Maybe This Christmas

“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.

For her own sanity, she normally made a point of not touching him, but today she’d broken that rule.

She was hyperaware of him. Shivers ran up and down her spine. Her nerve endings buzzed. The impulsive urge to stand on tiptoe and kiss the sensual curve of his mouth was almost overpowering.

If she did that, how would he react?

He’d die of shock.

And then he’d make some stammered excuse about how he didn’t think it was a good idea because they worked together, whereas what he’d really be thinking was that she wasn’t his type, and he didn’t find her attractive.

She was careful never to cross the line between friendship and something more intimate because she knew once they’d crossed it, they could never go back. Her feelings were her problem. She didn’t want to make him uncomfortable or do anything to risk damaging their friendship.

She removed her hand, turned her head and studied the tall trees of the forest, trying to block out the image of that mouth, those sexy blue eyes and that gorgeous hair ruffled by the wind.

He seemed tense, too, but she knew that was because he was thinking about Jess, not her.

He thought of her as a friend first and second. She doubted he was even aware of her as a woman. She was genderless, one of the few people he could trust in a life filled with sycophants, hangers-on and people who wanted something from him, greedy for crumbs of secondhand fame. The downhill circuit had been crazy, she knew that. And through it all, they’d maintained their friendship.

“I think you need to relax. Follow your instincts and do what feels right. There’s no one right way to be a parent.”

“There are plenty of wrong ways.”

Don’t I know it. “You love who she is, and that’s the most important thing for any child. You don’t wish she were someone different.”

“Are we talking about you here?” His gaze sympathetic, he lifted a hand and brushed snow out of her hair. “How is your mom? Have you entered the dragon’s lair lately?”

The fact he knew instantly what was going through her head was another indication of how well they knew each other.

“I haven’t seen her in a month. I’m due a visit, but I keep putting it off.” Brenna forced a smile. “I have to brace myself to get through an hour of being scolded about how I’m wasting my life here.”

“They’re lucky to have you, Bren.”

No, they weren’t. “I don’t think they’d agree. I’m a disappointment to them. I’m not the way they wanted me to be.” She’d given up trying to change the facts. Some families, like the O’Neils, were a team, and others stumbled along like a band of misfits, as if they’d been thrown together by an unhappy accident.

“You’re you.” He frowned. “They should want you to be you.”

He had a way of simplifying things.

She knew that many people saw Tyler as a sports-obsessed, superficial bad boy. But that was the surface. Beneath the veneer of carelessness, he was astute and perceptive. “It’s because you understand that, and believe that, I know you’re a great dad. You accept Jess as she is. That’s the best thing a parent can do.”

“She’s crazy about skiing. I’m trying to encourage a little balance in her life.”

She smiled. “Did we have balance at that age?”

“No. We spent every moment outdoors.”

Brenna stooped and picked up a pinecone. “So let her do the same. If you’re caught in a strong current, you don’t try and swim against it. Let her ski in every spare moment, and perhaps if you don’t hold her back, she’ll be more willing to spend a little time on other things. Steer her gradually.”

“That sounds reasonable.”

“By the way, you ran off before Kayla could ask if you’d consider running a ski master class.”

“Offering to help out with ski school was enough of a shock to my system for one day.” He checked the time on his phone. “What are you doing now? Are you busy?”

“I was going back to my lodge, and you have family night.” The O’Neils tried to be together one night a month for a meal. It was something she both envied and admired. She had no idea how a family achieved that level of closeness. Hers certainly hadn’t.

“You’re welcome to join us, you know that. I wish you would. I need moral support to face the sight of my two brothers slobbering over their women.”

“They’re in love.”

Tyler shuddered. “That’s why I need you there. We’re the only sane people left.”

“Not tonight.” She pushed the pinecone into her pocket and started to walk again, her feet crunching on the thin layer of snow. If the forecasters were right, she’d be knee deep soon enough. “I have paperwork.” And she needed some space from Tyler to pull herself together.

“Your life is so exciting. It must be hard to sleep at night.”

She breathed in the scent of snow and forest. “I happen to like my life, although I prefer the outdoor part to the indoor part.”

“Do you fancy a quick drink? I need to talk about sex.”

“You—what?” She stumbled, and he shot out a hand and steadied her, his grip hard and strong.

“Careful. I take it back. Maybe you are a little clumsy when you’re not concentrating.” He let go of her arm. “I realized I have no idea how to talk to Jess about sex, and I want to work out what I’m going to say before I have to say it. I don’t want to fumble like I did tonight over the other stuff.”

Jess.

He wanted to talk about Jess.

Her knees felt as if she’d downed a bottle of vodka. “What other stuff?”

“It doesn’t matter, but it got me thinking.”

She was thinking, too, and she wished she wasn’t because those thoughts revolved around him naked. “Thinking about what?”

“For a start, at what age are you supposed to talk to a kid about sex? What age were you when you talked to your mom?”

I still don’t talk to my mom.

“We didn’t talk about stuff like that.”

“Never? So how did you—?”

“I can’t remember!” Feeling as if she was being strangled, she unzipped her jacket. She and Tyler had talked about everything over the years, but never this. As far as she was concerned, he couldn’t have picked a more uncomfortable subject. “Other kids? Books?”

“But other kids say all sorts of stuff that’s wrong. I don’t want to tell her more than she needs to know, but I have no idea how to find out what she already knows. This is what I mean about parenting being a nightmare. I need a book or something. I’d use the internet, but I’m afraid to type sex and teenagers into a search engine in case I’m arrested.”

It was impossible not to laugh, but she was grateful for the dark and the biting cold of the winter air because she knew her face was burning. Emotions churned inside her; feelings she’d tried to ignore rose to the surface. She wished she were more like Élise, who viewed sex as a physical act as simple and straightforward as eating or drinking.

Élise would have simply told Tyler how she felt, stripped him naked, had sex with him and then moved on as if all they’d done was enjoy a meal together.

“Tyler, you don’t need a book. You know plenty about sex.” More than plenty, if rumor was to be believed. There had been times when she’d wished she could walk around wearing noise-reducing headphones to block out the gossip.

“Doing it, yes, but not talking about it with teenagers. And to make it worse, she keeps finding all this stuff that’s been written about me, and most of it’s crap. I already have parental control on her laptop, but that’s not going to stop her reading all sorts of stuff that isn’t true.”

Brenna thought about all the stuff she’d read about him and wondered which bits weren’t true.

The night after he’d won a World Cup downhill in Lake Louise when it had been rumored he’d spent several hours in a hot tub with four members of the French women’s team? Or the night he supposedly skied seminaked on part of the Hahnenkamm, one of the most notorious runs in Europe, with a whiskey bottle in his hand instead of a ski pole?

Oblivious to her train of thought, he ran his hand over his jaw. “Any ideas? Can you remember being thirteen? What did you think about when you were that age?”

Him. She’d thought about him. Tyler O’Neil had played a starring role in every dream and adolescent fantasy.

“She probably already knows everything. They teach them pretty young at school.”

“Yeah, but how much do they teach them? I want her to be fully informed, that’s all. I don’t want some guy with a libido on overdrive taking advantage of her.”

“She’s not even fourteen, and all she thinks about is skiing. I don’t think you need to worry about that quite yet.”

“I want to be ahead of the game.” He glanced up at the sky. “It’s snowing again. You’ll freeze standing here. Have a drink with me, and you can tell me what sounds right and what doesn’t.”

She wasn’t freezing. She was boiling hot. She was pretty sure her face was scarlet. “You want to talk about sex?”

“You were a teenage girl once. Help me out here, Bren.”

Should she confess that sex wasn’t exactly her specialist subject? “You’re supposed to be at family night.”

“All the more reason to have a drink. A meeting followed by an evening of O’Neil family togetherness is too much for any man.”