A Magical Christmas. Elizabeth Rolls
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the high school team.
And he knew why.
She’d hated school. Like him, she’d considered the whole thing a waste of time. All she’d wanted to do was get out on the mountains and ski as fast as she could. Lessons had got in the way of that. Tyler had felt the same, which was why he sympathized with Jess. He knew exactly how it had felt to be trapped indoors in a classroom, sweating over books that made no sense and were as heavy and dull as old bricks.
But in Brenna’s case, it hadn’t been a love of the mountains or a dislike of algebra that had driven her loathing of school, but something far more insidious and ugly.
She’d been bullied.
On more than one occasion, he and his brothers had tried to find out which kids were making Brenna’s life a misery, but she’d refused to talk about it, and none of them had witnessed anything that had given them clues. It hadn’t helped that she was younger, which meant that they rarely saw her during the school day.
Tyler had wanted to fix it, and it had driven him crazy that she wouldn’t let him.
If it had been one of his brothers, he would have sorted the problem, so he couldn’t see why she wouldn’t let him help.
On one occasion, she’d walked back from school with grazed knees and a cut on her face, her schoolbooks damaged from her encounter with whoever had pushed her in the ditch.
“I don’t need you to fight my battles, Tyler O’Neil.” She’d dragged her filthy, muddy schoolbag onto her skinny shoulder, and he remembered thinking that if he ever found out who was doing this to her, he was going to push them off the top of Scream, one of the most dangerous runs in the area.
He never had found out.
And presumably the person, or persons, responsible were now long gone from Snow Crystal, leaving only the memory.
Was she thinking of it now?
He ran his hand over his jaw and cursed under his breath. He didn’t want to think of Brenna as vulnerable. He wanted to think of her as one of the boys. He’d disciplined himself not to notice those sleek curves under the fitted ski pants. He’d trained himself not to notice the sweet curve of her mouth when she laughed. She was a colleague. A friend.
His best friend. He was never, ever going to do anything to jeopardize that.
Shit.
“I’ll go into school. I’ll coach the race training camp and whatever else needs doing.” Even as he said the words, part of his brain was yelling at him to shut up. “Brenna has enough to do around here.”
Jackson’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You?”
“Yeah, me. Why not?”
“The question is more ‘why would you?’”
He waited for Brenna to admit how she felt, and when she didn’t, he searched his brain for an explanation. “They are the stars of tomorrow.” He regurgitated something he’d read at the top of Jess’s school report and then decided he needed something more plausible. “And there’s no feeling quite like basking in the adulation of teenage girls. I don’t get anywhere near enough adulation around here, so I’ll do it.”
“No.” Brenna finally found her voice. “We all know it’s not your thing. I’ll do it.”
“I’m making it my thing. I’m doing it, and that’s final.”
Kayla gave a delighted chortle. “I can see the headline now—downhill champion coaches losing high school team. Great story.” She started to pace, her enthusiasm and excitement visible in every tap of her heels. “I could see if it would interest someone as a documentary. Could I do that?”
Tyler, who loathed the press after a particularly nasty piece about his alleged involvement with a stunning Austrian snowboarder, felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift. “Not if you want me to do the coaching.”
Jackson was frowning. “Are you sure you want to do it?”
“I’m sure.” Tyler thought of what he’d just committed himself to and decided Friday was now officially his worst day of the week. “Are we about done? Because staring at all those lines on the spreadsheet is making me feel as if I’m behind bars. I have work to do on some of the equipment. Proper work, I mean, not the sort that means giving presentations.”
It was fun to wind his brother up, and it took his mind off the fact Brenna was hurting, a thought that made him restless and uncomfortable.
“We’re nearly done.” Jackson refused to be rushed. “As you know, they’re predicting a big statewide snowstorm. A winter storm watch is up. According to the forecast, the storm will be right down the New England coast, which puts us in the sweet spot for snow, good news given that the snow pack is twenty percent down on the average for this time of year.”
“Hey, it’s winter in Vermont. One minute you’re skiing on grass, then you’re slithering on ice, and if you get really lucky, you’re up to your neck in powder.” But the mention of snow roused Tyler from his state of boredom. “How much snow, exactly?”
“Between twelve and fourteen inches. Possibly more.”
“That is the best news I’ve had in a long time. I love a good powder day.”
“So do our guests, and they’ll pay for a guide so you’ll be busy.”
“Trust you to ruin good news. Do you ever think of anything other than work?”
“Not with our busiest time of the year approaching, no. We’re a winter sports resort.”
Kayla glanced up from her laptop. “And you’re our USP.”
“I’m your what?”
“Our unique selling point. No other resort has a gold-medal-winning downhill skier available for hire.”
“I’m not for hire.”
Ignoring his dangerous tone, Kayla smiled. “You are for a price. A good price, I might add. You’re not cheap. Have you taken a look at our new website? There is a whole page devoted to you. Ski with the best in the world.”
Tyler suppressed a yawn. “Can’t I give them a map and let them find their own way?”
Jackson ignored that. “People will pay good money to lay down tracks in fresh snow and enjoy the silence.”
“And with all those people enjoying it, there won’t be any silence,” Tyler pointed out, but Jackson wasn’t listening.
“The snow will be fun on the slopes, less fun on the roads.” As usual, his brother focused on the implications for the business. “If it happens, we’ll need to find rooms for as many staff as possible because the snowplows will have trouble keeping up.”
Deciding that logistics weren’t his problem, Tyler rose to his feet. “My bed is big enough for two. Three if they’re blonde.” He kept his eyes away from Brenna’s shiny dark hair. “I’m going now before I die of boredom and you have to remove my rotting corpse. Not that I know anything about marketing, but I’m guessing that wouldn’t be good for business.”
TRYING TO ERASE an image of Tyler sharing his bed with two blondes, Brenna zipped up her jacket and stepped out into the freezing night. Tyler was already striding ahead, and she looked at those broad, powerful shoulders, thinking that meetings never lasted long when he was involved. He drove things forward, impatient to be out in the fresh air, incapable of sitting still for any length of time.
Trapping Tyler O’Neil in a meeting room was like trying to cage a tiger.
Her feet brushed through a light dusting of fresh snow, and she knew without any help from the weather forecast that they were going to have more before the week was out. She could smell it in the air. The temperature had plummeted, and the