Free CA 35 Christmas Past by Debra Webb Page B

awesome
cook.
                They would reminisce
about their childhoods. Have a few glasses of wine in front of the roaring
fire.
               
                Christmas would come
and go and she would be off to Chicago.
                To
her little apartment.
                The place where she’d
thought she was happy.
                11:50 a.m.
     
                JASON OPENED THE DOOR
and stared into the eyes of the man he considered a father.
                Alonzo Harris swaggered
into the room without a word.
                Jason closed the door
behind him. He didn’t know why the man insisted on flying up here the day
before Christmas.
                It wasn’t as though
anything he was going to say would make a difference.
                Jason would still be
furious with him.
                The concierge at the
Snow Valley Lodge had found him a cabin last night in another village, after
calling in a number of markers. Then he’d had Jason’s bags sent over.
                “You have some kind of
nerve, young man,” Harris announced, launching his counterattack before Jason
so much as said a word.
                Jason turned to him.
“Look who’s talking. You set me up. Hired a babysitter. What were you thinking?” That’s what that damned reporter had called Molly, and
he’d been right.
                “I was thinking about
keeping you safe,” Harris growled. “Or don’t you care about that anymore?”
                Jason didn’t want to
hear this. He held up his hands. “I’ve said all I have to say. I understand
your motive and as much as I appreciate your concern, this better not happen
again.”
                Harris looked properly
chastised. The big bear of a man loved the members of his team as if they were
his own kids. “It worked, didn’t it? You said as much yourself.”
                Jason turned away. Stared at the fire. “Yeah. It
worked.”
                Molly had lied to him
at every turn. She had grown up just a few miles from here. She’d been climbing
these mountains since she was a kid.
                She had coaxed him up
that mountain. Made him forget all about the fear.
                But he couldn’t get
past the lies. Even after they’d kissed, she still hadn’t told him the truth.
                “That doesn’t make it
right,” he argued, not about to let Harris have the final say on the matter.
“This was wrong on so many levels, I don’t know where
to begin.”
               
                Harris lowered into a
chair. “I’m going to tell you the truth, Jason.”
                Jason didn’t look at
him. He was still too ticked off.
                “You sit down here and
listen to me,” Harris ordered. “I know you’re madder than blazes. But you’re
going to hear me out.”
                Jason turned to face
him, but he wasn’t sitting down.
                “We’ve all been worried
about you for the past three years. We watched you go through the pain of
losing Cynthia and the agony of coming to terms with your responsibility. It’s
been hard as hell on every member of this team. You know that.”
                Jason couldn’t deny his
words. His team was his family. They cared about him. As much
as any family. The NASCAR ties might not be blood, but they were every
bit as strong.
                “When you announced you
were coming here to climb that mountain, we were all scared to death.” Harris
shook his head. “We couldn’t let you take that kind of risk alone. But you
refused our help. I had to find a way around that hard head of yours. And by
Job I found it.”
                Jason shook his head.
“You didn’t have to do it this