“I’m better than okay. I’m in heaven. Look at all of this. I’ve never seen so many trees. You can taste the green. And those mountains. Have you ever seen anything so stunning as those snowcapped peaks? And this snow.” Kelsey picked up a handful of powder and tossed it in the air above her. Her laughter bubbled over and surrounded his heart. “It’s so fresh and white. You can almost smell it. I never realized that before.”
Her enthusiasm was contagious. Will grinned. “You need to get out of LA if a simple snowfall has this effect.”
“You may be right.” She smiled. “But it brings back so many memories. I used to love playing in the snow. Cade and I would stay outdoors until we couldn’t stand the cold any longer. We’d have snowball fights, make snowmen and snow angels, you name it. You must have loved growing up here.”
“I did.”
As the tip of her tongue darted out and caught another snowflake, Will watched, captivated. He had to get a grip. Nothing had changed between them; nothing was going to change between them. A few more days and she would be out of his life. The prospect didn’t seem as appealing as it once had.
She spun around again. “All of this in your own backyard… Tell me what it was like to be a kid here—the skiing, the sledding—it had to be incredible.”
“It was great. And not only in the wintertime. We played out here year-round.” He walked toward a patch of trees. The snow wet the cuffs of his pants. “Didn’t matter the weather or the season. My mother just dressed us accordingly. She was an expert at getting us out the door with minimal hassle. My sisters and I used to have huge snowball fights in the winter and water fights in the summer.” He motioned to a clearing beyond the trees. “That was Yankee Stadium, Wimbledon, and Hollywood all rolled into one.”
“Active imaginations.”
Smiling, he nodded. “It was better than watching TV all day, but we ended up with more than our fair share of bumps, bruises, and broken appendages.”
“You and your sisters?”
“Me and Hope,” he admitted. “The only thing that ever happened to Faith was a dog bite from a guest’s pet. You can still see the scar if you know where to look.”
“Your poor mother.” A snowflake landed on Kelsey’s nose, and she brushed it off. “She must have had her hands full with the bumps and bruises, broken bones, and dog bites.”
“Don’t forget the blood.” Will grinned, remembering his mother’s resigned sigh each time something happened to one of them. “There was lots of blood and trips to the emergency room when we were growing up.”
“More credit to Starr.” Kelsey set out to make a snowman. “Good thing I don’t plan on having kids. I wouldn’t be able to handle all of that. I get dizzy at the sight of ketchup.”
He chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
“I won’t need to figure it out.” She patted a ball of snow together. “I’m better off with no plants, no pets, and no kids.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
He stared at her like he was seeing her for the first time. Silence stretched between them. “But you were so excited about your cousin’s pregnancy. Throwing two showers, buying baby things, knitting booties even though you don’t know how to knit. That doesn’t sound as if you don’t like kids.”
“I never said I didn’t like kids. I do. I love other people’s kids. You can spoil them rotten and give them back,” she admitted. “It’s too easy to screw them up when they’re your own.”
His heart squeezed in pain at the thought of her never having a child of her own. “That’s too bad because you’d be a wonderful mother.”
Kelsey dropped the snowball, and it splattered on the ground. Her startled gaze met his. “Me? A wonderful mother?”
The incredulous tone of her voice brought a smile to his face. Kelsey might not think she was mother material, but she was. “I’ve seen you with Midas. You’ve got the touch.”
“Midas is a cat.”
“Doesn’t matter. Even cats need a human mom or dad. And whether you believe it or not, you’ve got the mothering instinct like my sister Hope had when we were growing up. You’ll see what a great mother she turned out to be when she arrives for the wedding with her family.”
As he walked toward Kelsey, she took a step back. No matter. Will wasn’t about to let her dismiss something so important.
“With all you went through growing up, you wouldn’t make the same mistakes as your parents made,” he continued. “I know you wouldn’t.”
“That’s so nice of you to say.” Gratitude glimmered in Kelsey’s eyes and filled him with a comforting warmth. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” One end of her scarf was dragging on the ground. He wrapped it back around her. “So you might not want to be so quick to give up on love and marriage and happily ever after.”
She glanced downward. “It won’t work.”
