For the last six years he'd had one priority.

His name was Jack.

After he'd hidden the cement truck under a tarp in the back of his pickup, had run by a job site to check on progress, called on a supplier to put a bug in their ear about a special order and stopped at yet another site to give a potential client an estimate on a bathroom rehab, he headed home. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, he made a point to be home before the school bus grumbled to the end of the lane. The other two school days—and in the case of any unavoidable delay—Jack was delivered to the Skully house, where he could spend an hour or two with his best pal Rod under the watchful eye of Beth Skully.

He owed Beth and Jerry Skully a great deal, and most of it was for giving Jack a safe and happy place to be when he couldn't be home. In the ten months Brody had been back in Shepherdstown he was reminded, on an almost daily basis, just how comforting small towns could be. Now, at thirty, he was amazed at the young man who had shaken that town off his shoes as fast as he could manage a little more than ten years before.

All for the best, he decided as he rounded the curve toward home. If he hadn't left home, hadn't been so hardheadedly determined to make his mark elsewhere, he wouldn't have lived and learned. He wouldn't have met Connie.

He wouldn't have Jack.

He'd come nearly full circle. If he hadn't completely closed the rift with his parents, he was making progress. Or Jack was, Brody corrected. His father might still hold a grudge against his son, but he couldn't resist his grandson.

He'd been right to come home. Brody looked at the woods, growing thick on either side of the road. A few thin flakes of snow were beginning to drift out of the leaden sky. Hills, rocky and rough, rose and fell as they pleased.

It was a good place to raise a boy. Better for them both to be out of the city, to start fresh together in a place Jack had family.

Family who could and would accept him for what he was, instead of seeing him as a reminder of what was lost.

He turned into the lane, stopped and turned off the truck. The bus would be along in minutes, and Jack would leap out, race over and climb in, filling the cab of the truck with the thrills and spills of the day. It was too bad, Brody mused, he couldn't share the spills and thrills of his own with a six-year-old. He could hardly tell his son that he'd felt his blood move for a woman again. Not just a mild stir, but a full leap. He couldn't share that for a moment, a bit longer than a moment, he'd contemplated acting on that leap of blood.

It had been so damn long.

And what harm would it have done, really? An attractive woman, and one who obviously had no problem making the first move. A little mating dance, a couple of civilized dates, then some not-so-civilized sex. Everybody got what they wanted, and nobody got hurt. He cursed under his breath, rubbed at the tension that had settled into the back of his neck. Someone always got hurt.

Still, it might have been worth the risk… if she hadn't been Natasha and Spencer Kimball's pampered and perfect daughter.

He'd gone that route once before, and had no intention of navigating those pitfalls a second time. He knew plenty about Kate Kimball. Prima ballerina, society darling and toast of the arty set. Over and above the fact that he'd rather have his teeth pulled—one at a time—than sit through a ballet, he'd had his fill of the cultured class during his all-too-brief marriage.

Connie had been one in a million. A natural in a sea of pretense and pomp. And even then, it had been a hard road. He'd never know if they'd have continued to bump their way over it together, but he liked to believe they would have.

As much as he'd loved her, his marriage to Connie had taught him life was easier if you stuck with your own. And easier yet if a man just avoided any serious entanglements with a woman. It was a good thing he'd been interrupted before he'd followed impulse and asked Kate Kimball out. A good thing he'd learned who she was before that flirtation had shifted into high gear. A very good thing he'd had the time to remember his priority. Fatherhood had kicked the stuffing out of the arrogant, careless and often reckless boy. And had made a man out of him. He heard the rumble of the bus, and sat up grinning. There was no place in the world Brody O'Connell would rather be than right here, right now.

The big yellow bus groaned to a stop, its safety lights flashing. The driver waved, a cheerful little salute. Brody waved back and watched his lightning bolt shoot out the door.

Jack was a compact boy, except for his feet. It would take some years for him to grow into them. At the end of the lane, he tipped back his head and tried to catch one of those thin snowflakes on his tongue. His face was round and cheerful, his eyes green like his father's, his mouth still the innocent bow of youth. Brody knew when Jack stripped off his red ski cap—as he would at the first opportunity—his pale blond hair would shoot up in sunflower spikes.

Watching his son, Brody felt love swarm him, fill him so fast it was a flood of the heart. Then the door of the truck opened, and the little boy clambered in, an eager puppy with oversize paws.

"Hey, Dad! It's snowing. Maybe it'll snow eight feet and there won't be any school and we can build a million snowmen in the yard and go sledding." He bounced on the seat. "Can we?"

"The minute it snows eight feet, we start the first of a million snowmen."

"Promise?"

Promises, Brody knew, were always a solemn business. "Absolutely promise."

"Okay! Guess what?"

Brody started the engine and drove up the lane. "What?"

"It's only fifteen days till Christmas, and Miss Hawkins says tomorrow it'll be fourteen and that's just two weeks."

"I guess that means one from fifteen is fourteen."

"Yeah?" Jack's eyes went wide. "Okay. So it's Christmas in two weeks, and Grandma says that time flies, so it's practically Christmasnow."

"Practically." Brody stopped the truck in front of the old three-story farmhouse. Eventually he'd have the whole thing rehabbed. Maybe by the time he was eligible for social security.

"So okay, if it's almost practically Christmas, can I have a present?"

"Hmm." Brody pursed his lips, wrinkled his brow and appeared to give this due consideration. "You know, Jacks, that was good. That was a really good one. No."

"Aw."

"Aw," Brody echoed in the same sorrowful tone. Then he laughed and snatched his son off the seat. "But if you give me a hug, I'll make O'Connell's Amazing Magic Pizza for dinner."