There was laughter and running and people darting among trees and behind playground equipment and the dull thud of snow as it found its target. It looked like everyone who’d been invited to lunch was in on the action. She didn’t know them all, but she spotted a non-uniformed Arlo and Della, who was apparently his sister, and Tucker from Jack’s. There was also Drew who she’d met last week. Molly and Marley were proving very accurate, as was Wyatt Carter, despite the handicap of balancing five-year-old Henry on his shoulders.

A pregnant Jenny was sitting it out, smiling at the antics of her husband and son as she chatted to Cora on a bench near the swings. Even her parents were enjoying the action from another bench. Suddenly Burl spotted them from across the street.

“Grady!” he bellowed, and everyone in the park stopped what they were doing to greet the newcomers. Grady dropped her hand like it’d just bitten him.

And the little flame of hope sputtered and died.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Suzanne’s heart felt like a boulder in her chest as she crossed the wide road to the park. Grady stayed close, but his hands were shoved in his coat pockets, and there might as well have been an interstate between them after his obvious attempt to distance himself.

“Watch out, Grady,” Burl called from behind a tree as their feet crunched onto the snowy ground and Grady laughed and easily ducked the snowball before scooping snow up and heading in his uncle’s direction, which signaled a general resumption of the battle.

Suzanne headed for the bench where her parents were sitting, although not without Winona’s snowball hitting her square in the back. “Bull’s-eye,” Winona shouted.

Suzanne laughed but wasn’t in the mood to retaliate. She slid onto the seat next to her mother, pleased for the thermal layer beneath her jeans to stop her from literally freezing her ass off. “Okay, Dad. You’re relieved. You go play—I’ll sit with Mom.”

Her father shot her a rueful smile. “It’s fine,” he dismissed.

“Dad. I know you’re dying to join in the fun.” One thing Albie St. Michelle liked was a good snowball fight. Suzanne had spent hours in snowy battle with him in Central Park over the years.

“Go on, darling,” her mom said, giving her father’s knee a squeeze. “I’m fine.”

“If you insist,” he said with a grin and a kiss to his wife’s cheek that seemed more brotherly than husbandly, which would have bothered Suzanne more had she not had her own relationship—such as it was—to dwell on.