Page 6 of Snow Harm, No Foul

“No problem. Another water?”

“That would be great.”

He takes my empty glass and refills it before setting it back on the damp coaster. I don’t drink from it yet. When the back door opens this time, it’s a large man who appears.

Focusing on not letting my eyes bulge as I stare at his massive chest, I swallow and bring my gaze to his shoes before cautiously sliding it upward.

God, he’s so fucking tall. His legs seem to never have an end, and when I reach his waist, I still have a long way to go. He’s even wide up top, with thick hips and bulky shoulders that are kept straight, his posture far better than mine. Biceps that I guarantee are wider than my head bunch and strain beneath a tight black henley.

Muscles like that . . . they’re the ones that could have him lifting you up and manhandling you with little effort. My pulse spikes to the point I think I can hear it in my ears and feel it dropping lower and lower . . .

Even sitting on a bar stool, I have to crane my head back to find his face. There’s a thick, dark beard around his jaw and uparound his mouth that looks softer than it should, like maybe he spends a few minutes every day taking care of it.

My next breath gets caught in my throat when I lift my eyes past the wide bridge of his nose. I erupt with a cough that tears through the entire bar.

I know the hazelnut eyes that stare back at me. They’re the same ones I remember seeing several times over the nine months that I was with Travis. The last time I saw them was during Travis’s birthday in March when his dad showed up with pizza and beer.

He’s Nicholas Shaw, Travis’s father.

Niko.

My jaw flies open.

“Ivy?”

“Mr. Shaw?”

3

NIKO

The Frosty Mughas been in my family since before my father was born. It was handed down to him at eighteen and then to me at the same age. I never wanted it.

At eighteen, I was a father to a two-year-old boy. Running a bar was not on my list of shit to do, but it was either take the responsibility or live with the guilt of knowing that I’d let my family’s legacy go to a stranger.

What fucking legacy? That’s the question I should have been asking myself.

I was in the back office trying to figure out how the hell this place was going to afford to host another Christmas celebration when Matty came to get me.

“There’s a woman here for you, Niko. She’s real pretty,” he’d said.

A grunt was my reply. It wasn’t until he came up and tugged my notebook away and pointed at my calendar on the wall in front of me that I remembered who she was. I’d been anticipating this meeting for days now. But when I work, I go narrow-minded, lost in stress and planning.

My blood begins roaring in my ears. I feel the pulse of every heartbeat in my groin. Matty leaves me, and I stand abruptlyenough for my knees to smash into the edge of my desk, rattling the contents.

With sweaty hands, I leave the room and plow through the back door, coming face to face with my son’s ex-girlfriend.

Gorgeous Ivy Bell with the heart-shaped face, kind emerald eyes that shine a bit brighter during Christmastime, and a rounded body that appears in my dreams far too often.

She’s short with grippable hips and thick thighs, bright blonde hair that hangs over the swells of her large, heaving chest, and the same deep red lip gloss that I’ve scrubbed off wine glasses and coffee mugs.

I know too much about this woman. Twenty-one to my thirty-seven, she’s a fantasy and nothing more. The kind that gets buried deep down and only comes out when my willpower grows paper-thin.

My body is completely still, every muscle I have strung tight as she drags her eyes up the length of my body with a bravery and fascination that makes my cock stiffen.

If she knows it’s me, she’s hiding it well. It’s more realistic to assume she doesn’t. Her email two weeks ago asking for today’s meeting was too warm and gentle to be knowingly sent to her ex-boyfriend’s father. I may not know the details of their breakup, but I know my son, and there’s no doubt in my mind he was the cause of it.

Too fucking slowly, her eyes meet mine, and the interest in them is snuffed out, replaced with pain.

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