Sleigh Bells in the Snow Read online

  Turn, glide, turn, glide—they went down the mountain, gradually increasing speed, and fear turned to enjoyment and then exhilaration. All worries left her mind as she focused.

  There was a sense of peace that came from being out in the mountains, surrounded by people having fun. Her own smile stayed on her face right up until the moment she realized Jackson had stopped and she was going to crash into him.

  He caught her easily, stopped her from plowing into the snow heaped at the side of the mountain restaurant, but her ski flew off and they both ended up in a tangled heap.

  “And here I am, on my back again.” She was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe, and he was laughing, too, and cursing at the same time, as he took good-natured ribbing from two members of the ski patrol who happened to be passing.

  “You just ruined my reputation. Thirty-two years I’ve skied here and I just fell on a baby slope. Do you know what this is going to cost me? I may have to move to Colorado.” He showed no sign of releasing her. His arm was around her and she was pressed hard against him. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, but I think my skis might have landed in Canada.” Her mouth was inches from his, and she was shocked by how badly she wanted to kiss him.

  His eyes were intense blue, shadowed by lack of sleep and she knew hers were the same.

  It had been the most incredible night of her life.

  She rolled away from him and tried to get up. “Why did my skis come off?”

  “I adjusted the bindings so that they’d come off if you fell. I didn’t want you to break an ankle.”

  “Did I hear talk of broken ankles?” A man skied to a stop right next to them, showering them both with snow. “That’s my specialty.”

  Jackson swore softly and brushed the snow off his jacket. “You pick your moments to show up.” He stood up and rescued both pairs of skis while Kayla stared at the man in disbelief. Apart from the fact he was clean-shaven, she was looking at another version of Jackson.

  Jackson dug the skis into the deep snow next to the restaurant. “Kayla, meet my brother Sean.”

  “Twins,” she murmured. “Identical twins. You said you were the eldest.”

  “I’m the eldest by five minutes.”

  “We are most certainly not identical.” Sean snapped his feet out of his skis. “My taste in wine is much better than his, and he might help you break your ankle but there’s no way he’d be able to fix it. Our taste in women, however, occasionally coincides.” His smile was as sexy as his brother’s. “You must be Kayla. Good to meet you.”

  * * *

  “YOU WANT TO offer up a piece of me as part of your PR campaign?” Tyler sprawled in his chair on the terrace of the mountain restaurant, nursing a beer while Jess sat close to him, soaking up each word he spoke.

  Kayla poked the creamy froth on her cappuccino with a spoon. “Your skills and reputation add something to Snow Crystal. It’s something other resorts can’t match.”

  Tyler winked at his brother. “Are you listening?”

  Jackson rolled his eyes. This wasn’t the way he’d planned it. It was supposed to be a low-key friendly lunch with Jess and Tyler. He hadn’t banked on Sean arriving.

  Fortunately Kayla didn’t seem overwhelmed.

  Instead she seemed fascinated as she listened to Tyler and Sean talking about the performance of a U.S. skier.

  “He got sucked low on the top section. The snow was soft.”

  “DNF’d twice at Val-d’Isère. Hooked a tip halfway down.”

  Tyler stretched out his legs. “We all have a bad run sometimes. The important thing is to get back out there and race again.”

  Jess looked as if she was memorizing every word, while Kayla just looked confused.

  “DNF?”

  “Did not finish.” Jackson reached across and knocked a lump of snow off her hat. “Unlike you, who finished in style.”

  “Flat on my face you mean. I have a feeling DNF could be my specialty. So I know there are two types of ski racing—the one that goes straight down and the one that’s curvy.”

  “Slalom.” Tyler looked pained. “It’s called slalom.”

  “Slalom. The one when you turn all the time—” she drew the pattern in the air “—a bit like I was doing just now when I came down the slope.”

  Tyler lifted an eyebrow in incredulous disbelief. “Honey, you were about as close to slalom as I am to Mars.”

  “I was just illustrating a point.”

  “Slalom is one of two technical disciplines, the other being giant slalom. Do you know anything about World Cup alpine ski racing?”

  “Not a thing,” Kayla said happily, “except that you all wear supertight spandex like Superman. Fortunately skiers seem to have muscles in all the right places, which is a relief because if you put that outfit on the average London commuter it would not be a good look.”

  “The outfit is designed to minimize drag.” Tyler scowled at Sean, who wasn’t bothering to hide his laughter. “You got something to say?” Without waiting for him to respond, he turned back to Kayla, determined to educate her. “As well as technical, you have speed disciplines. Downhill is the Formula 1 of ski racing. I presume you’ve heard of Formula 1?”

  “Formula? Isn’t that what they feed babies?” Kayla grinned. “Just kidding. So it’s fast.”

  “You ski a course like the Lauberhorn in Switzerland, one of the longest and toughest on the World Cup circuit, and you’re hitting speeds of around 90 miles an hour, and you’re not wearing a seat belt. And when you’re up there waiting to start there’s nothing but you and the slope. Think about it.”

  Jess was on the edge of her seat with excitement, but Kayla shuddered.

  “I can’t think about it without wanting to vomit. I’ve just skied as fast as I ever intend to.”

  “Fast?” Tyler choked on his beer. “If you’d skied any slower, the season would have been over and the rest of us would have been sunbathing.”

  She lived her life like that, Jackson thought. With the brakes on. He wondered what it would take to get her to release those brakes.

  “Sunbathing sounds good right now. This place is freezing.” Zipping her jacket up to the neck, Kayla sipped her coffee. “So downhill is for adrenaline junkies. I’ve got that. What else?”

  “Then there’s the Super-G.”

  “Super-G?”

  “Super Giant Slalom.” Tyler glanced at his brother in despair. “Where the hell did you find her?”

  “He found me in an office in New York. And I may not be able to stay upright on skis, but I can do my job as well as you do yours. I got my last client on the cover of the New York Times and Time magazine.” She put her cup down and smiled sweetly. “In my business that’s the equivalent of two Olympic golds, just in case you’re wondering. And under my direction we generated over three hundred million media impressions for that account, which means the number of people who saw that product mentioned was probably higher than the number of people watching your performance on TV.”

  Tyler narrowed his eyes. “I’d say you crashed and burned your first night here.”

  Jackson swore under his breath, but Kayla laughed.

  “I definitely DNF’d in that meeting. But we all have a bad run sometimes. The important thing is to get back up and race again.” Throwing his own words back at him, she leaned forward. “People would pay a great deal to ski with you. To hear you speak about your experiences. You’re passionate about what you do. You’re an attraction.”

  “For God’s sake, don’t tell him that.” Sean reached across the table for a bowl of fries. “Who ordered these? Since when do we live on junk food?”

  “Since I’m no longer competing.” Tyler removed the fries from his brother. “And I’m more of an attraction than you are. I’ve got medals to prove it.”

  “All those medals prove is that you ski like someone on a suicide mission.” Sean let Tyler take the bowl but helped himself to a handful. “Not that I’m comp
laining. It’s people like you who keep people like me in a job, so you carry on and snap those bones, bro.”

  Jackson saw Kayla wince. “Enough medical talk. You’re back early, Sean. We weren’t expecting you until Christmas Eve.”

  “I’ve worked the last four Christmases in a row. Figured I deserved parole.” Sean caught the attention of the waitress and ordered a green salad.

  “Does Mom know you’re home?”

  “Of course. Hence the green salad. I’m full of gingerbread Santas and I’m saving myself for dinner. Tonight is family night. Which means Gramps wanting to know why I have to fix bones in Boston when there are plenty of the broken variety around here, Mom stuffing me with food and Grams knitting while Jackson talks profit and loss.”

  “It’s mostly loss, which you’d know if you read your emails.”

  “I spent ten hours operating yesterday. It was precision work. By the time I’d finished my eyes wouldn’t focus enough to read emails.”

  “I just thought since you own a share of this place you might like to know what’s happening.”

  “I own the wine cellar. That might see a significant loss tonight. I’m thinking we’re going to be at least half a crate down.” Sean winked at Kayla. “I hope you’re joining us for dinner. I need someone to dilute the concentration of O’Neils and add some New York sophistication to the proceedings.”

  “It’s family night. I’m not family.”

  Jackson knew she was thinking about the last time she’d had dinner with all of them and he waited, knowing she’d refuse. And when she did, he intended to invite her to dinner at his place, which would give them a chance to have a proper conversation, this time without being observed by half the inhabitants of Snow Crystal.

  Her gaze met his briefly and then skidded away again.

  “Family night.” Her smile was fixed. “I’ll be there.”

  She’d be there?

  Taken by surprise, it took Jackson a moment to realize what she was doing.

  By choosing to eat with the family, she’d managed to avoid an evening with him.

  Which meant only one thing.

  Kayla Green was running again.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SEAN ZIPPED HIS jacket against the shearing winds, stared down the steep pitch of the chute and wondered why he’d agreed to ski with his brother. “So what’s going on with Jackson and Miss New York?”

  “She’s not Miss New York. She’s Miss Great Britain. Or Miss—” Tyler paused at the top of the gully, testing the snow. “Frankly I have no idea what she is. She’s certainly not Miss Downhill Skier and she’s not close to Miss Slalom, either, whatever she may think. But I like her.”

  Sean thought about the sharp intelligence in those eyes and the way she’d come back at Tyler. He also liked the way she’d laughed at herself when she’d fallen. “I like her, too.”

  “You’re going to have to like her from a distance because your twin has eyes on her. I suspect he’s also had hands on her, but you might not want to mention that part just yet. You may have shared a uterus, but last time I looked the two of you didn’t share women.”

  “Didn’t say I wanted to share her. Said I liked her. Not the same thing.” He digested the news that his brother was involved with a woman.

  “You should get to know Élise. You both appreciate good food and wine. The two of you should have a lot in common.”

  Sean stared straight ahead. Neither of his brothers had any idea just how well he knew Élise, which was probably a good thing. He was the first to admit his track record with relationships was less than impressive, and he had no doubt Jackson would see him as a potential threat to the well-being of his chef. And what was the point in mentioning it? What they’d shared had been fleeting. One hot summer night where chemistry had gotten the better of both of them. It wasn’t going to happen again. This was the first time he’d seen her since that night. They’d had no contact.

  Sean studied the narrow chute in front of them.

  “Are you seriously expecting me to ski down that? You always were right on the edge of crazy.” But he knew it wasn’t true. Tyler’s judgment when it came to the mountain was close to flawless. He had an almost-preternatural ability to separate the skiable from the unskiable. It was a skill that had put him right up among the elite.

  “You skied down it your whole life until you left home. Working in a city has turned you soft.”

  “I value my limbs. I can’t fix other people’s broken bones if my own are smashed, and I don’t trust anyone else to fix mine.” But Sean felt the familiar rush of adrenaline. The pull of temptation that was hard to resist. Normally he forced himself to deny it. It was the reason he’d sold the Ducati even though he’d almost cried doing it. His compromise had been to buy the Porsche. All the speed without the direct exposure to the limb-destroying effects of a motorcycle crash on a hard road surface. “Oh, hell, one run. But you’re going first.”

  “Because you’re a coward.”

  “Because if you trigger an avalanche I’d rather be above you than below you. But I promise to dig you out.”

  “If you men could just step to one side—” Brenna shot past them both with Jess close behind her.

  “Hey, just wait—” Tyler’s words were swallowed by the frozen air as the two girls negotiated the gut-swooping drop that led to the top of Scream gully. Neither hesitated. Neither screamed. But they did whoop. A holler of pure enjoyment as they shot through the air and then turned swiftly on the ridiculously steep slope.

  “And there’s someone else who borders on the edge of crazy,” Sean murmured, watching as Brenna tackled the terrifying slope with effortless ease.

  “Are you talking about my daughter?”

  “I wasn’t, but I think she’s probably right there with you. On the other hand she’s got your DNA so it’s not entirely unexpected. Not that you’d understand. It’s science and that’s always been beyond you.”

  “Which is the science that has sex in it?”

  Sean sighed. “It’s isn’t that simple, but I’ll make it simple as it’s you. Biology.”

  “I aced that one. You ready? Because I’m damned if I’m going to be outskied by a kid, even if she’s my kid.”

  “You skied Scream at her age. Or maybe you were a year older.”

  “Your memory sucks. You should talk to a doctor about that. I was seven when I skied Scream, and you know it since you were the one that pushed me off the top.”

  “It was my duty as big brother to toughen you up.”

  Tyler grinned. “And you think I’m the one on the edge of crazy?”

  * * *

  FAMILY NIGHT?

  Why had she agreed to that?

  Because the alternative had meant being alone with Jackson.

  Thumping her palm against her forehead, Kayla paced the length of the lodge and back again.

  She’d tried to work, but so far her brain refused to cooperate. Halfway through her session, Elizabeth called in to drop off Maple so that she could go and spend time with Élise in the kitchen.

  The puppy settled down on the rug and watched Kayla, head on her paws.

  Kayla sighed. “You think I was a mess last night? I’m worse today.”

  Maple wagged her tail and rolled over on the rug.

  Kayla put in a call to Brett, knowing he would still be in the office right up until late on Christmas Eve.

  While she waited for him to pick up, she drank her coffee. Another fall of snow in the night had added a thick layer to the trees and they glistened in the winter sunshine.

  “Kayla? How are things out there in the sticks?” Brett’s voice boomed around the cabin, and Maple shot to her feet, barking frantically. “You still there, Green? What the hell’s that noise?”

  “It’s a dog, Brett. Four legs. Tail.” She scooped Maple onto her lap. “You have one at home. It’s just that you don’t often see it because you’re always in the office. I’ll send you a picture if that would help
.”

  “Didn’t know you were a dog person, Green.”

  She hadn’t known, either.

  She smiled at Maple, snuggled on her lap. “Turns out I might be a dog person.”

  “Just don’t bring it into the office or go home at lunchtime to feed it. So how are things there?”

  Kayla looked at the trees. “Snowy.”

  “Bet you can’t wait to get back to civilization. You’re probably so desperate you’re willing to leap on the back of Santa’s sleigh and grab the first ride out of there.” Brett laughed at his own joke while Maple watched her with gentle eyes and Kayla absorbed the fact that she wasn’t at all desperate to get back to New York.

  She told herself it was because the job still wasn’t done. “I’ve made progress.”

  “So what do you need to turn progress to profit?”

  “I’m going to send the proposal across in the next couple of hours. I’ll brief the team, but I want printed and bound copies delivered here ASAP.”

  “What’s wrong with electronic?”

  Kayla thought about Alice and her glasses and Walter and his fear of progress. “I want hard copy.”

  “Think of the trees, Green.”

  She’d thought of nothing but the trees since she arrived here. “I’m looking at trees, Brett.”

  “I forgot you were in the dark ages over there. Hard copy. No worries.”

  “Thanks. And happy Christmas, Brett.”

  “Why are you wishing me happy Christmas? It’s ages until Christmas.”

  “Two days.”

  “That’s what I mean. Ages. Now get back to work and stop wasting my time. And don’t bring the dog with you when you come back to New York.” He hung up and left her staring at Maple.

  * * *

  THEY ATE FAMILY dinner in the kitchen. Brenna joined them, but not Élise because she was busy in the restaurant. Instead, she provided a creamy leek-and-potato soup, and Elizabeth cooked lamb shanks.

  Jackson barely tasted either.

  Kayla had chosen a seat at the far end of the table, as far away from him as possible. She was wearing a soft sweater with black pants tucked into the snow boots she’d bought earlier in the week. Her hair was loose over her shoulders and she was laughing at something Sean had said.