Page 35 of Snow Harm, No Foul

“Travis didn’t tell you about us?”

“You weren’t his favourite topic to talk about,” she says with a wince.

I blow out a breath and dig into the second bin, grabbing a tangled mess of multicoloured string lights. Beginning to untangle them, I say, “Tanya was incredibly young when she got pregnant. Both of us were fifteen, but she got the brunt of the judgment in town. It’s why she moved away and insisted on raisin’ Travis in Oak Point instead of Snowbell.”

“Why did you stay here?”

“Tanya and I didn’t get along on a good day.”

Ivy pulls a small light-up tree from her bin and starts fluffing its branches. “Because of what she went through?”

“Because I was an asshole. I was immature and angry with the world because I was exhausted and stressed. We weren’tready to be parents, and we didn’t have a choice but to be. We loved our son but not each other. Every day we spent together made her resent me more.

“Our families were embarrassed by what we’d done and of the way everyone looked at us, so it was only us taking care of one another. I was hardly enough for Travis, let alone his mother, too. It was a fuckin’ mess until we graduated and Travis started kindergarten. My father handed me the bar when I turned eighteen, and I put all of my focus into keeping a roof over our heads. Tanya got a remote job working for some computer programming company and moved out of town, so she decided she’d have Travis. He always preferred his time there, and I let go of hoping that would change.”

I yank hard on the last tangle in the lights and fight to ignore the regret lancing through me.

“There are plenty of things I wish I had done differently in my life. Not spent so many late nights in the bar hiding from my fuckin’ life, for starters,” I spit, shaking my head.

Ivy sets the tree on a table and slips beneath my arms and into the space between them. With the scent of her sweet perfume flooding the air around us, she takes my hands and starts slowly guiding my fingers through where the lights are tangled. A calm in the storm.

“Everyone has things from the past they wish they could change. We’re all human, and that means we have flaws. You’re Travis’s father, but he’s not the perfect son, either. I was around to watch the way he spoke to not only you but those around him, and he didn’t make your relationship easy, either. I’ve met Mrs. Grady a few times, but she was never really my biggest fan. She’s very closed off and protective of Travis.”

Mrs. Grady.It was never Mrs. Shaw.

We weren’t dating when Travis was conceived, and even after he was born, we were together more out of necessity than want.I never contemplated marrying her, and I know how that makes me look. My mother loved to tell me.

Ivy releases my hands and reaches for my face instead. On her tiptoes, she rubs the tip of her nose against mine.

“You’re a good man, Nicholas Shaw. And you’re a good dad. I don’t regret coming here three weeks ago or getting into bed with you. And I certainly don’t regret winding up pregnant with your baby. You’ll treasure him or her, I know it,” she declares.

I don’t know how to put my feelings to words, so I kiss her instead. She leans into it, accepting that this is my way of telling her thank you. That I’m happy she moved to this town and took the job that led her here to me.

I’ll take care of you, I promise with every press of my lips.Of both of you.

Ivy stretches uponto her toes on the top step of the ladder and hooks the string of lights on a nail she’s hammered in. I steady both her and the ladder, hovering at her back.

The blinds are closed on all of the windows now that the sun’s set, but she’s flicked on every light in the bar, complaining about how dim and yellow all of the bulbs are. I’ll have to pick up white ones once the storm has passed.

“I can do this, angel,” I offer for the millionth time.

“And so can I,” she insists for the millionth and one.

My hold on the ladder tightens when she leans to the right and reaches across the window to hook the opposite side of the lights on another nail.

“You’re not balanced at all.”

“That’s fine. I have to move windows now anyway.”

“Ivy,” I mutter.

She pushes at my chest, and I inch back once she starts down the ladder. “Yes, Niko?”

“You’re pregnant. There are plenty of other things for you to do to decorate.”

“See, there’s one thing you’re going to learn quick about me.” Her lips tip up into a smug smile as her finger pokes my chest. “I love being commanded in the bedroom, but outside of it, I’m pretty content taking care of myself.”

I dip my head and speak against her temple. “See? Fuckin’ stubborn.”

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