After she’d gone, I cleaned up the kitchen, took a quick shower, got dressed, and headed into work. Since it was Sunday and the roads were shitty, traffic wasn’t bad at all. There were cars in the employee lot at Cloverleigh Farms since the inn would open up again today, but the winery wouldn’t open again until tomorrow, so I had the place to myself.

My mood was the best it had been in a long time—go figure—and I went about my work feeling upbeat and optimistic. Normally when the temperatures dropped below zero, I lost sleep worrying about my vines, but last night I’d slept like a baby.

Around noon, I ran out for a quick lunch, and when I came back, I saw Sylvia’s kids plus Mack’s three girls out on the lawn between the inn and the winery playing in the snow. It made me smile—I remembered how much fun my brothers and I used to have outside during winter, until one of us took a hard-packed snowball in the face and went in crying to our mom. Since none of us would ever admit who had thrown it, we’d all get sent to our rooms. But then she wouldn’t be able to stand the noise in the house, and she’d send us outside again.

After parking my truck, I walked by the kids and gave them a wave. Then I noticed they were having trouble pushing a massive snowball that would undoubtedly be used as the bottom third of a snowman.

“Mr. DeSantis!” cried Mack’s oldest daughter, Millie. “Can you help us? We made the butt too big!”

I laughed. “Sure.”

Once I managed to push the giant snowball where they wanted it, we went to work making the rest of the body. When all three snowballs were stacked, we went hunting for things to use for his face and clothing. On the ground we found two shriveled crab apples to use for his eyes. In the stables, someone found half an abandoned carrot. Mack’s daughter Felicity thought of using small stones for the mouth, so we trudged through the snow toward the creek to find some. Whitney found sticks for the arms, and in the barn, Keaton spotted an old hat on a hook in the wall. I lifted Mack’s little daughter Winnie up so she could place it on our snowman’s head.

“But he’s going to be cold,” she said in dismay. “He needs a scarf.”

“He’s a snowman, dummy,” Felicity scolded. “He doesn’t get cold.”

“Then why would he need a hat?” she said, giving her sister the stink-eye. Then she turned to me. “Mr. DeSantis, could we use your scarf? Then he won’t be cold.”

One look at her big eyes peering up at me, and there was no way I could refuse. “Of course.”