Christmas on Snowbird Mountain by Fay Robinson

Author:Fay Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2002-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

SHE DEBATED whether she should tell Ryan about her conversation with his daughter. Nia had seemed genuinely worried about her father giving her away. Yet all young children had fears about being unwanted, didn’t they?

She could remember feeling that way herself a few times as a child. Once she’d gotten in trouble for coloring on the wall of the freshly painted living room. Convinced her mother wouldn’t want her anymore, she’d run away—as far as the neighbor’s back porch.

The child had no reason to worry. Ryan loved her. Still…something didn’t seem quite right in the Whitepath household.

Nia didn’t go to her party Saturday night and she also backed out of baking brownies. She didn’t feel good, she said, but her complaints were vague. First it was her head, then her stomach, then both her head and her stomach.

Ryan said not to be concerned. She did this sometimes.

“I think she was afraid she’d get homesick at the sleep-over and embarrass herself in front of her friends,” he said.

Susannah decided that was reasonable, but it didn’t explain why Nia didn’t want to be around her.

She felt she’d handled her answer to the child’s question poorly. As much as she’d love Nia to be her little girl, she’d told the child, she wasn’t planning on ever being a mommy.

Nia was herself again on Sunday morning when Susannah joined the family for church. Later, during dinner at Ryan’s mother’s house, Joe and Nia told jokes to each other and laughed throughout the meal, making Nana Sipsey threaten to take a switch to both of them. Nia seemed completely recovered.

“Annie, this roast is delicious,” Susannah told her.

Everyone echoed the sentiment.

“Thank you. How did you enjoy the service? Was it very different from what you’re used to?”

“A little different, but interesting.” A few of the hymns were the same, sung in Cherokee or English. The program had provided a translation of the Cherokee prayers.

The best part, though, was seeing Ryan dressed in a suit.

“Daddy has Susannah’s underpants in his pocket,” Nia suddenly announced.

Ryan nearly choked on his food.

Every person at the table stopped eating and stared at him.

“Do tell,” Joe said with a grin.

“Uh, I found them in the dryer,” Ryan explained when he’d stopped coughing. His face had turned crimson. Susannah imagined her face was the same lovely shade. “She washed her clothes over at our place the other night.”

“That’s a good one, brother,” Joe told him.

“Joseph!” His mother warned him to behave.

Susannah was mortified, especially when Ryan later took the silky scrap of red fabric from the pocket of his jacket and handed it to her.

“Nice color,” was all he said.

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