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offered all she needed. The table standing in
front of the large window would suffice as a desk. Would the view be as awesome
as her Table Mountain muse?
    Sarah set the laptop bag down on the
table, unzipped her jacket and pulled off her hat, scarf and gloves, placing
the woolen trio beside the bag. Removing her laptop, she pushed the power cable
into her European adaptor. Thank heavens the guy at the AA asked if she had an
adaptor when she’d gone for her international driver’s license. She would’ve
been stuck here with a dead computer. Guess there’s always the old fashioned
way of writing—with pen and paper. She shivered. Heaven forbid.
    Sliding into a chair, Sarah powered up
the laptop. It eased to life.
    “Hey, baby, I’ve missed you.” Somewhere
over the middle of Africa the battery had died. In Paris and Helsinki, she’d
barely had enough time to make it to her next flight, let alone charge her
laptop.
    She stretched out a yawn before opening
her untitled manuscript. It still held nothing except ‘Untitled by Sarah Jones.
Chapter 1.’ Sarah backspaced the first word and typed in ‘Falling for Santa.’ Yay,
she had a title, and it seemed perfect. Especially when she thought of those
piercing blue eyes hiding behind thin spectacles. As much as she’d love to
start writing tonight, sleep beckoned. Over thirty hours had passed since she’d
waved goodbye to Hannah, Grant, and her nephews at Cape Town International
Airport.
    Sarah glanced around, taking in the cozy
couch on the other side of the room for the first time, the ladder leading
upstairs to what she assumed was the bedroom, and the little kitchenette to the
right of the fireplace.
    Wonder where they’ve put the Wi-Fi login
details and password. Hope I don’t need to contact the owner. If she couldn’t find it, she’d email him from her smartphone, but only after
she’d gone to the bathroom and collected her suitcase and groceries from the
car. She didn’t relish the thought of lugging all that through the snow. Times
like these she wished she had a man at her side. But she’d coped through far
worse on her own. And survived.
    Steering her thoughts away from tough
times and back to her tasks at hand, Sarah stepped into the kitchen. Could she
even call it that? One-spot-cooking for sure. While she was on that spot, she
might as well heat water for a hot drink. Too late to make a pot of filter
coffee—she’d settle for instant. By the time she fetched her groceries, the water
would at least have boiled.
    Grabbing a pot on the shelf above the
sink, Sarah filled it half with water and fired up the gas stove. She turned
and eyed the smoked glass door on the left side of the kitchenette. What could
be in there?
    As she opened the door, dry heat rushed
to greet her. She ventured inside the small room with its raised wooden
seating—a single seat on either side of the steps. Somewhere she’d read that
Finns had this strange love of the sauna. Who could blame them? If she lived in
this frozen world, she’d also look to escape to a hot climate—even if that
could only be found in a tiny wooden room.
    A showerhead peeked out from the wall on
her right. At least she’d found where to bathe. But where was the toilet? No
way would it be upstairs. That only left one place.
    Outside.
    Groan.
    Perhaps she’d better rethink that
coffee.
    As she walked past the stove, Sarah
turned off the gas. Grabbing her hat, gloves and scarf, she pulled them on,
thankful she hadn’t removed her jacket and boots. She zipped up the jacket and
headed for the door, retrieving her car key from the table on the way. She
slipped the key ring around her finger. If she dropped this in the snow, she’d
never find it until summer.
    Already toasty from the fire and the scant
time in the sauna, she didn’t relish the thought of stepping outside into the
cold. Taking a deep breath, she whipped open the door, the action shadowed by a
loud scream as she staggered backward. The