Maybe This Christmas

But he didn’t want that. And he certainly didn’t want it with her.

She forced herself to focus on the topic of Jess. “She skis with you. There is no better training than that.”

“It’s all she wants to do. She’s falling behind with her schoolwork. Not concentrating in class.” He dragged his hand over his jaw. “How am I supposed to handle that? I try and tell her to do her homework, but I never did mine, so does that make me a hypocrite? Do I tell her to do as I say or do as I did? I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about last winter when I tried holding her back. Look how that turned out.”

“She was pushing you. Testing you. You worked through it.”

“She ran away!”

“You found her almost right away.”

“But not before she’d given us all a heart attack.”

Brenna thought about the night Jess had gone missing. “I suppose you have to set boundaries.”

“You ignored the boundaries. So did I. How do I enforce them with my daughter?”

Seeing him question himself was a novel experience. Tyler was fearless and confident. Both qualities were an essential part of a sport that demanded total precision. He’d never had any doubts about what he wanted out of life, and she found his attempts to adapt to living with a teenage daughter endearing. Suspecting that endearing wasn’t an adjective he’d thank her for, she kept it to herself.

“Why would you be messing it up? You made it clear from the moment Janet sent her here that she was loved and wanted. That’s the most important thing.”

Jess hadn’t revealed much about the years she’d spent with her mother in Chicago, but she’d said enough to make Brenna, who had always considered herself to be even-tempered, hope she never came face-to-face with Janet ever again.

“Loving her isn’t enough though, is it? I’m worried I’m a lousy father. That’s the truth.” He took a deep breath and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “I haven’t admitted that to anyone but you.”

Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed. “You’re a good father. How can you doubt that?”

“I didn’t manage to keep her when she was born, did I?”

“Not because you didn’t try.” She knew how hard the O’Neils had fought to keep baby Jess. Knew what losing had done to them. “Why are you thinking about that now when it was all so long ago?”

“Because she mentioned it earlier.”

“The custody battle?”

“The fact she was an accident. Janet obviously said something to her. I’m worried we’ve screwed her up.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think she’s screwed up, but if she’s been affected by her childhood then you’re not responsible for that. You weren’t the one telling her those things.”

“I’m responsible for what happens from now on though, and that responsibility scares me.”

“I can’t imagine you feeling scared.” Of all the words people might have applied to Tyler O’Neil, fear definitely wasn’t one of them. “You’re not scared of anything or anyone.”

“I’m scared of this.” He stopped walking and turned to look at her. For once there was no hint of humor in those blue eyes. “I don’t want to mess this up, Bren.”

His sincerity brought a lump to her throat, and she reached out and put her hand on his arm, her fingers closing around brutally hard biceps. Tyler O’Neil was everything male, but she tried not to think of him that way. Tried not to notice the wide shoulders, the thickness of muscle under his jacket or the telltale shadow on his jaw. She tried to think of him as a friend first and a man second. Today, for some reason, that wasn’t working out so well, and the jolt to her senses woke her up.

For her own sanity, she normally made a point of not touching him, but today she’d broken that rule.

She was hyperaware of him. Shivers ran up and down her spine. Her nerve endings buzzed. The impulsive urge to stand on tiptoe and kiss the sensual curve of his mouth was almost overpowering.

If she did that, how would he react?

He’d die of shock.

And then he’d make some stammered excuse about how he didn’t think it was a good idea because they worked together, whereas what he’d really be thinking was that she wasn’t his type, and he didn’t find her attractive.

She was careful never to cross the line between friendship and something more intimate because she knew once they’d crossed it, they could never go back. Her feelings were her problem. She didn’t want to make him uncomfortable or do anything to risk damaging their friendship.

She removed her hand, turned her head and studied the tall trees of the forest, trying to block out the image of that mouth, those sexy blue eyes and that gorgeous hair ruffled by the wind.

He seemed tense, too, but she knew that was because he was thinking about Jess, not her.

He thought of her as a friend first and second. She doubted he was even aware of her as a woman. She was genderless, one of the few people he could trust in a life filled with sycophants, hangers-on and people who wanted something from him, greedy for crumbs of secondhand fame. The downhill circuit had been crazy, she knew that. And through it all, they’d maintained their friendship.

“I think you need to relax. Follow your instincts and do what feels right. There’s no one right way to be a parent.”

“There are plenty of wrong ways.”

Don’t I know it. “You love who she is, and that’s the most important thing for any child. You don’t wish she were someone different.”

“Are we talking about you here?” His gaze sympathetic, he lifted a hand and brushed snow out of her hair. “How is your mom? Have you entered the dragon’s lair lately?”

The fact he knew instantly what was going through her head was another indication of how well they knew each other.

“I haven’t seen her in a month. I’m due a visit, but I keep putting it off.” Brenna forced a smile. “I have to brace myself to get through an hour of being scolded about how I’m wasting my life here.”

“They’re lucky to have you, Bren.”

No, they weren’t. “I don’t think they’d agree. I’m a disappointment to them. I’m not the way they wanted me to be.” She’d given up trying to change the facts. Some families, like the O’Neils, were a team, and others stumbled along like a band of misfits, as if they’d been thrown together by an unhappy accident.

“You’re you.” He frowned. “They should want you to be you.”

He had a way of simplifying things.

She knew that many people saw Tyler as a sports-obsessed, superficial bad boy. But that was the surface. Beneath the veneer of carelessness, he was astute and perceptive. “It’s because you understand that, and believe that, I know you’re a great dad. You accept Jess as she is. That’s the best thing a parent can do.”

“She’s crazy about skiing. I’m trying to encourage a little balance in her life.”

She smiled. “Did we have balance at that age?”

“No. We spent every moment outdoors.”

Brenna stooped and picked up a pinecone. “So let her do the same. If you’re caught in a strong current, you don’t try and swim against it. Let her ski in every spare moment, and perhaps if you don’t hold her back, she’ll be more willing to spend a little time on other things. Steer her gradually.”

“That sounds reasonable.”

“By the way, you ran off before Kayla could ask if you’d consider running a ski master class.”