Snow Crystal Trilogy: Sleigh Bells in the Snow / Suddenly Last Summer / Maybe This Christmas

“The kitchen is where I spend my time.” Elizabeth turned on the heat under a pan. “Why wouldn’t I hang them in here? It makes me happy seeing Michael on that sledge. And I love that one of you boys taken right after that snowball fight. Look at their faces, Kayla—you can see what a handful they were. They loved the snow. Show them a slope of any sort and those boys of mine would ski down it. Didn’t matter what was at the bottom. They couldn’t play together without fighting but nor could they bear to be apart. Turned me gray prematurely.” But her face was all smiles, and she was clearly a woman whose life was fed and nurtured by family.

Feeling like an alien from another planet, Kayla hunted for something to say that wasn’t “get me out of here.” “They’re lovely photographs.” There was a thickness in her throat that hadn’t been there a few moments before.

It was this damn place, she thought. This lovely, cozy kitchen all prepared for Christmas. There were bowls of pinecones and vases filled with long branches of forest greenery. Candles flickered on shelves next to handmade decorations and Christmas cards with scrawled messages of love.

She thought about her apartment in Manhattan. Sleek, stark and without a single homey touch. No messages of love.

“Kayla?” Jackson’s prompt cut through her thoughts. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” But it was a lie. She wasn’t all right.

Blocking out her surroundings, she tried to put her laptop on the table and discovered there was no room.

“Move your knitting, Alice.” Elizabeth O’Neil swept a small pile of yarn out of the way. “Have you seen Kayla’s computer? It’s so small. Isn’t technology fantastic?”

Kayla stared transfixed at the neat rows of gingerbread Santas waiting patiently in line to be iced.

A memory, long buried, awoke in her brain.

Despite the warmth of the kitchen, the chill spread through her. She felt horribly cold.

“Are you hungry, honey?” Alice carefully lifted a Santa onto a plate and pushed it toward her. “Aren’t they beautiful? Try one. They taste as good as they look.”

“No, thank you.”

Alice clucked with disapproval. “You young girls are always dieting, but of course that’s why you’re so lovely and slim.”

“I’m not dieting. I’m just not hungry right now.” There was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Jackson’s grandmother reached across and patted her hand. “You don’t need to be nervous, honey. And we’re just so grateful to you for giving up your holidays to help us.”

The kindness almost finished her.

“Why are you doing that?” Walter narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why aren’t you at home with your family?”

Elizabeth frowned. “Walter!”

“I’m just asking myself what sort of person chooses to work rather than spend Christmas with their family.”

The sort of person whose family didn’t want them.

Kayla gripped her laptop. “I’ve prepared a presentation for you. I hope it will help show some of the ways Innovation can help you with your business.”

“This place is about families,” Walter barked. “It’s about togetherness and making memories. What do you know about that?”

Nothing. She knew nothing.

“That’s enough, Walter.” Elizabeth thumped a plate down in front of him.

“I just don’t see what a Brit who works in Manhattan can possibly know about our business, that’s all. She’s an outsider.”

The word slid into her like a blade.

She knew nothing about functioning families, but she knew all there was to know about being the outsider.

Just for a moment she was back in her stepmother’s house, standing frozen behind the Christmas tree where no one could see her.

Why does she have to come to us, David? I want it to be just the four of us. Why can’t she just go to her bloody mother?

It was as if Walter had found a loose thread in a sweater and pulled. Kayla felt herself unravel. Feelings she’d kept carefully locked away tumbled out.

Drowning, panicking, she turned to Jackson. “I need to plug my laptop into your projector, please.” The feelings pressed in on her, dark and terrifying, and she pushed back, refusing to allow them to take hold.

“There is no projector.”

“No projector?” She couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d told her he’d built a hotel and forgotten to include bedrooms.

“It’s not high on our priority list right now.” That intense blue gaze was searching. “Just turn your laptop around and we’ll look at your screen.”

“No projector.” Kayla snatched in a breath as she tried to navigate this latest obstacle. “No projector is just fine.”

Alice placed a freshly iced Santa on the rack. “I always find icing something helps me relax. Give Kayla a knife, Elizabeth, then she can help.”

“I can’t cook. I’ve never iced anything.” Fingers shaking, Kayla swiveled the laptop and fished her notepad out of her bag. “You’re obviously busy so I’ll be as quick as I can.” For her own sake, if not theirs. She needed to get out of here.

“If she can’t do something simple like ice a gingerbread Santa,” Walter muttered, “how the hell is she going to work magic on this place?”

Jackson’s jaw tensed. “If you ask her, she’ll tell you. That’s why she’s here, but so far she hasn’t been able to get a word in edgewise. And I don’t need her to cook. I employed a chef.”

“Even though we already had a perfectly good chef, but we’re not going over that again now.” Walter glared down the table at Kayla. “We’re listening. Show us the magic.”

An expectant silence spread across the room.

Feeling as if everything was happening in slow motion Kayla stared at Walter, then at Elizabeth and finally at Alice, who was carefully adding buttons to Santa’s iced coat.

“Kayla?” Jackson’s voice was controlled. “We’re ready to hear what you have to say.”

She didn’t have anything to say. There was nothing in her head except the past.

Usually she was articulate, but panic had shorted her circuits.

Then she remembered it was all on her screen, but her screen was pointing toward them and she couldn’t see it. “I prepared a presentation that demonstrates some of our experience in this area.”

Alice squinted. “I might need my other glasses. Elizabeth, do you have my other glasses?”

“They’re in your bag where they always are.” Elizabeth handed them to her, and Alice slid them onto her nose and leaned forward.

Kayla adjusted the angle. “From the moment we get up in the morning to the moment we go to bed, we are deluged by messages.” Oh, God, she sounded like a robot. She needed to liven it up and make it more personal. “We live in a fast-moving world where the news changes by the minute so the challenge is how to make yourself heard amongst the noise.”