“Yeah, right. I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t put her in mine. Now stop meddling, or I’ll have to find somewhere else for Brenna to stay because it isn’t fair to her.” And it wasn’t fair to him, either. He’d gone from never allowing himself to think about sex and Brenna at the same time, to not being able to separate them.

Sweating under his jacket, Tyler hoped the movie they’d picked didn’t have any sex scenes.

“Dad, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Wrenched from a disturbing daydream that featured Brenna naked in the shower, he forced himself to pay attention.

“Even if it’s something we’ve never talked about before?”

Now she had all his attention. Was this going to be the sex question? After his conversation with Brenna, he’d made up his mind to buy a book on how to talk to teenagers about sex, but he hadn’t got around to it. He had no idea where to start. “You can ask me anything.” His voice came out as a croak, and he cleared his throat. “We made that deal when you came to live with me last winter. You’re still very young but we can talk about the details if you want to—” please don’t let her want to “—but the first thing to know is that it’s best if you’re in a relationship.”

“What is?” Jess stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

Why the hell hadn’t he bought that book? “All I’m saying is that it’s fine to talk about the mechanics, but it should mean something, that’s all.” He reasoned that as the expert on meaningless sex, that qualified him to talk about it.

“What should?”

“Sex.” His mouth was dry. “That is what you were asking me, isn’t it?”

“No! Dad, that’s gross.” She turned scarlet and kicked the snow with the toe of her boot. “I don’t want to talk to you about sex! Ugh—this is so awkward.”

“It isn’t awkward.” It was up there with the most awkward moment of his life. “You can ask me about that stuff. It’s important that you know the facts, not pick up a load of false information from your friends.”

“I don’t want to talk about sex! I know everything already, okay?”

“Everything?” Suddenly, he had a new worry. “How can you know everything? You’re thirteen years old.”

“Nearly fourteen, and we’re taught all that at school and—” she lifted her hands to her face and then shook her head “—never mind! That wasn’t what I wanted to ask you!”

Tyler felt as uncomfortable as she did. “Good. It doesn’t really matter anyway, because I’m not letting you out of the house until you’re forty.”

“Chill, Dad. I’m more interested in skiing than boys.”

That was good news, but not enough to make him chill.

He was going to order the damn book right away so next time the subject came up, he’d be able to tackle it without feeling as if his tongue were knotted in three places. “So what did you want to ask me? Don’t turn into one of those women who expects a man to play guessing games. If there’s something on your mind then come right out and say it.”

“I was going to ask if you missed it.”

“Sex?”

“No!” Jess gave a snort of laughter. “Dad, is sex all you think about?”

Yes, since you’ve put Brenna in the room next to me. “Let’s start this conversation again,” he breathed. “Do I miss what?”

“Skiing,” Jess blurted the word out, and he frowned.

“Why would I miss it? I still ski.”

“But not competitively. You can’t race anymore since the accident—” she looked at him anxiously “—I wondered if it was hard, that’s all. I mean, you never watch skiing on TV. Ever. Do you hate that you can’t race anymore?”

“If I was racing, I wouldn’t be able to teach you. I love teaching you.”

“Seriously?” Her face brightened. “It doesn’t bore you?”

“No.” He realized that was the truth. “I get a real kick out of it. You’re good. And you’re going to get better.”

“Cool. I love skiing together.”

He looped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “I love that, too.”

“And you love skiing with Brenna.”

He let his hand drop and gave her a look. “Unless you want snow stuffed down your jacket, you can stop that right now.”

“I was just saying.”

“Well, don’t say. And don’t think, either.”

“YOU GET DOWN SAFE.” Brenna checked Jess’s helmet and zipped the top of her jacket against the biting wind. “It’s not the winning that counts, it’s the taking part.”

“Of course it’s the winning that counts.” Tyler stood relaxed and easy on his skis, oblivious to the attention he was getting from the other kids and their mothers. “Otherwise, what’s the point of risking your neck hurtling downhill at inhuman speeds? You might as well stay home.”

Brenna sighed. “All I’m saying is that it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t win.”

“And I’m saying it does matter. She’s going to win, and if she doesn’t, we’re going to work out why.” Tyler put his hands on Jess’s shoulders and turned her to face him. “Listen to me because I’m going to give you more advice since I’m getting so good at it. Forget everything except your skis and the way they feel on the hill. Trust yourself. Focus. You can beat the crap out of all of them.”

Jess grinned, delighted. “You’re not supposed to say crap. Major parent fail.”

Brenna didn’t know whether to laugh or bash her head against a tree. “And you can’t tell her she has to beat them. You’re supposed to be a coach. If you talk like that at Friday night sessions the high school will be swamped with complaints by parents.”

“Good. Then they’ll fire me, and I can go back to doing something interesting with my evenings. I’ve no patience with people who don’t want to hear the truth.”

“If they fire you, I’ll have to do it.”

“Fine.” He gritted his teeth. “I can give coachlike advice if I have to.” He turned back to Jess. “You need the apex of the turn to be at the gate. Watch the transition, and try to keep a constant rhythm.”

Jess bobbed her head up and down. “Are you going to be watching?”

“The whole time.”

“I’m going to make you proud, Dad.”

There was a pause and Tyler cleared his throat. “You shouldn’t be talking to us. You should be focusing. Don’t let anything or anyone distract you.” He stooped and checked her bindings, knocked snow off her skis and then nodded. “We need Chas.”

Jess tightened her boots. “He’s with the U.S. ski team.”

“The man clearly has his priorities wrong. But if he won’t come to you, you’ll have to go to him.”

“Dad, I’ll never make the U.S. ski team.”

“Never is a banned word in the O’Neil family. Now go out there and kick butt.”

Brenna stood listening, wondering if helping Jess made it worse for him.

She wanted to say something, but Tyler O’Neil wasn’t the sort to share his feelings and she didn’t want to be the one to make him do it.

Had he talked to anyone about it? His brothers? Probably not. The three brothers were close, but she doubted they ever sat down and exchanged thoughts on their feelings. They talked about skiing, about anything with an engine and, inevitably, the business.

She stood, conscious of his powerful bulk next to her as they watched Jess position herself.

Brenna could almost feel her nerves. “She’s anxious.”

“That’s not a bad thing.”

“She’s thinking about pleasing you, not about skiing the course. You expect too much of her.”

Tyler gave a grunt. “It’s the small things that can make the difference between winning and losing. And I don’t expect anything she isn’t capable of achieving.”

Brenna glanced at him in exasperation. His eyes were fixed on his daughter. She’d seen the same look on his face a thousand times in the past. Complete focus. But now that focus was directed toward his daughter. It was something she hadn’t noticed before. “There’s more to life than winning a race, Tyler.”

“So I’m told.”

“She isn’t you.”

A frown touched his brows. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m worried you’re putting too much pressure on her.”

“Pressure is part of racing. She can take it.”

“It’s not all about the winning, Tyler! If you make her think that then she’s going to be crushed when she doesn’t win.”

“What sort of crazy liberal shit is that? It’s a competition. Of course it’s about the winning. What’s the point, otherwise?” He dragged his eyes from Jess long enough to give Brenna an incredulous look. “You want her to slow down and be polite so that the girl behind her can win?”

She wanted to laugh because in that moment, he reminded her of the boy he’d once been, tearing down the slopes as if he’d had rocket boosters attached to his skis. “All I’m saying is that she wants to please you so badly, she might put herself at risk.”

“Skiing downhill is always a risk.”

“But there is a fine line between breaking speed records and breaking your neck!”

“She’s good.”

“But she was brought up in Chicago by a mother who hated skiing!”

“All the more reason to catch up now. She’s an O’Neil. Not just her hair and her blue eyes, but the way she feels the snow. Or haven’t you noticed?”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.” Brenna gave up. Instead she focused on Jess, willing her to do well and not fall.

“She wants to ski. I don’t push her to do anything she isn’t already desperate to do. I tried holding her back last winter, and look where that got us.”

Brenna thought back to the night when Jess had disappeared, determined to impress her father by skiing the most difficult run in the resort. “That was a horrible night.”

“She’s next.” Tyler watched as Jess pushed through the start wand, gaining speed immediately.

“Her style is good.”

“Her hand is going back. She’s rotating her body and losing seconds at every gate.”

“She’s doing well.” Brenna winced as one of the gates, the poles that marked the course, swung back and hit Jess in the face. “It’s her first real winter season here, Tyler, and the season only started a few weeks ago.”

“Which means we have a lot of time to make up. She’s concentrating on the gates and not her turns.”

“Tyler.” A woman stepped up to him, her glossy red mouth curving into a smile. “I’m Anna. Patty Clarke’s mother.”

She couldn’t have picked a worse time to try and catch his attention.

Tyler didn’t spare her a glance. His eyes were on Jess. “She’s sliding into her turns. She’s putting too much weight on the inside ski early in the turn, and she needs a tighter line as she approaches the gate.”

“We can work on that. She’s a junior, Tyler, she doesn’t have the physical strength of a World Cup skier!”

“She’s losing time.”

Seeing that he wasn’t going to respond to Anna Clarke, Brenna intervened. “Patty is showing real promise, Anna.”

Patty’s mother ignored her and moved closer to Tyler.

Brenna’s face burned and for a moment she was fifteen again, on her own in school corridors that echoed with the laughter of other kids. Whenever she thought of school, the dominant memory was of being alone while all the other kids traveled in packs. Some days she’d been invisible, others she’d felt like a lone gazelle surrounded by a pack of hyenas. She’d preferred the invisible days, days when her tormentors left her alone, even though that loneliness had been a miserable state. Skipping school to meet Tyler had been the only bright spot in an otherwise gray period of her life.

She glanced briefly at Anna, wondering what it must be like to be that socially confident. To be so sure of a positive response to your overtures. Brenna had been knocked back so many times it had left her wary of putting herself out there.

She’d left school with her self-esteem shredded and even though she’d gradually woven it back together, she was aware of its intrinsic fragility. On the ski slope she was confident. With the people she knew and loved, she was confident. But when it came to people like Patty’s mother, she reverted to being an awkward teenager.

Anna showed no signs of awkwardness. If she’d experienced rejection in her life then it had left no scars. “I wondered if you’d be prepared to give her private lessons. I’d be there, too.”

Tyler watched as Jess finished the course and then turned his head, his handsome face blank of expression. If he noticed the smile Anna Clarke gave him, he didn’t respond. “If she’s on the school team, she’ll be at training sessions on Fridays. I’ll be coaching some of those.”

“I saw the new brochure online, and it said that you were available for one-to-ones.” The husky tone of her voice implied she was interested in more than Tyler’s expertise on the snow.

“Expert skiers only, and then only on a case-by-case basis.”

“Who decides who you take?”

Tyler stared down into those eyes, apparently unaffected by the liberal application of mascara. “Brenna.” His voice was silk over layers of steel. “If she thinks a skier shows exceptional talent, then I’ll coach them. You’ll have to talk to her.”

Anna Clarke said nothing, but her color rose, and she said something to him in a low voice before skiing away.

Brenna’s heart was pounding. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“You’re right. You should have done it.” There was an edge to his tone. “She was rude, and you let her get away with it.”

Her heart was bumping. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters, Brenna. You need to speak up. If you let a person step on you, they’ll do it again and again.”

“We’re surrounded by kids and parents. I didn’t want to get into a fight. It’s unprofessional.”

“We both know you wouldn’t fight even if your back was against the wall.”

Did he think she was pathetic? “You think I have no backbone.”

His gaze locked on hers. “Honey, I’ve seen you ski. You have more backbone than anyone I’ve met. You’ll ski a vertical slope without hesitation, but when it comes to people, especially people like Anna, when there’s a social situation that makes you uncomfortable, you shut down.”

“You’re saying I’m a coward.”

“No.” He frowned. “You’re not good at handling those sorts of people. But we’re going to change that.”

He’d never said anything like that before, and Brenna gave a breathless laugh. “You want me to get into a girl fight with Anna?”

“No. I’m going to teach you to be assertive.” He adjusted his glove. “Next time, instead of letting her snub you, you will say a few quiet words that demand she treat you with respect.”

“I’m not so great with words. I usually think of the right thing to say a week after the chance to say it has passed.”

“So we’ll think of it in advance. I have the perfect string of words to say to a woman like that.” He leaned closer, whispered in her ear and she gasped and glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one could have overheard.

“No way would I ever say that.”

“I guarantee she’d never do it to you again if you did.”

Half laughing, half shocked, Brenna shook her head. “I don’t think she’s ever going to talk to me again anyway. You were pretty rude to her.”

“She was mean to you.” He said it simply. Then he tugged off his glove and curved his hand behind her head, forcing her to look at him. He was big. Protective. The strength in those fingers a direct contrast to the gentleness in his eyes.

No one had ever pushed this man into a ditch or made him feel less than he was.

Her heart was pumping so hard it felt as if it might burst out of her chest. “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.”

“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.

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