“Yay!” The younger kids jumped up and down as I untied my scarf and tied it around his neck.

“Now let’s make a snow lady,” Winnie suggested. “We don’t want the snowman to get lonely.”

Everyone agreed, so we started rolling a large snowball for the bottom. I was helping to push it along when I heard Keaton yell, “Mom! Come see our snowman!”

I looked up to see Sylvia walking across the lawn toward us, all bundled up with her hands tucked into her pockets. My body warmed despite the cold.

She smiled at me. “Hey, guys. Hi, Henry. Playing hooky from work?”

“Mr. DeSantis gave us his scarf to use on the snowman,” Whitney said excitedly. “Can we have yours for the snow lady?”

“Sure,” she said, laughing as she unwound it from her neck. “That was very nice of him. Did you say thank you?”

“Thank you,” Whitney said to me with a guilty smile. Her lips were neon pink, and she wore eye makeup too. I recalled what Sylvia had said about Whitney painting her face and felt sorry for them both. This was exactly the kind of parenting issue I wouldn’t want to navigate as a single dad.

“You’re welcome,” I said, rising to my feet. “Is this where you guys want the bottom of the snow lady?”

“That’s good,” Millie decided. “Let’s make the middle and top of her now.”

“And then let’s give them some kids!” Felicity shouted.

The kids got busy rolling more snowballs, and I moved closer to Sylvia. We stood elbow to elbow, but not near enough to touch. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Kids have fun at their sleepover?”

“Not as much fun as I had at mine,” she murmured.

I laughed. “They seem like they’re in good spirits today.”

“I think they are. They loved the skiing idea.”

“Good.”

“I booked us a weekend at Boyne in January.”

“Excellent. You’ll have fun. Lots of snow this year.”

She was quiet for a minute, and when she spoke it was nearly a whisper. “I can’t stop thinking about last night.”

“That makes two of us.”

She laughed softly. “I wish I knew when we could do it again.”

“Again, that makes two of us.”

She inched a little closer to me. “Maybe I could come by the winery later tonight. Since I’m working in the tasting room tomorrow, I thought maybe you could teach me some things.”

Her sex-kitten tone told me she wasn’t thinking about things like the body profile of our pinot noir. My cock twitched in my pants, and I cleared my throat. “You can come by the winery tonight.”