“You have got to be kidding,” groaned Emma Rand as she stood at the bedroom window, gazing dispiritedly out on a landscape that looked more like February than May. Yesterday, she had been exploring her flower beds, welcoming each tulip and daffodil that heralded the coming of spring.

Sometime during the night it had started to snow, and it had kept on snowing. “There must be two feet out there,” Emma said, “and it’s still coming down. I can’t even see the mountain.”

Her husband mumbled incoherently. Emma turned away from the window and crossed the room to sit beside him on the bed. “Jake, wake up. You’re going to have to drive me to work.” Jake mumbled again and pulled the quilt over his head. Emma nudged him, but there was no response. She tugged the quilt down to his shoulders and kissed his cheek. Nothing. She stroked his shoulder and blew softly in his ear. He swatted at her and snuggled more deeply into the bed.

Emma sat up and gave Jake a playful push, “We have obviously been married too long. You’re immune to my womanly charms.”

Emma yelped when Jake’s arm shot from beneath the quilt and wrapped around her waist. He pulled her onto the bed and gave her startled lips a hungry kiss. Emma giggled and smiled up into her husband’s no-longer-sleepy eyes. “That’s more like it,” she told him.

Excerpt from Main Street Murder

Like Emma, there are times when I think snow is beautiful. In December, it can blizzard all it wants and I’m happy. I wander around the house singing about snowmen, sleigh rides and Jack Frost but come February, snow turns ugly. In March, it’s annoying but by April it seems downright unfair. The weekend of Mother’s Day a few years ago, we had a wholloper of a blizzard that killed hundreds of trees all over town and quite a few on my own acreage. There’s nothing you can really do with a snow like that except put it in a book.

Last year we had a pretty warm winter but this year, it’s been cold. I don’t mind the cold but I could do without the wind, even if it does help make Wyoming a powerhouse in green energy. We hadn’t had much snow until March, which is normally our wettest month of the year so we were happy to see it. Just as Emma welcomes each tulip and daffodil in her yard, I’ve been doing that too. The bushes are leafing out and the trees are threatening to join them. Who doesn’t love to see their lilacs starting to show tiny buds that will grow into the most fragrant flower in the garden?

Then April came and it started snowing and it’s snowed for all four days so far. The weatherman keeps saying it’s going to stop and soar up to 70 degrees but I don’t really believe him. The chickadees, meadowlarks and robins who’ve returned to us from wherever they go every winter, peck at the suet and the seed I’ve hung for them out of reach of the cats and puff up against the cold. I think they’re getting pretty fed up with the snow too.

I think I’ll go back to Alaska, at least in my writing, where it’s snowing on Caribou King but at least it’s November there so it’s supposed to be snowing!