Free Maybe This Christmas by Sarah Morgan

beers, hotel rooms, victory and defeat. Chas had been more than just another member of the machine behind the ski team. He’d been Tyler’s wingman and close friend.
    Along with his brother Sean, Chas had been the first person he’d seen after his accident.
    Tyler tightened his hand on the phone and stared blindly at the trees and mountains.
    “How was today?”
    “Didn’t you watch?”
    “Things are busy around here.” He didn’t say that he hadn’t watched skiing since his accident. Instead he listened while Chas outlined the U.S. triumph in the giant slalom.
    “He clinched his fourth World Cup GS title.”
    “That’s great. Buy him a beer from me.”
    “Why don’t you come out? The team would love to see you.”
    And sit in the bar or the stands watching others do what he used to do himself?
    It would be like twisting a knife in a raw wound.
    The season stretched ahead. There would be a short break over Christmas before it all started again in Bormio, Italy, and then on to Wengen, Switzerland, and Kitzbuhel and the notorious Lauberhorn. Beaver Creek, Lake Louise, another day, another country, another mountain, another race. That had been his life.
    Until the race that had ended it all.
    “I’m not going to be able to make it. We’re busy here.”
    “Great! From what you told me, this time last year busy didn’t exist so I’m pleased to hear things are going well. Has Jackson tied you to the resort? What are you doing?”
    Coaching the high school ski team.
    Trying not to think about my old life.
    Tyler looked up at the sky. Snow was still falling steadily, big fat flakes that rested on his shoulders and dampened his hair.
    “I’m helping Brenna run the outdoor program.”
    “Right. Well, that sounds—” there was a pause “—that sounds great.”
    They both knew that what he really meant was
that sounds like a pile of crap.
    Tyler agreed.
    Not that he didn’t love Snow Crystal, but they both knew he’d rather be racing.
    He realized now how much he’d taken it for granted. He’d treated it as a right rather than a gift.
    He half listened while Chas updated him on the individuals and their performances on the slopes, made the right noises and a vague commitment to watch the next race if he had the opportunity, then hung up feeling worse than he had before.
    The conversation had left him keenly aware of what he’d lost.
    It didn’t help that the one person who would have understood, his father, had been dead for almost two and a half years.
    Shaking off his black mood, he paced to the door of the main house where he and his brothers had grown up and where his mother still lived.
    It still gave him a pang to know that when he walked into the kitchen that had been the hub of the household growing up, his father wouldn’t be there.
    His mother loved to decorate for Christmas, and the evidence of that love was everywhere. Tiny lights were strung across the windows, and decorations sparkled through the glass. A festive wreath hung on the door, as it had every year for as long as he could remember. As a child he’d sat on the kitchen floor waxing his skis while his mother had worked magic from the tangle of forest greenery spread over the kitchen table. She’d snipped, weaved and pulled it all together into a wreath.
    Tyler pushed open the door. Sleigh bells jangled, announcing his arrival, and he blinked as he saw the number of people already seated around the table. Those numbers had increased over the past year. First Jess had joined them, then Kayla and finally Élise. She was often too busy running the successful restaurants at the resort to join them for family nights but tonight, perhaps because it was close to Christmas, she’d found the time.
    There were at least three different conversations going on around the table and Maple, Jackson and Kayla’s miniature poodle, greeted Tyler ecstatically, leaping up and down on the spot as if she had springs in her paws.
    Tyler stooped to make a