Page 11 of Mistletoe and Holly

“Hey, sweet girl,” I said as I walked up to her, giving her snout a rub before planting a kiss on the tip of her nose and giggling when she nuzzled my cheek. “Let’s get you some dinner before I get your stall cleaned out and get you bundled up nice and warm.”

* * *

It took less than an hour for me to get Mistletoe situated, but even in that short time, the freezing rain had picked up, and getting back to the house was slow going. I could hear thunder in the distance, though I didn’t see any lightning yet, thank God. But I knew this was only going to get worse before it got better.

When I walked into the blissfully warm house, I smelled cinnamon and cloves. I quickly took off my boots, winter coat, and gloves before walking into the kitchen to find Shephard at the stove.

“Oh, my God. Are you making your mom’s hot apple cider?” I asked.

He turned and smiled at me. “Sure am. I saw you had all the ingredients for it, and this seemed like perfect hot apple cider weather.”

“That sounds amazing,” I sighed happily. “It’s fucking freezing out there.”

“Ah! Swear jar,” he teased, grabbing said jar off the breakfast bar and shaking it at me.

I groaned and pulled my wallet out of my slightly damp hoodie pocket, grabbing two dollars and stuffing them inside the embarrassingly full jar that was going toward Harper’s college fund.

“So, I promised Harper we could play Clue before dinner if she finished all of her schoolwork for todayandtomorrow right now. And the cider should be about done. Why don’t you go get changed out of those wet clothes and go see how she’s getting along with her math, and I’ll fix us all mugs and get the board set up?” he suggested.

I smiled. “Sounds perfect.”

After I changed into a pair of sweats, a comfy long-sleeved shirt, and warm socks, I decided to go check on Harper and see if she was doing okay with her math homework. She always saved that for last because it was the subject she struggled the most with. Which I could understand, because evenIwas confused by the common core method. I couldn’t understand what was so difficult about just combining the two numbers and carrying the one like I’d learned how to do when I was in school.

Her strawberry-blonde hair that reminded me so much of her father’s fell all around her face as she sat at her desk, furiously scribbling away. After a few seconds, she groaned, turned her pencil over, and roughly scrubbed her eraser over the paper.

“Take it easy on that worksheet, pumpkin,” I said. “What are you having trouble with?”

“This stupid word problem,” she grumbled. “It’s so confusing.”

“Let me see.” I walked to the desk and bent over next to her so I could read.

I found myself looking at a whole paragraph about three people playing a board game with a bunch of questions after it. The basic premise was that the student was supposed to count the points that each player got during the game, except there were so many rules for point counting that if I’d actually been playing this ridiculous game, I would have just given up and flipped the board over in frustration.

“Who the heck comes up with these things?” I muttered. “Okay, let’s break this down step by step. Make a table with three columns and put their names at the top.”

She obeyed, drawing three lines off to the side of her sheet and writing down each of the names in the problem.

“So, each player starts off with twenty points. Let’s put the number twenty under each of their names,” I instructed, watching as she did so. “Now, the first question is how many points totalall threeplayers have at the start of the game, so what’s two plus two plus two?”

“Two plus two is four, and two more is six.”

“Now just add a zero to that, and you’ve got your first answer.”

We worked through each of the questions one by one, and after about five minutes, she was done. When she finished, she put the worksheet in her folder and stuck the folder back in her backpack. Then she turned to me.

“All done?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yep. With my work for today and tomorrow. Mom, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, sweet pea. What’s up?”

“Do you love Uncle Shep? Like, not just as a friend or family?”

It took everything I had to school my features so she wouldn’t see my shock written all over my face.

How had she picked up on that? Had she heard what her grandfather and I were talking about a couple of nights ago? Or was she really just so perceptive that she’d realized something had changed without me saying anything?

I dragged her beanbag chair over next to the desk and sank down onto it. “I know I can’t imagine him not being in our lives. And I know I love how much he cares about both of us.”

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