LITMIR.BIZ

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to the warmth of that scene again. He slid his winter clothes over what he was wearing.

      Tim put him to work straight away.

      Two huge trees and several smaller ones had fallen over the driveway. Branches littered the entire length of the road.

      Ryder soon found himself immersed in the work of cutting the trees, bucking the branches off them. The pure physical activity soothed something in him, much like the punishing workouts he did at the gym.

      Plus, working with a chain saw was tricky and dangerous. There was no room for wandering thoughts while working with a piece of equipment that could take off a limb before you blinked.

      Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Emma leave the house and come down the driveway to join them.

      “They kicked me out. Mona said I can’t even be trusted in a kitchen with full power, but I think the truth is they wanted the baby to themselves. Pigeon convention in full swing.”

      It was only a mark of how necessary it was that he leave that he appreciated how carefully she had listened to him last night.

      “Oh, and I buried the hot dogs in a snowdrift outside the back door.”

      Emma was dressed casually, in a down parka, her crazy hair sticking out from under a red toque. She had on men’s work gloves that made her hands look huge at the ends of her dainty wrists.

      “Tess okay with you leaving?” he asked her, idling the chain saw, worried that the incident with the fire could be repeated now that both he and Emma had left the house.

      But Emma reassured him. “Tess appears to be having the time of her life. They’ve heated up some water. Mona is showing Sue and Peggy how to bathe a baby. They’re using a huge roasting pan for a tub, in front of the fire. I nearly cooed myself it was so darned cute. I told them to take some pictures for you. I can e-mail them to you. After.”

      After. After he was gone. Setting up a little thread of contact, making his leaving not nearly as complete as he wanted to make it. He wanted to leave this place—and all the uncomfortable feelings it had conjured up—and not look back.

      “Watch for the ice,” he told her, not wanting to encourage her to send him pictures. “Every now and then it breaks off the wires or the trees and falls down like a pane of glass.”

      “You watch out, too,” she said.

      “For?”

      She scooped up a handful of snow, balled it carefully, hurled it at his head. It missed and hit him square in the chest.

      Don’t do it, he ordered himself. Despite her acting as if she was as eager for him to leave as he was to go, she was looking for that hole in his defenses again. Intentionally or not?

      Despite his strict order to himself, he set down the chain saw, idling, scooped up a handful of snow, formed it into a solid ball. She was already running down the driveway, laughing, thinking she’d escaped.

      He let fly the snowball. It missed. And for a moment, without thought, without any kind of premeditation, without analysis, he was his old self again, just an ordinary guy who couldn’t stand the fact he’d missed. He scooped up another handful of snow, went down the driveway after her. She laughed and scooted off the road, ducked behind a tree. His snowball splatted against it.

      “Na, na,” she said. She peeked out and flagged her nose at him.

      He let fly again, she ducked behind the tree. Splat. He scooped snow, moved in closer, she darted to another tree. A snowball flew out from behind it, and hit him squarely in the face.

      It was a damned challenge to his manhood! He wiped the snow away and made ammunition. When she showed herself again, he let fly with one snowball after another, machinegun-like. He thought she’d run, or better, beg for mercy, but she didn’t. She grabbed an armload of snow, ran right into the hail of his fire and jammed the white fluffy stuff right down his pants!

      He burst out laughing. “You know how to put out a fire, don’t you, Emma?”

      “Were you on fire?” she asked, all innocence.

      No. Not yet. But if he was around this kind of temptation much longer he was going to be.

      He shook his head, moved away from her, ordered himself again to stop it. But he didn’t. “Watch your back,” he warned her.

      But she just laughed, moved past him down the driveway. He went back to his chain saw, still idling, and stopped for a moment to watch her pulling branches off the road, blowing out puffs of wintry air as she applied herself to the task.

      He frowned. She was tackling branches way too big for her.

      “Save your breath,” Tim said, following his gaze. “If you tell her it’s a man’s work she’ll be trying to find her own chain saw. Stubborn as a mule.”

      But he said it with clear affection.

      “It runs in her family.” That was said without so much affection.

      Don’t ask, Ryder said. He hoped to begin the process of disengaging himself, but somehow he had to ask.

      “What’s her family like?”

      “There’s just her and her mother now that her grandmother died.” He hesitated, stared hard at Ryder, weighing something. “Lynelle ain’t gonna be takin’ home the Mama of the Year award.”

      “But she’s coming for Christmas, right?” Why did he care? Why did it feel as if it relieved him of some responsibility? He had to get out of here. He was not responsible for Emma’s happiness. How could he be? He couldn’t even be responsible for his own anymore. He was broken. Broken people couldn’t fix things, they could only make them worse.

      “Humph,” Tim said crankily, “Emma’s mother, Lynelle, doesn’t give a lick about this place, never will.”

      “It’s not about the place,” Ryder said, aggrieved. “It’s about her daughter.”

      Tim looked troubled, and Ryder could clearly see in his face he wasn’t sure if Lynelle gave a lick about her daughter, either, though he stopped short of saying that.

      “Ah, well,” Tim said. “You can’t choose your family.”

      Since Tim clearly didn’t feel that way about his own family, it was a ringing indictment of Emma’s. Ryder had fished for more information about Emma, but now he was sorry for what he’d found out. She was as alone as he was. Maybe more so. She didn’t have Tess.

      Tim’s revelations made Ryder see Emma’s need to make a perfect Christmas in a new light. It was as if she thought that if she could create enough festive atmosphere, help enough people, she could outrun her own pain and loneliness.

      In a way, he and Emma were doing the very opposite things to achieve the same result.

      Troubled, he focused on the tasks at hand, but despite working steadily they had made almost no headway on the driveway by noon. A bell rang, and Ryder realized Mona was calling them for lunch, and that he was famished.

      “Mama!” Tess crowed when she saw him. She was seated in her high chair in front of the fire, both little girls standing on chairs beside her, patiently working combs and gentle fingers through Tess’s wet hair. She had obviously had a bath, been dressed in fresh onesies from her baby bag, and was proudly sporting a pure white Christmas bow in the center of her chest.

      Emma came in behind him stomping snow off her boots.

      “Isn’t that cute?” she asked. “She looks like a pint-sized queen commanding her attendants.”

      He kicked off his own boots, walked in and inspected Tess’s ’do. The worst of the tangles were out of her hair. Experimentally, he reached out and touched.

      Tess screeched.

      The older girl said sternly, “Tess, that is enough of that!”

      And

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