LITMIR.BIZ

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      TRYING TO DELETE the image of Brenna with her snow-soaked sweater plastered to her breasts from his memory, Tyler strolled up the snowy path to the main house.

      In no hurry to face the overwhelming reality of family night, he paused and breathed in the freezing air, watching the forest transform before his eyes. Snow layered on snow until all traces of green vanished and the trees were draped in a mantle of white. As a child it had been his favorite sight. He’d kneel in his bedroom window and watch the first of the flakes fall, hoping it would continue until the snow was up to his waist. The first winter snowfall had been the cause of great excitement in the O’Neil household.

      The mountains had been his playground; the adrenaline rush of downhill skiing his drug of choice.

      Now he greeted snow with mixed feelings.

      It was good for business, and he knew how badly Snow Crystal needed that.

      He was enjoying the silence when his phone rang.

      Irritated by the disturbance, he dragged it out of his pocket intending to switch the ringer off and then saw the name.

      Burying his emotions deep, he lifted the phone to his ear. “Chas? How’s it going?”

      He didn’t ask where his friend was. He didn’t have to. Chas was one of the finest ski techs in the racing world. The fact that Tyler was no longer racing meant that Chas was available for another member of the U.S. Ski Team, which meant right now he had to be in Val Gardena, Italy, on the World Cup circuit.

      If it hadn’t been for the accident, Tyler would have been there, too.

      They would have been discussing strategy, the course, the snow conditions, in an effort to come up with the perfect plan. Chas’s job had been to use his skill and experience to make Tyler the fastest skier down the mountain. Over the years they’d shared beers, hotel rooms, victory and defeat. Chas had been more than just another member of the machine behind the ski team. He’d been Tyler’s wingman and close friend.

      Along with his brother Sean, Chas had been the first person he’d seen after his accident.

      Tyler tightened his hand on the phone and stared blindly at the trees and mountains.

      “How was today?”

      “Didn’t you watch?”

      “Things are busy around here.” He didn’t say that he hadn’t watched skiing since his accident. Instead he listened while Chas outlined the U.S. triumph in the giant slalom.

      “He clinched his fourth World Cup GS title.”

      “That’s great. Buy him a beer from me.”

      “Why don’t you come out? The team would love to see you.”

      And sit in the bar or the stands watching others do what he used to do himself?

      It would be like twisting a knife in a raw wound.

      The season stretched ahead. There would be a short break over Christmas before it all started again in Bormio, Italy, and then on to Wengen, Switzerland, and Kitzbuhel and the notorious Lauberhorn. Beaver Creek, Lake Louise, another day, another country, another mountain, another race. That had been his life.

      Until the race that had ended it all.

      “I’m not going to be able to make it. We’re busy here.”

      “Great! From what you told me, this time last year busy didn’t exist so I’m pleased to hear things are going well. Has Jackson tied you to the resort? What are you doing?”

      Coaching the high school ski team.

      Trying not to think about my old life.

      Tyler looked up at the sky. Snow was still falling steadily, big fat flakes that rested on his shoulders and dampened his hair.

      “I’m helping Brenna run the outdoor program.”

      “Right. Well, that sounds—” there was a pause “—that sounds great.”

      They both knew that what he really meant was that sounds like a pile of crap.

      Tyler agreed.

      Not that he didn’t love Snow Crystal, but they both knew he’d rather be racing.

      He realized now how much he’d taken it for granted. He’d treated it as a right rather than a gift.

      He half listened while Chas updated him on the individuals and their performances on the slopes, made the right noises and a vague commitment to watch the next race if he had the opportunity, then hung up feeling worse than he had before.

      The conversation had left him keenly aware of what he’d lost.

      It didn’t help that the one person who would have understood, his father, had been dead for almost two and a half years.

      Shaking off his black mood, he paced to the door of the main house where he and his brothers had grown up and where his mother still lived.

      It still gave him a pang to know that when he walked into the kitchen that had been the hub of the household growing up, his father wouldn’t be there.

      His mother loved to decorate for Christmas, and the evidence of that love was everywhere. Tiny lights were strung across the windows, and decorations sparkled through the glass. A festive wreath hung on the door, as it had every year for as long as he could remember. As a child he’d sat on the kitchen floor waxing his skis while his mother had worked magic from the tangle of forest greenery spread over the kitchen table. She’d snipped, weaved and pulled it all together into a wreath.

      Tyler pushed open the door. Sleigh bells jangled, announcing his arrival, and he blinked as he saw the number of people already seated around the table. Those numbers had increased over the past year. First Jess had joined them, then Kayla and finally Élise. She was often too busy running the successful restaurants at the resort to join them for family nights but tonight, perhaps because it was close to Christmas, she’d found the time.

      There were at least three different conversations going on around the table and Maple, Jackson and Kayla’s miniature poodle, greeted Tyler ecstatically, leaping up and down on the spot as if she had springs in her paws.

      Tyler stooped to make a fuss of her and then hung up his coat.

      His mother was busy at the stove while Jess was seated at the large scrubbed table, listening, rapt, while his grandfather, Walter, told a story about how he’d once met a moose when he was skiing. It was a story Tyler had heard a hundred times but it was new to Jess.

      “And did it move, Gramps, or did you have to ski around it?”

      “It stood there and glared at me, and I glared right back. I’m telling you, that animal was as big as a house.”

      Jess laughed, and Tyler noticed how her eyes sparkled as she listened to her great-grandfather. She soaked up every story about Snow Crystal, every morsel of information, as if trying to fill in the gaps and make up for the parts she’d missed by living so far away.

      His mood lifted slightly.

      If he’d still been skiing the World Cup circuit, he wouldn’t have been here when Jess had needed him.

      “You’re exaggerating, Walter.” Alice, his grandmother, slipped her glasses into her purse. “He always exaggerates. Ignore him, Jess.”

      “I am not exaggerating! Were you there?” Walter grunted. “This was in the days before ski runs and grooming machines. There were no chair lifts.”

      Jess leaned closer, her long hair sliding forward over her shoulder. “How did you get to the top of the slopes, Gramps?”

      “We walked! We attached skins to our skis, and we walked. We didn’t need machines to haul us to the top like you wimps do today. We used muscle.”

      Tyler saw

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