Snowbound with the Single Dad

by Cara Colter

  How hard could it be to put any animosity he had coaxed to the surface aside and make his Christmas wish come true?

  Noelle took a deep breath. She knew what would make that little girl happy. The presence of her father. The absolute presence of him, without his emails and his phone calls and all the distractions that he had used to keep from doing the very thing his little girl needed him to do.

  Feeling.

  Noelle realized she wanted to engineer activities so that Tess spent as much time as possible with her daddy.

  “Grandpa, maybe you and Nana could put up the lights this afternoon, after lunch. Aidan and Tess and I will go in search of the perfect tree.”

  Her grandpa looked as if he intended to protest. Strenuously. As did Nana. Aidan looked none too thrilled, either. He patted his shirt pocket, looking for the reassurance of the cell phone that wasn’t there. Her grandfather’s mouth opened. Nana lifted her hand as if in class, waiting for permission to register her complaint.

  But Tess nearly melted. “Doesn’t that sound purr-fect, Daddy?”

  Nana’s hand drifted down. Grandpa’s mouth snapped shut. Aidan gave up his search for his cell phone, squatted in front of his child and let her wrap her arms around his neck.

  “It does,” he whispered, standing with her in his arms.

  Looking at the two of them, an island of desperate need, Noelle felt the enormity of the responsibility she had just shouldered.

  She turned her attention away. “Grandpa? Is there, um, a plan for lunch?”

  Rufus looked inordinately pleased by the question. “Yes, indeed there is,” he said. He pulled a rumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “Today for lunch is pizza!”

  “You have that written down?” Noelle asked, astounded.

  “For every day,” he said. “Finishing with turkey and all the fixin’s on Christmas.”

  He had a meal plan! For heaven’s sake, maybe he had given this thing a great deal more thought than Noelle had given him credit for. Maybe her concerns about his mental wellness had been a bit overblown. On the other hand, he’d obviously been in the planning stages for a long time. Why hadn’t he shared it with her? She intended to ask him that at the first opportunity!

  “I love pizza,” Tess said.

  “I figured you would,” Rufus said, smiling.

  Still, even though he hadn’t shared his idea with her, Noelle had to admit that maybe, just maybe, Rufus had the right idea, after all. Maybe Christmas should bring strangers together.

  “It seems we’re a long way from the nearest pizzeria,” Aidan said with a certain skepticism.

  Then again, maybe not.

  Rufus retrieved several frozen pizzas from his chest freezer. While he scooped up engine parts and spirited them away to a new location, Noelle and Nana cleaned behind him. As Noelle watched out of the corner of her eye, Aidan and Tess carefully read the pizza boxes and prepared the pizzas for the oven.

  By the time lunch was over, some of the tensions had faded. Immediately following lunch, Rufus directed everyone to their rooms. Noelle had, as surreptitiously as possible, inspected them. Again, her grandfather was prepared.

  The rooms were dusted. The linens were clean. The upstairs bathroom was spotless. He’d definitely been preparing for this event for some time.

  Probably he had started just about the time that Noelle had started to hear the change in his voice, from defeat to cautious enthusiasm for the season.

  Why the secrecy? Why had he not included her in his planning?

  Still, despite being a bit hurt by that, there was beginning to be a number of reasons for her to embrace this Christmas plan.

  An hour later, she and Aidan had bundled Tess up and headed outside. Tess and Smiley raced ahead of them through the snow, Tess’s laughter gurgling out of her as the old dog kept accidentally bumping her legs. Aidan did not look at home carrying an ax, but he had looked offended when Noelle had said she would carry it, along with the saw.

  On a high piece of ground, before they entered a grove of trees, he stopped and checked his cell phone.

  “Don’t even bother,” Noelle told him.

  He squinted at her, as if realizing for the first time she was there. He put his cell phone away.

  “So,” Aidan asked, his voice threaded through with cynicism, “why the new plan? You and me looking for a Christmas tree, instead of me putting up lights with your grandfather?”

  The nice feeling of this being a good idea that might work out after all shimmered like a mirage about to disappear.

  Could he seriously not see how important it was for him to spend quality time with his daughter? Could he not see that it was a gift that he couldn’t get cell service?

  Still, didn’t he have to figure that out for himself?

  “You’re onto me, Mr. Phillips,” she said, blinking at him and smiling sweetly. “Despite me telling you I’m definitely not interested in you, you have seen right through the charade, because what woman couldn’t be interested in you, really? So I have engineered this opportunity to spend time with you. I am hoping in the wholesome activity of cutting down a Christmas tree you will see I am excellent with both dogs and children. You will see I am both playful and intelligent, practical and an excellent problem-solver.”

  His lips were twitching reluctantly. “All that in the cutting down of a tree?”

  “It’s not simply cutting down a tree. Selection of the tree is important.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said cynically, though his eyes were still sparking with laughter, “the tree is going to speak to us, if I recall.”

  “That’s right. So add ‘intuitive’ to my checklist as a great mate. Cutting it down and getting it home might be more complicated than you thought. You’ll see my strengths. Naturally,” she said demurely, “I’ll be judging yours, as well. Strength, in particular, is important to a woman searching for a life mate. Possibly more so than intelligence.”

  “This is the second time you’ve brought my intelligence up for debate.”

  “Really? I’ll put it in the plus column. That you can count.”

  “I hardly know what to say.”

  “Yes, well, that goes in the minus column then. A certain social ineptitude.”

  He actually laughed. He was trying hard not to, but he did.

  His laughter was rich and genuine, and it made him quite extraordinarily handsome. Tess ran back to him, delighted by the sound, wanting to be part of it. Did he really laugh so seldom that it drew his daughter’s attention to him?

  “What, Daddy, what?” she insisted, tugging on his sleeve.

  “Our new friend, Noelle, is very entertaining.”

  “What does that mean?” Tess asked.

  “Playful and intelligent,” Noelle supplied helpfully. Was it a weakness to want to make him laugh again and again? And not just for Tess’s benefit?

  He set down the ax, bent down, scooped up a handful of snow and tossed it at Noelle. It happened so swiftly she didn’t have time to get her hands up. The snow hit her toque and drifted down her face.

  “I hope,” Noelle sputtered, “you didn’t consider that a snowball? Definitely in the minus column for you.”

  She bent, put down the saw, scooped up her own handful of snow and expertly rounded it in her hands, compacting it, firming it up. She inspected it, the perfect ball, hefted it experimentally from hand to hand.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, holding up his hands, mock surrender.

  She pulled her arm back. He gave a shout and raced away from her. The snowball exploded in the middle of his back.

  Tess shrieked with laughter. The dog barked.

  “Show me how!” Tess insisted.

  “Hey, no fair,” he yelled. “Two against one.”

  “Au contraire,” Noelle called after him. “All is fair in, well, you k
now.”

  She armed Tess with a snowball. Tess chased after her father, who ran away but slowed down enough for her to get him. The little girl was laughing so hard she could barely launch the snowball, let alone land the target. But she had the idea now. She knelt in the snow, giggling fiendishly as she shaped her next snowball.

  And while Aidan watched his daughter, amused, Noelle crept forward into range and let loose the four snowballs she had made and cradled in the crook of her arm.

  Wham, wham, wham, wham, in quick succession.

  “Where on earth did you learn to aim like that?”

  “I’m a country girl,” she reminded him. “You don’t want to let me too near a rifle if you thought that was good.”

  “Noted,” he said. And then he was leaning down, picking up snow, shaping a perfect hard ball between his own gloved hands.

  Tess shot forward with her snowball and gave him a good hard shot in the knees.

  “Ouch,” he yelled with fake pain, while his daughter howled with glee. He came after Noelle.

  In minutes the air was filled with laughter, shrieking, the dog barking and snowballs.

  Half an hour later, they all lay side by side in the snow, soaked and exhausted from both laughing and playing so hard.

  “Did I win, Daddy, did I win the snowball fight?”

  “Oh, yeah, not a doubt there.”

  Aidan turned his head. Noelle could feel him looking at her.

  “Off the charts in the playful department,” he said. He got to his feet and hovered over her. He held out a gloved hand, and after just a second’s hesitation, she took it.

  “Oh, well,” she said. “When you’re not beautiful, you have to make up for it in other ways.”

  The laughter left his face. He scowled and drew her to her feet, his strength easy. She was standing way too close to him. His scent was heady and crisp. She should have stepped away. He should have let go.

  But she did not step away, and he did not let go.

  “Not beautiful?” he asked gruffly and then even more strongly. “Not beautiful? What?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  NOELLE WAS BEING lifted up by what she saw in Aidan’s eyes, lifted up out of her body and delivered to a place where angels gathered.

  That place was dangerous, she told herself.

  And yet, still, even knowing the danger, it was hard to break the bond between them, between their hands, and their eyes, their bodies so close together, radiating warmth from all their exertions. Even their breath was frosty and tangled, as if they were breathing in the essence of each other.

  Noelle yanked her snow-soaked mittens out of his, but somehow she didn’t move. Couldn’t. He was drinking in her face with a look she could not move away from.

  As if he was thirsty and she was a long, cool drink of water. Or maybe she was the thirst and he was the drink of water.

  “Not beautiful,” she stammered. “I’m not.”

  “What would make you believe such a thing?”

  Her mouth moved to begin reiterating a long list of proofs, but not a single sound came out.

  “I knew it,” he growled with a fearsome anger. “Some dog in your past—possibly your recent past—has made you believe this thing.”

  She could still say nothing, stunned by what she saw in his eyes.

  He wasn’t saying this to make her feel good. It wasn’t some pat line. It came from the deepest part of him, a place where there were no lies or deceptions, only truth.

  And if she doubted, Aidan took off his glove. He reached out with a gentleness that almost made her cry for the affirmation of his truth in it. His hand warm, his skin silk over iron, touched her cheek, scraped it, rested there. She could not move away from his touch, captive to his unexpected tenderness.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said softly. “You may be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  Her mouth fell open. She could feel herself leaning toward whatever she saw in his eyes.

  “Daddy, are you going to kiss Noelle?”

  The little voice, inquisitive, delighted, yanked them apart.

  His hand fell down. He shoved it in his pocket. “Of course not!” he said.

  “No!” Noelle agreed.

  He spun away from her. “I have no idea where that ax is.”

  She scanned the churned-up snow. “When you find it, the saw should be nearby.”

  And then some nervous tension broke between them, and the three of them were laughing all over again, kicking up snow until they found the ax and saw.

  Back on their journey, after the detour, they entered another grove of trees.

  “This is mostly balsam fir,” Noelle said. She took a deep breath. “Can you smell them? I think they’re the best Christmas trees. They’re native to my grandfather’s land.”

  “I can smell them!” Tess said.

  They wandered through them, judging this one and that, Tess leaning close to several to smell them and to see if they whispered.

  “You might want to explain to her the whispering part is not exactly literal.”

  “Ah, ye of little faith,” Noelle said. “When did you stop believing in magic?”

  He didn’t answer that, just looked away quickly so that she knew it had been a long, long time ago.

  Suddenly Tess, who had been flitting from tree to tree like a bumble bee pollinating flowers, stopped. She stood in front of a tree. She cocked her head. She was utterly still.

  And then she turned and looked at them, her face incredulous.

  “It whispered!” she said.

  Aidan took a surprised step back and looked at Noelle. “Exactly what kind of enchantress are you?” he said.

  “Apparently the beautiful kind,” she said, laughing.

  “But that’s the most dangerous kind of all,” he said softly, and suddenly that near-miss, near-kiss moment was sizzling in the air between them.

  Imagine a man like Aidan Phillips thinking she was dangerous.

  Still, she could not linger in the power of that.

  “You don’t know the meaning of the word dangerous,” she said. “But chopping down a tree could change that.”

  “I think there are all kinds of danger, and sometimes the more subtle kinds are way more threatening than the sharp blade of a big ax.”

  “Is it perfect?” Tess asked. “Is it?”

  They all stood looking at the tree. It was about five feet tall, and mounded with snow. Aidan stepped forward and shook it. The snow slid off it and down his back.

  “Just taking one for the team,” he said. “No need for concern.”

  The tree, without snow, was nicely filled out on one side and not so much on the other. Though it looked big from Tess’s viewpoint, it was obviously very small, maybe a little taller than Noelle was. The branches were too far apart in places. There was another place where a large branch had been damaged and all the needles had turned brown. The top had taken off crazily in a different direction than the bottom, giving the tree quite a crooked lean.

  It was, without a doubt, the most perfect Christmas tree any of them had ever seen.

  * * *

  “I’m going to try to break this to you gently,” Noelle told Aidan an hour later, “but you are no woodsman.”

  He had, by now, stripped off his jacket. And his mittens. The sweat was beaded on his brow.

  Really? She could have offered to go back to the barn and retrieve the chainsaw. But that would have taken all the fun out of it.

  Fun and something else. There was something gloriously breathtaking about seeing the male animal pit his strength against the elements.

  Plus, ever since the near kiss, Noelle’s senses felt heightened. The light, especially the way it threaded through his coal-dark hair, seemed exquisite. The sharp smell of the tree had inten
sified as his ax bit into bark and pulp and, finally, sap. Tess’s laughter, as she made angels and covered the dog with snow and wrote her name with footprints, filled the glade with fairy music.

  Noelle’s you-are-no-woodsman taunt earned her a good-natured glare, and Aidan renewed his efforts to chop through the trunk of the tree. Finally, it was still upright, but only by the merest of threads of broken wood fiber.

  “Move the women, children and dogs to safe ground,” he shouted. “Timber.”

  The tree didn’t so much fall, as kind of gently slide down, with a whisper rather than a crash. Several of its branches cracked, making the tree even less perfect than it had been before.

  “That was somewhat anticlimactic,” Aidan declared, breathing hard.

  But Tess was beside herself with excitement. After resting briefly, all of them, ignoring the discomfort of prickly needles and sharp little branches, grabbed on to the tree and began to drag it through the snow.

  Night came early at this time of year, and it was nearly dark by the time they got the tree almost back to the house. They were breathless and tired and utterly happy.

  They paused for a rest as the house came into view. It was drenched in the dying light of the day, in soft pinks and muted golds and fiery oranges. As the darkness deepened around it, an owl hooted, and in the far distance, a pack of wolves began to sing a haunting and wild song.

  “Wolves?” Aidan asked, surprised.

  “Yes, relative newcomers to this area.”

  “Are they on the other side of that field?” he asked.

  Noelle smiled at the fierce, protective note in his voice. “The sound really carries on nights like this. I don’t think they’re close, at all. And that’s not a field, though I can see why you would think so when it’s covered with snow like that. It’s a pond. My grandfather always clears it Christmas Day for skating.”

  “Oh, too bad, we didn’t bring skates. Tess doesn’t have any yet. I haven’t skated for years. And Nana? Can you imagine?”

  They shared a laugh.

  A light turned on in the house, throwing a golden glow out the window and lighting up a pathway through the snow. It beckoned them, calling them home, to the promise of warmth against the cooling of the day, a promise of safety against the mysteries of the woods in the night.