Page 54 of The Snuggle is Real
“I’m not exactly the best boyfriend material,” I said with an eye roll.
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a single dad now. That’s catnip to women.”
“Just women?” I joked.
The smile melted from Mason’s lips. He gave me a confused, searching look, and no wonder. Why was I fishing for compliments from him?
“Got it!” the photographer called.
Charlie climbed out of the sleigh and I went forward to help her down.
“Can you go help Dottie?” I asked her. “She gets mad when I try.”
“Okay!” Charlie grinned and ran over, looking as if her meltdown had never happened.
“Kids are resilient, huh?” Mason said.
“She looks okay now. I just hope she doesn’t end up telling her therapist all the ways I traumatized her during her visit here.”
Mason snorted. “Please. She adores you.”
“I think she might adore you,” I said. “Maybe even has a little crush.”
“What? No…”
“She ran straight to you for comfort. I’m glad you were here.”
“Me too.” He squeezed my arm, and unlike when Sasha touched me, my chest warmed and I couldn’t fight back a smile.
Mason was becoming a good friend—and it’d been too long since I had one of those.
CHAPTER 15
Mason
I steppedout onto the porch as a beat-up Chevy pulled into my driveway. How ironic that Ford didn’t drive a Ford.
The tires crunched over the remnants of snow that I’d never cleared away. I wasn’t used to having any visitors and preferred to risk slipping to spending time shoveling.
“Be careful!” I called as they opened their doors. “It may be slick.”
Charlie hopped down, paying exactly zero heed to my warning, and darted up the driveway. “Wow, it looks like a gingerbread house!”
Lacy trim along the peeked roof and latticework over the porch did give it that vibe. I’d only seen one other place in town that lookedmorelike a gingerbread house—and that was the Gingerbread Cottage B&B.
But for all the outward charm, my home’s interior needed a lot of work.
Ford walked up the driveway, stepping more carefully. “Charlie, you should be careful out here.”
She shrugged. “If I fall, I get up again.”
I smiled. “Out of the mouths of babes, huh?”
Ford chuckled. “Yeah, well, a fall is easier to take at that age.”
Whether he meant physically—or metaphorically—I figured both were true. Charlie had been a heartbroken, teary-eyed little girl missing her mom at the park. Now, you’d never know it. She was all smiles as she looked around eagerly.
“Where’s Peppermint Bark?”
