A Kiss in the Snow (Kindle Single) (Fool's Gold) by Susan Mallery Page A

amazing. When I see her I’m going to hug her as hard as I can, then yell at her for not telling me what was going on.” She smiled. “Okay, I probably won’t yell.”
    She took Calvin back to the laundry room and set him down so he could discover his new bathroom and start exploring the house.
    When she returned to the kitchen, she found Shep pouring himself a cup of coffee. He looked good. Tired, but still very much the man she loved. The man she wanted to be with for the rest of her life. The one who had flown across the country to get a cat he’d never met, simply because she missed Calvin.
    “How did you do it?” she asked. “Convince Sean that—” Her gaze dropped to his bruised knuckles. “No! Did you hit him?”
    Shep sipped his coffee. “What? No. He and I had a nice talk, and then he gave me Calvin.” He pulled a letter out of his shirt pocket. “And this. It’s a release. I asked for that because I know you’re still a lawyer at heart.”
    She scanned the letter. Sure enough her ex was giving her the cat and releasing all ownership. Four simple sentences, then his signature. She eyed Shep’s knuckles.
    “I know you hit him.”
    His green eyes were wide with faux innocence. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    She decided to let it go. Sean probably needed a good smack upside the head, and she had Calvin back. Now she just had to find the courage to tell Shep how she felt and then wait to see how everything would work out.
    “I need to show you something,” she said.
    He sat at the island. “Okay.”
    She got out her pages of notes and pictures of different trailers she’d found online.
    “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. About you, and us. I know what I said before—about it not working out. I’m sorry about that. I jumped to conclusions. The truth is moving around all the time is something I could make work. As long as we’re together.” She drew in a breath and looked at him. “I love you, Shep. I have from the first time I saw you. I’ve tried to forget you, to get over you, but I can’t. You’re a part of me. You always have been. So if you meant what you said—if your moving on isn’t about me—then take me with you.”
    His gaze locked on her face. “You’d do that for me?”
    She nodded. “I’ve been looking at trailers online.” She showed him what she’d found. “We could live in the front, and I’d bake in the back. I’d get my own website and still be doing shipping for Shelby. I haven’t talked to her about it, but I’m sure she’ll agree. We’d have to take Calvin with us, but he’d be fine. He’s a good boy. You’re going to like him.”
    Shep picked up one of the pictures. “You’d uproot your whole life?”
    “Yes. I meant what I said. I love you. I want to be with you, and I hope you want that, too.”
    He looked at her for a long time, then nodded. “Get your coat. I want to show you something, too.”
    “Where are we going?”
    “You’ll see.”
    “I’m not leaving Calvin.”
    “You can bring him along.”
    She put on her coat, then collected her cat. Calvin snuggled close and purred as she held him in the car.
    Shep headed out of town, along the familiar road leading to his trailer. There was snow on the road, but his four-wheel-drive truck handled it easily.
    They turned onto the narrower road. This time Nancee knew about the trailer. She wouldn’t mind spending a little time in it so she could figure out how much stuff she could bring with her. Maybe Gladys would let her rent one of her small back bedrooms for extra storage. If they were going to be coming back here every Christmas.
    But instead of stopping at the trailer, Shep kept driving. She saw that the narrow road continued around another bend. They cleared it, and she saw a large, partially constructed, two-story house. There was siding and a roof. Windows, but no driveway or garage doors. He turned off the truck, and the only sound was Calvin’s purr.
    “I