Page 43 of Snow Harm, No Foul

“You’ll never feel like that again, angel. Not with me.”

“I know,” she whispers, blue eyes disappearing behind heavy lids. “Do you want a boy or a girl?”

I pause, considering the options. “A girl would be different. Not sure I’d be any good raisin’ a daughter, though.”

“I think you’d be a great girl dad. You’re burly and grumbly enough for it. She’d never dare bring any boys home to meet you.”

“So, I’d be a scary dad? Not sure that’s the best thing.”

She flutters her eyes open, snagging mine. “You wouldn’t be scary to her. I have a feeling you’d put her up on a pedestal and treat her like a princess. Kinda like how you treat me.”

Something unsettled grows peaceful in my chest. “Yeah, I think you might be right.”

“I’m always right.”

I huff a laugh. “Sure.”

Ivy slips a hand down to rest at my side before digging a nail into it. I jerk to the side and tug gently at the roots of her hair.

Her giggle twinkles through the room before she shuts her eyes again, growing quiet. “Travis’s mom . . . is she going to be upset about this? About us?”

“She’ll have somethin’ to say, but I don’t care enough about her opinion to listen.”

My answer seems to settle her. She holds me tight and snuggles impossibly closer, as if seeking more of my warmth. It’s blazing beneath the blanket and her soft body, but I’d rather sweat to death than release her.

The heat is doing wonders for my exhaustion, anyway. I’ve never been one to fall asleep easily or dream deeply. I’m restless and can be woken by the lightest footstep or breath that doesn’t belong to me.

When Travis was a baby, I’d sleep in the hallway outside of his room with the door cracked open to listen to his breathing. I’d never slept worth a shit before he was born, and once he came along, it only got worse. Twenty-one years later and I’m still not fixed.

Maybe Ivy can be the cure. She is for every other fucking thing wrong with me.

“Do you think the power will be back on tomorrow?” she asks, her voice soft with sleep.

“Not sure, angel.”

“I wanted to do the Christmas market tomorrow. I have a whole bin full of blankets and slippers that I’ve made to sell.”

“If the snow doesn’t stop, you can sell them during the event. We can have a pop-up market.”

“You think so?”

“I’m the boss, aren’t I?”

The corner of her mouth twitches with a smile. “In a way.”

“You’ll have a spot to sell your things, Ivy, and you’ll sell out. I’ll make sure of it.”

Even if I have to haul every single person in town down to buy from her until there’s not one fucking piece of yarn left.

13

IVY

I waketo pressure between my legs and a firm body beneath mine. A moan slips free when that pressure shifts and pleasure spears through me. Blinking quickly, everything around me starts to come into view.

The dim light slipping through the open window signalling early morning, an array of clothing strewn over the table and chairs and on the wood floor. A filmy water glass from the night before is on the desk beside a crumb-coated plate from the toast Niko encouraged me to eat in the middle of the night when I woke us both with my growling stomach.

There are little bits of us all over the office, but my favourite part of it is us. The way we fell asleep together and didn’t dare separate even in our unconscious states.

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