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She made a face. “No, thank you. I prefer working with music, not fighting for truth and justice.”

One corner of his mouth tipped up in a quick smile, and it did ridiculous things to her pulse.

“Fair enough,” he said.

They rounded up the kids, who were full of news about their new friend and very detailed opinions about the playground equipment.

After coaxing them into the truck again, Hannah passed back granola bars from the snack tote, and in a few minutes, the sound of wrappers crinkling filled the cab.

“That didn’t take long,” Wes said, glancing in the rearview mirror after about twenty minutes.

Hannah followed his gaze. Both children, bellies full and limbs worn out from even those few moments of swinging and climbing, had slumped sideways. Their mouths hung slightly open, their granola bars half eaten in their hands.

“They hardly slept last night,” she said, her voice low. “I think they were too excited about seeing their mom.”

“If you need to sleep too, it won’t bother me,” he said. “You probably didn’t get much either, packing and worrying and doing a thousand other things.”

She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. The cab was warm. Soft instrumental Christmas music played low on the stereo. Snow flurries drifted lazily past the windshield, not enough yet to be worrisome, just enough to make everything outside look soft and hushed.

“I might rest my eyes for a minute,” she admitted.

“Go for it,” he said.

She let her head tip back, fully intending to stay upright and alert. How could she possibly relax around him?

It was her last thought for some time. The next thing she knew, her cheek was pressed against the cool leather of the seat, turned slightly toward him. The steady rhythm of the road and the faint hum of the heater had lulled her deeper than she realized.

She blinked her eyes open to find his profile in sharp relief against the gray day outside. His jaw was set, stubble shading his cheeks where he hadn’t bothered to shave as closely that morning. The years had carved more definition into his face, tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, that faint scar that fascinated her.

He seemed harder, somehow.

Had he found any joy in those years, she wondered? Any release from the relentless weight he carried? Or had work and duty and grief become the whole of his life?

He used to be so funny. They used to talk for hours on late-night video calls, propped up in their respective apartments in different states, doing homework “together.” Sometimes they didn’t even talk much, just kept the call open so they could look up and see each other, toss out comments, share music.

They had lived for school breaks, for road trips that met halfway, for those bright, breathless weekends when they would cram months’ worth of longing into forty-eight hours.

She was remembering one of those late-night calls, the warm, easy intimacy of it, when he glanced over and caught her watching him.

“You’re awake,” he said.

“Yes.” Her voice came out scratchy. She cleared her throat. “How long was I out?”

“An hour or so,” he said. “Sorry to wake everybody, but Kodi needs to take a break again. I pushed it as long as I could.”

“It’s fine,” she said quickly, forcing herself upright. Her muscles protested and she stretched, suddenly very aware of the way his gaze shifted over her, then quickly back to the road, a flash of heat there and gone.

It made her entirely too warm for someone surrounded by snow.

She twisted to check on the kids. Both were stirring, heavy lidded and confused.

“Are we there?” Carter mumbled.

Riley gave his arm a swat. “You’re not supposed to ask that,” she said, though the blow was more of a tap than a punch. “Remember? If we ask, we don’t get Happy Meals for lunch.”

Hannah winced. She had, in fact, made that idle threat earlier.

“I forgot,” Carter said, instantly stricken.