A Very Special Delivery

think she’s ever seen one before.” He shoved the popcorn into his mouth, then slid seven dominoes to his side of the table.
    Molly did the same, standing the game pieces in two rows for examination. She lifted an eyebrow in his direction. “What? No pets? That’s child abuse.”
    “I never said we didn’t have a pet. Just no cat.” He thumped a double-five on the table. “Ten points.”
    Molly made an X on the score sheet under his name, then glanced up at him. A little leap of… something stirred in her blood. “Don’t tell me there’s a poor dog trapped in your apartment with no food and no way to get out if he needs to.”
    “Nope. No dog.”
    “I’ll take ten myself.” She slid a blank-five onto the wooden tabletop and wrote her score on the yellow pad of paper. “What kind of pet do you have then? A boa constrictor?”
    An amused smile lit his face and sent the beguiling scar into relief. “What would you say if I said yes?”
    She could tell he was teasing. It had been a long time since she’d joked and bantered with a man, and it felt good. “I’d tell you never to invite me to your house.”
    “Which would be a terrible shame considering that I owe you a return invitation.”
    “Sorry, I don’t do snakes.” She heaved an exaggerated sigh and said dramatically, “I guess this is the beginning and the end of our friendship.”
    Releasing a gusty sigh of his own, he let his shoulders sag in mock resignation. “Okay, you win. I’ll get rid of the boa as long as you don’t take exception to the shark in the bathtub.”
    Molly couldn’t hold back a giggle. “Ethan, you’re crazy.”
    “That’s what Laney tells me all the time.” He kissed the top of the baby’s head. “Isn’t that right, sugar plum? Daddy likes snakes, sharks and goldfish. Dangerous stuff.”
    “Goldfish?” Molly placed her hands over the cat’s ears. “Don’t let Samson hear you say that. Fish is his favorite meal.”
    “That’s what the snake and the shark said, too. Poor Goldie.”
    When Molly tilted back in her chair and laughed, Ethan’s eyes danced. Molly’s heart lurched in response. Her house guest was not only resourceful and heroic, he was funny and kind and incredibly nice-looking. And his devotion to his daughter was enough to make any unattached woman sit up and take notice.
    Bad enough that she had to worry about Laney, but now she couldn’t get Ethan out of her mind either. She liked him. And she didn’t want to.
    It would be better for all of them if the roads were melted in the morning, and Ethan and his baby were out of her life for good.
    * * *
    They weren’t.
    The next morning the world had refrozen and looked like a crystal kingdom in a fairy tale. All of outdoors wore a thick coat of ice that glistened in the morning sun, every bit as beautiful as diamonds. No matter how inconvenient the ice was, Molly found the sight breathtaking.
    Laney lay on a quilt in the living room making baby noises while Ethan resumed his ice-chipping job. With all the work he’d undertaken, Molly couldn’t expect him to carry Laney out in the cold with him. But every few minutes she felt compelled to race the ten feet from the kitchen to the quilt to make sure the child was all right.
    She was exhausted, too. She had lain awake half the night worrying about Ethan and Laney out in the old fishing camper. Worrying that they might get cold. Worrying about the unstable electric lines sagging above them. And praying for the temperatures to warm and the roads to clear so they could leave. But the only thing that seemed to be thawing was the food in her freezer. So this morning she was loading meat into baskets to set outside in the winter wonderland.
    “Look what I found.” Ethan stomped in through the back door, grinning from ear to ear, a portable radio in hand. The intriguing scar lifted over his eyebrow.
    Since breakfast he’d been as busy as a politician at election time, doing the odd jobs that no one else ever got around to. He’d repaired the front door, replaced a broken tile in the bathroom, and rummaged around in the barn until he found a tube of caulking to use on the windows. He claimed he was doing all these things in repayment for her hospitality.
    Molly laughed ruefully about that one. She wasn’t being hospitable by choice.
    She piled another package of frozen hamburger into a clothes basket. “Where’d you find that?”
    “In one of the camper cabinets.” He set it on the