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“Nice!” Drew said. Towel around his waist, he draped his soaked jeans over the shower door and returned to the bedroom. Aithan and I followed. We all dressed and headed downstairs.
“Yes, to a walk in the snow, by the way,” I finally replied. “It’s Wonderland out there.”
Snow blanketed the neighborhood. Cars, bushes, trees — all were buried beneath a few inches of white and more fat flakes swirled down from the slate sky. We bundled up and headed out. The air was crisp and dry in the way only a snowy day’s air was. Silence reigned, broken by the distant shrieks of children sledding down a neighboring street and the crunch of snow beneath our boots. Someone had built a snow caterpillar — a snowman on his side, with pine branches for legs and antennae. Snow angels crowded the sidewalk across from our house.
A thirty-ish brunette woman emerged from the Tudor house next door. She smiled and waved as she plugged in her Christmas lights. “Happy holidays!”
“Happy holidays to you!” we called back and remarked on how beautiful her yard looked. Pine boughs draped her front picket fence, tied up with red bows and lit with white, twinkling lights.
“Are you the new owners of Graycroft?”
“Graycroft?” Drew asked.
“Oh, that’s just what my family’s always called the place.” She gestured toward our house. “My father named all the big, old houses on the street.” She waved over her shoulder toward her own home. “The Tatton Tudor. The Pink Pussycat up the street. Graycroft and the Modern Monstrosity.” She laughed. “Anyway, welcome to the neighborhood. I’m Jill Tatton. If you need anything, just come on over. I’m usually home.”
We introduced ourselves and kept walking as she hurried back into the warmth of her house.
Christmas trees illuminated front windows. Strings of lights blinked on in front yards up and down the street. Oversized yard ornaments hung in the trees. I tipped my head back to catch snowflakes on my tongue. Kids ran past, laughing and throwing snowballs at each other. One hit Aithan and he joined in the battle, decimating the poor boys who thought three against one would be an easy victory. Drew and I just laughed. For every ball the kids threw, Aithan fired off two and hit his targets almost every time. The boys finally surrendered, asking if he was a professional baseball player.
“No, but I pitched for my high school team, so you suckers didn’t stand a chance.”
“Next time he’s on my side,” one boy claimed as the group retreated down the street and we turned for home. The snow had lessened. The world was silent.
“It’s so beautiful up here,” I remarked as we stopped in front of our house.
Drew pulled me close and kissed me in the middle of the sidewalk, in the middle of our new neighborhood, in the middle of Queen Anne.
Aithan considered the undisturbed snow covering our driveway, then shuffled his feet through it in careful lines, writing a message in the snow: We Love U.
Drew added a heart at the end.
“Aww, you guys are so sappy.” I pulled them into a famwich hug. “I love you both, too.”
As we turned for the front door, I spied movement in a downstairs window at the Tatton Tudor. Jill was watching us. I waved, but she turned away. Hopefully, she’d be an aloof neighbor at worst. Most of my townhouse neighbors had worked outside of their homes, so I’d rarely seen them. We’d say hello in passing, and I got a few odd looks when the guys moved in, but if they disapproved they kept it to themselves.
“Time will tell,” I murmured.
“Tell what?” Aithan asked as we stomped snow from our boots on the front porch.
“If Jill Tatton holds a high or low opinion of her unconventional new neighbors,” Drew answered.
“You saw that, huh?” I asked.
“Yup. I read curiosity from her.”
“Nothing she can do about it if she objects,” Aithan remarked.
“Except be a nosy, disapproving pain in the ass,” I said.
Drew shrugged. “I’m pretty sure we can be more troublesome than the negative attention is worth.” He waggled his brows at me. “I’m perfectly happy to work in my birthday suit in the backyard.”
I laughed. “Careful, Playboy, Ms. Tatton might approve of the view and ask for more.”
He grinned. “Then I’ll drop my pencil.”
Aithan laughed as he took our coats to the coat closet. “Even I’d be offended by that view.”
“Hey!” Drew protested. “I’m a very well-groomed gent.”
