Love on a Spring Morning Read Online Free PDF Page B

him for more information, but who he was and what he did wasn’t any of her business. She stepped backwards toward the road. I’m going , she told herself. Damn slowly , her better half responded with a solid dose of snark.
    Maybe that was because he was watching her. Even as the space between them stretched to meters, he held her gaze.
    “Well, thanks again,” she said, lifting her voice.
    He nodded, a small smile almost curling the corners of his mouth. “No problem. You see me again out here, feel free to stop and say thanks whenever you want. I don’t hear it often from my regular bosses.” He notched his thumb back toward the house. His kids .  
    Right. She had no business flirting with this man, even by accident.
    She turned on her heel and joggled away, not looking back, even though she really wanted to.

 
    — FOUR —

    W EDNESDAY was always the kids’ favourite day of the week. Ryan paraded with his Army reserve unit in the evening, which meant the kids had a rotating pizza date with either Olivia or her sister-in-law, Dani—Ryan’s former co-worker from when he was a paramedic. Both of them were like family to the kids, the best kind of adopted aunts—pizza-serving, secret-keeping, and always fun. Their respective men were both in the infantry reserves with Ryan, and he appreciated the continued efforts of all his friends to shove him out the door, forcing him to be moderately social and productive.
    And the kids really liked pizza.
    As Wednesdays were also pre-school days for Maya, it usually meant that Ryan could leave mid-day and get some extra work done at the armouries, but this particular week was a school break.
    They’d had four days of non-stop family time, and by mid-morning, Ryan was already sick of pizza talk.
    “You guys want to get rid of me that bad, huh?” he asked, hurling Maya in the air as she squealed.
    “Well, Uncle Rafe does have an X-Box,” Jack pointed out.
    As he did every time they asked for a video game system, Ryan pointed to their running shoes. “Outside we go.”
    They didn’t complain, because they all loved the trail that ran through the woods. It opened into a clearing at his in-laws’ house, then turned south along the lake for a good long while. It was tough going in places, but the kids had been hiking it since each of them learned to walk.
    The boys ran ahead, sprinting back whenever they got close to being out of sight. Ryan stuck close to Maya, listening to his daughter’s meandering narration about the fairies in the forest and the magic spells they used.
    “What happens if you meet a real-life fairy, Daddy?”
    “I don’t know. What do you think?”
    “Maybe have a tea party with them.”
    He smothered a laugh. “Oh yeah?”
    “If they have tea.”
    “And if they don’t?”
    “Maybe play tag.”
    “That sounds like fun.” He tapped her on the shoulder. “Want to play tag with me?”
    She heaved a big sigh. “You’re not a fairy, Daddy.”
    “I could be.”
    “No. You’re a Daddy. Fairies are magical. Daddies are real.” She looked ahead on the path, toward her brothers, and gasped. “I see one!”
    Ryan just saw two boys covered in mud. “Okay, go get her then!”
    Maya sprinted ahead, almost tripping over a root, but though she skidded sideways in the mud, she kept her footing. He followed, giving her some distance for the imaginary play, but when she ran past her brothers and disappeared around the bend, he took off after her.
    “Maya Howard, get back here,” he yelled.
    From around the thick overgrowth, he heard her little voice saying, “Tag! You’re it.”
    And damned but if someone didn’t laugh. A woman. Since fairies weren’t real, that meant that Maya had just poked a stranger.
    They’d have to talk about that .
    But when he caught up to her a second later, he lost all his words, because Maya was having a tag stand-off around a tree with Holly Cresinski.
    And even though it was unseasonably warm, it wasn’t warm