“I can look after myself. I always have. I always will.”
“You walked away from it, which is one way of handling it. Now we’re trying my way.” He let his hand drop, but not before he’d stroked those fingers over her cheek.
The gesture was as unexpected as it was intimate, and it turned her stomach inside out.
For a fleeting moment she thought she saw something in his eyes and then it was gone, and he was tugging his glove back on and focusing on the racing.
“I’ve learned to be brutally direct with some people or the next time I open my bedroom door, one of them could be lying there naked.”
“Naked?” She felt as if she’d stepped off a cliff into a bottomless void. Not for the first time she felt out of step with the life he’d led. Never in her life would she have lain on a bed naked, waiting for a man she didn’t know. “That happened?”
“More often than you’d imagine. Apparently, there are a bunch of women out there who think that lying down in a man’s bed guarantees them personal attention.”
Misery mingled with fascination. “How did you handle it?” And then she caught his wicked grin and blushed. “Sorry. Forget I asked.”
“I told them to get in line behind the others.” He was teasing her, and she didn’t know how to respond because over the years of their long friendship, they’d talked about everything but this. She knew there had been women, of course. The media had had a field day with his passion for speed and women. At one point in his career, it had been difficult to work out which was his priority.
That was the point when Brenna had stopped reading the news.
“I can’t imagine what sort of woman would climb into the bed of a man she doesn’t know.” She spoke without thinking and then realized how unworldly she sounded. How unsophisticated. And he was used to women who were neither of those things.
“Want me to describe her?” He was laughing, turning tension to humor as he always did. “The first time it happened was after my first world championship win. I walked out and demanded a different room. The hotel was so terrified I was going to sue them for a breach of security, they gave me the President’s Suite. The second time Jackson was there. He dealt with it.”
She could imagine Jackson, calm and tactful, extracting naked women from Tyler’s bed. “He used to deal with all the women sobbing over Sean, too.”
“He was a busy guy. And that’s enough talk of my past because we have company.” He smiled over her shoulder as Jess skied down to them. “You’re leaning toward the gate to clear it and because of that, you’re over rotating your body and losing balance. Your line of descent needs to be tighter. Ow! What?” Rubbing his arm, he turned to look at Brenna. “Why are you digging your elbow into me?”
Brenna didn’t know whether to laugh or hit him over the head with her ski pole. “Because she did loads of things right, and all you’re doing is pointing out the stuff she did wrong. It was a great first run, Jess. Well done.”
Tyler looked bewildered. “She doesn’t need me to tell her what she did right. She already knows what she did right. My job as a coach is to tell her what she did wrong so she can fix it next time.”
Brenna took a deep breath. “She’s young, Tyler. She’s not a professional athlete. Your job is to encourage as well as coach. Otherwise, people will lose heart and give up.”
“You’re saying that if I don’t tell people what they’re doing right, they’ll give up? That’s fine with me. If they’re that wimpy then they should go right ahead and give up.”
Cheeks flushed, Jess laughed. “I’m not that wimpy.”
“Of course you’re not.” Disgusted, Tyler leaned forward and unclipped her helmet.
“Sorry I didn’t win, Dad.” The words were said casually, and Tyler opened his mouth and then caught Brenna’s eye.
“You’re doing great. And we’re going to work on the bits that aren’t so great. You’ll be beating them all by the end of the season. Now let’s go home and Brenna can make you one of her hot chocolates. If I get lucky she might make me one, too.”
TYLER TILTED HIS CHAIR back and put his feet on the table, watching as Brenna fried bacon. Since she’d moved in, he hadn’t been able to relax in his own home. He was used to feeling comfortable around her. That feeling was long gone, replaced by tension, sexual awareness and an overwhelming desire to flatten her to the table and discover the parts of her he didn’t know.
“We’re eating breakfast for dinner?”
She flipped the bacon expertly and threw him a look. “Add tomatoes and chili and breakfast becomes a perfect pasta sauce.” Her sweater was a bright shade of blue and clung to her curves.
Curves he didn’t want to notice.
“You could write a book. A Thousand and One Things to Do with Bacon.”
“Are you complaining?”
“As long as I’m not the one cooking, I never complain.” It had been over a year since anyone had stayed here apart from him and Jess, and even before Jess had arrived to live with him, he hadn’t encouraged overnight guests. In his experience they were too difficult to eject.
He wished Jess would join them, but he could hear sounds of the TV coming from his den and knew he was on his own with this.
“If it carries on snowing like this it would be worth getting up early tomorrow to ski.”
“I can’t tomorrow.” She stirred the pot. “I’m having breakfast with my parents.”
“Why? They drive you crazy. Whenever you see them, you come back upset. Why put yourself through that?”
“Because they’re still my parents.” She poked at the sauce with the spoon. “And because I feel guilty.”
“Why would you feel guilty?”
“I disappointed them. This isn’t what they wanted me to do with my life.”
“But it’s what you wanted to do with your life, so that has to mean something, surely?”
“Maybe. Doesn’t change the fact that I haven’t been home for a month, and I’m living down the road.”
“You have a full-time job.” He locked his hands behind his head and grinned. “And now you’re cooking for me, too.”
“I’m not planning on revealing that part.” She turned the heat down under the pan and let it simmer. “And I’m going for breakfast because that way I have an excuse to leave for my ten o’clock class.”
“Just make sure you don’t let them walk all over you. Want me to run you over there?”
“You’re offering to stand between me and my mother?” A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I always thought you were brave, Tyler O’Neil, now I know it for sure.”
“I’m not scared of your mother.”
