Free Sleigh Bells in the Snow by Sarah Morgan Page B

grounded and the roads closed. Please help yourself to my beer. Don’t hold back.”
    “I won’t. Being in this family is enough to drive a man to drink, so the least you can do is supply the damn stuff.” Tyler peered into the fridge. “This is the last one. You need to get to the store.”
    “That’s one option. Another would be for you to stop drinking my beer and buy your own.”
    “I’ll go with the first.” Tyler elbowed the door shut. “I’m earning it this week. I’m giving private ski lessons to some spoiled teenage princess who cares more about her hair than linking her turns.”
    “Good to know you’re earning your keep.”
    “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer. So does your woman ski?”
    “I doubt she’s even seen a ski close up, and she’s not my woman.” Jackson thought about how close he’d come to kissing her when he’d hauled her out of the deep snow. She’d been right there in his hands, soft and womanly and as aware of him as he was of her.
    He’d seen her fighting it. He’d been fighting it, too, but she’d done a better job than him. She’d frozen him out. Smoothly and with finesse, but still the distance had been there. Which was probably a good thing. His life was complicated enough without adding to it.
    Tyler raised his eyebrows. “It was a casual remark, but judging from your expression I hit a nerve. So is she hot?”
    Jackson thought about her skirt riding high on her thighs.
    Hot? Hell, yes.
    “Our relationship is professional and it’s staying professional. And that goes for your relationship with her, too.”
    “In other words you’re struggling to keep your hands off her. Interesting.”
    “Why is it interesting?”
    “Because for the past eighteen months you’ve been too involved with the business to notice a woman.”
    “Not true.”
    Tyler strolled to the central island in the kitchen and hooked a stool with his foot. “Tell me the name of the last woman you dated.”
    “Brenna.”
    “What? Our Brenna?” His brother’s tone chilled fractionally. “Brenna we grew up with?”
    “The same Brenna who stuffed snow down your pants when you were ten. The same Brenna who runs our ski program.” Jackson watched as a snow bunting landed on a branch near the window. Through the trees the lake sparkled in the late-evening sunshine. If it had been a few degrees warmer he would have taken his beer onto the deck and watched the sun go down over the lake and mountains. He realized that the summer had passed and he’d had no time to sit and enjoy it.
    Next year, he promised himself. Next year he’d slow down long enough to sit outside his own barn and breathe in the air.
    “Well, hell—” Tyler sat down at the stone-topped island that formed the focus of the large kitchen, “did you and she—”
    “What business is it of yours if we did?”
    “So that means you did?”
    Jackson turned with a frown. “Christ, Tyler—”
    “I guess I just never saw you and Brenna together.” His brother looked so shaken Jackson took pity on him.
    “We’re not together. There was no chemistry.”
    “So if there was no chemistry, why the hell did you date?”
    “Let’s just say our work conversations overran so we took it to the bar, and then we took it out to dinner a couple of times.”
    “But you didn’t take it to bed?”
    “You’re asking who I take to bed?”
    “Just looking out for her, that’s all. She’s like a sister to me.”
    Jackson wondered if his brother could really be so clueless about Brenna’s feelings. “Ty—”
    “And then there’s the issue of working together. If you two are tiptoeing around each other, I need to know that.”
    “There’s no tiptoeing.” He decided it wasn’t his business to say anything.
    “For the record, I think Kayla Green would be perfect for you.”
    “You haven’t met her.”
    “She’s obviously clever and you think she’s hot.”
    “She can’t ski.”
    “So? No one can keep up with