The man would slay a dragon for her, and she can’t see it.”
“Mmm.” Élise looked thoughtful. “Fillet of dragon, dragon burger—”
“Stop thinking about food for five minutes! What I’m saying is that he is so protective, and he isn’t like that with anyone else. When I fell over on the ice the other day, he laughed and stepped over me, so why doesn’t he do something? Why hasn’t he made a move? He isn’t shy with women.”
“I don’t know why.” Élise twisted her body into a shape that could have been yoga or Pilates. “I don’t claim to understand the way a man’s brain works. Other parts, yes. But not the brain.”
“Maybe he doesn’t see her like that. He grew up with her. She’s like a guy to him.”
“No one could see Brenna as a guy.” Élise changed her position and stretched her limbs. “Perhaps it is lack of opportunity.”
“They see each other all the time. They have plenty of opportunity.” Kayla tilted her head to one side as she watched her friend. “Am I going to have to call the fire service to get you out of that position? How can you even do that?”
“I did ballet for a while. And they see each other at work, not at any other time.”
“That isn’t true. They had a drink together the other night.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw them walking toward Forest Lodge. He had his arm around her shoulder and they were laughing.” She raised her eyebrows as Élise sank elegantly into the splits. “I am not winching you out of that position.”
“He had his arm around her?”
“Yes. But it was more friendly than loverlike.”
“It must be very hard for Brenna.” Élise leaned forward, elegant and supple. “You’re right. That would have been the perfect opportunity to make a move.”
“Which suggests you’re wrong and she’s right. He isn’t interested.”
“Or that he is holding back.”
Kayla pondered. “If that’s the case, then he needs to be pushed outside his comfort zone. They need time together. At least then we’d find out one way or another.”
“D’accord. I’m so over this will-they-won’t-they crap. It’s blowing my brain.”
“But how do we engineer that at the beginning of the busiest season we’ve had for years? They’ll be lucky to meet in passing on the ski slope.”
“I am a chef, not Cupid. And I am not good with the indirect approach you all seem to use. If I were Brenna, I would simply say, ‘Tyler, all my life I find you very hot and now I’d like to have sex with you. Yes or no?’”
Kayla grinned. “Is that what you did with Sean?”
“No, with Sean I didn’t ask. I took what I wanted.” She stretched her arms above her head. “I ripped his clothes off, and he ripped mine right back.”
“There is no way Brenna would ever do that. Nor would she tell Tyler she finds him hot and wants to have sex. She’s pretty shy about that sort of thing. And traditional. If anything is ever going to happen between them, he needs to make the first move.” She watched in fascination as Élise raised her legs up slowly and lowered them again. “We need a plan.”
“Brenna will not thank you if you interfere.”
“I don’t want thanks, and I will interfere gently. She won’t know.”
Élise stood up in a graceful movement. “Me, I still prefer the direct approach, but we’ll try it your way first. Now stop watching me and do some exercise yourself.”
BRENNA SAT IN BED high on the shelf of Forest Lodge, her hands curved around a mug of herbal tea. Her alarm wasn’t due to go off for another hour, but she’d lain awake for half the night, thinking about Tyler.
Forest Lodge had a luxurious bedroom on the floor below, complete with bathroom and a private hot tub outside the door, but she chose to sleep up on the mezzanine floor because she loved the view. She lay snug in the bed, looking through acres of glass to the forest beyond. It was like living in a tree house, the view more breathtaking than anything an artist could produce with oils and canvas.
It was still dark outside, but the snow was luminous in the moonlight and she could see the forest smothered in another deep coating of winter-white. It draped itself over the trees in extravagant folds, blunting sharp lines, the weight of it causing branches to droop.
Who needed a Christmas tree when every day at Snow Crystal during the winter was like Christmas?
Kneeling on the bed, she peered through the gaps in the trees. She was just able to see Lake House, where Tyler lived with Jess.
She’d spent so many happy summers and winters in these woods along with three generations of O’Neil men—Sean, Jackson and Tyler, their father Michael and their grandfather, Walter—exploring the outdoors, transforming rambling, tumble-down structures into something habitable. She’d hauled bricks, sanded wood and stood knee-deep in the lake while they’d built a deck. Somewhere out there was a tree where she’d carved his name.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love her parents, but sometimes it felt as if she’d been born into the wrong family. They didn’t understand her love of the mountains and the outdoors, and they certainly didn’t share it. When her parents had thought to dampen her love of the mountains and skiing by refusing to fund her equipment needs, Michael had given her Tyler’s old skis and let her keep them at Snow Crystal.
Brenna had never understood her mother’s hostility toward the O’Neils, who were well liked and respected by everyone else in the county. She’d decided it was just that Maura Daniels was violently opposed to anything to do with skiing and winter sports. She shut the snow out of her small, pristine house and complained endlessly about the long, cold Vermont winters until it sometimes seemed to Brenna that the mountains must have offended her personally in some way.
And so she’d lived her life growing up in one house but spending all her time in another until the day she’d found out Janet Carpenter was pregnant.
It had been the worst day of her life.
She’d vanished into the mountains for two days without telling anyone where she was going.
It had been Jackson, home from college for the summer, who had found her.
Strong, steady Jackson, who had ignored the orders of her parents, his parents and the mountain rescue team and trekked on foot to the ridge where they’d often camped out as children, following a hunch.
He’d wanted her to talk about it, but she’d kept her mouth clamped tightly shut because she always found it easier to keep things inside than let them out.
Strangely enough, that had been the one time in her life when her mother had been a comfort. It was as if finally she knew what her daughter, alien to her in every other way, needed.
It had been her mother who had urged her to
