Of all the days to check, today would be that day.

Fuck, I like her.

And I can’t.

“What do the goats do when it snows?” I ask.

“Pop has a barn that he opens up so they can hide in there. Plus, everyone donates to the wild goat fund at the Pirate Festival every summer, so there’s goat food stocked in there year-round too.”

I lean on my shovel. Wind’s not so great when you’re in nothing but boxers and boots and standing still. Didn’t notice while I was shoveling. But I’d still rather be out here without any more layers. My body runs hot enough as it is. “So they don’t need everyone in town to feed them.”

“Nope, but if it makes your heart happy to take care of an animal, then take care of an animal. You could adopt one like Grady did. Goatstradamus really seems to like you. And if he’s anything like Grady’s goat, once you let him inside, he’s yours forever.”

“I’m not taking a goat back to the city. Who the fuck would feed him while I’m—”

She smiles, and it’s a warm, crinkly-eyed, tooth-showing, pretty kind of smile that reminds me exactly why Cooper feels the need to tell the rookies and new guys every year that his sister’s off-limits.

She’s fun. She’s smart without being a know-it-all. She’s entertaining without being a ham. And she’s gorgeous.

Cocky too, but I hurl fastballs near a hundred miles an hour for a living and know I’m a god on the mound. I’m not one to judge cocky. And if I’d grown up knowing I fit, that I was where I belonged, and that people around me loved me enough for me to be myself, yeah, I’d be the Rock kind of cocky as well.

I shake my head. “Right. You’re joking.”

“That, I won’t promise anyone I won’t do. Sorry, Mr. Cole. There’s only so much of my personality I’ll suppress for any one person.”

Mr. Cole usually makes me twitch. Mr. Cole is my father, and I abhor being called Mr. Cole.

But when Tillie Jean says it, I get images of her in leather and lace, offering me handcuffs in that pink and black bedroom of hers, and telling me it’s time to punish her for being a very, very bad girl.

I grunt and go back to shoveling. If I don’t, I’ll have a very visible problem here very soon, and it’ll be a much bigger problem than counting to fours.

My shovel scrapes the concrete driveway, and then another scrape joins it in the cloudy morning.

Tillie Jean’s shoveling too.

I slide another glance at her. The temperature’s right at freezing, and she’s in a light coat over her pajamas.

I wonder if she’s wearing a bra, then promptly give myself a mental head slap.

Bad enough I’m also wondering how much she can lift. She’s slender, but curvy, and I know she has solid definition in her arms and legs.

She glances over and catches me watching her, so I duck my head and shovel another scoop.

But I’m not counting anymore.

“What do you usually do for Thanksgiving?” she calls.

“Whatever I want.”

“Such as?”

“Eat. Scratch myself. Sleep. Whatever.”

“Don’t lie, Max Cole. I know you’re perusing those shopping ads and hitting the stores as soon as they open to buy presents for orphans and widows.”

I jolt and whip my face up to look at her as my entire body flushes, and it’s not like I can hide that in this weather.

Her mouth goes round. “Oh my god. You do.”

“Incorrect.”

“Which part’s incorrect? The part where you send presents to people in need, or the part where you shop for good sales to do it?”

My agent sent me a proposed four-year contract extension with the Fireballs yesterday. It starts with a bigger number than I could count to the first time I held a baseball, and ends with enough zeroes to guarantee I never have to lift a finger again in my lifetime once my career’s over.

My current contract is nothing to shake a stick at, and I could live on the few endorsement deals I have alone. I’d have to live somewhere like Shipwreck, but still.

I could do it.

I don’t need to look for good sales on anything, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. “Do the weathermen always get it this wrong out here?”

“Avoiding the question. So you do shop for sales, but it’s only habit because your neighbor Mrs. Bradford used to pay you a penny for every dollar you saved her when you shopped for her groceries using the weekly coupons?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s best to just answer the questions, or I’ll make up my own version of the truth. Ask Aunt Glory sometime about her broken ankle. Hint: it wasn’t broken, but people came out to help fix her porch in droves anyway. Also, everyone knew it wasn’t really broken, but that she wouldn’t ask for help on her own, and we very much wanted her to not fall through the porch.”

She smiles.

Dammit.

We can be semi-friendly, but not today, and not if she smiles at me.

She goes back to shoveling her own porch in front of her door. “I know, it’s a little messed up, but if you knew Aunt Glory when she was younger, you’d understand. People are weird sometimes.”

“People are weird all the time.”

She laughs. “Also true.”

Tillie Jean’s being nice to me, and I don’t know if it’s because of this weekend, or if it’s that we’ve gotten more used to each other since I came to Shipwreck for the winter, or if it—if it’s—

Fuck.

I don’t care, and I’m tired of fighting this, and I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to lob a snowball at her.

I’m bending over and packing snow into a ball before I let myself stop and think, and then I lob it in the air, and in that moment, I’m about six years old again, playing in the yard, with no cares, no worries, and no idea what the rest of my childhood would bring.

I miss that kid.

I miss being that kid.

And when my snowball lands directly on its intended target—the door three inches to the left of Tillie Jean’s face—I smile as broadly as I would if she were Cooper.

But that is not Cooper swiveling to face me.

Nope.

It’s his sister. His off-limits, unfortunately sexy, even when she’s talking—possibly especially when she’s talking—sister.

Not my sister, no matter how much I’ve tried to convince myself she could be.

“Did you just throw a snowball at me?”

“If I threw a snowball at you, it would’ve hit you.”

“Are you supposed to be throwing right now? I thought you had to take a couple months off to let your arm recover from the season.”

I bend, pack another snowball, and lob this one straight at her.

She shrieks and dives, and comes up with a snowball of her own.

I probably should’ve put clothes on.

But then, I didn’t expect to be dodging snowballs and flinging them right back when I got too hot shoveling and stripped out of my shirt.

Also, it’s probably a sign I shouldn’t be out here at all that I didn’t stop to put on pants before heading out to shovel snow.

That’s the kind of get the hell out of here as fast as possible fog I was in when I woke up to the sun reflecting off of ten inches of snow on Thanksgiving morning.