“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.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have spent so much developing those fancy cabins and refurbishing the lodge. Did we need a spa? Did we need a pool? Did you need to employ an expensive French chef in the restaurant? Extravagance, all of it.” His grandfather was red in the face and Jackson rose to his feet, worry gnawing at his insides. He knew how much they were hurting. He also knew if they didn’t face up to what was happening soon, Snow Crystal Resort would be going under.
He wasn’t going to let that happen.
“I’m going to do what needs to be done. You’re going to have to trust me.”
“So now you’re an autocrat.” But his grandfather’s voice shook a little, and Jackson saw something in the old man’s eyes that nailed his feet to the floor.
This was the man who had taught him to whittle an arrow from a stick, to dam a stream and catch a fish with his bare hands. This man had picked him out of deep snow when he’d wiped out on his skis and taught him how to check the thickness of the ice on the pond so he didn’t fall through.
And this was the man who had lost his son.
Jackson sat back down in the chair. “I’m not an autocrat but I have to make changes. We’re operating in a stagnant economy. We have to stand out from the crowd. We have to offer something special.”
“Snow Crystal Resort is special.”
“It’s Snow Crystal Resort and Spa now, and for once we agree on something. It’s special.”
His grandfather’s eyes were suspiciously shiny. “So why change things?”
“Because people don’t know about it, Gramps. But they’re going to.” The puppy nuzzled his ankle, and Jackson leaned down and stroked the dog’s soft, springy fur. “I’m flying to New York tomorrow to meet with Kayla Green.”
“I still don’t get what a girl from Manhattan is going to know about running a resort like ours.”
“She’s not from Manhattan. She’s British.”
His mother brightened. “She’ll fall in love with the place. I did. From Old England to New England.”
Walter frowned. “You’ve lived here so long I don’t think of you as British. Hell, I bet this Kayla woman has never even seen a moose!”
“Does she need to see a moose to get the job done?” But an idea was forming in his head. Not a compromise exactly, but a solution that might work. “If I can persuade Kayla Green to come and experience firsthand exactly what we offer here at Snow Crystal, will you listen to her?”
“That depends. She’s not going to see much in a couple of hours, is she?”
Jackson stood up. “She can stay for a week. God knows, we’ve got enough empty cabins.”
“No way is Miss New York or Miss London or wherever the hell she’s from, going to want to stay in the wilds with us for a week in the middle of a Vermont winter.”
Deep down, Jackson agreed with him but he wasn’t about to admit defeat.
“I’ll get her here and you’ll listen.”
“I’ll listen if she says something worth listening to.”
“Deal.” He shrugged on his jacket while his mother looked on anxiously.
“Stay and eat. You’ve been working so hard I’ll bet you haven’t gone near the shops.”
“He shouldn’t have moved out.” His grandfather clicked his fingers to attract the attention of the puppy. “He shouldn’t have spent all that money converting that crumbling old barn into a fancy place of his own when we have all these empty rooms.”
“I’ve trebled the value of that crumbling old barn.” And saved his sanity. Jackson slipped his tablet computer into his bag and thought it might as well have been made of gingerbread for all the use