“Then you are the one taking responsibility for it, not me.”
“I’ll take responsibility. We’ll start with one and see how it goes.”
“Great idea. If you’re still alive in the morning, you can put the second one out.”
“He might not even notice. And here’s the DVD you wanted to see.” She pushed it into the slot and curled up on the sofa again, resigned to watching Tyler ski.
He gave an electrifying performance, hurtling full-tilt down the mountain, attacking the slope as if he was skiing for his life. It was one of the many reasons he drew crowds, thrilled by the excitement of watching him. He was a supreme athlete, breathtakingly gifted, which made the accident that had ended his career all the more brutal.
The fact that those five crystal globes were jammed into a cupboard behind a load of detritus confirmed exactly how much he was struggling with the loss.
This was the second winter he’d missed, but last year the O’Neil family had been so focused on saving Snow Crystal and learning how to move on after Michael’s death, that there had been no time to dwell on Tyler’s situation. And Tyler had found himself with a teenage daughter living with him, a change in his circumstances that must have had more impact than the possibility of losing the family home and business. This year was different. Snow Crystal was finally beginning to show signs of sustained recovery. Jess and Tyler were used to living together. He had more time to think about what he’d lost.
Should she talk to him? Give him a chance to confide in her?
Their relationship had changed, and she wasn’t sure of the rules anymore.
She pressed the pause button. “Look at that. Right there. Everything is perfect. The angle of his skis, the weight—” She gave Jess something to focus on, rewound and played it again while she ran through the options in her head.
She could talk to him, but things had felt awkward between them since the day she’d moved into Lake House. Living under the same roof as him had somehow intensified everything, as if someone had shone a spotlight on her feelings.
And she knew he was finding it awkward, too.
He’d started avoiding her.
“You’ve had it on pause for about five minutes.” Jess took the remote from her hand. “What are you looking at?”
Him. She was looking at him. At the determination in that jaw. At the ski suit molded to every contour of his hard, powerful body.
“Look at his position,” she croaked, “look at the balance, look at the line he took and how close he is to the gate.” Look at those shoulders, those thighs, the look of fierce concentration on that insanely handsome face.
And look at me make a complete fool of myself.
“I’ll never be that good.” Jess stared gloomily at the screen, and Brenna took the remote back from her.
“You could be. You have talent. All you need is practice.”
“How can I practice when I’m stuck in miserable boring school all day?” There was despair in her voice, and Brenna remembered feeling the same way when she was Jess’s age.
“Do you hate it?”
Jess slumped and nibbled the edge of a nail. “Every minute.”
Brenna thought about the exchange earlier. The filthy shoes. The torn coat. “The lessons or the kids?”
“The lessons.” Jess drew her knees up under her chin and stared at the image of her father frozen on the screen. “And the kids. They’re totally lame.”
Brenna sat still. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Jess gave a careless shrug that was supposed to indicate indifference but revealed how bad she was feeling. “Nothing to talk about. All the girls care about is their stupid hair and stupid boys. We have nothing in common.”
“Are they giving you a hard time?”
“No more than usual.”
Thinking about what usual had been for her, Brenna’s insides knotted. “When did it start?”
Jess studied her nails. “Pretty much my first day at that school. It’s never good being the new girl in town.”
“But you’re joining in. You were picked for the ski team!” The moment she said it, she wondered how she could have been so blind and stupid. “Oh.”
Jess gave a short laugh. “Yeah, that’s right. I’ve heard it all. How I was only picked because of my dad, how I’m crap, how I have no talent.”
Brenna’s stomach lurched. “Jess—”
“It’s partly my fault because when I started at the school, I talked about him to anyone who would listen. I guess they wanted to make sure I knew my place—” She attacked another nail even though there wasn’t much of anything left to attack. “Do you think that’s why I got on the ski team? Because of Dad? Be honest.”
“No. You’re a gifted skier, Jess. You need more time on the mountain, that’s true, but you have something that most people will never have even if they spend every minute of their lives practicing.”
“So I’ll keep telling myself they’re wrong.”
“Is anyone friendly?”
“A couple of the girls used to talk to me at the beginning, but they’re worried about being in the firing line so now they ignore me, too. It’s fine,” she said a little too quickly, “I really don’t care.”
It was achingly familiar. “Is it mostly one person or a group?” Talking about it, remembering her own experience, made her feel sick. “Is there a ringleader?”
“Let’s watch more skiing.” Jess jumped to her feet and rummaged through Tyler’s collection for another DVD. “Let’s watch the one where he broke that bone in his foot. I want to know how he managed to get up and ski.”
“He didn’t know he’d broken anything. It was much later that they found a chip in the bone.” Brenna sat, watching, wondering how to deal with this situation.
She could have left it. She could have moved on and not touched a subject that made her insides pitch. But she knew that wasn’t going to help Jess. “Jess, honey, we can do something about this.” She felt as if she were fifteen again. “You don’t have to put up with it.”
Jess stared at the screen. “I mean, I know it wasn’t like a major accident or anything, not like his big one, but it still looked pretty bad. Most people wouldn’t have skied down.”
“Do your teachers know? Does anyone know?”
“No. And I don’t want to tell them, all right?” Jess turned, her eyes fierce. “Otherwise, it will make it a hundred times worse. You have no idea. Parents think they can walk into school, demand it’s fixed, and it will all be fine but it doesn’t work that way.”
“I know.” Brenna’s mouth was so dry she could hardly speak. “I know it doesn’t work that way.”
“Promise me you won’t tell Dad.”
“He knows something isn’t right. You should talk to him about it. He could help.”
“I don’t need help. When he has a problem, he gets on with it. He doesn’t talk about it all the time.” She tucked her legs under her and stared at the image on the screen. “I’ll handle it. I need to toughen up.”
“No, you don’t. It isn’t about you. It’s about them. Don’t let them make you feel bad about yourself. That’s what I did.” It was painful to remember it, and Jess turned and looked at her.
“So what did you