Snowbound - Harlequin.com

JANICE KAY JOHNSON
21
ently unaware that he’d noticed her changing. “I
couldn’t see anything. But Dieter—” she gestured
toward one of the boys “—saw tire tracks. I don’t know
how. Then he spotted your sign. He and his family have
stayed here before.”
“You’re not the old guy who was here then,” the kid
said.
“I bought the lodge last year.”
“It’s a cool place! My family and me, we’ve come a
couple times. Once in the summer, when we stayed in
one of the cabins. Last time we skied.”
“It’s not skiing when you have to plod instead of
riding up the hill,” one of the girls sniffed. Literally—
her nose was bright red and dripping.
“Sure it is,” the first boy argued. He was at that ungainly
stage when his hands and feet were out-sized
and the rest of him skinny. Crooked features added up
to a puppy-dog friendly face. “You don’t think when
they invented skiing they had quad chairlifts, do you?”
“My great-great-whatever came west in a covered
wagon, too,” she retorted, with another sniff. “I’d rather
fly United, thanks.”
The rest chimed in with opinions; John didn’t listen.
He looked at the teacher. “Anyone going to miss you?”
“Oh Lord! Yes! We were having trouble with cell
phone coverage.” She gave him a hopeful look. “Do you
have a land line?”
“Out here? No. And cell phone coverage is lousy for
miles around even when the weather’s good. Unfortunately,
my shortwave radio had an accident and I
haven’t got it fixed.” If what his idiot guest had done to