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“Nothing.” Kayla backed off. “You’re right. I don’t know Jess.”
“Why do you think she could have been testing him, Kayla?”
Everyone was staring at her. Even Tyler, his gaze so fierce it was as if he suspected she’d taken Jess and buried her body.
Kayla licked her lips. “I’m just thinking that maybe this thing with her mother has shaken her up. Maybe she’s looking for proof that you love her.”
Silence spread across the room.
Tyler swore fluently. “You think I don’t love her? Have you any idea how hard I fought to have my daughter living with me?”
Kayla tensed. “I wasn’t suggesting—”
“It sure sounded as if—”
“That’s enough.” Jackson’s tone was hard. “There’s logic in what Kayla says. Think about it, Tyler. Janet calls up and tells you she can’t handle Jess anymore, and suddenly the kid is coming to live with you. No warning. Nothing. Your life is turned upside down.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my life!”
“Put yourself in Jess’s shoes and think how that must have made her feel.”
Kayla stood, frozen in silence. She had a pretty good idea how it had made Jess feel.
She’d felt it all herself.
Tension rippled across Tyler’s wide, powerful shoulders. “I want her here. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not even pretending I’m any good at it—we’re both still finding our way, but that doesn’t mean I’m not glad she’s here.”
“Have you told her that?” Kayla’s mouth was so dry she could hardly form the words. “Because maybe she needs to hear it.”
“That’s good advice,” Brenna murmured. “Maybe Jess is worried you don’t want her here. That she’s cramping your style. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“So what does that mean? You think she’s run away?” Tyler’s face was white with worry. “I’ve never once said I don’t want her here. If that’s what’s in her head then it was put there by someone else.”
Kayla wondered if that “someone else” was Jess’s mother. She wondered whether Jess had overheard something. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened to a child torn between two parents.
Why does she have to stay with us at Christmas? Can’t she go to her father?
She tried to push back the memories, reminding herself this wasn’t about her. It was about Jess.
“We can deal with that part later.” Taking control, Jackson strode to the door. “Let’s start by searching the resort. Ask people if they’ve seen her. Brenna—you and Tyler take the trail by the cabins. Kayla and I will go to the far side of the lake.”
Brenna reached for her keys. “Have you checked whether her skis have gone?”
Tyler threw her a look. “It’s dark, Einstein.”
“Not everywhere. The bowl is illuminated.” Jackson stopped dead. “So is Devil’s Gully.”
Tyler’s face lost the last of its color and Kayla glanced between them.
“What’s the significance of Devil’s Gully?” She’d heard Jackson mention it, but wanted to know why they all looked so worried.
“It’s a double diamond black. A thousand feet of vertical drop, sections of it have a forty-degree pitch. About the same angle as the ramp of an Olympic ski jump.” Brenna zipped her jacket to the neck. “Runs right under the chairlift. You want to make a fool of yourself with an audience, you’re going to pick that one.”
Tyler ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Or if you want to ski something challenging once it’s dark. She asked me if we could do it together.”
Brenna looked at him. “And?”
Tyler was white-faced. “I said no.”
JESS STOOD ON the top of Devil’s Gully staring at the reflection of lights on the snow.
It was steep. And it looked worse with the dark all around and no people. There were still people skiing on the easier runs that led to the village, but this run was hard-core. Punishingly difficult. She remembered Gramps and her father talking about it.
Fall on that one and you’ll fall all the way to the bottom.
For a stomach-lurching moment she wondered if she’d made a mistake. It had seemed like the perfect way to prove herself, but it seemed different with the dark pressing in on her and the eerie silence. And what was the point of proving herself when there was no one here to see it?
Her teeth chattered, and she wished she were back in her bedroom, looking at her scrapbooks.
“No different in the dark than in daylight.” Tyler’s voice came from behind her. “Either way it’s still a hell of a drop.”
He’d come looking for her.
Jess felt her heart lift and then plummet.
All that proved was that she was a responsibility he didn’t need.
She felt something burn in her throat. Great. Here she was, proving how tough she was, and she was about to cry like a baby. “It’s easy.”
“It’s not easy. It’s for experts.” Tyler stabbed his poles into the snow and reached across to fasten her helmet. “Good job you’re one of those.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in, and when they did, the stinging in her throat turned to a lump.
“You’re not going to make me go down on the lift?”
“You can go down on the lift if you like. No shame in that. Tell people I forced you if it makes it easier.” Tyler adjusted his boots. “Or we can ski this bastard and see how that turns out.”
“Ski it?” Jess stared at him. Tyler O’Neil, skiing legend. The man they called The Bullet because he reached such incredible speeds in the downhill. Her dad. “You mean—together?”
“Sure I mean together. You wouldn’t leave me to ski this on my own, would you?” Tyler stooped and checked the bindings on her skis. “You want to go first or follow?”
Jess tried to work out which would make him love her more and decided she didn’t want to die just when she’d finally got her dream to live with him.
“I guess you could go first.”
“Right. So count to five and then follow me. I’ll meet you at the bottom. Then we’ll get Grams to make us hot chocolate. How does that sound?”
It sounded good. Better than good.
“I want to ski like you.” She blurted the words out, unable to stop herself. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. I want to make you proud of me. I don’t want to hold you back.”
Tyler’s eyes glittered as he looked at the steep gradient that lay beneath their feet. “Does it look like you’re holding me back?”
“I might slow you down.”
“Are we still talking about the skiing here?” His voice rough, he reached out and zipped her jacket to the neck. “Because if we’re talking about other things, I’d rather you said it straight-out. I’m not good at digging for meaning behind what people are saying. If a man’s got something to say, I prefer he just says it. That goes for women, too, by the way. Not that I’ve ever met one that does it, except maybe Brenna, and she doesn’t count.”
“Having me here must be difficult for you.”
One minute she was standing there drowning in her own insecurities, the next she was being hugged by her dad, and he held her so tightly it was the best feeling in the world.
“Having you here is easy. Having you here is the best thing that’s happened for a long time.” His voice was thickened. “Not having you here was difficult for me. Maybe we should talk about that sometime when we’re not both about to get frostbite.”
The burn in her throat was back, but this time it was mingled with relief and a happiness she hadn’t known existed.
Not having you here was difficult for me.
“I won’t be a nuisance—” The words were muffled by his jacket. “I won’t stop you doing anything or hold you back. You can just live your life and ignore the fact I’m here. I’m okay with that. Whatever rules you make I’ll stick to them, I promise. Just don’t send me to boarding school.”
“Boarding school? Who the hell ever mentioned boarding school?”
“Mom. She said that’s where I’d go when you’d had enough of living with me.” She felt his arms tighten around her.
“That’s not going to happen, Jess. I’ll live my life, that’s true enough, but that life’s got you in it now. You’ll go to school in the village like the three of us did, and as for rules, I’ve only got the one—” Tyler gave her a squeeze and then released her and glided smoothly to the top of the slope. “Next time you’re planning on locking your bedroom door and sneaking out the window, tell me where you’re going so I can come, too. Now let’s nail this. And if you fall, don’t take me with you.”
CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_c2d3fd43-83ec-5a7a-b55e-6f57c8edd9c5)
KAYLA LAY ON her face, inhaling snow for what felt like the fortieth time that morning, and heard a whooshing sound as Jackson arrived by her side.
“That was better.”
Better?
She lifted her head. Spat out snow. “Which bit was better? The bit where I turned into a windmill or the bit where I hit the ground with my face?”
He hauled her to her feet in an easy movement. “Your weight was wrong. You leaned back. It’s a natural response to a slope but you have to have the weight forward in your boot. Want to try again?”
“Why not? I think there might be a centimeter of my body that isn’t bruised, and if I’m going to be black-and-blue I’d prefer to be black-and-blue all over. I like a uniform look. Matching black eyes is bang on trend, haven’t you heard?”
He wasn’t even bothering to hide the smile. “You need to trust your skis.”
“I only met them a few hours ago. I never trust anyone on such a short acquaintance.”
“Your ski is designed to turn.” He skied down ahead of her and then paused and called up to her. “Try it again.”
She tried not to think about the fact he made it look easy. “Fine, but make sure you send Brett the bill for medical expenses.”
“If you break anything, my brother Sean will fix you for free.”
Baring her teeth at him in a mock smile, Kayla let her skis run across the slope and then transferred her weight as he’d taught her.
“Put pressure on the big toe edge.” The instruction came from in front of her, and she realized that Jackson was skiing backward.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re a flash bastard, Jackson O’Neil?”
The cold nipped at her cheeks. Her skis ran smoothly over the snow. In that fleeting moment, Kayla realized she was enjoying herself.
“Okay, this is fun—” The moment she said it her ski hit a bump and she lost her balance and would have crashed down again, but this time Jackson caught her. He locked his arm around her waist and steadied them both as she slammed into him.
Breathless, Kayla clung to the front of his jacket, wondering why it was that so many activities ended up with her cemented to his body. “Don’t drop me.”
“I won’t drop you, but if you could stop digging your nails into my arm that would be good.” He spoke through his teeth. “If it’s not your stilettos, it’s your nails.”
She looked at him and saw his eyes darken.
“No,” he said thickly. “Not here. I need to concentrate or we’ll end up at the bottom of the mountain.”
“I thought that was the objective.”
“Yeah, but in your case it’s best if it takes longer than twenty seconds.” He eased away from her, but still held her steady.
“How old were you when you first skied down this run. Tell me honestly.”
“Three.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I was a late starter. Tyler was two. I still remember my father yelling at him ‘Turn, turn’ and Tyler whizzing straight down like an arrow from a bow, yelling back, ‘Why?” He just didn’t see the point of turning when he could go straight down.”
Kayla laughed. “Is that true?”
“Yeah, it’s true. Along with a million other stories that would make your hair stand on end.”
“No wonder Jess thinks he’s a hero. It must be cool having him as a dad.” But coolest of all was having a dad who loved his daughter as deeply as Tyler clearly loved Jess.
She thought back to the way Tyler had handled the situation the night before.
Once they’d received confirmation from the lift attendant—a lift attendant who had been too overawed to challenge the daughter of a medal-winning downhill skier—Tyler had sent everyone home except Brenna, who had stayed at the base of the lift in case Jess had started the run before Tyler could reach her.
Jackson lifted his hand and brushed snow off her shoulder. “It was good of you to help us.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You made us all see it from Jess’s point of view.” His voice was rough. “You were right that she was worried he wouldn’t want her here. It didn’t take him long to put her right on that score.”
Kayla felt something squeeze her chest.
This time, it had just been a misunderstanding. A lack of communication.
