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“You gotta jump, Dad!”
Tad flung himself backward into the snow. The sled shot off sideways and skidded between the trees.
“That was fun,” said West. He frowned down at Tad. “You have snow in your beard.”
“I have snoweverywhere,” groaned Tad as he climbed to his feet. He shook out his pants, shedding huge clumps of snow.
“So, can we go again?”
“Again?Are you—” He caught Sarah giggling, and had to laugh, himself. No one had got hurt, there had been no real danger. And ithadbeen a rush, right up till the end. “Okay, one more time. But not till I get a cup of that cocoa.”
Tad retrieved the sled, and he and Sarah dragged it back up the hill. West skipped ahead to make snow angels at the top.
“I was thinking,” said West, as Sarah poured the cocoa, “maybe in my stocking, I could get a chocolate orange.” He stretched out on the sled, boots hanging off the end. “Beth and Ann got ’em last year, and they said they’re really good.” He kicked off and was gone, hurtling down the hill. Tad watched him go.
“He’s still on that stocking thing?”
“I guess he is.” Sarah sipped her cocoa. “Do you really put socks in there?”
“No. Or, notjustsocks. Last year, I did toothbrushes, all different colors.”
Sarah raised a brow at that, but she kept her lips zipped. Tad turned to watch West bounding back up the hill. He finished his cocoa and rinsed the cup out with snow.
“You ready to go again, all three of us?”
Sarah was ready, and they went again and again—sometimes just Tad and West, sometimes West and Sarah. West dared Sarah to race him, and she took up the challenge, bounding down the hill as he flew on the sled. West beat her, but barely, then she and Tad had to race. The afternoon swam by in a bright, snow-blind haze, measured in wipeouts and cups of hot cocoa. By the time West tired out, the hill blazed with sunset, warm liquid orange giving way to blue.
“I’ll carry this one,” said Tad, hefting West into his arms. “You okay with the sled?”
Sarah grabbed it with one hand, did a thumbs-up with the other. Together, they made their slow way to the truck; together, they got a sleepy West buckled in. A faint memory tugged at Tad’s heart, and he struggled to place it—some other sunset, long, long ago. Some other truck, and Dad…Mom and Dad. Myrtle Beach, that was it, summer of ’93. A long day of swimming, Tad’s parents bundling him into the car. Mom beaming down at him, just like Sarah with West.
Family,he thought. He waited for the familiar prick of anxiety—Sarah wasn’t his family; this wasn’t his home—but it never came. Instead, he found himself smiling as he piled into the truck.
* * *
“We shouldn’t have stayed out so late.” Tad dialed another number for the company that had supplied the wood for Sarah’s kitchen floor. He bit back a curse when it bounced straight to voicemail. “No one’s picking up.”
Sarah made ahmmsound, still tapping at her laptop.
“You don’t get it,” said Tad. “It’ll take me a day just to measure all the wood, then cut it to size and buff out any damage. Then I’ll need a day to install it, and a day to refinish…” He threw up his hands. “If it doesn’t get here, our whole schedule’s off. For your kitchen, for the Whites, for your Uncle Vince.”
“We’ll fix this,” said Sarah, without looking up.
“How?” Tad tossed his phone on the table. “No one’s picking up.”
“It’s after business hours, and a holiday to boot.” Sarah swiveled her laptop so Tad could see. “How about this for my kitchen?”
Tad leaned in. “What’s that?”
“Uncle Vern just tore down his old barn. He’s got a stack of reclaimed wood as high as your head, and he’ll let us have it…in exchange for a week’s babysitting.”
Tad pulled the laptop toward him and peered at Vern’s e-mail. “I don’t think so,” he said. “That wood’s pretty old, and some of it’s warped. It’ll need to be planed and sanded, and that takes a while.”
“So I’ll pitch in too, and we’ll ask Will and Suzanna to help. We’ll have a wood-planing party, then we’ll buy them dinner.” She set her hands on Tad’s shoulders. “Come on, relax. I can feel you tensing up.”
“Because our wood’s gone missing somewhere in Alabama.”
“But we could have Vern’s stock, and all it would cost us is one dinner out.”
