Raising her arm as if to put it around him, she stuffed a handful of snow down the back of his neck.

“Holy shit!” He jumped up and shook the snow out of his clothes while she lost it laughing.

“Hey, you two,” Linc called. “No playing until the work is done.”

“It’s him.” Emma pointed a gloved thumb at Grayson. “He started it.”

Glowering at her even as he delighted in her playfulness, he said, “You’ll pay for that later.”

“Promises, promises.”

The comment, the look she gave him and the meaning in her words made him hard—again. Had shoveling snow ever been so fun?

Chapter 4

Love is our true destiny.

We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone

—we find it with another.

—Thomas Merton

They left Lincoln and Molly’s a short time later and headed for Grayson’s mother’s home to dig her out. When he pulled up to his mother’s house, he saw that Noah had used the plow on his truck to do the driveway.

“Noah was here with the plow,” Grayson said, parking behind his mother’s sedan. “That makes things easier.”

“I’ve never seen this much snow except during a blizzard.”

“Wait till you see a blizzard in Vermont. That’s some real snow.”

“What’s this? Fake snow?”

“This is a whimper. That’s a roar.”

“It’s kind of exciting,” she said.

“What is?”

“The snow.”

Rolling his eyes, he said, “There’s nothing exciting about snow when you have to deal with it as much as we did growing up.”

“I like the way it interferes with plans and forces us to slow down. Life is so busy and rushed, but when it snows, everything stops for a little while.”

“I guess that’s true.” He ushered her into his mother’s mudroom ahead of him. They removed their boots and coats before proceeding into the kitchen, where his mom was drinking coffee and watching the news on the small TV Grayson had given her for Christmas. “I would’ve set that up for you,” he said of the TV.

“I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself,” she said. “Hi there, Emma. There’s more coffee if you’re interested.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Coleman. I had my daily quota at Molly’s.”

“Call me Hannah, please. I’m the old Hannah in this family. My niece is the young pretty one.” She tipped her face up to receive a kiss from Grayson. “You sleep okay at your aunt’s house?”

“Like a rock,” he said, echoing what Emma had said earlier. “I need to go change my clothes. Somehow I managed to get wet shoveling snow this morning. Be right back.”

Emma giggled, and he rushed upstairs to take a quick shower and change. He didn’t want to waste a minute of this day with her.