Read Online Snowbound Summer by Veronica Tower - Free Book Online

sister's boyfriends either. No one is ever going to be good enough for Mama's little girls.”
    Hanna's eyes flashed with anger. “What do you mean Ron's not good enough? Ron's—”
    “A very fine man!” Kara cut Hanna off. She should have found the transformation in Hanna's demeanor amusing, but the older woman's sense of outrage didn't equate to support for Ron and Kara's relationship. It only reinforced the notion that she found Kara unworthy of her son's affection.
    “Then why?”
    “For exactly the opposite reason that you don't approve of Ron and me,” Kara explained. “Ron is younger than I am.” She didn't add that her mother also had problems with the interracial nature of their relationship. That little tidbit embarrassed Kara too much to mention.
    She looked around at the ski slopes below them. They were about halfway back up to the top of the mountain and high above the skiers racing down. At this rate, they were never going to get to the top.
    “It is a big age difference,” Hanna agreed.
    Kara reached out and touched Hanna's gloved hand. “Yes, it is, Hanna, but it's not a generational age difference. Ron's not a child and while I am older, I'm not that much older than him.” Not old enough to be his mother, as you seem to think, she wanted to add. “Ron and I met at a good time, and we haven't rushed into anything. You don't have to worry about us running headlong into a mistake.”
    Again she restrained herself from tacking a barb onto the end of her sentence. Like you clearly did might be a true observation but it wouldn't be diplomatic to actually say it. Kara wondered if she could use the small opening this conversation had provided to really tackle the heart of Hanna's objection to Ron and her relationship.
    “You know, age isn't my principle concern about my long term relationship with Ron,” she said.
    “Really?” Hanna asked. From the expression on her face, Kara suspected that Hanna believed it should be her total concern regarding Ron and Kara dating.
    She would have to shatter that illusion. “It's not really your main concern either,” she said.
    “Yes, it—”
    “No, Hanna,” Kara interrupted. “It isn't! You're worried about whether I can really make Ron happy in the long term. Your concerns about our age difference really come down to wondering how compatible Ron and I will still be twenty or thirty years down the line.”
    Hanna didn't object so Kara continued. “I have a lot of personal concerns about long term relationships in general,” Kara explained. “When I was growing up, I listened to my parents fight all the time. I knew things weren't right between them but I didn't know why. Heck, if I'm being honest, I still don't really know how things went so wrong between them.”
    She knew what she was saying had to resonate with Hanna. The woman's marriage appeared to be a punishment worthy of one of Dante's circles of hell. But what Kara didn't know was if her allusion was going to make Hanna angry or help to bridge the gap between them. Unfortunately, Hanna's facial expression didn't help her figure out which way Ron's mother was leaning.
    “So my number one example of an adult relationship—my parents’ marriage—isn't exactly a healthy model, and frankly neither is Ron's.”
    Hanna bristled and opened her mouth to retort, but Kara simply smiled at her, meeting her gaze without flinching away. It wasn't, after all, as if the failure of Hanna and Howard's marriage was a big secret. Howard took great delight in detailing how much he detested the institution.
    Hanna closed her mouth without saying anything.
    Kara patted her hand again. She noticed that the ski lift was honing in on the top of the mountain and so she'd better wrap up this awkward conversation.
    “So my principle concern is avoiding having my marriage deteriorate into something like my parents had.” Like you have, she added silently. “There's no doubt in my mind that I love your son, but then I