TATE HANDED A set of Christmas lights to his longtime coach, mentor and friend Viktor Kovalenko. He began unwrapping another string from its exasperatingly tight packaging, barely resisting the urge to use his teeth.
“I’m telling you, Viktor, she hasn’t made one move to accommodate snowboarders. At all. Other than the resort will be offering board rentals in the shop. Park told me she has plans to order maybe a third of the equipment she has slated for skiing.”
“Really?” Viktor started up the stairs, looping the string of lights around the banister. Tate had purchased the lights in town as well as a wreath for the door and some other decorations with the intent of spreading some Christmas cheer around the house for Lucas.
“She knows about skiing. I’ll give her that. And she’s doing a fine job there. She’s working on an awesome cross-country set up. And the heli-skiing venture she started with Cricket is amazing. It’s already becoming super popular with backcountry enthusiasts. I went up with Cricket when I was here in the fall. I got a glimpse of the incredible terrain they have access to. And now with this snowpack I’m anxious to get out there and try it out myself.”
Tate had met Cricket Blackburn on his first scouting trip to Rankins. They’d become friendly over the course of three successive visits. Cricket had introduced him to Park Lowell, who had turned him on to the investment opportunity that Snowy Sky offered. Snowy Sky had tipped him over the edge when making the difficult decision of trying to decide where to make a permanent home for himself and his makeshift family.
“This resort could be really special, but she’s limiting its potential. Plus, she seems awfully blasé about her position as resort manager.”
Viktor paused. “Blasé?”
“Yes, she’s young and she’s...” He searched for a description but all he could think of was cheerful. “She’s not unconcerned, but...”
Flippant? No, that wasn’t exactly the right word either. Lighthearted? Yes, but there was really nothing wrong with that, was there? And he didn’t add that she was funny and that he’d also had a good time with her. None of that mattered because he needed to think about the resort’s future success. And Lucas. Especially Lucas.
“I don’t know exactly. She’s mostly professional, though maybe not quite serious enough or...” That wasn’t right either. He gave up with a dismissive head shake.
“What are you going to do?” Viktor asked, plugging one end of the string into an extension cord. The multicolored strands flickered and then glowed with cheerful color. He surveyed their work and grinned with satisfaction. “Lukie will like this.”
Tate agreed. “I asked him what kind of tree he’d like for Christmas and he told me he doesn’t remember ever having a Christmas tree.”
Viktor nodded sadly. It didn’t need to be said that money had specifically been sent each and every year to give Lucas a proper Christmas because they both knew. There had been a tree the last time Tate had spent Christmas with Lucas and Lexie, but Lucas had only been three years old.
“This year we change that,” Viktor stated confidently.
Like always, Tate appreciated Viktor’s optimism. Tate knew he needed to make a lot of changes for Lucas’s sake. It was difficult to even know where to start.
“Yes, we will.” Tate adjusted the lights, making sure they hung evenly. He knew Lucas was asleep in his room upstairs but still he lowered his voice as he asked, “Was I as troubled as Lucas when you took me in?”
Viktor halted his ministrations, his hands twinkling with color, and thought for a long minute. “I am not sure how to answer. It is difficult to know the mind of a child—the damage that is done. It comes out over time. I believe as part of healing process. You were unsettled also, like Lukie, tentative and even quieter. But your dedication to snowboarding saved you as much as I did.”
Tate smiled at the man who had managed to wrest him away from Penny at the age of seven—purchased him essentially after dating her during a brief stint of sobriety. She’d been waitressing at the ski resort where Viktor worked. He’d been kind to Tate, introducing him to snowboarding. Tate had been a progeny and Viktor, seeing his potential, had offered to coach him, eventually striking a deal with Penny that allowed him to raise Tate as long as she kept receiving financial help.
Viktor always downplayed the role he’d assumed in Tate’s life, but they both knew very well that he wouldn’t be where he was if it wasn’t for Viktor—not anywhere even close.
“Let’s hope that works for Lucas, too.”
“Yes, we will hope. And if not, we will find what does.”
But Tate wanted this to work. It had to because he didn’t know anything besides snowboarding. He was counting on using the sport to forge a bond with his nephew. Just as it had between him and Viktor.
Viktor added, “He is two nights now without nightmare.”
“Yes, he is,” Tate said with a relieved sigh. “He loves that crocodile night-light you got him. Told me it keeps the darkness away. The actual darkness and the scary kind he has bad dreams about.”
Viktor’s lips curved up into a grin. “You had night-light, too. It was tooth. You remember this one? You get from dentist.”
He did remember. He still had it, tucked in a box in his condo back in Colorado.
“I wonder if Lucas has ever been to the dentist?”
“We will check on that. Before toothache comes.”
“Good idea,” Tate replied. “As far as Snowy Sky goes, I don’t have any choice. I’ll have to take my recommendations to the board. Now that we’re investors we need to think about the bottom line, as well.”
“Does Ms. James know how much of resort you own?”
He grimaced. “Not exactly.” He joined another string of lights to Viktor’s.
“Does she know you own any shares of Snowy Sky?” Viktor asked, adjusting the strings as he slowly descended the stairs.
“Uh...no.”
“How do you think that will go over when she finds out?”
He shrugged helplessly and tried to squelch a surprising, annoying niggle of guilt as the tiny bulbs flashed on, as bright as Hannah’s smile. He couldn’t think about her smile or those amber-colored eyes that seemed to dance with a kind of mischief.
Cricket had mentioned the James family of course. He had even met a few people he now realized would be Hannah’s brothers or cousins. Park had also filled him in about the status and reputation her family enjoyed in Rankins. Undoubtedly she’d had a storybook upbringing as a member of the esteemed James family. It was certainly easy to deduce from her demeanor that the woman hadn’t known much hardship in her life.
But Tate had, and so had Lucas—which was why he needed to stay focused on the endgame.
“I didn’t want that knowledge to influence anything she told me. I wanted her to think she was talking with an objective observer. And, I didn’t want her to think she had to impress me.”
Viktor slowly descended the last few stairs, admiring their handiwork as he went. When he reached the bottom, he turned a hesitant look on Tate.
“Hmm,” he finally said.
“Hmm, what?”
“How are you objective?”
“In my capacity as a consultant I’m objective.”
“But what about your capacity as snowboarder? How does that make you any more objective than Ms. James with her background in skiing?”
Tate conceded that Viktor had a point. But he didn’t harbor any prejudice against skiing like she so obviously did against snowboarding. If