Snowbound - Harlequin.com

JANICE KAY JOHNSON 219
The next night, beginning to feel frightened by
how near the end of her visit they were, Fiona asked
about his family. They were lying in bed after making
love. He was on his back, one hand propped behind
his head, the other arm around her. With her head on
his bare chest, she could not just hear but feel his
heart beat.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
“Oh… Are you close? Did they send you care
packages while you were overseas?”
He was quiet for a minute. “Yeah. Yeah, they did. My
folks are good people. My father owns his own plumbing
business. I told you that, didn’t I? He encouraged
me to tinker when I was little. I could rebuild an engine
by the time I was thirteen, fourteen.”
“I take it building robots wasn’t quite what he had
in mind?”
His chest rumbled with a quiet laugh. “No, but my
parents were proud of me.” He fell silent again, and
when she tilted her head, she saw that he was frowning.
What was he thinking about? Their pride when he went
to college and then grad school, or when he donned his
uniform and went to Iraq to serve his country?
“What do your sisters do?”
“Hmm?” He seemed to pull himself back from
wherever he’d been with difficulty, but after a minute
he said, “Mary—she’s three years older than me—she’s
married, has two kids and, now that they’re in school,
works at the library. My younger sister was married
once, divorced with no kids, and is a journalist with the
Oregonian.”