Upon a Midnight Clear (Legend, Colorado 2)

"Hap Hollister!" one gasped.

"The greatest Little League coach in the world!" the other exclaimed.

"The very one."

Quinn looked down at the two small faces that were staring up at her, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. She wondered what Cale had told them about her father.

"My sons." Cale turned to her. "Eric and Evan. Boys, say hello to Quinn Hollister. Then apologize."

"Hello. Sorry." Eric stared at his feet, from which dark socks trailed.

"Like you mean it." Cale's eyes narrowed.

"We're sorry. We thought you were a robber."

"Well, I guess I can understand why you might have thought that, finding a stranger sleeping on your sofa. But didn't you hear me when I came in? I called…"

"We were out cold," Cale said over his shoulder as he disappeared through a doorway momentarily. "Napping. I took the boys for a long walk this morning, and I guess it knocked us all out."

"You took your sons out to play in a blizzard?" she asked. "Isn't that a form of child abuse?"

"It was before the blizzard hit. Ever spend three days in a remote cabin with no TV and two four-year-olds who have had electronic baby-sitters all their young lives?" He returned and handed her a glass of water.

"Can't say that I have." She accepted the glass and drank greedily, hoping the water would wash away the lint that had attached to the roof of her mouth.

"Walking in the snow is the only thing that keeps them moving and tires them out enough that they're not bouncing off the walls." He smiled, and Quinn felt something in her chest begin to tighten.

He still had a killer smile. It was impossible not to notice.

"But what," he was saying, "are you doing up here in the midst of a blizzard?"

"I went up to put the wreath on Elizabeth's cabin. Every year, one of us…"

"I remember," he said softly, recalling a time when he had accompanied her to do that very task. Had she forgotten?

Ignoring the reference to another Christmas, when they had not been strangers, she said, "While I was inside, the storm came up, and I got stuck coming back down the mountain. My brother told me that Val was coming back for Christmas, so I thought I'd see if she was here. The door was open, so I came in and built up the fire and wrapped up in the blankets. I was very cold."

"You're lucky you made it. Quinn, what ever possessed you to get out of the car in a storm like this? How could you have seen the cabin from the road in all this snow?" His eyebrows arched upward just slightly, the right higher than the left, in a gesture she suddenly remembered all too well.

"My car is right there, at the end of the lane. It's not that far. And I have a very good sense of direction." Her chin lifted just a bit. No point in telling him about Elizabeth…

His eyes caught hers and she turned away from his gaze, which she was not ready to meet. Here was the man who had broken her heart and changed her life. The very least she deserved was to feel hard, cold anger.

All she felt at that moment was awkward and unprepared to share the confines of a cabin with him.

All she wanted was to get away, to retreat from those hazel eyes that changed with the light, and that were now turning a soft blue.

Not ready, she told herself. I'm not ready for this.

She forced her eyes from his face—dammit, the very least he could have done was to have gone bald and paunchy—forced herself to look around for her boots. There. By the door. Right where she left them. "I have to go."

Cale walked to the window and drew aside a dark green and white checked curtain. "Quinn, you wouldn't make it ten feet from the door in this storm."

"I have to get home." She felt awkward and nervous, wanting to flee.

"Not for a while, I'm afraid."

Walking to the front door, Quinn peered out onto a totally white world. Cale was right. She wouldn't make it past the porch without losing her direction. She stared into the dense whiteness, searching for a shadow. Perhaps Elizabeth would come back, and lead her away from here. But there were no shadows to be found, no da