The Bachelor's Little Bonus. GINA WILKINS

room with steaming cups of cocoa topped with marshmallows. She’d indulged her love of eclectic European and American deco design in here, too. Flames crackled among the gas logs in the fireplace framed in white-painted carved wood, spreading warmth through the room. With her feet curled comfortably beneath her, she sat on the dove-gray couch that faced the fireplace. Cole had settled in a tapestry armchair near her end of the couch. She couldn’t help admiring the way the firelight brought out the highlights in his hair.

      “I’ve always liked this room,” he commented, stretching his legs in front of him toward the fire. “It always impresses me that it can look so classy yet still be so comfortable. Not fussy and formal like some people’s decorated places.”

      Pleased by the comments, she beamed. “That’s exactly what I aim for in my decorating. Stylish, but welcoming. Home design is meant to be enjoyed. Lived in, not just admired or photographed.”

      He nodded in approval. “That’s as it should be. I’ve always said it was a waste to have furniture you can’t sit on or carpet you feel guilty walking on. Tasha—”

      He stopped talking and took a sip of his cocoa.

      She swirled her beverage gently in her mug to better distribute the melting marshmallows. “Natasha agreed with your design aesthetic?” she prodded gently. She was curious to hear more about the woman he’d married, but she didn’t want to cause him pain talking about her.

      He shrugged, his expression wry. “She wasn’t really into decorating. As long as she had a comfortable chair for reading, she was happy.”

      “She liked to read?”

      “Almost obsessively, especially as her health declined and there was little else she could do.”

      “Was she sick for a long time?”

      “Yes,” he replied quietly.

      And Cole had taken care of her during that time. She had no doubt that Natasha had received the best of care from him. Unlike most of the men in her own past, Cole wasn’t the type to walk away from his responsibilities and commitments, even when those challenges were daunting. Any woman who captured his heart would be very fortunate, indeed, she thought a bit wistfully.

      “Do you have plans for the day?” he asked, and it couldn’t be more obvious that he wanted to change the subject.

      She obliged. “I was going to spend a few hours at my office, but I think I’ll just work at home this afternoon instead, considering drivers around here go insane when there’s snow on the roads.”

      “Good plan. So, are you, um, feeling better today?”

      She managed not to grimace in response to the oblique reminder of last night’s meltdown, but it still embarrassed her. “Much better, thank you. I had fun playing with the Bristol kids this morning.”

      “Nice kids. They’re obviously crazy about you.”

      “I like them, too.”

      He finished his cocoa. A dab of marshmallow dotted his upper lip when he lowered the mug. She eyed it from beneath her lashes. She wasn’t sure why she wasn’t teasing him about it. Normally she would have, but something held her back just then. Maybe it was the crazy image that popped unexpectedly into her head—herself licking away that tempting smudge and then sampling the taste of chocolate on his firm lips.

      She blinked rapidly, shocked at the direction her thoughts had taken. Hormones. That had to be the explanation. Sure, she’d always been aware of Cole as an attractive man, not to mention his other fine qualities, but she’d deliberately avoided thinking of him in that way. She’d made some really bad decisions when it came to romance, leading, if not to heartbreak, at least to frequent disappointment. Tragically widowed, Cole had shown so signs that he wanted more from her than friendship. And besides, she treasured their relationship too much to risk ruining it by trying to convince themselves they were a compatible match. Most especially not now, considering her awkward predicament.

      He wiped off that distracting bit of marshmallow with a napkin, then stood to carry his mug to the kitchen. She followed with her own. He turned just as she approached the sink, and they very nearly collided. With a low laugh, he caught her shoulders. “Steady there.”

      Heat flared from his touch. For a moment, her mind went blank. She took a jerky step backward, then tried to cover her discomfiture with a laugh. “Were you afraid I was going to knock you over?”

      He smiled. “Maybe. I’ve already landed at your feet once in the past twenty-four hours. And there’s no snow in here to give me a credible reason for being on the ground.”

      She laughed and moved to rinse her mug in the sink. When she turned back around, she found Cole looking up at her high ceiling with a frown. “You have a bulb out,” he said.

      She followed his glance and saw the dark bulb in one of the recessed canisters that provided auxiliary lighting to the pendant lamps over the island. “I thought something looked different in that corner.”

      “Do you have a spare bulb?”

      “Yes. I’ll change it later.”

      He was shaking his head before she’d completed the sentence. “You don’t need to climb ladders in your condition. I’ll take care of it.”

      She had to admit it was difficult for her, at five-two, to change the bulbs in her nine-foot kitchen ceiling. Grateful for his assistance, she fetched a bulb and a stepladder, then turned off the light switch. She leaned against a nearby counter while Cole climbed onto the stepladder and reached overhead. For a self-professed “computer nerd,” the man did stay in good condition, she thought, watching muscles ripple as he stretched upward and his shirt exposed part of what looked to be a perfectly formed six pack.

      “Well, damn.”

      She lifted an eyebrow in response to his growl. “What’s wrong?”

      “Bulb broke off in my hand and now the cap’s stuck in the socket.”

      “Hang on, I’ll grab a potato.”

      He stepped off the ladder to toss the broken bulb into the trash, watching while she sliced a fat potato neatly in half. “So you know that trick.”

      She smiled as she handed him one half of the potato. “I’ve broken a few bulbs in my time. My mom taught me this trick years ago. Our budget was usually tight, so she was the ‘handyman’ around here when we were growing up, at least until my brother and I were old enough to do our share of maintenance.”

      “She sounds very self-sufficient.”

      “I suppose she had to be. I’ve told you, of course, that Mom never married the fathers of either of her kids. She had issues with commitment, and she said neither of them were the home-and-hearth types, anyway. My father died when I was just a toddler, leaving nothing for my support. Mom didn’t get much help from my brother’s dad, either, but she supported us well enough on her own. She put a down payment on this house with a small inheritance from her parents when Tom and I were very young, and then paid it off over the next ten years with her salary. She was a shrewd budgeter. She gave us a good home here—even though working nine to five in a state job smothered her gypsy soul, as she informed us too many times to count.”

      Back up on the ladder, Cole glanced down at her when she stopped for a breath. “She sounds like a unique woman.”

      She smiled. “She is that.”

      Practically the day Stevie had graduated from college, her accomplished but unconventional mother had announced she was retiring from her job with the state and moving to Hawaii. Upon her retirement, she’d sold Stevie this house for a bargain price and had gone off to find herself on a warm beach.

      She turned to pull a bottle of water from the fridge, speaking almost to herself as she twisted off the cap. “I only hope I can handle the challenges of single motherhood as well as Mom did.”

      “You’ll