Allison Leigh - A Weaver Beginning

“Dillon,” Abby cautioned quickly. She was still surprised at Dillon’s unusual openness where their new neighbor was concerned. “Mr. McCray might have other things to do right now. It’s New Year’s Day, remember? It’s a holiday. People usually spend holidays with their families or friends.”

Dillon’s lower lip pushed out. “We’re not with our family. And maybe he’s a friend.”

She didn’t dare glance at Sloan. “We just met Mr. McCray yesterday.” Kiss or not, it was too early to tell just what Sloan McCray was to them, besides their neighbor.

“Every time you say Mr. McCray, I want to look around my shoulder for my old man.”

“I suppose it really should be Deputy McCray, anyway.”

“You’re a deputy?” Dillon’s voice went up a notch. “Do you got a gun and a badge?”

“I do, though I don’t much care for the gun part.” Sloan had come down his steps. He was carrying a silver thermal cup in one bare hand, and his eyes narrowed slightly as he took a drink of its contents while he crossed the yard. “And I think just calling me Sloan will do.”

Considering the heat rising inside her, Abby wanted to unwind the scarf from around her neck and ditch it, too, but she resisted the urge. Dillon would think he could do the same, and he was plagued with winter colds. “You need a coat,” she told Sloan. She also didn’t want Dillon thinking he could emulate the tall man from next door, either. “At least some gloves.”

“I didn’t get to come out without my coat,” Dillon said. With his stocking cap, his puffy down coat, his scarf and his mittens, his skinny little body was nearly round.

“And we’ve got to do as Nurse Marcum says,” Sloan drawled. He pulled a pair of black gloves from his back pocket. “Think these’ll do?”

She knew she was blushing. “Not unless they’re on your hands.”

His amusement turned to an outright smile, confirming what she already knew. Spectacular. Definitely spectacular.

And she felt entirely caught in the spell of his brown eyes.

“Hold this.” He handed her the thermal mug and pulled on his gloves, his gaze finally sliding away to focus on Dillon.

“Your sister needs to see what the men can do,” Sloan was saying to Dillon, who beamed in response. He crouched next to the boulder-sized snowball. Dillon did the same, and they began rolling the ball, not stopping until it was even more enormous.

Abby dragged her gaze from the view of Sloan’s backside before he straightened. “Good thing you finally stopped,” she offered. “Or there wouldn’t be enough snow left on the ground to make the other two parts of Mr. Frosty, here.” She held out the mug, but Sloan waved it off.

“Dillon, you start on the head,” he suggested. “Your sister and I will work on the middle.”

“He’s gotta have a fat belly,” Dillon warned.

“I think we can manage,” Sloan assured him. His gaze met Abby’s. “Or did you just want to sit on the porch looking pretty while the men slave away?”

“I was working hard enough on the base before you appeared.” She set the mug on one of the porch steps.

Did he really think she was pretty?

Embarrassed by her own thoughts, she scooped up a handful of snow, packing it down tightly to start the midsection. Sloan added to it until it was so large she needed both hands to hold it. Then they rolled it around on the ground until it was almost as big as the base and they had to wrestle it into place. Once they had it where they wanted it, Sloan lifted Dillon so he could put the head he’d formed on top.

When they were done, Abby stood back and laughed. Dillon’s snowman head was woefully small in proportion to the rest of the monster.

“I’m gonna get the carrot!” Dillon raced into the house.

Sloan moved next to Abby, and she went still when he unwound the scarf from her neck. “What are you doing?”

“Not trying to undress you in the middle of your front yard,” he murmured dryly.

Her cheeks went hot. “I didn’t—”

“Not that undressing you doesn’t hold plenty of appeal.”

Her lips snapped shut. She feared her face was as red as her coat.

He smiled slightly. “But a snowman needs a scarf, doesn’t he?” He finally turned away and wrapped the scarf around the snowman’s neck. The candy-cane-striped knit fluttered cheerfully against the enormously oversize midsection.

Dillon’s boots clomped on the porch as he returned. He clutched a long carrot in his fist and reached up to jab it squarely in the center of the snowman’s face. “What’re we gonna use for eyes?”

“When I was a kid, we always used buttons. But we don’t have any spares anymore.” Abby thought about the old jelly jar her grandmother had once used to store spare buttons.

Even though she looked away quickly, Sloan still caught the sudden shimmer in Abby’s eyes.

Fortunately, Dillon hadn’t noticed because he was too enamored of his snowy creation. Sloan gestured at his house. “I have a bag of cookies on my kitchen counter,” he told the boy. “Run over and grab a few. They’ll work for eyes.”

But the boy didn’t race off the way Sloan figured he would. He sidled next to Abby. “Should I?” he heard him ask under his breath.

She brushed her fingers over the cap on his head. “Do you want me to go with you?”

The boy ducked his chin into his coat and gave Sloan a look from the corner of his eye. “He’s really a deputy?”

Abby nodded. She smiled at Sloan, but it didn’t hold a fraction of the brilliance that he knew it could. That it should.

“Look at the truck in his driveway,” she told her brother. “It says Sheriff on the side and everything.”

Dillon looked. After a moment, his chin came out of his coat. “I can go myself,” he announced. Evidently, deputy and sheriff were the encouragement he needed.

“Bring a couple extra cookies,” Sloan suggested. “I think we need to eat a few after all this hard work.”

Dillon nodded and headed across the yard with the care of someone crossing a minefield.

“He’s pretty serious for a little kid.”

“You would be too if you’d had a mother like ours.” Abby didn’t look at him but fussed with the scarf around the snowman’s neck. “I was lucky. She dumped me off on her parents when I was a baby. She chose to hold on to Dillon until he was four.”

“And then she booked.”

Abby nodded. “Don’t know where. Don’t care why.” Her face was open. Honest.

“But you care about buttons.”

“Dillon’s too serious, and you’re too observant.”

“County pays me to be observant.”

Her lips curved sadly. “This is the first New Year’s that I haven’t spent with my grandmother. Every year before she got sick, she’d make black-eyed peas for good luck and roast a turkey with all the fixings.” She looked past him toward the door that Dillon had disappeared through. “She used to save her buttons in a jelly jar. When I was little, I’d string them into necklaces and bracelets.” She shrugged. “Probably sounds silly.”

“Sounds like good memories.”

Her expression softened. And he had a strong urge just to fall into the soft, gray warmth of her eyes. “They are good memories. Thanks for reminding me of that.”

He took a step toward her, not even sure what he was after, but Dillon returned with all of the speed that had been missing when he went into the house. He was holding up a handful of chocolate sandwich cookies. “We gotta put the eyes in! Otherwise, Deputy Frosty can’t see anything.”

Abby caught the corner of her lip between her teeth, and her eyes smiled into Sloan’s. “He’s been promoted to deputy already? What are we going to do for a badge?”