Page 40 of Please Send Snow
10
JAKE
Iclench my jaw and try to keep my cool, but the way Maddie keeps catching me with my eyes on her is driving me wild.
It’s nothing she’s doing on purpose. I know it’s not her fault. She’s just making sandwiches with my kid, wearing the biggest fluffiest coat my money could buy.
But even the thought of her wearing the stuff I bought for her has me burning hotter than the kindling in the fire pit, and I have to turn away from all of it and focus my eyes on the starry sky for a minute to pull myself together.
It’s been a bad year,I remind myself.I haven’t let myself even think about women. I just need to let some steam off.
But my life doesn’t have space for letting off steam, or even just taking a breath. If I want to rebuild my empire, there isn’t a second to spare.
And I’ve already been played the fool by a woman once. I can’t seriously be thinking of letting myself fall for the babysitter. I’d be a walking cliché.
I’m going to stay in control, even if Maddie is absolutely, positively…
“Beautiful, right?” she says softly, interrupting my thoughts as she sits down on the bench opposite mine. She lifts her face to the sky and between the starlight and the firelight she’s absolutely glowing.
“Freckles,” I hear myself murmur.
“Hm?” she asks.
“Your, uh, your freckles look cool in this light,” I stutter like a schoolboy.
She looks down, her long lashes kissing her cheeks, and I swear if I had nothing left to lose I would throw myself at her feet. Part of me wants to do it anyway.
But I have Dylan. He’s my universe, and I’m going to have to answer to him one day about all my life choices. I won’t have him feeling like I threw it all away to chase some young pretty thing.
“What are you gonna make for yours, Dad?” Dylan asks. “Mine’s gonna be peanut butter andbanana.”
“That’s great,” I tell him. I love it when he’s self-sufficient. “Do we have cheese?”
He looks up at Maddie.
“Yes,” she says, scrambling up. “And I saw you had spaghetti sauce, so I brought that out too, in case you wanted to make a pizza one.”
“Perfect,” I tell her, enjoying her pleased look. “But you sit. I can make my own.”
It will be good to have a reason to occupy myself so I can stop looking at her for a second and get my head back in the game.
Of course she doesn’t sit, though. She comes rightover and helps me. The delicate hint of peppermint shampoo wafts unhelpfully to my nose, and my head is reeling again.
“Did you guys do some writing today?” I make myself ask as I spread some sauce on the bread.
“We wrote a lot of our story,” Dylan tells me. “And I drew a picture of Froggy on a sled.”
“It’s a really great picture,” Maddie adds. “You can see how fast he’s going and everything.”
The two of them talk about their story happily for a bit, and before I know it we’re all holding our irons over the fire and trying to wait patiently for the pies to cook.
Dylan looks so happy. I was worried about taking him out of the city and away from the life he knew, but he seems to be thriving out here. He hasn’t been afraid of anything but the drive on the mountain road, and I can’t really blame him for that. But he’s been game to try just about anything that comes along. I spotted the two of them outside earlier through my office window, trooping around the woods, both looking like they were locked in on seeing all they could see.
She’s good for him.
We get our mountain pies onto plates and suddenly just the delicious scent has me so hungry I don’t know how I’ll wait for it to cool.
Maddie keeps Dylan distracted by telling him knock-knock jokes until she decides it’s okay to take a bite.
