A Magical Christmas. Elizabeth Rolls

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.”

      “You should be. You’re not her favorite person.”

      “She thinks I’m bad news.” She was probably right. “How’s she going to react to the fact you’re living with me?”

      “I’m not living with you. I’m staying in your house. It’s not the same thing.” Her gaze slid to his and away again. “I’m still living at Snow Crystal. She doesn’t need to know more than that.”

      He thought about her walking barefoot around the house and sleeping next door to him. “Probably a good decision.”

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      IT WAS STILL DARK when Brenna slid into her car the following morning.

      The drive to her parents’ house took around twenty minutes, and there wasn’t a single second of that time when she didn’t feel like turning around and driving back to Snow Crystal. It had been snowing steadily for days, but not enough to make the journey treacherous, and the road had been cleared so she had no reason to postpone her visit.

      Her mood plummeted along with the temperature.

      Visiting her parents was a duty, not a pleasure, and it was a duty that always left her feeling flat, depressed and more than a little guilty.

      Compared to Kayla and Élise she was lucky, wasn’t she? She had two parents still married and living together.

      She pulled up outside the vintage brick colonial that was her mother’s pride and joy. To Brenna, a house was somewhere to be indoors when you couldn’t be outdoors. She’d as soon live in a tent. Occasionally in the summer, she’d done just that, erecting her little tent in the backyard until her mother had forced her back inside, worried about what the neighbors would say.

      To Maura Daniels, the opinion of the neighbors came second only to God’s.

      Brenna sat for a moment, bracing herself for what lay ahead, promising herself that she wasn’t going to get upset.

      She had a key in her pocket, but she rang the bell and then waited, tense as a deer scenting the wind. She would have walked straight in to any one of the O’Neil properties and been sure of a warm welcome. Here, in the house where she’d grown up, she hesitated to cross the threshold without permission. Nothing annoyed her order-obsessed mother more than people dropping in without warning or invitation.

      To Brenna, it had been like growing up in a strait-jacket.

      She heard the rhythmic tap of her mother’s low heels on the cherrywood floor and then the door opened.

      “Hi, Mom.”

      “You’re wet!”

      “It’s snowing.”

      “Leave your boots outside.”

      She would have done it without being told, but her mother left nothing to chance when it came to her home.

      Brenna had learned at an early age that snow was to be kept outside the house. Her mother couldn’t control the weather, but she worked every hour of every day to control its less welcome effects, from shining the windows to removing imaginary marks from her lovingly polished floor.

      “How are you, Mom?” She stepped inside, careful not to slip. The last thing she needed at the start of the season was a broken ankle, especially as a result of her mother’s overzealous cleaning habit.

      “Good.