Colorado Christmas (17 page)

“O…kay.” His agreement was measured.

“I don’t want you to feel pressured in any way. You’re not obligated to date me or spend time with me or Nicolas just because we’re going to be permanent residents of the town. I’d hate it if you ended up resenting me or feeling that having me around is cramping your need for freedom, to be yourself. To…date other women.”

“Are you kidding? Sweetheart, I
want
to be with you! This is the best news I’ve had all day. It even trumps the development company pulling out.” He hauled her into his arms and kissed her long and hard.

“Am I interrupting anything?”

Matt’s voice did indeed interrupt something, but Becky was grateful. She was also grateful the rest of the bar couldn’t see her and Will locked in their embrace, since Matt was blocking anyone’s view.

“Come and join the party, you two, before those cameras find you slinking around in dark corners,” he said.

There was much handshaking and backslapping as the bar swelled with more well-wishers, and Will related to his parents and to Becky the reason for the development company’s turnaround. “Their official line is that in the face of such well-organized opposition, they didn’t see any growth worth pursuing in the town in the foreseeable future.” He rolled his eyes. “The unofficial line is that they overstepped the mark, assumed they could walk all over the citizens of a small town, destroy its heritage and defame their judge—” he pulled Becky close “—and get away with it. The delays incurred by further protests and a pending lawsuit meant it wasn’t fiscally prudent for them to stay in the town.”

Becky smiled to herself. She’d tell Will later how she and Mike Cochrane had struck a deal with the development company. She’d drop the lawsuit if they agreed to sell the buildings back for what they’d paid for them. The development company was only too glad to get out of Spruce Lake, since their public profile had taken such a battering. They’d wanted to make a profit, but Mike had stood his ground and convinced them any profits they stood to make would be swallowed up in a further lawsuit, and their reputations would be irreparably damaged as a result. By midafternoon, the deal had been struck.

The protestors had won their fight, with a little help from Becky.

Looking around at the happy faces at Rusty’s, she felt her heart ache. Although the O’Malleys had made her and Nicolas feel welcome at their family gatherings, she didn’t
belong
here. Not yet, anyway. She didn’t know how to put down roots that would go deep enough to be permanent and bonds that would never break, no matter how difficult the hardship, no matter how testing the circumstances. She’d never had the opportunity to be part of anything really worthwhile—apart from her relationship with Nicolas.

But Becky knew she wanted
this,
wanted to feel a sense of belonging, to someone, to a community. All evening, she was intensely aware of Will beside her.

“Kiss me,” he murmured, while the crowd sang, appropriately enough, “O, Little Town of Bethlehem.” His hand cupped her chin, turning her face toward his.

“I don’t—” she began, interrupted when Will’s mouth covered hers, warding off all conscious thought. Her only awareness was of Will’s lips on hers, and, oh, they felt so good. He brushed his lips over hers, then deepened the kiss.

When the crowd cheered, they sprang apart like a pair of schoolkids caught making out behind the gymnasium. Becky could feel herself blushing. She looked around. Everyone was smiling—even Luke O’Malley.

So much for keeping what was happening with her and Will a secret!

She glanced over at Nicolas sitting in a booth with Luke’s daughters and Miss Patterson. He held up his hand, his thumb and forefinger joined in an okay sign as he beamed from ear to ear.

“I’
VE GOT AN APPOINTMENT
at the bank tomorrow,” Will said as they walked home together. Nicolas, at Sarah’s insistence, was spending the night at the ranch.

It had started snowing. Fat, lazy flakes drifted down, and Becky decided it was her favorite type of snow. She loved walking in it and would always associate it with Christmas in the Colorado Rockies.

“I’m arranging a loan to buy back the old buildings, using my ranch land as collateral. They’ve generously agreed to let me develop the land myself, rather than having to sell it off to someone else.” He put his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her closer. “I get to write the covenants, and the wildlife will be protected. It’s turned out better than I could’ve hoped.”

She kissed his cheek, no longer caring who saw them or what they thought about it. “You’ve done a wonderful job.”

“Why, thank you, ma’am.” Will offered her a deep bow, then straightened. “Although I think the development company shooting themselves in the foot helped speed matters up.” He
bent to scoop up some snow and attempted to fashion it into a ball, but the snow was too dry to stick and it fell apart.

“I have people wanting to be tenants of the old buildings once they’re restored. Others want to buy into the condos and houses.” He shook his head in astonishment. “I can’t believe how fast word has spread about the plans for the site. I suspect Jack’s been doing some campaigning of his own. Frank told me tonight he’s moving back to town and wants one of the Victorian houses. I have it on good authority that Lou and Charles approve of the move.”

Becky smiled at the vision of Louella lounging on the front porch of a Victorian home. “I’m delighted he and Edna seem to have put their differences aside. I saw them sharing a booth tonight and they looked very contented in each other’s company.”

Will nodded. “Maybe we should be thanking the development company, after all.”

“How do you figure that?”

“For a start, we wouldn’t have met, which means I might never have met Nick and you wouldn’t have adopted Dugald. Frank and Edna wouldn’t have had the protest movement to throw them together. I wouldn’t have found out what an astute investor I was all those years ago—Hey!” he protested as Becky punched his arm lightly. He grabbed her elbows and tugged her toward him. “And I wouldn’t have found a job that interests me enough to stay in the town.”

“You have a job?”

“Well, duh!” he said with a smile. “Who do you think is going to be the project manager of all these renovations?”

“You?”

Will pretended outrage. “Well, of course me! I’m not completely hopeless.”

“I never said you were. But project managing seems a very disciplined thing to do and, until recently, they wouldn’t be traits I’d have attributed to your character.”

He grinned. “You’ve got a point.”

“However, you’ve displayed tremendous organizational
skills and tenacity with the protest movement. I’m sure with your dedication to saving and preserving those buildings, it can’t help but be a success.”

He grinned. “Jack’ll do an incredible job converting those buildings. He’s already lining up subcontractors.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing his plans. There’s so much you can do with those Victorian homes.”

Will whispered in her ear, “And I’m looking forward to showing you what I can do in your Victorian bedroom.”

He hoisted Becky in his arms and carried her the rest of the way home.

S
O MUCH FOR COOLING IT,
she thought with a smile as she lay spooned against Will later that night.

Will put on coffee for breakfast, then pulled the kitchen curtains aside. Christmas Eve, and it was still snowing. Nick would get his Christmas wish.

The landscape looked serene, but high up in the mountains the snow would be piling up and turning into something potentially lethal. He moved away from the window.

“I’m meeting with the bank at midday to arrange the loan,” he told Becky as she scrambled eggs for them both.

“I planned on taking Nick skiing,” Will continued, “and then he can join the ski-school kids during their lunch break. Is that okay with you? He’ll be safe there and can tag on to a class if I’m not back in time. It’ll be a good chance for him to try a few things without me hovering over him. At the moment, I think he only believes he can ski because I’m there with him.”

Becky looked up from her task and smiled. “I’m sure he doesn’t believe that at all and of course it’s fine with me.”

“I’
LL BE BACK AS SOON
as the meeting’s over, little buddy,” Will told Nick as he walked him into the ski-school hut after their morning lesson.

Another thunderous boom echoed from high up in the mountains, and Will steeled himself against the familiar sound of the avalanche blasting that had gone on throughout the morning. The snow had let up not long after they’d arrived at the slopes.
Nick had been pressuring him to go up on the four-person chairlift that took them higher than the protected kiddie slopes. Will had steadfastly refused.

They found Tom Schilling, one of the children’s ski-school instructors, who greeted him, saying, “Go buy those buildings before the development company changes its mind, Will!”

Will squatted down to Nick’s level. “Are you sure you don’t mind staying here while I go to the bank?”

Nick gave Will one of his uninhibited hugs. “I’ll be fine! It’ll be fun not having you nagging at me all the time.” He softened the comment with a grin. “Good luck, Will. Hey, I’m proud of you.”

Nick was proud of him. That meant a lot. A heck of a lot. His voice was husky when he said, “Thanks, champ. I’m proud of you, too.”

N
ICOLAS HAD FINISHED LUNCH
and slipped outside to play in the snow with some of the other kids while they waited for their afternoon lesson when he heard someone calling him. “Hey, Nick!”

He glanced toward the caller. It was Johnny Cooper with a group of his friends. He wanted to ignore them and work on his snowman, but Will had talked to Johnny and they’d shaken hands on being friends. It would be rude to ignore him, so he said, “Hi. You having a good time?”

“Sure! What about you?”

“Great,” Nicolas said and then, wanting to impress Johnny, said, “I’m going up on the kiddie chair later.”

“Cool! Hey, wanna come up with me and my friends now?”

Nicolas looked in Tom Schilling’s direction. He was talking to some younger kids.

“C’mon, Nick! I saw you skiing before and you’re real good. Those turns you were doin’ were
dy-na-mite.”

That excited Nicolas. “Really?”

“Yeah. So, c’mon. We’re gonna ride the kiddie chair now. You can ride with me. Be my buddy.”

Nicolas had never been anyone’s buddy before. Except Will’s, of course, but not another kid’s.

He had to get permission first. He walked over to Tom, who was demonstrating the snowplow position to one of the children.

“Hey, Tom. Some of my friends from school are here and want me to go on the kiddie chair with them. Can I?”

Tom looked over at the group. They all smiled and waved back. Tom shrugged. “Sure, but stay where I can see you, okay? Class starts again in thirty minutes.”

“Okay!” Nicolas cried and went to join Johnny.

They rode up in the kiddie chair a couple of times and Johnny told jokes the whole way. Johnny and his friends were really good skiers and gave him a few tips. Then Johnny said, “You wanna come up in the big chairlift with us?”

Nicolas hesitated and glanced at Tom. He was still involved with the little kids. “I dunno. I was supposed to stay here. My class starts soon.”

“Aw, c’mon, you don’t want anyone thinking you’re a baby, do you?”

“Well, no,” Nicolas agreed. He really wanted to go higher up the mountain.

“C’mon,” Johnny urged. “I saw those O’Malley girls up there earlier. We can go find them and be back before he even notices you’re gone.” He indicated Tom.

Sasha and Daisy were on the mountain? Nicolas wanted to show them what he’d learned. Maybe he could ski with them? “Okay,” he said and followed Johnny and his friends onto the bigger chairlift.

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER,
Nicolas wasn’t so sure going with Johnny was a good idea, even if Sasha and Daisy were up here somewhere. Johnny had said they’d get off at the first chairlift. But then they’d all skied over and boarded another lift to go higher. Not wanting to be left alone and not knowing his way down the mountain, Nicolas had followed.

Then they’d caught the T-bar. Johnny had helped Nicolas
onto it, and the next thing he knew, he was being whisked farther up the mountain. Johnny pointed out White Cloud Bowl as they rode higher and higher.

Fear clawed at Nicolas’s throat. He wanted to go back down. There were no trees up here and the mountain looked spooky. His legs felt unsteady on the T-bar and he was terrified of falling off. He clung to the bar like a drowning person clinging to a life raft.

He wanted to get off, but the sides of the T-bar trail fell away sharply on each side. “I…I want to go back,” he said as they neared the top.

“Scared?” Nicolas didn’t like the challenge in Johnny’s eyes.

“N-no…but Tom told me to stay where he could see me.”

Johnny sighed as though he was disappointed in him. “I brought you up here ’cause you said you wanted to ski from the top of the mountain.”

“I…d-do.” Nicolas’s fear was increasing by the minute. This place was far too forbidding. “But I…I want to go back down now,” he said as the T-bar was wrenched out from under him.

“The only way down is to ski,” Johnny stated as they skied off to the side of the unloading area.

The mountain was nearly vertical! “I…I can’t ski—” he swallowed “—that.”

“Sure you can. I do it all the time,” Johnny boasted.

“B-but I c-can’t.”

Johnny sighed again. “Okay, then we’ll have to take the easy way down. Come on.” He skied off along a less steep path.

They got to an area with a rope across it and a sign saying Area Closed—Avalanche Danger!

Avalanche!
Nicolas’s blood froze. This was
not
a good place to be.

Johnny and his buddies slipped under the rope.

“Wait!” he called. “It says the area’s closed.”

Johnny looked back at him. “They have that sign up there all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Nicolas glanced behind him. They’d dropped in elevation.
It would be a hard climb to get back to the run Nicolas had noticed over on the other side of the T-bar. He’d seen skiers getting off it and skiing in the other direction…. He wished he’d followed those people instead of Johnny.

He glanced over at Johnny and his buddies. The bowl looked awfully steep and sinister. But Johnny said it was the only way down.

“C’mon!” he yelled. “We’re freezing our butts off.”

I can do this,
Nicolas tried to reassure himself.
I can traverse over to the other side and back again lots of times to get down. And the snow looks soft…if I fall.

Nicolas knew about traversing. Will had taught him the technique of skiing from one side of the slope to the other. He’d said you could get down a steep mountain if you did a
lot
of traversing. Okay…so he could get down this one. He just had to take it slowly. He set off, following Johnny and his buddies.

Three-quarters of the way across, he heard a shout and looked back. A ski patroller was coming toward them! Now he was really in trouble. Johnny and his buddies had already made several turns and were way below him.

A strange sound from above had him glancing up, his heart in his throat. The clouds hovering over the top of the bowl had opened to reveal a huge overhang—and it was cracking! Every nerve in his body froze as the cracks shot through the snowpack. Moments later, the overhanging snow gave up its struggle to stay attached to the mountain as gravity overtook it, and with an almighty
whumph
broke away and came rushing at him with an enormous white roar. It felt as though the world was moving in slow motion under his feet. Then it caught him up, accelerating at a frightening speed, consuming, choking, terrifying him as it tumbled him down the treacherous slope.

Panic-stricken, he cried out, but no one could hear him over the rumble of the avalanche as it tore down the mountain.

He struggled, trying to breaststroke, fighting for breath, fighting to reach the surface, thankful his skis had released. Will had talked to him about how to increase your chances of sur
viving an avalanche. He
had
to stay above the wave, but the forces were too strong and he was tumbled over again and again, catching glimpses of the sky beyond the swirling white wall of snow.

Snow filled his mouth. He spat it out and placed his hands over his face as the avalanche finally spent its fury. And then there was silence.

Snow pressed in around his body, against his chest and throat. He needed to breathe! He pushed his hands out, trying to create an air pocket, like Will had told him. Will was gonna be so mad when he found out he’d come up the mountain without him.

He needed to get to Will. To apologize for being so stupid. He tried to kick against the snow to get to the surface. But it had turned from harmless fluff to cement, packed hard around his legs.

He sobbed at the realization that he was buried beneath tons of snow and might never get out. Panic rose and consumed him as everything turned gray. Then black.

A
FTER THE MEETING
at the bank, Will headed back to the slopes. He and Becky had a lot to discuss this evening. Until he’d signed the contracts, he hadn’t allowed himself to truly believe he had a future in Spruce Lake. But now he did. He owned something of significance—something worth preserving. And he’d fallen in love with a woman he’d walk to the ends of the earth for and a boy he already thought of as a son.

“Hey, Will, is Nick with you?”

Will glanced up at Tom Shilling’s query. “I’m just back from my meeting,” he managed to say despite the sickening sensation in his stomach. “Why did you think he was with me?”

“Some of his buddies came by and he asked if he could ski with them. I thought it’d be okay. They seemed friendly enough, and when he didn’t come back I thought he’d met up with you.”

“What
buddies?”

“There were four of them. I recognized that kid Johnny Cooper.”

Will felt as though an ice pick had been driven through his heart. Okay, so Nick and Johnny had shaken hands and were supposedly friends, but Will didn’t trust Johnny an inch. He cursed himself for letting Nick think everything was all right so he’d have a stress-free Christmas.

His heart racing, he ran up the chairlift line, scanning the chairs and the slopes. When he couldn’t spot him, he realized with nauseating certainty where Johnny would’ve taken Nick. To the one place Will was too scared to go—up the mountain!

He heard a deep rumbling from higher up, the vibrations rising through the soles of his ski boots as the noise increased, sounding like a runaway freight train roaring through the valley.

Will knew that sound only too well. A huge powder cloud filled the air, striking terror into his heart. It must be bad to be visible from down here.

“Avalanche!” he cried. “Get these kids to safety!” He started running uphill, searching for Nick, hoping he’d missed him among the dozens of kids on the slopes. Many of the children had stopped in their tracks, fear and confusion in their eyes. A few were crying for their mothers. Will didn’t have time to comfort them. He had to find Nick.

T
HE COURTROOM WAS ABUZZ
with rumors about an avalanche. Becky banged her gavel, trying to bring the court to order. All morning they’d heard the regular, deep
thwump, thwump
as the ski patrollers blasted potential avalanche zones. Several of the explosions were so intense they’d rattled the windows. However, this last one was different. This time the courtroom had seemed to shake.

The chatter finally settled down, but the fear Becky saw on the faces of the older residents sent shivers up her spine. This was bad.
Very
bad. She knew about the six skiers who’d skied out of bounds back in the 1980s and been killed by an avalanche. They were buried so deep their bodies weren’t recovered until spring. The old-timers’ anxiety was genuine and she needed to do something to alleviate it.

“I’m adjourning court for the rest of the day,” she said and addressed the defendant. “Mr. Applegate, I’m dismissing the charges against you. But don’t let me see you in my court for the same complaint next week, or I’ll double the fine.” She stood and left the courtroom, determined to discover what had happened.

W
ILL’S HEART THUMPED
urgently. He’d never been so afraid in his life. Sirens were approaching from several directions. Police. Search and Rescue. Fire and Paramedics. Matt would be here soon. He’d know what to do. Matt never panicked.

The ski-school children had been ushered inside their meeting hut, where they’d be safe until their parents collected them. The mountain would be closed for the rest of the day while a search was mounted for anyone trapped in the avalanche.

Seeing Matt as he pulled up at the base of the lifts, Will raced over to him. “What’s the official story?” he asked, pulling open his door.

Matt climbed out, his face showing lines of strain and worry that didn’t relieve the panic rising in Will. “It’s not good. Some kids were skiing out of bounds, and a couple of patrollers followed them under the ropes to bring them back. Before they got to them, the kids skied under a cornice and it slid.”