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  She gaped at him, laughing helplessly at her ignominious flight through the air, then she got to her feet. “You are really awful,” she chided, pretending to concentrate on brushing the snow off while she tried to think how to get even. She turned away from him for a second, then she turned back and gave him an innocent smile as she walked toward him.

  “Had enough?” he countered, grinning, his hands loosely at his sides.

  “Yep, you win. I give up.”

  This time, however, Zack saw the sparkle in those bewitching blue eyes. “Liar,” he laughed when she began slowly circling him, looking for a place to aim her body. He turned with her, both of them laughing now—Zack determined not to give her an opening when she charged, Julie knowing exactly how she intended to force him to give her one.

  “Time out,” she laughed, stopping and pretending to fiddle with the zipper she’d pulled down herself a minute ago. “No wonder I’m freezing. This zipper keeps sliding down.”

  “Here,” Zack said with swift courtesy, exactly as Julie had hoped. “Let me try.” He pulled off his right glove and looked down at the zipper. The moment his fingers touched the tab, Julie twisted sharply, aimed her shoulder at his chest with all her might and plowed at him like a football halfback. He moved aside, and Julie’s shoulder rammed thin air with so much might that she went plowing right past him, head down. Propelled by her own force, she charged straight into the snow bank behind him, burying her head in it all the way up to her shoulders.

  Trying to breathe, laugh, and dig the snow off her face at the same time, she backed out of the snow bank, turned around, and leaned against it, while his laughing voice remarked, “I’ve never seen anyone turn their own head into a snow drill before. Interesting demonstration. Do you think we could sell the idea to a manufacturer?”

  That did it. With a shriek of laughter, Julie slid down, collapsing at his feet, convulsed with laughter. Trying to catch her breath, she looked up at his grinning face. He was looming over her, his hands on his hips, a picture of vastly amused male superiority. “When you’re ready to get down to serious snowman business,” he smugly informed her with his chin thrust in the air as he walked off, “you—”

  Julie stuck out her foot. He tripped, twisted, and went down like a felled tree. Howling with laughter, she rolled hastily aside, scrambled to her feet, and backed out of his reach. “Pride cometh before a fall—” she reminded him, giggling, backing further away as he got up.

  He was smiling, but there was a dangerous gleam in his eyes as he slowly, purposefully advanced on her. “That does it!” he said softly. “That does it.”

  “Don’t—don’t do anything you’ll regret—” she chortled helplessly, holding her hand out as if to fend him off as she backed away faster. He increased his pace dramatically. “Now, Zack—” she laughed shakily. “Don’t you dare!” she cried, whirling to bolt for the woods as he lunged. He brought her down with a tackle around her waist before she took the first step, shoving her into the snow beneath his body, then rolling her over onto her back, straddling her at the waist. Grinning at her futile struggles, he pinned her wrists above her head with one hand. “Brat,” he said cheerfully and softly, while Julie laughed harder and squirmed and struggled to catch her breath. “Give up?”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” she managed brokenly.

  “Say ‘Uncle’.”

  “Uncle!” she chortled. “Uncle!”

  “Now close your eyes and give me a kiss.”

  Her shoulders shaking with mirth, she closed her eyes and deliberately gave him a childish pucker. Cold, wet snow kissed her back—a face full of it. He smashed it all over her cheeks while she sputtered and laughed harder, then he got up. “Now,” he said, grinning like a satisfied sultan as he held a hand out to help her up, “you’re sure you’ve had enough?”

  “Enough,” Julie laughed, belatedly noticing how boyishly happy and relaxed he looked after what had been nothing more meaningful than frolicking in the snow. The last traces of tension were gone from his handsome face, and she felt a mixture of tenderness and amazement that something as ordinary as a snow fight evidently gave him so much pleasure. Of course, it didn’t snow in Los Angeles, so maybe this was new to him. Either way, she realized one thing: He’d been exactly right when he said to concentrate only on enjoying the present and creating memories for the future. It was clearly what he needed.

  Zack stepped through the deep snow holding her arm for support, his mind on the project ahead of him. “I assume we can get down to serious snowman business,” he announced, standing in front of the formless lump of snow that had been her original snowman and studying it with his hands on his waist and his back to her, “now that you understand the supreme folly of provoking someone so much larger, stronger, and wiser than yourself. Since I’ve finally gotten your proper respect, I have some very specific ideas about this proj—”

  A huge snowball hit him disrespectfully on the back of his head.

  * * *

  High on a secluded Colorado mountaintop, laughter rang out often during a long winter afternoon, startling the squirrels who watched from the trees while two humans shattered the peace, cavorting like children in the snow, chasing each other around trees, flinging a barrage of snowballs, and then got down to the business of completing a snowman that, when finished, resembled no other snowman in the annals of recorded history.

  35

  SEATED TOGETHER ON THE SOFA, with their legs stretched out, their feet propped side by side on the coffee table and a cream knitted afghan stretched over them, Julie gazed out the glass wall across the room. She was deliciously exhausted from their day outdoors, a hearty meal, and Zack’s thorough lovemaking on the sofa. Even now, when the lovemaking was long over and he was lost in thought, gazing into the fireplace, she noticed he kept his arm around her, holding her close to his side, her head on his shoulder, as if he very much enjoyed having her close and touching her. She liked that, but at the moment her mind was on his “snowman” just beyond the glass wall. With the living room lights dimmed to a mellow glow and the fire in the fireplace reduced to orange cinders, she could just make out the looming, shadowy form of it. He was incredibly creative and imaginative, she thought with a smile, which shouldn’t have been surprising, given his film career. But even so, a snowman ought to look like a snowman, not a leering mutant dinosaur.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked, his lips brushing a soft kiss on the top of her hair.

  She tipped her chin up to see his face and grinned. “Your snowman. Didn’t anyone ever tell you a snowman is supposed to be jolly?”

  “That,” he corrected, looking proud and boyish as he studied it through the window, “is a snow monster.”

  “It looks like something Stephen King would dream up. What kind of depraved childhood did you have, anyway?” she teased.

  “Depraved,” Zack confirmed, smiling and tightening his arm around her. He could not seem to get enough of her, in bed or out of it, and that was an unprecedented experience for him. She fit the curve of his arm as if she were made for him; in bed, she was a temptress, an angel, and a courtesan. She could drive him to unparalleled heights of passion with a sound, a look, a touch. Out of bed, she was funny, fascinating, stubborn, witty, and intelligent. She could anger him with a word and then disarm him with a smile. She was artlessly sophisticated, devoid of pretension, and filled with so much life and love that she mesmerized him at times, like when she talked about her students. He had kidnapped her, and in return, she had saved his life. He was supposed to be the wily, hardened convict, and yet she had been clever enough and brave enough to escape right out from under his nose. Then she had turned around and willingly surrendered her virginity to him with a poignant sweetness that made him ache whenever he thought about it. He was humbled in the face of her courage, gentleness, and generosity.

  He was nine years older and a thousand times harder than she, and yet something about her softened him and made him like being soft, b