Christmas in the City - Jill Barnett Page 0,15

He moved them both swiftly around the pond. "You're wobbling, Lilli. Keep your shoulders back."

She placed her hands over his and straightened her spine, her shoulders back. "You're right! It is easier." She looked back over her shoulder as he picked up speed. Her cheeks were flushed pink and she was grinning. "This is great fun!" Then she giggled.

He skated faster, until he could feel the cold air on his face. She laughed louder and clearer.

Before long the subtle scent of lemons drifted back to him, and her laughter—well, the sound of it did something queer to him. It made him want more.

'Round and 'round he skated, just to hear that joyous sound.

He looked down at her at the same moment that she looked up. And it was strangely humbling to look into her face and see such honest emotion. Over time he had come to accept that he was an outsider in a world where, no matter how much he spent or how much he made, he never felt as if he belonged. For thirty years there had been an emptiness in him somewhere.

And now, for this one brief instant, skating on the ice with her looking at him as she did—as if he had given her the whole world—he thought that perhaps that emptiness inside him could be filled. It was astonishing to think he might have seen in her, this odd woman who claimed to be fallen, a small glimpse of that part of him he had thought was lost—the part that could make him complete.

He forced himself to break contact. "Now you try." He gave her a small push, and she screamed for help. He stood there watching her wobble and shuffle her feet, occasionally swinging her arms when she lost her tenuous balance. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Keep your back straight!"

She didn't straighten, exactly.

She went as stiff as a streetlamp.

In the next few minutes she must have called his name with every breath, half screaming and half laughing, until she was coming toward him at too fast a speed, her arms out and her mouth wide open.

He reached for her. But she whipped past him.

A tree trunk stopped her.

She hit it hard, hard enough to make her grunt. Hard enough to shake the tree. Hard enough for the snow to fall in giant globs from the branches.

Onto her.

He laughed. He could do little else. She had snow on her hat, snow on her clothes, in her face. Snow was everywhere.

She let go of the tree and turned, her eyes—what one could see of them through all the snow—were sparkling like new coins.

He turned around but couldn't stop laughing.

After a moment, during which he had found his control, she called out, "Hey Daniel!"

He turned, his Christian name still sounding strange to him even though she had screamed it at least ten times.

"Here's something money can't buy!" She flung a snowball at him. It knocked his hat right from his head.

Now it was her turn to laugh.

He turned and looked down at his hat, then turned back just as another wad of loose snow sped past his nose. He skated toward her, slowly, with purpose. He didn't know he was still smiling.

She stood in the deep fresh snow that edged the pond. "Isn't this fun!" she said and flung another wad of snow.

He had to dodge this one.

She stepped back a few steps and bent down to scoop up more but chanced to look up.

His purpose and his intent hadn't changed.

"Uh-oh ..." she said, apparently catching the vengeful gleam in his eyes. A second later she ran like hell, her skates kicking up snow.

He shouted her name and chased her into the deeper snow. Her hat fell back and her hair came loose, drifting behind her like the snow she kicked up, like her laughter and her joy.

He tackled her and they rolled in the snow, down a short embankment and under a cluster of low trees. She was still laughing when they stopped rolling, him on top, pinning her to the ground.

Snow sparkled from her face like Tiffany's diamonds. Her hat was crushed behind her and her hair was again spread out as if it were the glow of a halo. Her chest rose and fell with each warm breath, breath that changed to mist in the small space of air between them.

And she smiled at him. For him.

It felt perfectly natural to cup her head in his hands. Natural to