by Sarah Morgan
“Why me?” Her voice was a croak. “You could have skied with your brothers.”
“Too complicated and anyway,” his tone was ultra casual, “I enjoy skiing with you.”
It was the one thing they shared. The one thing she had that other women didn’t.
The ability to keep up with him.
“I’ll be out in two minutes.”
He gave a slow, sexy smile. “Make it one minute. We need to make the most of the quiet time. God knows there’s little enough of it round here with visitor numbers increasing.”
She understood, because she felt the same way. Like Tyler, she’d always rather be outdoors than indoors. “Where’s Jess?”
“She slept overnight at my mother’s. They were stocking the freezer for Christmas. There’s a strong chance school will be canceled this morning, and if it is, I’ll ski with her later. If not, Mom will take her to school. Now hurry up and get dressed before the rest of the village beats us to it.”
Trying not to read anything into the invitation, Brenna dressed quickly in her ski gear, grabbed what she needed for the day and joined him outside.
He drove to the base of the quad lift that carried four people at a time up the mountain. It had been replaced a few years previously, and the new lift had fewer problems with the ice and cold weather.
It was still dark and, despite her predictions, they were the first skiers on the lift.
Tyler brushed the snow from the seat, and Brenna settled next to him on the chair, her thigh pressing against his. They sat in silence, enjoying the slow glide of the lift as it carried them smoothly up the mountain. From here she had an aerial view of winter perfection. She looked down at the trees and narrow trails, mentally plotting a route, trying not to think about the pressure of his leg against hers.
It was bitterly cold, and she snuggled deeper inside her jacket, her shoulder resting against his.
How many times had they done this? Sat side by side watching the sun rise over the ridge, the light dazzling and dancing over the untouched surface of new snow, the ice crystals sparkling under the warm blue of the winter sky.
As they skied off the lift and paused at the top, Tyler turned to her. “Glad you didn’t stay in bed?”
“Yes. I love the way the forest feels after snow.” No possession, nothing she’d ever owned, could be this beautiful or give her the same kick of excitement as nature did when she shone light down on the mountains and forest. “This is perfect.” And being with him made it all the more perfect.
It was because she was thinking about him and not concentrating that she caught an edge and landed flat on her back.
“Oh, crap.”
Laughing, he skied over to her. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you fall.” As she struggled to sit up, he reached into his pocket for his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Savoring the moment. And gathering photographic evidence.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“I’m kidding.” Still laughing, he slipped the phone back into his pocket, reached out and hauled her to her feet.
Her ski tangled with his, and he slid slightly and clamped her hard against him to stop them both falling.
She rested her hand on his shoulder to steady herself, looking first at his jaw, then at his mouth and finally his eyes.
Serious eyes, all suggestion of laughter gone. “All right?”
“I’m good.”
His gaze held hers for a moment, and then he released her, disentangled their skis and turned toward the trees.
For him, the moment had passed but her mind, her memory, was full of moments like this. His name wasn’t just carved on a tree somewhere, it was carved in her heart.
She stood still, watching him move fluidly through the deep snow. He made it look effortless and easy as only an expert could.
It didn’t matter whether he was bombing from the top to the bottom in a World Cup downhill, floating through deep snow or arcing on groomers, he was the best. A supreme athlete, in tune with his surroundings. In a sport where the difference between winning and coming in second was the matter of a hundredth of a second, he had been right at the top of the game.
She followed as he took a route through three feet of perfectly layered snow, instinct and local knowledge helping him find the perfect path through the deep powder. He was a skilled, aggressive skier, attacking the slopes with no visible signs of fear, regardless of the conditions. She heard him whoop as he executed a run of smooth, perfect turns, gliding through the snow with fluidity and rhythm. She followed as he swooped down into the glades, and they weaved through snow-sculpted trees, their branches misshapen and heavy from the weight of their winter load. The only sound was the whisper of skis and the soft thud of snow falling on snow as they wound their way through hardwood forest toward the main part of the resort.
Eventually, he paused, and she stopped next to him in the clearing, her cheeks stinging from the cold, her breath clouding the air.
“That was incredible.” The early morning sun danced across the surface of the new snow, and ice crystals sparkled like spilled sugar. High in the trees a pair of chickadees were singing, and the sky behind them was an unblemished blue.
“It’s the best time of day.” He tugged off a glove and lifted his ski goggles. “It’s going to be a good one.”
It had already started in the best possible way.
“Thanks for asking me to join you. Most people would kill their neighbor for first tracks.”
“Hey—” he turned his head and gave her a smile that connected straight to her knees “—I still made first tracks. You were behind me.”
She pushed him but he didn’t budge, rock solid on his skis. “Next time, I’m going first.”
“If you can catch me, you’re welcome to go first.”
“Remember when we used to skip school and come up here?” She leaned on her ski pole. “We felt as if we owned the mountain.”
“We did.”
“And then they called my mom, and both our parents were hauled up to the school. Mom grounded me for the weekend. As we walked out of the school, she was telling me how I’d embarrassed her and all I heard was your dad asking you what the snow was like.”
“I still remember the look your mom gave my dad. If she could, she would have buried him in a snowdrift. The O’Neils were never her favorite people. She thought Dad was irresponsible.” He stared straight ahead. “I guess a lot of people thought that. Still think that.”
She felt the change in his mood. “He was a good man.”
“He was a lousy businessman. He was trapped in a life he didn’t want, and instead of dealing with it he let a lot of people down. Hurt them.”
“Does your mom ever talk about it?”
“Never. She’s nothing but loyal. She loved him, faults and all.”
“Isn’t that what love really is? Loving someone as they are. If you want someone to be different, how can that be love?” Brenna watched as a bird swooped between the branches, showering snow across the forest floor.
They were alone in this wintery wilderness, wrapped by the cold and the endless white, with only the breathtaking beauty of the forest for company.
“Without Jackson, she would have lost her home. So would Grams and Gramps. Sometimes it’s hard not to let the bad memories overtake the good.” His rough confession, his unusual admission of inner struggle, made Brenna catch her breath.
Why was it that whenever he hurt, she hurt, too?
It was his pain, and yet it felt like hers.
It had been the same after his accident. The same after his father had died.
Whatever he felt, she felt, as if they were connected by an invisible wire that transmitted his emotions straight into her with no filter
.
“I always think of your father when I’m skiing in the glades.” She chose her words carefully, hoping to heal not hurt. “We skied here so often. I can still hear his voice telling me to look at the gap between the trees, not the trees themselves.”
“I think of him here, too.”
Breaking her own rule, she put her hand on his arm. “There was so much good. He was fun. Adventurous, and he encouraged you to be adventurous. There wasn’t a single day when he wasn’t proud of you, when he didn’t encourage you. He was a skilled outdoorsman, and he saw those same skills in you. It was your dad who taught me to ski, and he was brilliant.”
“His idea of teaching was to stand at the top of a vertical slope and say ‘follow me.’”
“Exactly. My parents never let me do anything remotely risky. He encouraged you to pursue your dreams.”
“And he pursued his own. A little too enthusiastically.” He drew breath. “I don’t usually talk about this. I guess because you knew him—”
“I loved him,” Brenna said simply, and Tyler turned his head.
His blue eyes fixed on hers, and she caught her breath because what they shared in that moment was intimate and deeply personal.
“And he loved you. He thought you were the coolest girl on the slopes.”
“I envied you so much because you had a dad who really understood your passion. Shared it.” Shaken by the strength of her feelings, she let go of his arm. “I tried to talk to my mother about it. I tried to explain how it felt to surf down soft powdery snow while the sun turns the forest and mountains from snowy-white to burned-orange. I tried to explain how when I’m skiing, all my problems vanish, how I can’t think of anything else but my skis and the mountain, how it clears my head and makes my heart feel free.”
“She didn’t understand?”
“She delivered a lecture on how education would be my ticket out of this place.” She’d never understood that Brenna would have been happy to ski the mountains around Snow Crystal for the rest of her life. That she hadn’t wanted that ticket. “Everything I ever wanted is right here, and she never understood that.”
His gaze was fixed on her face. “What is it you want?”
“The mountains. This life.” Tyler O’Neil.
Careful not to reveal that part, she dipped her head and poked her ski pole in the deep snow. “I guess I’m lucky. Most people don’t get this close to living their dream. But I envied you that day. I imagined you going back and sitting round your kitchen table telling everyone about it. I bet Elizabeth made you hot chocolate.”
“Probably. I’m guessing you didn’t get hot chocolate?”
“I got a lecture on being responsible and how easy it was to sabotage a life by making bad choices.”
He gave her a slow, wicked smile. “And let me guess, I was one of those bad choices she was warning you about.”
Brenna’s heart skipped and bounced like skis on rough ground.
“Only because she never understood that I would have done all those things even if you hadn’t been there.”
“She didn’t approve of our friendship.”
“My mother didn’t approve of anything I did. It wasn’t personal.” She frowned, because sometimes it had felt personal even though she knew it couldn’t be. The O’Neil family had never been anything other than warm and civil to Maura Daniels, so there was nothing to explain the frozen atmosphere except that she resented their lifestyle and their easy relationship with her daughter. “She didn’t like me spending time at your house, and I’ve never understood that.”
Tyler reached out and brushed snow from her shoulder. “She was worried we were a bad influence. Three boys and her baby girl.”
“Are you patronizing me?” Brenna raised an eyebrow. “I did everything you did. And most of the time, I did it better.”
“I guess that’s why she was worried. Did your mother ever know you climbed out through your bedroom window?”
“No. If she’d known, I would have been grounded for a month.”
“If she’d known half the things we did together, she would have grounded you until you were eighteen.” There was laughter in his eyes, and she thought about how many times in her life she’d been ready to kill him for something he’d said or done, only to be cut off at the knees by that smile. All the anger, the irritation, the frustration, would leave her in a rush, leaving only one emotion. The most powerful emotion of all.
Her heart fluttered as if trying to remind her of its existence. Awareness washed over her, warming her skin and stealing her breath. To him, she was a friend, but to her, he was always a man.
She loved his strength and his unapologetic determination to live the life he wanted to live. He broke hearts but not promises, mostly because he never made any. To his friends and family, he was fiercely loyal and protective.
What would it feel like to be kissed by him? For a fleeting moment she wished she were one of those women who flirted and enjoyed his attentions. Maybe their time with him was fleeting, but she was willing to bet they enjoyed every minute.
His eyes held hers for a moment, and then he turned away. “We should go.”
“Yes.” Her voice was croaky, but it didn’t matter because he was already skiing away from her, picking a route through the trees while she stood for a moment hoping that, on this occasion at least, he hadn’t been able to read her mind.
When it came to her feelings, he was uncannily perceptive, which was why she’d learned to hide what she felt.
She followed more slowly. This time she didn’t try to keep up, not only because the trees were closer together as they neared the bottom of the slope, but also because she didn’t trust her legs.
They were shaky. Unstable.
Deciding that thinking about kissing Tyler was a quick way to a serious accident in this terrain, she tried to focus on her skiing. She’d already fallen once. She wasn’t going to do it again.
She reached the lift to find him already waiting for her, and as she removed her skis, her phone chimed.
“Back to reality.”
“You shouldn’t have had that switched on.” He sounded impatient. “Ignore it.”
“I can’t. I’m supposed to be working.” Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she read the text. “I didn’t bother switching it off because there’s no reception in the trees anyway.”
“Who is it?”
“Kayla.” She texted back. “Emergency staff meeting at 7:45 a.m.”
“Emergency?” Tyler dragged off his gloves. “My future sister-in-law has a strange definition of an emergency. For us it’s an avalanche. For Kayla it’s a journalist with a deadline.”
Brenna smiled because it was true. “She has helped transform this place. She has a lot to do with the fact Snow Crystal has a future. And she and Jackson are so cute together. I never thought I’d see him so crazy about a woman.”
Tyler bent to unfasten his boot. “Does it bother you?”
“Why would it bother me?”
“You had dinner with him a few times.” His voice was casual. “You’ve worked together for years. I wondered, that’s all.”
“There’s never been anything between Jackson and me except friendship.” Whereas her feelings for Tyler were something different entirely. Not wanting to dwell on it, she slid her phone back into her pocket and bent to pick up her skis. “We’d better go back before they send out a search party.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“SO THERE’S GOOD NEWS, and there’s bad news.” Kayla paced across the room as she always did when she was thinking. “The good news is that all the snow has brought another flurry of bookings. It’s incredible. I never thought we’d be this busy, this soon.”
“Me, I am always this busy, and right now I should be in the kitchen prepa
ring for lunchtime service.” Impatient to be back in the restaurant, Élise tapped her foot on the floor. “What is the bad news?”
“The extra bookings mean that we’re right at capacity.” Kayla sent Brenna a guilty look. “I’ve had to book Forest Lodge. I’m so sorry. I feel terrible about it, but I had no choice.”
Brenna’s stomach swooped. It hadn’t occurred to her that she wouldn’t be able to stay in Forest Lodge over the winter. Dismay was followed by disappointment and concern about where she’d live in the short-term.
Jackson frowned. “Forest isn’t for rent. Put them in one of the other lodges.”
“The others are booked. And they specifically requested Forest.”
“It’s fine,” Brenna said quickly, but Jackson shook his head.
“Brenna has stayed in that lodge since it was built. Why would they request it? It isn’t on the website.”
“They must have seen it on the resort map and liked the position. They offered full brochure price for it, Jackson. What was I supposed to do? We’re running a business, and they wanted Forest Lodge.” Visibly stressed, Kayla rubbed her fingers over her forehead. “Maybe I made the wrong decision. I should have told them we were full. I’m sorry. Look, I’ll call them back. Tell them I made a mistake.”
“No, you can’t do that!” Brenna told herself it was ridiculous to be hurt when Kayla was doing her job, and doing it well. “You’re right. We’re running a business. Not only that, we’re trying to save a business.”
Kayla gave her a grateful look. “The numbers are looking healthy, but maybe I’m getting carried away. Jackson always says that one day he’s going to find people sleeping in the stable.”
“Well it is Christmas,” Elizabeth murmured, and Brenna forced a smile.
“You did the right thing. Don’t worry. When do I need to be out?”
“They’re arriving Saturday because they wanted the week before Christmas. It’s always quieter on the slopes. Then I’ve booked out the full two weeks around Christmas and New Year’s after that.”
“This coming Saturday?”
