Kitabı oku: «A Magical Christmas», sayfa 3

CHAPTER TWO

TYLER SPRAWLED IN A chair at the edge of the room, only half listening as Jackson and Kayla gave a presentation on plans for the winter season. It was his least favorite way to spend an evening, and he had to force himself to concentrate as they flicked through slide after slide showing projected figures, visitor numbers, repeat business versus new business until after a while everything blurred, and he stopped listening, bored out of his skull.

If he never heard the words cash flow again, it would be too soon.

He should have been in Europe, studying videos with his team or discussing plans with Chas, his ski technician, whose expertise and magic with edges, overlays, wax and finishes had sliced seconds from Tyler’s time. They’d been a winning team, but it wasn’t just the winning he missed. It was the anticipation, the rush of speed, the one hundred seconds when you were right on the edge between control and out of control hurtling down the slope at speeds most people wouldn’t even reach in a car.

It had been his life, and that life had changed in an instant.

Fortunately, the news that his leg wouldn’t be able to withstand the forces placed on it by competitive skiing had coincided with the news that Jess was coming to live with him, so he had something else to focus on at least.

His thoughts drifted to his daughter and the conversation they’d had earlier.

There was no escaping the fact she wasn’t a kid anymore.

She was a teenager.

Everything was changing. Exactly how much did she know about his sex life? How much did she know about sex in general?

Sweat broke out on the back of his neck, and he shifted in his chair, the discomfort almost physical.

At what age were you supposed to have that talk? He had no idea. He had no idea about any of it.

And what was going on with school? He didn’t know, but it was obvious that something wasn’t right.

He needed to spend more time with her, and the easiest way to do that was to focus on her skiing.

Thinking about skiing helped him to relax. With that, at least, he was in his comfort zone.

She was good, but having grown up in Chicago with a mother who hated everything about skiing, she lacked experience. Somehow he had to cram that experience in while still fulfilling his obligations to the family business. What she needed was more hours on the mountain with someone who had the ability to coach her.

He knew he had the ability, if not the patience.

Still, the prospect of training her lifted his mood. He might not be able to ski competitively anymore, but he could ski with his daughter. He saw a lot of himself in her, which was probably why her mother had all but kicked her out the winter before. Janet had tried everything in an attempt to stamp the O’Neil out of Jess, but nothing had worked.

Pride mingled with the slow simmer of anger.

The Carpenter family had paid a fortune to slick lawyers to make sure Janet had custody of Jess. For twelve years he’d had to put up with only seeing her in the summer and at Christmas, but then Janet had become pregnant again. The combination of a new baby and Jess hitting her teenage years had culminated in her sending Jess to live with him.

Tyler had vacillated between relief and happiness that his daughter was finally where he’d wanted her all along, and fury and disbelief that Janet had sent the child away.

As far as he was concerned, family was family, and they stayed that way even when the going got tough. You couldn’t sign off or resign. Walking away wasn’t an option. He’d been eighteen when Janet had told him that their single encounter had left her pregnant, and no matter what emotions had rippled through the O’Neil family at the time, he’d never doubted that he’d had their support.

The Carpenter family had been less accepting, and Janet had never forgiven him for making her pregnant. She blamed him for the whole thing, as if she hadn’t been the one who had walked into the barn that day wearing nothing but a smile. And that blame had permeated her relationship with her daughter. It was no wonder Jess had arrived at Snow Crystal feeling insecure, unwanted and vulnerable.

“What do you think, Tyler?”

Realizing he’d been asked a question he hadn’t heard, Tyler woke up and looked at his brother. “Yeah, go for it. Great idea.”

“You have no idea what I said.” Jackson folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. “This is important. You could try paying attention.”

Tyler suppressed a yawn. “You could try being less boring.”

“The high school ski team is a coach down. The team is losing more than they’re winning. They want our help.”

“I said less boring.”

His brother ignored him. “I said we’d help out at the school for a couple of sessions. We can talk theory and give a waxing demonstration.”

“Waxing?” Kayla’s eyebrows rose. “We’re still talking skiing, yes? Not grooming?”

Tyler gave her a look. “How long have you lived here?”

“Long enough to know exactly how to wind you up.” Smiling, Kayla made a note on her phone. “Helping the high school team will be good publicity. I can do something with that locally.”

Tyler stared moodily at his feet and waited for them to ask him to do it.

Once, he’d skied alongside the best in the world.

Now he was going to be coaching a losing high school ski team.

Regret ripped through him along with sick disappointment and a yearning that made no sense. What was done was done.

He was about to make a flippant comment about how he’d finally made it to the top, when Jackson said, “We thought Brenna might do it.”

Brenna was the obvious person. She was a PSIA level three coach and a gifted teacher. She was patient with kids and adventurous with expert skiers.

Glancing at her, Tyler noticed the change in her expression and the stiffness of her shoulders. You didn’t have to be an expert in body language to see she didn’t want to do it.

And he knew why.

He waited for her to refuse, but instead she gave a tense smile.

“Of course. Kayla’s right. It will be good publicity and good for our reputation.” She gave the answer Jackson wanted and listened while he outlined details, but there was no sign of the smile that had been evident a few moments earlier. Instead she stared hard out the window and across the snow-dusted forest to the peaks beyond.

Tyler wondered why his brother hadn’t noticed the lack of enthusiasm in her response and decided Jackson was too caught up with the pressures of keeping the family business afloat to notice small things. Like the rigid set of her shoulders.

He felt a rush of exasperation.

Why didn’t she speak up and say how she felt?

He knew she didn’t want to do it. Unlike most of the women he’d met, he found Brenna easy to read. The expression on her face matched her mood. He knew when she was happy; he knew when she was excited about something; he knew when she was tired and cranky. And he knew when she was unhappy. And she was unhappy now, at the news she’d be coaching the high school team.

And he knew why.

She’d hated school. Like him, she’d considered the whole thing a waste of time. All she’d wanted to do was get out on the mountains and ski as fast as she could. Lessons had got in the way of that. Tyler had felt the same, which was why he sympathized with Jess. He knew exactly how it had felt to be trapped indoors in a classroom, sweating over books that made no sense and were as heavy and dull as old bricks.

But in Brenna’s case, it hadn’t been a love of the mountains or a dislike of algebra that had driven her loathing of school, but something far more insidious and ugly.

She’d been bullied.

On more than one occasion, he and his brothers had tried to find out which kids were making Brenna’s life a misery, but she’d refused to talk about it, and none of them had witnessed anything that had given them clues. It hadn’t helped that she was younger, which meant that they rarely saw her during the school day.

Tyler had wanted to fix it, and it had driven him crazy that she wouldn’t let him.

If it had been one of his brothers, he would have sorted the problem, so he couldn’t see why she wouldn’t let him help.

On one occasion, she’d walked back from school with grazed knees and a cut on her face, her schoolbooks damaged from her encounter with whoever had pushed her in the ditch.

“I don’t need you to fight my battles, Tyler O’Neil.” She’d dragged her filthy, muddy schoolbag onto her skinny shoulder, and he remembered thinking that if he ever found out who was doing this to her, he was going to push them off the top of Scream, one of the most dangerous runs in the area.

He never had found out.

And presumably the person, or persons, responsible were now long gone from Snow Crystal, leaving only the memory.

Was she thinking of it now?

He ran his hand over his jaw and cursed under his breath. He didn’t want to think of Brenna as vulnerable. He wanted to think of her as one of the boys. He’d disciplined himself not to notice those sleek curves under the fitted ski pants. He’d trained himself not to notice the sweet curve of her mouth when she laughed. She was a colleague. A friend.

His best friend. He was never, ever going to do anything to jeopardize that.

Shit.

“I’ll go into school. I’ll coach the race training camp and whatever else needs doing.” Even as he said the words, part of his brain was yelling at him to shut up. “Brenna has enough to do around here.”

Jackson’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You?”

“Yeah, me. Why not?”

“The question is more ‘why would you?’”

He waited for Brenna to admit how she felt, and when she didn’t, he searched his brain for an explanation. “They are the stars of tomorrow.” He regurgitated something he’d read at the top of Jess’s school report and then decided he needed something more plausible. “And there’s no feeling quite like basking in the adulation of teenage girls. I don’t get anywhere near enough adulation around here, so I’ll do it.”

“No.” Brenna finally found her voice. “We all know it’s not your thing. I’ll do it.”

“I’m making it my thing. I’m doing it, and that’s final.”

Kayla gave a delighted chortle. “I can see the headline now—downhill champion coaches losing high school team. Great story.” She started to pace, her enthusiasm and excitement visible in every tap of her heels. “I could see if it would interest someone as a documentary. Could I do that?”

Tyler, who loathed the press after a particularly nasty piece about his alleged involvement with a stunning Austrian snowboarder, felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift. “Not if you want me to do the coaching.”

Jackson was frowning. “Are you sure you want to do it?”

“I’m sure.” Tyler thought of what he’d just committed himself to and decided Friday was now officially his worst day of the week. “Are we about done? Because staring at all those lines on the spreadsheet is making me feel as if I’m behind bars. I have work to do on some of the equipment. Proper work, I mean, not the sort that means giving presentations.”

It was fun to wind his brother up, and it took his mind off the fact Brenna was hurting, a thought that made him restless and uncomfortable.

“We’re nearly done.” Jackson refused to be rushed. “As you know, they’re predicting a big statewide snowstorm. A winter storm watch is up. According to the forecast, the storm will be right down the New England coast, which puts us in the sweet spot for snow, good news given that the snow pack is twenty percent down on the average for this time of year.”

“Hey, it’s winter in Vermont. One minute you’re skiing on grass, then you’re slithering on ice, and if you get really lucky, you’re up to your neck in powder.” But the mention of snow roused Tyler from his state of boredom. “How much snow, exactly?”

“Between twelve and fourteen inches. Possibly more.”

“That is the best news I’ve had in a long time. I love a good powder day.”

“So do our guests, and they’ll pay for a guide so you’ll be busy.”

“Trust you to ruin good news. Do you ever think of anything other than work?”

“Not with our busiest time of the year approaching, no. We’re a winter sports resort.”

Kayla glanced up from her laptop. “And you’re our USP.”

“I’m your what?”

“Our unique selling point. No other resort has a gold-medal-winning downhill skier available for hire.”

“I’m not for hire.”

Ignoring his dangerous tone, Kayla smiled. “You are for a price. A good price, I might add. You’re not cheap. Have you taken a look at our new website? There is a whole page devoted to you. Ski with the best in the world.”

Tyler suppressed a yawn. “Can’t I give them a map and let them find their own way?”

Jackson ignored that. “People will pay good money to lay down tracks in fresh snow and enjoy the silence.”

“And with all those people enjoying it, there won’t be any silence,” Tyler pointed out, but Jackson wasn’t listening.

“The snow will be fun on the slopes, less fun on the roads.” As usual, his brother focused on the implications for the business. “If it happens, we’ll need to find rooms for as many staff as possible because the snowplows will have trouble keeping up.”

Deciding that logistics weren’t his problem, Tyler rose to his feet. “My bed is big enough for two. Three if they’re blonde.” He kept his eyes away from Brenna’s shiny dark hair. “I’m going now before I die of boredom and you have to remove my rotting corpse. Not that I know anything about marketing, but I’m guessing that wouldn’t be good for business.”

TRYING TO ERASE an image of Tyler sharing his bed with two blondes, Brenna zipped up her jacket and stepped out into the freezing night. Tyler was already striding ahead, and she looked at those broad, powerful shoulders, thinking that meetings never lasted long when he was involved. He drove things forward, impatient to be out in the fresh air, incapable of sitting still for any length of time.

Trapping Tyler O’Neil in a meeting room was like trying to cage a tiger.

Her feet brushed through a light dusting of fresh snow, and she knew without any help from the weather forecast that they were going to have more before the week was out. She could smell it in the air. The temperature had plummeted, and the sky was heavy with it.

As far as she was concerned, there was no place on earth more perfect than Snow Crystal. She loved the stillness and peace of the lake in the summer, the burst of fall color that turned the dense leaves of the forest to flame, but most of all she loved the frozen beauty of winter.

“Brenna, wait.” Kayla hurried across to her, her laptop bag banging against her hip, her blond hair sliding over her stylish berry-red coat. Like Christy, her hair was smooth and perfect. Like Christy, she could have walked into any boardroom in New York and not looked out of place.

“Everything all right?”

“Yes, but I haven’t seen you for a couple of days. It’s been crazy. Are you using the gym tomorrow?” Kayla’s phone beeped, and she checked it quickly. “Text from my ex-boss in New York, offering me a promotion if I go back. Hilarious. He’s sending me one a week at the moment. They’ve won a big account, and they’re desperate for staff.”

“Would you go back?”

“Not in a million years. Manhattan at Christmas is my nightmare. Give me fir trees and forest every time. I’d rather hug a moose than visit Santa.”

“And most of all, you’d rather hug Jackson.”

Kayla gave a wicked smile. “True enough. That man makes it hard to get up in the morning, that’s for sure.” She slipped her phone back into her pocket. “I love it here. And this winter I’m determined to get better at skiing so I’m not left behind. I’m done with Tyler’s derogatory comments about my lack of ability.” She followed Brenna’s gaze and saw him striding away. “He doesn’t hang around, does he? I wanted to persuade him to run a master class for advanced skiers, but he ran off before we’d finished.”

“I suspect the prospect of coaching the high school team and guiding was enough of a challenge for one meeting.”

“I don’t get the problem. He loves skiing. He finds it fun. What’s wrong with skiing with guests?”

“Because he’s the best. And fun for him is skiing places that would give any other person a heart attack.”

“All of it gives me a heart attack. The idea of launching myself down a vertical slope is terrifying.”

“That’s because this is only your second season.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m always going to find it terrifying. I’m a coward, and it isn’t natural to put myself in a position where I could kill myself. How do you do it? I mean, you hurl yourself down slopes that would make me cry. Jackson said the other day he thought you could have made the U.S. ski team if you’d had more encouragement from your parents.”

It was something Brenna didn’t let herself think about. “They wanted me to get a proper job.”

“You run the Outdoor Center. That isn’t a proper job?”

“Not to them.” Brenna tilted her face and felt flakes of snow flutter onto her cheeks. “I guess I’m a disappointment.”

“How can you be a disappointment? You’re such a talented teacher, equally good with wimps and daredevils.” Kayla’s eyes gleamed. “Hey, that is a great idea. We should name a class daredevils.”

“Not if you want me to take it. Kids don’t need any encouragement to act crazy on the slopes.” Brenna pulled her hat out of her pocket. “I’ll catch him up. See if I can persuade him to do your master class.”

“Perfect. Then he can kill you and not me. All we need now is snow.” Kayla turned as Jackson joined them. “Ready for dinner? Your mom texted. She’s made pot roast. Although what her text actually said was pit rot, so you might want to order takeout.”

“I’m not sure I’m in the mood for a family gathering. How does pizza in bed sound?” Jackson slid his arm around her shoulder. “Are you joining us, Brenna?”

“For pizza in bed? I don’t think so.” She pulled her hat onto her head and smoothed her hair away from her face. “I have to finish working on plans for the race series.”

“We can’t have pizza in bed,” Kayla murmured. “I promised Elizabeth we’d be there. It’s family night. Sean and Élise are coming, too, and Jess is already there.”

“I love my family, but there are days when I could happily move to California.” Jackson lowered his head, kissed her and then gave Brenna an apologetic look. “Everything all right in Forest Lodge? You’re comfortable?”

“It’s perfect. I love it. Forest Lodge is my dream home. And it’s convenient. Thanks for letting me stay again this season.”

“It helps us out having you here on-site, and we have empty cabins so it makes sense. Good night, Brenna.”

“Good night.” She watched as the two of them walked toward the main house, their arms looped around each other as they picked their way over the snow. She felt a pang of envy and stood for a moment, her emotions tangled. She was pleased for them. Happy they were happy, but somehow their happiness and what they shared made her conscious of what was missing in her own life.

Feeling tired and cross with herself, she made her way down the snowy path that led from the Outdoor Center to the lakeside trail and Forest Lodge. It was one of the first log cabins Jackson had built when he’d taken over the running of Snow Crystal, and Brenna loved it. All the cabins were beautiful, but Forest was special.

The resort had been in the O’Neil family for four generations, but it wasn’t until Jackson’s father had died that the truth had emerged. The business had been at risk, and it was Jackson who had walked away from a successful ski business in Europe to come home and run the family business, helped by Tyler, whose own career had crashed and burned in spectacular fashion.

She walked along the path, breathing in the smell of pine and the crisp night air. The sounds of the forest calmed her. The snow cover was still thin, but they were all hoping that was about to change.

She was so deep in thought, she almost walked straight into Tyler, who was waiting for her.

In her flat snow boots she barely reached his shoulder. “I thought you were long gone.”

“There is only so much corporate boredom I can take at a time.”

“So why are you still here?”

“You were upset in that meeting. Why do you never speak up?” He reached out and pulled her hat farther down over her ears. “You should have told my brother no when he asked you to coach the high school team.”

He’d always been able to read her, which made his apparent lack of awareness about her feelings for him all the more surprising. Over the years she’d come to the conclusion that the fact he knew her so well was the very reason he hadn’t guessed the truth. They’d been best friends for so long it hadn’t ever occurred to him to question that relationship or see her in any way other than the girl he’d grown up with.

And she preferred it that way.

It was easier for both of them if he didn’t know.

She didn’t want the awkwardness that would inevitably come should such an imbalance in the relationship be revealed.

“I was going to do it, until you volunteered.”

The silence of the forest wrapped itself around them. They stood on the intersection between the path that led to the Outdoor Center and the path that led through the forest to the lake.

“Someone had to do it, and I didn’t want it to be you.” The collar of his jacket brushed against the dark shadow of his jaw, and his eyes glittered impatiently. “You should have said no.”

“This is my job. Jackson asked me to do it.”

“And he shouldn’t have, but when it comes to Snow Crystal, my brother has tunnel vision.”

“I guess that happens when you’re fighting to save a business. You didn’t have to volunteer. I would have done it.”

“But only because doing it was preferable to having a difficult conversation.”

“Excuse me?”

“You do anything to avoid confrontation.”

“That isn’t true.” She looked away, embarrassed and frustrated because she knew it was true. “What did you expect me to do? Tell my boss no?”

“Why not? You hated everything about that school. You couldn’t wait to leave. We both know you don’t want to go back there.”

Her stomach curled into a tight, uncomfortable knot.

There were so many things she wished she’d said and done differently. Things her grown-up self would have told her teenage self as well as her tormenters.

“I wasn’t that interested in studying.”

“We both know that wasn’t why you hated the place.”

She flushed, unsettled that he knew her so well. Her school days had been a miserable time. That whole period of her life would have been miserable had it not been for the O’Neil brothers, Tyler in particular.

“Why are we talking about this? It’s long since over and done with.”

“There you go again—avoidance. When it’s something difficult, you duck. Hide. Who was it? I want to know.”

“Who was what?”

“Who gave you a hard time?”

He’d asked her the same question repeatedly over the years, and she’d never given him an answer. “Why are you bringing that up now? It was a long time ago.”

“Exactly. So you might as well tell me.”

His persistence exasperated her. “It was no one.”

“You fell in the ditch by yourself?” He put his fingers under her chin and tilted her face to him. “Jackson and I had a few suspicions. Was it Mark Webster? Tina Robson? Those two caused most of the trouble in your grade.”

“It wasn’t them.” She tried to ignore the way his hand felt against her skin. “I was clumsy, that’s all.”

“Honey, you skied with me, and most of the time you kept up. There were moments when you were almost better on that hill than I was.”

“Almost? Arrogance isn’t attractive, Tyler.” But she’d seen the gleam in his eyes and knew he was playing with her.

“Neither is evasion.” A smile that was altogether too attractive flickered at the corner of his mouth. “You’re never going to tell me, are you?”

“No. It’s behind me and anyway, I don’t need you protecting me.”

“Cameron Foster?”

“Tyler, stop!”

“If you’d told me who it was, I would have pushed them in the ditch.”

She knew that was the truth. Tyler O’Neil had spent more time in the principal’s office than he had in the classroom. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. You were in enough trouble without me being responsible for more. Look, I appreciate you volunteering to take that class, but you don’t need to. I can do it. We both know you’d hate it. Why would you want to put yourself through that?”

“Because it’s you.”

Her heart pumped a little faster. Hope, that thing she kept ruthlessly suppressed, flickered to life inside her. “What’s that supposed to mean? Why would you do it for me?”

He frowned, as if he thought it was a strange question. “Because I care about you. Because we’ve been friends since you could walk.”

Friends.

She felt a thud of something inside her and recognized it as disappointment.

How could she possibly be disappointed about something that had been her reality forever? She should be grateful for his friendship. It was greedy of her to want more, but still she did want more. She wanted it all. She wanted the whole fantasy.

But that was all it was ever going to be, of course.

A fantasy.

Tyler gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Stop looking so sick. I’m taking that class and that’s final. If it makes you feel better, you can buy me a bottle of whiskey for Christmas to numb the agony.”

“I already bought your Christmas present.”

“You did? What is it?”

“A box set of chick flicks for you to watch with Jess. I thought it would help you bond.”

He groaned. “You had better be joking. But talking of Jess, I need your help. She is desperate to ski.”

Like father, like daughter.

It was bittersweet, because she’d longed for that very thing—the man and the child. Home. Family. Snow Crystal. Officially being an O’Neil. She didn’t know if it was because she was old-fashioned, or because she’d known right from the start that the only man she wanted in her life was Tyler. She hadn’t needed to meet hundreds of other men to know he was the one.

But he didn’t want that. And he certainly didn’t want it with her.

She forced herself to focus on the topic of Jess. “She skis with you. There is no better training than that.”

“It’s all she wants to do. She’s falling behind with her schoolwork. Not concentrating in class.” He dragged his hand over his jaw. “How am I supposed to handle that? I try and tell her to do her homework, but I never did mine, so does that make me a hypocrite? Do I tell her to do as I say or do as I did? I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about last winter when I tried holding her back. Look how that turned out.”

“She was pushing you. Testing you. You worked through it.”

“She ran away!”

“You found her almost right away.”

“But not before she’d given us all a heart attack.”

Brenna thought about the night Jess had gone missing. “I suppose you have to set boundaries.”

“You ignored the boundaries. So did I. How do I enforce them with my daughter?”

Seeing him question himself was a novel experience. Tyler was fearless and confident. Both qualities were an essential part of a sport that demanded total precision. He’d never had any doubts about what he wanted out of life, and she found his attempts to adapt to living with a teenage daughter endearing. Suspecting that endearing wasn’t an adjective he’d thank her for, she kept it to herself.

“Why would you be messing it up? You made it clear from the moment Janet sent her here that she was loved and wanted. That’s the most important thing.”

Jess hadn’t revealed much about the years she’d spent with her mother in Chicago, but she’d said enough to make Brenna, who had always considered herself to be even-tempered, hope she never came face-to-face with Janet ever again.

“Loving her isn’t enough though, is it? I’m worried I’m a lousy father. That’s the truth.” He took a deep breath and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “I haven’t admitted that to anyone but you.”

Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed. “You’re a good father. How can you doubt that?”

“I didn’t manage to keep her when she was born, did I?”

“Not because you didn’t try.” She knew how hard the O’Neils had fought to keep baby Jess. Knew what losing had done to them. “Why are you thinking about that now when it was all so long ago?”

“Because she mentioned it earlier.”

“The custody battle?”

“The fact she was an accident. Janet obviously said something to her. I’m worried we’ve screwed her up.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think she’s screwed up, but if she’s been affected by her childhood then you’re not responsible for that. You weren’t the one telling her those things.”

“I’m responsible for what happens from now on though, and that responsibility scares me.”

“I can’t imagine you feeling scared.” Of all the words people might have applied to Tyler O’Neil, fear definitely wasn’t one of them. “You’re not scared of anything or anyone.”

“I’m scared of this.” He stopped walking and turned to look at her. For once there was no hint of humor in those blue eyes. “I don’t want to mess this up, Bren.”

His sincerity brought a lump to her throat, and she reached out and put her hand on his arm, her fingers closing around brutally hard biceps. Tyler O’Neil was everything male, but she tried not to think of him that way. Tried not to notice the wide shoulders, the thickness of muscle under his jacket or the telltale shadow on his jaw. She tried to think of him as a friend first and a man second. Today, for some reason, that wasn’t working out so well, and the jolt to her senses woke her up.