Maybe This Christmas (19 page)

“I don’t see them, and I’ve never skied this run. It looks scary.” Alison peered doubtfully down the slope and then looked back over her shoulder.

“They’re out of sight.” Brenna adjusted her gloves. “The top of Black Bear is deceptively gentle, so I’m guessing they bombed off without waiting and by the time they hit the steep section, it was too late to turn back. We’re going to need to get them down the mountain somehow. I’m so sorry but I need to help Patrick, Alison.”

“Of course you do! We’ll reschedule. I’ll call the Outdoor Center.”

“Would you mind? I feel terrible, but I can’t leave him to deal with this by himself.”

“I’m here for another week, so it’s not a problem. I’m going to take a different route down. Do you want me to call the ski patrol or something?”

Brenna considered the options and shook her head. “We’ll take them down one at a time. It will take a while, but that can’t be helped.”

“What can’t be helped?” Tyler skied up behind her, his black ski suit hugging the muscular contours of his powerful frame.

If the Devil had ever decided to take up skiing he would have worn that suit, Brenna thought, noticing Alison’s expression change.

“You’re—oh, wow—I can’t believe I’ve met you. I mean, I knew you lived around here but—”

“We have babies stuck on Black Bear.” Trying not to think about all the things she’d said to him the night before, Brenna kept her eyes on the horizon.

“Is this a new policy? Challenge them young?”

“It’s not funny, Tyler.” Nothing seemed funny after tequila.

“Are they injured?”

“Not yet.”

“Such an optimist.” Calm, he bent and adjusted his ski boots. “So what’s the plan?”

“It’s too far to get them back up, so I’m going to have to ski down with them. And someone has to stay with the others, so I’ll have to do it one at a time. It will take three runs. The whole of my lesson time with Alison.”

“Hi, Alison.” Tyler gave her a smile that could have melted snow, and Alison smiled back.

“Hi. I think you’re amazing, by the way.” Her face was scarlet. “That downhill run in Beaver Creek was off the scale. You skied like you’d broken out of jail or something.”

Brenna gritted her teeth but Tyler didn’t seem to notice, and if the reference to his past successes bothered him, he didn’t show it. He was charming, charismatic and even gave Alison a couple of tips. By the time she skied away, she was wearing the biggest smile Brenna had ever seen.

“Aren’t you going to follow her?” She told herself that the snap in her voice was the result of her headache, not jealousy. “I think you could get lucky. She’s your type.”

He shifted his weight on his skis and gave her a long look. “I’m going to help you rescue these kids. How many?”

“Four. Two boys, two girls.” She felt small for having thought for a moment that he’d abandon them. Warmth spread through her. “Thanks.”

“Are you feeling well enough to help?”

“Why wouldn’t I be feeling well enough?”

“You don’t have a headache?”

“Not a trace of one.”

He gave a faint smile. “Right. So let’s do this.” He slid forward a short distance and without his body shadowing her, the sun blazed into her face. She didn’t think she’d made a sound, but she must have because he turned his head. “Keep your goggles on,” he advised, “that will help filter the sunlight.”

“I don’t have a problem with sunlight.”

“Honey, that was a grown-up girl’s drinking session, and you have a grown-up girl’s hangover.”

All warmth and good feeling faded. “I’d punch you, but I have children to rescue.”

She skied past him, but not before she’d seen that he was laughing.

He caught up with her easily. “Do you remember anything about last night?”

“All of it.”

“You were—”

“Shut up, Tyler.”

He gave her a look that set her nerve endings tingling. “So here’s the plan. You take one, Patrick can take one and I’ll take two.”

“What?”

“Kids. I’ll take one under each arm.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Why not? I thought you said they were babies?”

“Not
literally
babies.”

“Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got.” Tyler glided past her and out of sight, leaving her with no choice but to follow.

Patrick, who was in his first season as an instructor, had the four kids huddled at the side of the run. Two of them were crying, one was building a snowman and the other was clearly desperate to ski Black Bear because Patrick had his hand locked in the back of the boy’s jacket and was delivering a lecture on how important it was to listen, follow instructions and not ski off.

Brenna took one look at the determined expression on the boy’s face and glanced at Tyler. “He reminds me of you,” she muttered under her breath as she skied past him to join Patrick.

“I would have been at the bottom by now.” Tyler sat down in the snow next to the boy who was crying. “Hey, there. What’s up?”

The boy stared miserably at the vertical drop stretching below him. “T-too steep.”

“Yeah, it’s steep. Imagine how impressed the kids back home are going to be when you tell them you skied Black Bear.”

“Don’t want to ski it. I’ll fall—” he hiccuped “—or die.”

“You are not going to fall or die. That’s a promise.”

The boy looked unconvinced. “Yeah, I will.”

“No, you won’t,” Tyler said patiently, “because I’ll be holding you. You can’t fall unless I fall, and I’m not going to fall.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know that. I always know when I’m going to fall, and it’s not today. What’s your name?”

“Richard.”

Tyler leaned toward the little girl who was shivering with cold. “And what’s your name?”

“Rosie.”

“Pleased to meet you, Richard and Rosie. I’m Tyler. I can get you down this mountain, but I can’t do it if you’re crying because the noise messes with my concentration, and it’s making my friend’s headache worse. You need to do exactly what I say and if you do, you’ll get a medal.”

Richard looked interested. Sniffing, he scrubbed his hand over his nose. “A medal?”

“A medal. You can take it home and hang it on your door. I’ll even take a picture of you wearing it.” He leaned across and tugged up the zip on the little girl’s jacket. “You need to keep that zipped, then you’ll feel warmer. Are you ready?”

“Whatcha gonna do?”

“I’m going to carry you under my right arm.”

“What about my sister?”

“She’ll be under my left arm.” Tyler stood up and stuck his poles deep into the snow at the side of the run. Then he stooped, unclipped their skis and jabbed them into the snow by his poles. “I’ll come back and get those later.”

“Why can’t I keep my skis?”

“Because I don’t want you poking me with them while I’m skiing down.”

“I could carry them down,” Patrick offered, and Tyler’s gaze slid to the boy who had caused the situation.

“I don’t think so,” he drawled. “You’re going to need both hands to handle him.” He stooped and looked the boy in the eye. “You have to do everything Patrick tells you to do, exactly when he tells you to do it. Understood?”

The boy nodded, and Tyler stood still on his skis and let Patrick go first, presumably so that he would be in a position to intervene if necessary.

Brenna felt a lump in her throat.

Damn.

Just when she was totally mad at him, he did something like this.

He was a world-class skier; he griped at the thought of giving lessons to experienced skiers and yet here he was, a small child tucked under each arm and his eyes on the one trying to escape from Patrick. He could have been impatient or irritated, but instead he turned the whole thing into a fun game. He skied steadily, making the steep slope look like the easiest run in the resort. He was a man who could handle anything, and suddenly every emotion she felt seemed magnified.

Watching him, she felt as if her heart were being squeezed. The conversation with her mother had scraped her feelings so that she felt raw and exposed. Unprotected.

Living with him had deepened what she felt for him.

Seeing the way he was with Jess—

Brenna dragged her eyes away from him, wishing she could turn her feelings off or at least turn them down.

She told herself it was the tequila that was making her emotional.

“Are you ready?” She turned to the little girl who had been building the snowman, explained what she wanted her to do, and together they skied down, Brenna holding her all the way.

Tyler was waiting at the bottom, his helmet and goggles lying in the snow at his feet as he laughed and joked with waiting parents who didn’t seem at all alarmed or angry that their children had come down one of the most difficult runs in the resort. And she didn’t need to look far to find the reason for their unusually mellow acceptance.

The reason was standing right in front of her, all six foot three of him.

One of the mothers asked if they could take photos, and Brenna waited for Tyler to refuse, but again he surprised her, posing with each of the children in turn. At the insistence of one of the fathers, he pulled Brenna into the photo, too.

He looped his arm round her shoulder, dragged her against him and she pinned the obligatory smile on her face.

“Great to meet you.” Richard’s father shook Tyler’s hand and then ruffled his son’s hair. “That’s one for the album. Thanks. And thanks to your girlfriend.”

Brenna didn’t dare look at Tyler.

* * *

“
I
T
WOULDN
’
T
TURN
OFF
with the key or the kill switch?” His phone wedged between his shoulder and his jaw, Tyler dumped two cans of tomatoes and a can of beans on top of the meat and turned up the heat.

The food looked unappetizing, and he had a feeling that nothing he did was going to improve the situation. He jabbed at the mixture with a spoon and listened while Jackson outlined the problem. “I’ll do you a deal—you come and fix dinner, and I’ll fix the snowmobile. You’re a better cook than I am.”

Brenna walked into the kitchen, her hair wet from the shower. She was wearing a strappy top with a pair of yoga pants, and her feet were bare. Avoiding his gaze, she walked cautiously across his big open kitchen. Long legs. Bare feet.

Unfortunately, the lack of eye contact did nothing to ease the tension that now seemed to be a permanent part of their relationship.

It wasn’t just living together that had caused the problem, it was the shift in the way they responded to each other.

When he’d encouraged her to speak her mind and be more assertive with people, he hadn’t realized he would be one of those people.

It didn’t matter whether it had been the tequila talking; she’d said things that couldn’t be unsaid.

They’d talked about subjects neither of them had broached before.

Like sex.

Was she planning on having sex with Josh?

He felt something rip through him. An emotion he didn’t recognize and had never felt before.

Jealousy.

He was never jealous. It was ironic that the first time he should experience jealousy would be with Brenna. He’d protected their friendship more carefully than anything else in his life apart from Jess. It shouldn’t matter to him who she saw or what she did.

That wasn’t the way their relationship worked, and it never would be.

Jackson was saying something from the phone but Tyler didn’t hear him.

There was a roaring in his ears, and his brain was doing crazy things.

He wanted to flatten her to the wall and kiss her until she could no longer remember her own name, let alone think about Josh. He wanted to trail his mouth over her bare shoulder and lower. He wanted to rip that inadequate strappy top off her taut, mouthwateringly perfect body and feast on every part of her.

She dragged open the fridge and finally glanced at him, and maybe she saw something in his eyes she hadn’t seen before because she froze. It made him think of a gazelle spotting a lion, afraid to move.

Given that he was on the verge of pouncing, it was an uncomfortable analogy.

She might have been safer with the lion.

He had no right to do this. No right to think thoughts he had no intention of following with actions.

Jackson’s voice came again, sharper this time, and Tyler stirred. “What? Yeah, I’m still here.” He watched as she reached into the fridge. She was fit and strong, slim and toned, and he knew the fact he was salivating had nothing to do with the meal he was cooking.

“Ty? Are you paying attention?” Jackson’s voice came from the phone, irritated, and he forced himself to concentrate.

“Sort of.” His voice was croaky, and he averted his eyes from the perfect dip and curve that was Brenna’s waist and hips. What had she meant by that comment that he didn’t notice her as a woman? Of course he noticed her. He was working so damn hard not to notice her, it was driving him crazy. “I’m here, unfortunately. I wish I wasn’t because then I wouldn’t be the one cooking dinner....” He listened to the predictable brotherly banter, his gaze sneaking back to linger on Brenna’s smooth arms and the straight column of her spine. He’d seen her wearing less in the summer, but somehow this was different. “What? I don’t think what I’m cooking has a name, but it looks as if something died in the pot. Hopefully, this concoction will ensure I never have to cook again. Élise is training Jess, so there’s hope in my future. That’s providing I have a future, which I may not have once I’ve taken a mouthful of this.” He expected Brenna to leave, but instead she sat down at the table and curved her hands round the glass of juice she’d poured, listening.

Her skin was fresh and smooth, her hair the color of oak. She had the sort of face advertising agencies used to promote shampoos and wholesome soap.

Which made his thoughts all the more inappropriate.

She was his best friend.

And Josh was taking her to dinner.

He jammed the spoon in the pot, reasoning that no amount of savage stirring could ruin something that was already ruined. “Is onion supposed to be black? What?” He listened as Jackson spoke. “I’d rather fix the snowmobile than dinner, that’s for sure.”