Page 52 of Born in the Spring

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“Nice job, Little Man.” I cheer on Skylar when he finally emerges from the hole he’s constructed in our snow cave. That’s what he’s dubbed the small mountain, too small for me to crawl inside, but he insists it’s ours, and who am I to argue with a determined five-year-old?

“You coming in?”

I laugh at his big smile beneath his squint as he looks up at me. The sun has started to set behind our big mountain, the glares eye level enough to blind you if you look anywhere but down. “I don’t think I’m gonna fit.”

“What?” He pouts, taking my hands as I help him to his feet. He observes our creation—that he gets the credit for building mostly himself—then pouts again before perking up just as fast. “We’ll make you one and we’ll be neighbors.”

I fluff his hair, prompting him to look up at my frown with another squint. “I have to get you back to the lodge.” I pull him into me at the groan he always reacts with when our day is ending. “Your dad is probably waiting.”

We’ve made Tripp wait on us a few other days this week, keeping each other over time. But I enjoy taking care of him when I have him. Soaking up his unfiltered laughter and childlike imagination.

“What about our snow cave?” he asks.

“Well, we can probably leave it.”

He shakes his head. “Nah. It won’t be safe from intruders,” he decides, so serious, and I laugh again as he dives belly first and collapses with the cave.

“Be careful,” I warn him, moving closer as he disappears amoment in the pile.

“Daddy,” he hollers after sticking his head out. He flies up and shakes off the snow, and when I turn around, an approaching Tripp stops in front of me, smiling down at his bouncing boy.

“I told him we’d be here,” Skylar informs me, then looks back at his dad. “Do it,” he whispers, with the sweetest no-nonsense expression.

My breath is harder to take in as I eye Tripp, whose smile falters as he eyes me back, my body tensed to being put on some sort of spot before he evendoesanything.

Skylar releases another groan, knowing him, with an eye roll, as mine and his dad’s just stare at each other. “Daddy’s making my favorite dinner tonight and he wants you to eat it with us.”

My gaze—and my body—stays locked with Tripp’s as Skylar goes on. “Well, I told him to make it because I knew you’d come. You’re gonna love it. He’s a great cook, huh?”

My limbs and lungs loosen with my forming smile the more Skylar prattles on, Tripp himself smiling down again at his son.

“I’m not terrible,” he says, trying to be modest. “It’s an easy meal,” he adds, low to me.

“Ask her to come,” Skylar urges, with a tug on his dad’s hand.

“I, actually—” I begin, finding my voice, “—don’t think that would be appropriate. . .” I finish, more to Tripp, but with a soft tone for Skylar, not wanting to disappoint him.

“It’s fine,” he insists, almost as convincing as he was about the cave. “We say it is.”

“Oh, you do, huh?” I say through the laugh that jolts out of me.

Tripp puts his hand on Skylar’s shoulder with a breath, a lean into his son’s say-so, and I realize he probably needs his support. He’s probably been hesitant to have a woman closer to their lives who isn’t Skylar’s mom.

But now he’s studying me with the same insistence. “I’d love for you to come. We don’t have to put a label to it, just dinner,” he adds quickly, and I warm to his nerves, feeling them like a shake through my own body.

“And a movie!”

Tripp squeezes Skylar’s shoulder with a light laugh. “Okay, slow down, son. She hasn’t even said yes yet.”

“Well she was getting ready to!”

Both their gazes hold to me now, their silence seeming to press in on me as they wait for me to give them a yes.

You’re a part of this family. Always.

Amie’s words knock from where they’re tucked in my heart—my own support an aching pulse, as I consider havingjust dinnerwith a different family.

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