers. He handed her a controller and she sat cross-legged on the carpet next to him as she set about trying not to be bested yet again by a seven-year-old.
She was no more successful at that than she was at not thinking about the man next door.
Chapter Two
“Sloan, it’s New Year’s Eve. You shouldn’t be spending it alone,” his sister, the voice of reason, said through the phone at his ear.
“I’m not interested in crashing your evening with Axel.” Even though Tara had been married to the man for a few years now—had two kids with him, even—it was still hard for Sloan to say his brother-in-law’s name without feeling a healthy dose of dislike. Axel Clay was part of the darkest time of Sloan’s life. His sister being happily married to him made the situation tolerable. Barely. If not for that, Sloan could have gone the rest of his life hating the man. No more than he hated himself, though.
“You wouldn’t be crashing anything, Bean.” Tara laughed. “Most of the family’s going to be here. It’s not like Axel and I will have a chance to be romantic while there’s a half-dozen kids chasing each other around.”
Bean. The nickname she’d called him when they were kids. Considering everything that Sloan had put her through—the disruption he’d caused in her life by the choices he’d made in his—it was a wonder that she could even recall the days when he’d been her Bean and she’d been his Goober.
They were twins. And they’d grown up in a family that never stayed in one place for more than a few months at a time. As an adult, all Tara had ever wanted was a stable place to call her own. While Sloan had kept right on with the rootless lifestyle.
Which was why he was living here in Weaver at all. Trying to make up for the acts of his past. Trying to make things right with the only female left in his life that he loved.
“Fine,” he said. “I also don’t want to crash your evening with the entire Clay clan.” He looked out the front window of his house again. Abby had finally moved her car into the driveway. “Maybe I have plans of my own.”
He could almost hear Tara’s ears perk. “What plans would those be? Sitting in the dark, staring morosely into a beer while you dwell on the past?”
Almost guiltily, he set aside the frosted beer mug he was holding. “You don’t know everything, Goob.”
She sighed noisily. “Oh, all right. But you’re not getting off the hook tomorrow. Dinner at the big house. You’ve already agreed, and if you try to back out, I’ll call Max and sic him on you.”
“My boss may be your cousin-in-law, but that doesn’t mean he’s gonna let you tell him what to do.” In Sloan’s estimation, nobody told Max Scalise what to do, not even the voters who put him in office term after term.
“We’ll see,” Tara countered. “Squire’s expecting everyone for New Year’s dinner, and nobody wants to cross him. Not even the mighty sheriff.”
Squire Clay was Tara’s grandfather-in-law and the patriarch of the large Clay family. He was older than dirt. Cantankerous as hell. And one of a few people in Weaver that Sloan could say he genuinely liked.
“I said I’d be there tomorrow and I will.” A flash of red caught his eye, and he watched Abby bounce down the porch steps. But instead of heading toward her car, she started crossing the snow separating
