A Family Like Hannah's

“Miss, are you okay?” Voice even louder now as he enunciated very slowly, “Did you hit your head?”

Sitting up, she dusted snow from the front of her coat. “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“I saw you fall.” He pointed up.

“I didn’t fall. I jumped.”

“What? Why?”

“Because it’s fun?” Hannah posed the question-answer with a sheepish grin.

It was true that she didn’t want the guy anywhere near her resort, but it was also true, she admitted, that it was cute how his mouth dipped down at the corners along with his brows.

She knew he was nice looking, but she hadn’t expected him to be so...

Stern, she finished the thought as he went on in a very serious tenor, “It’s fun to fall twenty feet into a pile of snow? That’s dangerous. Are you aware of what could happen if you got stuck or how about landing on something—a rock or a branch? Did you think of that? And what if you landed wrong and broke your neck, or worse?”

Hannah wasn’t sure what to make of his anxious tone. She supposed witnessing the “fall” had made him nervous, but she certainly wouldn’t have done it if she’d known he was here. Besides, he wasn’t supposed to be here for at least another hour or two, and why was he nosing around on his own?

In an attempt to reassure him, she said, “Twenty feet is a bit of an overstatement. And I wouldn’t do it any old time. I’m aware of the conditions. There are no rocks here, there’s a deep enough base, plenty of fresh powder. And you fall backwards—like this, so that when you land...” Leaning her body back to demonstrate, she caught a glimpse of his disapproving expression. Suddenly she felt like a teenager defending herself to a stodgy grown-up.

He shook his head, a look of incredulity stamped on his face. “I don’t understand why you would knowingly take such a risk. I mean, what are you...?”

She kind of wanted to tell him to lighten up, but knew it would behoove her to make a good impression on him. The more he liked her and Snowy Sky, the less change he would recommend and the sooner she could get back to normal.

Untying her hood, she pushed it back from her face, turned on a bright smile and stuck out a snow-covered glove. “Mr. Addison, it’s nice to meet you—even in this rather, um, unconventional manner. But how’s this for some great snow?”

What looked like a mix of skepticism and disbelief furrowed his brow. “What? Who...are you?”

“I’m Hannah James, project manager here at Snowy Sky.”

* * *

TATE STARED INTO the pretty golden-brown eyes of the woman in front of him and felt a stir of something—no, a mix of so many things.

She was project manager? He knew the project manager was a woman named Hannah James and that she was a former professional skier. But he didn’t know her. He’d thought the name sounded vaguely familiar, but he’d been expecting someone older. And much less...attractive.

She tucked a thick brown braid into the back of her jacket. Smooth, honey-toned skin made it impossible to tell her age.

He found himself blurting, “How old are you?” And immediately wished he could take the question back.

“Excuse me?”

Why had he asked that? Back in his early snowboarding days he’d hated when people had asked him that very question, which they’d done a lot because he had been young and talented and often competing against guys much older and twice or three times his size. He had never thought his age was relevant and now here he was asking the question of someone else.

“Sorry. So, uh, you’re the project manager? Hannah James?”

“Yes. I am. Hannah James.”

He noticed the tightness in her jaw and thought, uh-oh. He hadn’t meant to offend her, and he knew very well this process would go a lot smoother if he could make friends with her, convince her the resort would benefit from his recommendations.

Attempting to reduce the tense moment with honesty and a touch of remorse, he winced. “Oh, man... Ms. James, I’m so sorry. I may not have had the most traditional upbringing, but I do know better than to ask a woman her age.”

He added his own sheepish grin. “You, however, look very young and I was surprised. I am taken aback and embarrassed by my behavior. Can we start over?”

* * *

SURELY HE WASN’T implying she was too young for this job? And why in the world would he think that, Hannah? After he just witnessed you jumping off the chairlift like some kind of reckless teenager?

But she couldn’t help it.

Since the accident she found herself constantly looking for ways to remind herself she was alive, that there were still thrills to be had even if she could no longer race. Dr. Voss said it was harmless, therapeutic even, as long as her forays didn’t get too dangerous. Thus, she was only into “safe” danger. Although that might be difficult to convince Tate Addison of given the current circumstances.

Flashing her best carefree grin, she said, “Of course, Mr. Addison, you’re forgiven. Call me Hannah. And please, forgive me, too. This probably looks really strange, but we all need a little fun sometimes, right? And I can assure you I am both old enough for this job and qualified for the position.”

He looked relieved to be let off the hook.

“Great. Okay, I’m Tate.” He placed a hand on his chest. “And clearly you are both of those things.”

She brushed off his words with a wave of her hand. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Let’s get your tour started, shall we?”

She pulled off her gloves and removed her hat from inside of her jacket where she’d stashed it before she jumped from the lift. She arranged the hat on her head, tucking some stray strands beneath its softness. Finally she replaced her gloves and glanced up in time to catch his assessing stare; she didn’t even want to imagine what he was thinking.

She needed to put this little setback behind her and do some damage control.

“After you.” She gestured toward the groomed portion of the hill.

They hiked back to where he had left his snow machine. There was plenty of room for two, so when he suggested she climb on, she did. He took off slowly and putted along until she directed him to stop a few hundred feet up the hill where she began to give him the status report she’d practiced.

“We’re almost directly in the middle of the ski terrain right here...”

Hannah went on to explain how the runs taking off from each of the four lifts would be arranged to accommodate every type of alpine skier—beginner, intermediate and advanced.

“Chair four—the last chair—will be a nice mix of beginner and intermediate runs along the front here, and has a dual purpose of allowing Nordic skiers access to the eastern terrain. It’s full of trails where they can cross-country ski for miles. We have plans for a small lodge in that area eventually. Alaska has a substantial amount of cross-country skiers and I believe we should really capitalize on this...”

Feeling confident and cruising through her practiced spiel, she believed their awkward meeting was well behind them when he interrupted.

“What about snowboarding?”

“What about it?”

“Does the resort offer anything for snowboarders?”

She thought for a second. The man had been a professional snowboarder for many years; of course snowboarding would be the first thing on his mind.

“Yes, of course. They will be allowed to transport their boards up on the lifts for an extra fifty dollars a day. And we’re only charging them ten percent more on rentals, food and lodging.”

His dark brows dipped down, midnight-blue eyes full of consternation. The man really was serious. Much more so than she had expected. And definitely more than seemed called for. Every snowboarder she’d ever known was pretty much the opposite of serious.

“I’m kidding,” she finally said.

“Oh... That’s funny.” He let out a laugh. The sound was deep and rich, and it surprised her. He should laugh more often, she thought, because it made him seem much less uptight.

Inexplicably proud of herself for the grin still on his face she went on. “Seriously, though, we will offer snowboarders the same things we offer skiers—top-of-the-line equipment rentals, meticulously groomed slopes and plenty of beautiful dry powder. As you can see, we have the most delicious snow here.”

“No terrain park? Or a half-pipe? Quarter-pipe at least?”

Disappointed to find his intensity already back, she recovered quickly. “Not at this time. Too expensive. We’re a family-friendly ski resort catering to the recreational skiers of beginner to intermediate levels. Our focus is—”

“Ski and snowboard resort,” he interrupted again.

“What?”

“It’s a ski and snowboard resort, right?”

She felt a furrow of frustration bending her own brow and made a conscious effort to ease it away. “Doesn’t that go without saying?”

A thoughtful expression evolved on his face. “Not really, no—not from a marketing standpoint. Snowy Sky Ski and Snowboard Resort sounds better, don’t you think? I do,” he confidently answered his own question and then went on, “Snowboarders like to feel welcome. For so long we were looked down on, even banned in some places.”

Was he serious with this? That had been, like, twenty years ago. He wanted her to change the name of the resort to that tongue twister so that snowboarders would feel welcome? Not happening.

But how best to state it diplomatically? “Um...”

“So, you expect the more advanced athletes to do what?”

She felt her brows shoot upward in surprise along with a spike of impatience. “Whatever they like. We have some advanced runs. And there’s always JB Heli-Ski for you adrenaline junkies.”

She was referring to the heli-ski operation she’d opened the winter before with her friend Cricket Blackburn. The business wasn’t a part of Snowy Sky, but she knew Tate was aware of it because Cricket had told her that he had visited Rankins a few times in the past year. Cricket had even given him a ride in the helicopter earlier in the fall, before the onset of the ski season.

“I’m not an adrenaline junkie,” he replied with a steady tone.

She had the feeling he was going to add something else, but he didn’t. He just stared with that same sober expression. She tried not to fidget, but it was so disconcerting.

“I’ve seen you compete. You’re telling me those tricks you do—the tricks you invented—that doesn’t give you a rush?”

“It was my job. I was good at it.” He shrugged like he was still thinking about the question. “Winning gave me a rush I guess. I like to win.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, trying not to let her consternation show. “You should try heli-skiing sometime. It’s fun.”

“I snowboard. I don’t ski.”

Thank you for clarifying, Mr. Literal, Hannah thought, just barely managing to suppress the urge to roll her eyes. Instead she offered up a smile. “You can take a board into the backcountry, too, you know? People do it all the time. I’m sure it’s not as fun as skiing but...” she trailed off with an easy shrug.

“Yeah, no, I mean—I know. I’ve been boarding in backcountry before. That’s not what I was referring to.”

She had no idea how to respond. He really was a tough crowd.

Luckily, he changed the subject. He pointed in the vicinity of lift four and asked a technical question that got them back on track and into safer territory.

Hannah knew the answer, and after they’d toured a portion of each of the four lift areas, more of the runs and prospective runs, they headed to the main lodge. The building had been framed and roughed in before winter hit so the interior could be completed during the darker, colder months.

They ventured inside as she explained the plans for the lodge, including the layout and its features, and even some of the design aspects.

Throughout the tour Tate took notes and asked numerous questions, none of which stumped her and all of which she felt she’d answered thoroughly and with ease. He seemed satisfied with her responses and as the time flew by, he seemed to relax.

She even made him laugh a couple more times. And something told her that might be just as much of an accomplishment as the meeting’s success.

CHAPTER THREE

TATE HANDED A set of Christmas lights to his longtime coach, mentor and friend Viktor Kovalenko. He began unwrapping another string from its exasperatingly tight packaging, barely resisting the urge to use his teeth.

“I’m telling you, Viktor, she hasn’t made one move to accommodate snowboarders. At all. Other than the resort will be offering board rentals in the shop. Park told me she has plans to order maybe a third of the equipment she has slated for skiing.”

“Really?” Viktor started up the stairs, looping the string of lights around the banister. Tate had purchased the lights in town as well as a wreath for the door and some other decorations with the intent of spreading some Christmas cheer around the house for Lucas.

“She knows about skiing. I’ll give her that. And she’s doing a fine job there. She’s working on an awesome cross-country set up. And the heli-skiing venture she started with Cricket is amazing. It’s already becoming super popular with backcountry enthusiasts. I went up with Cricket when I was here in the fall. I got a glimpse of the incredible terrain they have access to. And now with this snowpack I’m anxious to get out there and try it out myself.”

Tate had met Cricket Blackburn on his first scouting trip to Rankins. They’d become friendly over the course of three successive visits. Cricket had introduced him to Park Lowell, who had turned him on to the investment opportunity that Snowy Sky offered. Snowy Sky had tipped him over the edge when making the difficult decision of trying to decide where to make a permanent home for himself and his makeshift family.

“This resort could be really special, but she’s limiting its potential. Plus, she seems awfully blasé about her position as resort manager.”

Viktor paused. “Blasé?”

“Yes, she’s young and she’s...” He searched for a description but all he could think of was cheerful. “She’s not unconcerned, but...”

Flippant? No, that wasn’t exactly the right word either. Lighthearted? Yes, but there was really nothing wrong with that, was there? And he didn’t add that she was funny and that he’d also had a good time with her. None of that mattered because he needed to think about the resort’s future success. And Lucas. Especially Lucas.

“I don’t know exactly. She’s mostly professional, though maybe not quite serious enough or...” That wasn’t right either. He gave up with a dismissive head shake.

“What are you going to do?” Viktor asked, plugging one end of the string into an extension cord. The multicolored strands flickered and then glowed with cheerful color. He surveyed their work and grinned with satisfaction. “Lukie will like this.”

Tate agreed. “I asked him what kind of tree he’d like for Christmas and he told me he doesn’t remember ever having a Christmas tree.”

Viktor nodded sadly. It didn’t need to be said that money had specifically been sent each and every year to give Lucas a proper Christmas because they both knew. There had been a tree the last time Tate had spent Christmas with Lucas and Lexie, but Lucas had only been three years old.

“This year we change that,” Viktor stated confidently.

Like always, Tate appreciated Viktor’s optimism. Tate knew he needed to make a lot of changes for Lucas’s sake. It was difficult to even know where to start.

“Yes, we will.” Tate adjusted the lights, making sure they hung evenly. He knew Lucas was asleep in his room upstairs but still he lowered his voice as he asked, “Was I as troubled as Lucas when you took me in?”

Viktor halted his ministrations, his hands twinkling with color, and thought for a long minute. “I am not sure how to answer. It is difficult to know the mind of a child—the damage that is done. It comes out over time. I believe as part of healing process. You were unsettled also, like Lukie, tentative and even quieter. But your dedication to snowboarding saved you as much as I did.”

Tate smiled at the man who had managed to wrest him away from Penny at the age of seven—purchased him essentially after dating her during a brief stint of sobriety. She’d been waitressing at the ski resort where Viktor worked. He’d been kind to Tate, introducing him to snowboarding. Tate had been a progeny and Viktor, seeing his potential, had offered to coach him, eventually striking a deal with Penny that allowed him to raise Tate as long as she kept receiving financial help.

Viktor always downplayed the role he’d assumed in Tate’s life, but they both knew very well that he wouldn’t be where he was if it wasn’t for Viktor—not anywhere even close.

“Let’s hope that works for Lucas, too.”

“Yes, we will hope. And if not, we will find what does.”

But Tate wanted this to work. It had to because he didn’t know anything besides snowboarding. He was counting on using the sport to forge a bond with his nephew. Just as it had between him and Viktor.

Viktor added, “He is two nights now without nightmare.”

“Yes, he is,” Tate said with a relieved sigh. “He loves that crocodile night-light you got him. Told me it keeps the darkness away. The actual darkness and the scary kind he has bad dreams about.”

Viktor’s lips curved up into a grin. “You had night-light, too. It was tooth. You remember this one? You get from dentist.”

He did remember. He still had it, tucked in a box in his condo back in Colorado.

“I wonder if Lucas has ever been to the dentist?”

“We will check on that. Before toothache comes.”

“Good idea,” Tate replied. “As far as Snowy Sky goes, I don’t have any choice. I’ll have to take my recommendations to the board. Now that we’re investors we need to think about the bottom line, as well.”

“Does Ms. James know how much of resort you own?”

He grimaced. “Not exactly.” He joined another string of lights to Viktor’s.

“Does she know you own any shares of Snowy Sky?” Viktor asked, adjusting the strings as he slowly descended the stairs.

“Uh...no.”

“How do you think that will go over when she finds out?”

He shrugged helplessly and tried to squelch a surprising, annoying niggle of guilt as the tiny bulbs flashed on, as bright as Hannah’s smile. He couldn’t think about her smile or those amber-colored eyes that seemed to dance with a kind of mischief.

Cricket had mentioned the James family of course. He had even met a few people he now realized would be Hannah’s brothers or cousins. Park had also filled him in about the status and reputation her family enjoyed in Rankins. Undoubtedly she’d had a storybook upbringing as a member of the esteemed James family. It was certainly easy to deduce from her demeanor that the woman hadn’t known much hardship in her life.

But Tate had, and so had Lucas—which was why he needed to stay focused on the endgame.

“I didn’t want that knowledge to influence anything she told me. I wanted her to think she was talking with an objective observer. And, I didn’t want her to think she had to impress me.”

Viktor slowly descended the last few stairs, admiring their handiwork as he went. When he reached the bottom, he turned a hesitant look on Tate.

“Hmm,” he finally said.

“Hmm, what?”

“How are you objective?”

“In my capacity as a consultant I’m objective.”

“But what about your capacity as snowboarder? How does that make you any more objective than Ms. James with her background in skiing?”

Tate conceded that Viktor had a point. But he didn’t harbor any prejudice against skiing like she so obviously did against snowboarding. If only she would make a few simple—okay, maybe not-quite-so-simple—adjustments, equality could be achieved. Then harmony between the two sports would naturally follow at Snowy Sky.

* * *

CLOSING HER EYES, Hannah forced herself to do one more set. The doctors and her physical therapist had told her that the better shape she remained in, the less the trauma her body had suffered would prevent her from doing what she wanted to do in life.

Which made perfect sense, but this was heavy; she’d added more weight to her routine this morning. She focused on pushing the bar up as her muscles began to quiver.

Uh-oh, she realized, barbell now definitely heading in the wrong direction. She was going to have to roll out from under it somehow.

Her eyes snapped open as the bar was suddenly snatched out of her hands. The clinking sound it made as it was dropped on the rack seemed to echo through the empty weight room of the community center.

Cricket scowled down at her. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

Hannah grinned up at him, wiping her brow with the sleeve of her shirt. “No, but I admit I may have pushed it a little too far. Thank you.”

He leaned over so his upside-down face was only inches above hers. “You should know better than to lift this much weight without a spotter. It’s weight lifting 101.”

She shifted her gaze one way and then the other. She tried to sound casual even as the danger of her actions began to sink in. “Well, there’s no one else here.”

“That’s because no one else in their right mind gets up at four in the morning to work out.”

“You do,” she spouted with a laugh.

“Yeah, so next time wait for me, okay?”

She sat up and mumbled a “fine” as she did so, because she knew he was right. That had kind of scared her.

He took a seat on the bench beside her. “How are you feeling anyway?” He motioned in the general direction of her left leg.

She nodded, but didn’t make eye contact. “Good.”

He kept staring. He always watched her close and for some reason she didn’t mind. She had known Cricket forever, but the last year and a half since becoming her business partner he’d also become like a brother to her. Closer actually than her own two brothers, who were both wonderful yet...

Her family was close, but Hannah had always felt odd having been born the middle child among her siblings—five years after her sister Shay who had come just two years after their oldest brother Tag. Those two were tight. Then Hannah had come along, and five years later the triplets had been born; Hazel, Iris and Seth. Those three were their own special kind of unit. Which had left Hannah kind of floundering in the middle, and then she’d been away so much of her childhood, skiing.

She knew it would be pointless to lie to him. “Still having some pain. It’s probably nothing, but I’m going to call the doctor.”

“When?”

“Soon,” she promised. “Right after the holidays.”

“Hannah—”

“That’s only a few weeks. It’s not getting worse. It’s just there. And I doubt it will make any difference.”

He eyed her skeptically. “How in the world could you possibly know that?”

She chuckled. “I don’t, but I was hoping you would buy it.”

* * *

HANNAH HADN’T SEEN the little boy during the next couple visits that followed their first encounter in the atrium, so this morning she was pleased to find him waiting for her. Technically, he was hiding again, but she felt confident he was doing so in anticipation of her arrival.

She pretended as if she didn’t see him as she ducked into the storage room to collect the fish food. She strolled over to the pond where the koi began to swim at a faster clip as they spotted her. Keeping one eye on the little boy, she threw a handful of food into the pond and then another.

“Ouch! My wrist hurts,” she called out and then shook her hand as if the motion had caused her pain. She looked toward the pond. “How will I feed you guys? I could really use some help.”

A soft voice floated over to her. “You should use your other hand.”

She stifled a grin. “Oh, I guess I could try that.” She reached into the bucket left-handed and then made a show of sloppily throwing the food on the floor. A few pieces dribbled into the water where the koi quickly gobbled them up.