Sleigh Bells in the Snow

“He’ll be home for Christmas. I’ll talk to him then.” Jackson leaned forward. “I need someone who can get Snow Crystal the attention it deserves. We need to increase occupancy. We need heads on beds.”

“Is it about proving yourself? Because you’ve already done that with your big-shot ways, your fancy company and your fancy cars.”

Change, Jackson thought. They hated change.

All his grandfather understood was blunt, so he gave him blunt.

“If we leave things the way they are, we’ll lose the business.”

His grandmother spilled a puddle of icing on the table, his mother turned a shade paler and his grandfather’s eyes burned a fierce blue in his tanned, craggy face.

“This place has been in our family for four generations.”

“And I’m trying to keep it in the family for the next four.”

“By spending a fortune on a fancy New York company that can’t even find Vermont on a map? What do they know about our business?”

“Plenty. They have a division that specializes in Travel and Hospitality, and the woman heading it up knows what she’s doing. Have you heard of Adventure Travel?” Jackson leaned forward in his chair. “They were going under until Kayla Green took on the account. She had their business mentioned in every key media target.”

“Jargon,” Walter muttered. “So what is she? A magician?”

“She is a PR specialist. Right at the top of her game. She has media contacts that the rest of us can only dream about.”

“She’s not the only one with media contacts.” Walter O’Neil sniffed to show exactly what he thought of Kayla Green’s abilities. “I’ve been bowling with Max Rogers, editor of the Snow Crystal Post, for the past twenty years. If I want a piece in the paper, I ask.”

The Snow Crystal Post.

Jackson didn’t know whether to laugh or punch a hole through the table.

Wrenching the running of Snow Crystal away from his grandfather was like trying to pull fresh meat from the jaws of a starving lion.

“Local press is great, but what we really need is attention from the national media and international media—” He opened his mouth to add social media but decided not to get started on that one. “PR is more than talking to the press and we need to think bigger than the Snow Crystal Post.”

“Bigger isn’t always better.”

“No, but small can mean bust. We need to expand.”

“You make us sound like a factory!”

“Not a factory, a business. A business, Gramps.” Jackson rubbed his fingers over his forehead to ease the throb of his tension headache. He was used to walking in and getting the job done. Not anymore. Not with his own family because there were feelings to consider.

He decided that the only thing they’d respond to was hard facts. “It’s important you know how things stand at the moment—”

His mother pushed a plate toward him. “Have a gingerbread Santa.”

On the verge of revealing just how black the future looked, Jackson found himself staring at a plate of smiling Santas. They wouldn’t look so damned cheerful if they knew how precarious their future was.

“Mom—”

“You’ll sort it out, Jackson. You’ll do what’s right. By the way, Walter—” her tone was casual “—did you see the doctor about that pain in your chest? Because I can run you over there today.”

Walter scowled. “I pulled a muscle chopping logs. It was nothing.”

“He won’t listen.” Alice stuck a knife into the bowl of icing. “I keep telling him we should slow down during sex, but he ignores me.”

“Christ, Grams!” Tyler shifted uncomfortably, and his grandmother looked up from the Santa she was holding, some of the old spark flaring in her eyes.

“Mind your language. And what’s wrong with you? You think sex is just for the young? You have sex, Tyler O’Neil. Plenty of it if the rumors are to be believed.”

“Yeah, but I don’t talk about it with my grandmother—” Tyler levered himself to his feet. “I’m out of here. There’s only so much family togetherness I can stand in one day. I’m going to tear up the slopes and chase women.”

Knowing Tyler wasn’t his problem, Jackson let him go without argument.

He met his mother’s gaze and read the message there.

She was warning him to ease up on his grandfather.

The door slammed behind Tyler, and his grandmother flinched. “He was wild as a boy and he’s wild as a man.”

“He’s not wild.” Elizabeth poured milk into a pretty spotted jug. “He just hasn’t found his place in the world since his injury. He’ll adjust, especially now that he has Jess home.”

It occurred to Jackson that his mother could have been talking about herself. She hadn’t found her place in the world since losing his father. That wound was as raw as ever and she was stumbling around like a bird with a broken wing.

Smelling food, the puppy emerged from under the table. She looked up at Jackson hopefully, her entire body wagging along with her tail.

“Maple, sweetheart.” Elizabeth scooped her up. “She hates all this shouting.”

Walter grunted. “Give her something to eat. I like to see her eat. She was skin and bones when she arrived here.”

Jackson closed his eyes. When he opened them again he was still in the kitchen. Still in the middle of this “meeting” where half the occupants of the room were made of gingerbread or had four legs.

“Mom—”

“When you get a minute could you bring down the boxes of decorations for the tree? Alice and I need to sort through them.”

Jackson refrained from pointing out he hadn’t had a minute since he’d arrived back at Snow Crystal. He’d been buried neck-deep in loans, business plans, staff who didn’t do their jobs and finances that didn’t add up. There were days when he ate standing up and nights when he lay on top of the bed, too tired to undress.

“We’re off the subject. You need to learn to keep a meeting on track, Jackson.” His grandfather reached for a biscuit. “So what does this woman from New York know about our business? I’ll bet she’s never even seen a sugar maple tree, let alone a whole damn forest of them.”

“I’m not inviting her here to tap the trees, Gramps.”

His grandfather gave a grunt. “She’s probably never tasted good quality maple syrup. That’s how I met your grandmother. She came to buy a bottle of our syrup.” He snapped the head off a gingerbread Santa and winked at Alice. “She thought I was so sweet, she never left.”

Watching his grandparents exchange loving glances, Jackson decided that not having tasted maple syrup was going to be the least of Kayla Green’s problems. “If it will make you feel better I’ll give her a bottle, but that’s not our main business. It’s a hobby.”

“Hobby? The O’Neils are famous around here for the quality of our maple syrup—it’s something we’ve been doing in this family for over a hundred years. Tourists come to see what we do here and you call it a hobby?”

“How many tourists?” Jackson ignored the food in front of him. “How many tourists do you think came last year? Because I can tell you it’s not enough to keep this place going.”