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“A hood is not nearly as good at keeping your head warm as a hat. Now, if you want to put your hood over the hat because your precious manliness cannot handle a simple, white stocking cap.”

“It has a…thingamajiggie on the top,” he replied, pointing to the ball-shaped tassel.

“It’s just one little pom,” she said, jiggling it as if that would make it somehow less offensive.

“I was a Navy SEAL, Monica. Current or former SEALs do not wear pom-fucking-poms.”

“Who are you afraid is going to see you? The great god of masculinity?”

“I’m not wearing a hat with a pom on it. That’s final. The much bigger issue at hand is we don’t have a shovel.” He picked up the pots they’d gathered. It was the best option they’d been able to find for snow relocation.

“There’s a utility shed out back that might have some, but with the back door iced shut, we’d have trouble getting to it.”

“Have to get to the wood anyway. Might as well try.” Gabe opened the door and braced himself against the icy wind and blinding whiteness of it all.

Once his eyes adjusted, he could notice the sky above was almost as blindingly blue as the world below was blindingly white. But that was good. Sun shining might cause retinal damage, but it would also help melt some of the snow.

“I don’t suppose you have any sunglasses I wouldn’t be ashamed to wear?”

“How do you feel about purple?”

“I can pull off a purple as long as they don’t have sparkles.”

She rolled her eyes and went back inside, rummaging around in the kitchen for a few seconds. Gabe nudged the snow in front of him. Quite the mixture of hardpack and fine, blow away.

Monica returned to the doorway and handed him a pair of black sunglasses with a smirk. “Do I really strike you as the purple sunglasses type?”

“A few days ago, I would have said no, but I’ve seen your Christmas sheets. Now, nothing about you would surprise me.”

They both stepped forward, Monica trying to lever herself up into the snowbank. She sank to about waist deep. He tried to stifle a laugh, but she looked a little too ridiculous.

“I can handle this. You stay inside.”

She shook her head and began pushing through the snow with her gloved hands. “I might as well help. I don’t want to freeze for lack of firewood any more than you do.”

“Too bad we didn’t have electricity for your hair dryer idea.”

“If we had electricity, we could stay happily inside for the foreseeable future. Now hand me a pot.”

He handed her one of the pots without saying anything. There was nothing to say when that scenario would be a little too much of a fantasy he shouldn’t have.

Staying in the fictional world of snowed-in cabins and just him and her. Which was a fantasy she wouldn’t share because she missed her kid.

Somehow thinking about Colin in terms of this fantasy made it worse. He wouldn’t mind if the kid were here. Sure, it would cut back on the sex considerably, but he liked having Colin underfoot. He liked being with Monica. Put the two together and…

He wished he were Alex or Jack, wished he had that kind of certainty in right things and building. To them, the situation would be a no-brainer: build a foundation, forge a relationship and a future. He didn’t know how to be the kind of strong that justbuiltwhole worlds.

Alex had built Revival with Becca at his side. And she’d built plenty of Revival herself, with the therapeutic horsemanship. Jack had built a new life after his old one had imploded. He was building something so that Rose could trust it.

Gabe had to uncomfortably consider Rose for a second. The fact she’d had an even worse childhood than he had, and yet slowly, she was coming to accept Jack’s strength, a future with him, and a kid.

Gabe couldn’t allow himself to fall into the foolish trap of thinking he could do what other people did. After he’d set that fire at his mother’s wedding, he’d spent years trying to atone for it, trying to turn himself into something Evan would accept or at least would pretend didn’t exist.

He’d gotten excellent grades and never gotten in trouble at school, no matter how much he’d wanted to sometimes. He’d tutored Evan’s two kids from his previous marriage, Jenna and Zack. He’d sat with them and the three kids his mother had had with Evan later, through nightmares and illness. He’d been the best older brother to them he’d known how. He’d done everything he thought of to earn himself a place in Evan’s house.

The harder he’d tried, the more Mom had withdrawn. The harder he’d tried, the more Evan said he was the bad seed making everything problematic at home.

And then Jenna…