Page 15 of The Christmas Eve Delivery

“It was better than fun, Lydia. I’ll be back,” I said as I rubbed her arm. I had business with Brookdale. Of course I’d be back, especially since I knew Lydia would be here. “You know, I don’t have to go back to the city immediately. I could stay and help you dig out.”

She blinked at me a few times. “Are you serious?”

This time, her smile was bright and full of joy.

“Do you even know how to use a shovel?” She looked down at my feet. “I don’t think your shoes would survive.”

I shrugged her comment off. My shoes were already ruined. I didn’t think a little more water damage would make a difference.

“You know,” she started, “the snow will be even more melted tomorrow. Probably won’t have to dig out nearly so much.”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

She lifted her brows and smirked. “If I got all my chores done early, and if you honestly didn’t mind helping to clear off the porch and steps, we could spend the rest of the day and night enjoying each other’s company some more until you had to leave.“

I liked the way she thought. “Where’s your shovel?”

I started with the porch. The wind had blown piles of snow up against the building. If I hadn’t already known there was a porch, it would have looked like very deep banks of snow. Fortunately, the snow hadn’t been compacted down, and it was more like brushing piles of cold fluff.

Once I was out from the cover of the porch, the snow was very different. It was heavy, full of ice, and wet with the beginnings of the limited amount of melting that the improved weather had brought.

“I didn’t think you had it in you,” Lydia teased as she walked out onto the porch. “I didn’t think you guys from the big city knew how to shovel show.”

“I didn’t always live in New York,” I said. “I’ve shoveled my fair share of driveways and sidewalks.”

She raised her brows.

“Grew up in a small Midwestern town. As far as anyone was concerned, I had an empty mind and a strong back.”

“How long did that last?” she asked.

“The empty head or the strong back? Until the day after high school graduation,” I admitted.

She leaned on the thin column that supported the porch roof. Her hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee. “No more empty mind, but at least you kept the strong back.”

I propped the shovel next to me and leaned against it. This was grueling work, but I spent hundreds of hours in a gym, and not just for my own good looks. My muscles might be a little sore by the time I was finished, but I had the promise of Lydia’s hands on me later. I was willing to bet she would be very willing to massage my aching shoulders.

She held the coffee out to me. “Need a warm up?”

I stepped up the newly cleared stairs and accepted the offered drink. “The walkway would be a lot easier with a snowblower,” I said between sips.

She nodded. “We used to have one, but it died on us a few years ago.”

“And you didn’t buy a replacement?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes, things break and you can fix them. Sometimes, you can’t.”

“And sometimes, you replace them,” I said firmly. I didn’t know why it upset me that she hadn’t replaced the snowblower. Or that the lock and keys on the rooms would sometimes giveout for no reason. I wasn’t financially investing in this place. I wanted to replace it.

But Lydia seemed to have a connection to it, a love of its history. I wish she didn’t. That would make her resistant to my proposal when the time came. But maybe I could convince her that she would be throwing her money away If she tried to keep this place.

“And sometimes, you wish for snowstorms to strand more people in your town so you can afford a new one. But that didn’t happen either.” She pushed off the post and brushed her hands over her thighs. “What’s the saying, if wishes were horses?”

I nodded. “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.”

She shrugged. “Either way, it still smells like a bunch of horse shit to shovel. Snowblowers are expensive, and my late aunt was a spendthrift. You don’t have to finish if it’s too much of a bother.”

“I’m good. Strong back, remember?” I handed the now empty cup of coffee back to her.

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