Read Online The Bad Boy's Redemption by Lili Valente, Jessie Evans - Free Book Online

as they surveyed their masterpiece.
    “Yep,” Olivia agreed. “Five noses is funny. Six would have been too much.”
    “Absolutely.” Colt nodded soberly. “Six would have taken things too far.”
    East scrunched up his nose, as if undecided whether or not to take them seriously, but finally grinned. “You two are weird.”
    “Definitely,” Olivia agreed. “But he’s weirder.”
    “You’re out of your mind Page.” Colt laughed, knuckling her hair until she squirmed free. “You’re the weirdest person I’ve ever met. And that includes a guy I knew who collected his ex-girlfriends’ toenail clippings.”
    “Ew.” Olivia giggled as she shoved his shoulder. “You’re making that up.”
    He grinned. “I am not. And he had a huge collection. With a guy that weird, girlfriends became ex-girlfriends pretty fast.”
    “He’s lying,” East said, laughing. “No guy that gross would ever have a girlfriend in the first place.”
    “I take offense to that, East,” Colt said, leaning down to scoop up a handful of snow and packing it between his gloved hands. “You know what happened to the last person who called me a liar?”
    “What?” East’s eyes glittered as he backed away, clearly understanding that the snowball Colt was forming was no idle threat.
    “He got hit with a snowball in the butt,” Colt said, drawing his arm back. East turned to run but only made it a few steps before Colt’s snowball connected solidly with his jean-clad bottom.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    Colton
    Colt barely had time to thrust his arms up into the air in victory when a second snowball came flying in from behind Olivia, hitting him right in the face. Olivia spun around to reveal Seth busy packing another snowball and Tucker taking cover behind the ogre as he patted together his own supply of ammunition.
    After that, things quickly degenerated into chaos.
    Initially Tucker, Seth, East, and the other kids were all teamed up against Colt and Olivia. They held their own at first, thanks to Olivia’s super-fast snowball forming skills and Colt’s killer right arm. But finally numbers won out over skill and technique and Olivia ended up taking five snowballs to the back of the head and neck in rapid succession.
    After that Logan, Seth’s youngest, and his best friend came over to Olivia and Colt’s side, where they spent most of their time defending Olivia from attack like eight-year-old knights in soggy winter coats and mittens.
    Colt had never been prouder to be Logan’s godfather. He saved his biggest snowballs for his little cousin, plopping them into Logan’s hands and then picking the boy up and running across the space between the two shelters so Logan could toss the giant snow bomb right at his dad and older brother.
    They returned from their third such mission to find Olivia sneaking away toward the house, clearly having had enough of this year’s epic snow battle.
    “You headed in?” Colt asked, ducking behind the snow monster for shelter.
    “I have snow in uncomfortable places,” Olivia said with a laugh. “I’m going to go warm up with the rest of the ladies in the kitchen and get the gossip.”
    “We’ll be in before too long,” Colt said. “Save me some of the peppermint hot chocolate.”
    “Me too!” Logan squirmed off his lap to dive back into the snow and scrape together another giant missile.
    “Will do,” she said with a salute and fond look at Logan that made Colt think about what kind of mom she might be.
    He’d never wondered that about a woman he was dating before. But he wondered now, and he knew without a doubt that Olivia would be the sweetest, funniest, best mom a kid could ever ask for.
    That increasingly familiar warm, achy feeling flooded through him, but it didn’t throw him as much as it had even a day ago. It was becoming something he recognized. It was the Olivia feeling, the way he felt when he was with her or wishing that he were. Now, it just made him smile as he watched her