Snowbound - Harlequin.com

212 SNOWBOUND
“The University of Cape Town.”
“Oh, dear. I can see why she didn’t fly home for
the holidays.”
“We talked about going over there, but it’s all I can
do to make myself get on an airplane to zip down to
L.A. It takes something like twenty-five hours to get to
South Africa.” She shuddered. “Anyway…some friends
and she are traveling over the break. It’s summer there,
you know.”
“You must miss her,” Fiona said, her gaze caught by
the deep sadness in the woman’s eyes.
Her eyes filled with tears as she nodded, and a moment
later they made their excuses and left the kitchen. Fiona
felt bad that she’d reminded them of how far away their
daughter was and how unlikely that, having flown the
nest, she’d ever come home for long again.
That made her think of her own mother, who would
be celebrating Christmas for the first time without her
daughter. She knew Fiona wasn’t likely to call, given
the cell phone coverage here, and they planned to get
together as soon as Fiona was home.
John had put up a rather pathetic Christmas tree—a
scraggly six-footer dwarfed by the high ceiling and
massive peeled log pillars in the living area. When she
chided him about it, he shrugged.
“Couldn’t have put up much bigger with the tree
stand I found. Wouldn’t have been enough ornaments
for a bigger tree, either.”
Or lights. Fiona resolved, studying the tree, to hit the
after-Christmas sales when she got home and mail him
a new string or two of lights and some boxes of ornaments
for future holidays.