When the family of three stepped off the plane, the cold breeze bit at their cheeks. A sleek black car awaited them, sent by the Winslows. They began a two-hour ride to the countryside.
As the car gradually left the city behind, Lorianne plastered her nose to the window again and again. She gasped at every sight, of deer tracks on the snow, a frozen pond glinted like crystal and distant barns with lanterns glowed through the overcast sky.
"Look, Daddy! Sheep!" the little one squealed, index finger pointing eagerly outside, "They're wearing snow hats!"
Nathaniel laughed, shaking his head in amusement, "Those aren't hats, my little princess. Just snow piling up."
"Still cute," she said with a wide grin.
The road wound past hills and through clusters of pine trees, heavy with frost. The further they went, the more the air outside smelled of woodsmoke and winter earth.
