"His age and 'lechiness' weren't even an issue. If Katie's going to break any limbs, she's going to have to find a cheaper way to do it. I was glancing at some ads in the airport while Mel was looking around for what the airline had done with Willard. The prices for lift tickets and equipment rental were astonishing. Oh, Shelley, do we really ever have to go home?" She strolled over to the living room windows and gazed out. "This place is beautiful."

"It is, isn't it?"

Jane drew back, startled. "Oh, it's a cat! I thought it was a big snowball come to life!" A large white cat was sitting on the woodpile at the end of the deck outside. It turned and stared, green-eyed and smug, at Jane for moment, then hopped over the rail and out of sight.

There was a skier sweeping gracefully down the slight incline exposed between the trees. The blue sky, the green-black pines, the shimmering brilliance of the snow, and the skier's crimson pants and jacket created a breathtaking palette of color. As Jane watched, the skier came to a stop, put his (or was it a woman's?) hands on hips for a minute, then held up a pair of binoculars and took a look around.

"It reminds me of Switzerland," Jane said. "My sister, Marty, and I went to a boarding school there once for a semester. Of course, we were just dumb kids and didn't care about the scenery — only about the ski instructors, come to think of it. But even we came out of our haze of hormones once in a while and noticed that it was spectacular."

"What were you two doing in a boarding school? I thought your parents always took you with them on their postings."

"They did, but my dad was on a stint in some particularly unstable little Balkan country — Holnagrad. Hole in the Ground, we used to call it."