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hope my parents were in love, too, when they walked down the aisle. So I want to take things slow enough that if Ron and I reach the stage where we want to marry, we're absolutely sure that we're not going to regret the decision ten or twenty years down the line.”
    The ski lift reached the top of the mountain and Kara scooted off the chair with Hanna gliding easily beside her.
    “When Ron told me he wanted to move in with you,” Hanna told her, “I suddenly had the image of him pulling out a ring and proposing to you on the spot. I know this sounds terrible, Kara,” she said, “but that thought horrified me. It's not that you aren't a very nice woman, but I don't think Ron and you know each other well enough to get married.”
    Kara stifled her urge to respond and let Hanna talk.
    “And contrary to what you think, your age really is a big part of my concern. Ron's young. He's going to want children some day and you're old enough that that might not be possible. I know it's hard on a marriage when your spouse can't give you something you want desperately.”
    “Hanna?” Kara asked before she could censor the question. “I never really thought about this before. Is that what went wrong for you and Howard? I mean, Ron is your son, isn't he? Biologically, I mean. You didn't adopt him.”
    Hanna's facial expression confused Kara. It got strange—not exactly hostile, but nothing that could be described as open or friendly. Secretive might describe it, but Kara couldn't figure out what the woman might be hiding.
    “No, no,” she told Kara, “Ron's my son through and through. There was never anything wrong with my fertility.”
    She touched Kara's shoulder with her gloved hand and effectively ended the conversation. “I'm so glad we've had this chance to talk,” she said. “Do you think if we start down now we can still catch Ron and his father before they reach the bottom?”
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    Chapter Seven
    Kara didn't get a chance right away to talk to Ron about her conversation with his mother. For the rest of the morning, they never got any privacy on the ski slopes and while they sat next to each other at lunch, it wasn't exactly an opportunity for quiet conversation.
    After lunch Howard and Hanna both announced they were taking a break from skiing. They each seemed surprised—and maybe even a little disappointed—to discover that their respective spouse had reached the same conclusion. Sadly it seemed that the opportunity to spend some time together made the suggested break look far less appealing.
    Anne and her husband surrendered to the pressure of their youngest daughter and agreed to take little Emmy further down the mountain to ride the ponies. Their older children were not entranced by Emmy's idea of a great afternoon and ran back to the ski lifts. As Kitten and her family had never even appeared for lunch, Ron and Kara suddenly found themselves presented with the privacy Kara had been longing for—or at least they would have been presented with it if Ron hadn't suddenly disappeared, leaving Kara by herself looking around in confusion.
    The conversation with Ron's mother still bothered her and she wanted to talk to him about it. She had the nagging suspicion that she'd missed something important on the ski lift—that Hanna had been on the verge of confiding something critical to Kara's understanding of the Miller family dynamic, but the moment had been lost because they reached the top of the mountain a minute too soon. It made Kara feel surprisingly close to Ron's mother. She still didn't exactly like the woman, but she felt they'd forged a connection which she wished they could have strengthened with a few more minutes of discussion.
    And what had happened to Ron anyway?
    “Excuse me,” a familiar voice said behind her. “I can't help but notice that you seem to be looking for someone.”
    Kara turned around to see Ron standing behind her with a cocky grin on his face and what