“So if we’re dead on Christmas morning, you know not to feed it to the guests,” Tyler grumbled. “I’m not sure how I feel about being one of your experiments.”
Kayla was finding it almost impossible not to look at Jackson and wondered how Élise could be so relaxed around Sean. Despite her confession that morning at breakfast, the French girl hadn’t glanced once in his direction, nor he in hers.
There was no banter. No exchange of small talk. No comfortable laughter.
They’d been intimate, and yet not once did they look at each other.
And Kayla realized suddenly that they weren’t relaxed at all.
She could have sliced through the tension with one of Élise’s kitchen knives.
She glanced around the table.
Brenna was arguing with Tyler, and Jess was telling Alice about a run they’d done that morning.
Maybe she was the only one who had noticed. Maybe she was imagining it. She was no expert on relationships, was she?
And there was no time to dwell on it because all too soon the meal was over and she was the focus of attention.
Had it really only been a week since she’d stood here and tried to give the presentation? It felt like a lifetime ago.
Looking at the photographs on the wall she saw Jackson, aged about four, building a snowman with Sean. She could clearly see they were twins and wondered how she’d missed that the first time.
“Kayla?” Jackson was watching her, and the concern in his eyes touched her.
Walter scowled. “Well? Where’s your laptop? We’re all waiting to hear your miracle ideas.”
“I left my laptop in the cabin.”
“How are you going to impress us if you don’t have all those fancy graphs?”
Jackson sighed, and Kayla quickly smoothed down the spike of tension.
“I’m going to impress you in other ways—for example, by reminding you of my log-chopping abilities.”
“What abilities are those?” But Walter’s eyes gleamed with humor as she flexed her biceps.
For this presentation she’d chosen to wear a cardigan in a pretty shade of green with her black trousers tucked into boots. She felt so much more relaxed and comfortable than she had that first night in her stilettos and pencil skirt.
“I got through the whole pile of logs this morning.”
“You call that a pile? We’ll heat the cabins for half an hour on what you chopped, and we almost had your foot along with it. Hardly surprising. All you’ve ever lifted is a pen. Now what are we going to do about this place?”
We.
She never heard we. She’d never been part of a we before, and the word threw her more than hostility would have done. Kayla tightened her fingers on the edge of the table.
“When I first arrived here you asked me what makes Snow Crystal special and I couldn’t answer you. Now I can.”
“Get on with it then.” Walter caught his wife’s eye. “What? I just want her to hurry up, that’s all. I’ve seen what’s for dessert. It’s enough to make a grown man beg.”
Alice peered at him over her glasses. “The girl is trying to speak. It would serve you right if she walks out.”
“She’s not going to walk out. She’s got grit.” He pushed his plate away. “Doesn’t change the fact the seasons will have moved on by the time she’s finished. We’ll be in summer and what’s the point of having taught the girl to ski if we’re in summer?”
“Maybe it’s bad news.” Elizabeth sat down, her face pale. “We’re going to need a miracle, aren’t we?”
“You heard Jackson. She is the miracle,” Walter said gruffly. “Now will you stop panicking or she will walk out and I’ll get the blame. And then I won’t get my just desserts.” He winked at Alice, and Tyler groaned and covered Jess’s eyes with his hand.
“You’re too young to see this. Start talking, Kayla.”
“It’s not bad news,” Kayla said to Elizabeth. “First, the cabins...” She spoke fluently, not once glancing at the notes she’d made as she painted a visual picture of how she saw the cabins being used.
When she finally stopped talking, the only noise in the kitchen was the bubble of food on the stove and the gentle click clack of Alice’s knitting needles.
Walter put his beer down on the table. “I think—”
“Gramps—” Jackson gave him a warning stare and his grandfather glared back.
“What? If I can speak without being interrupted, I was just going to say I think it all sounds great.”
Jackson stared at him in disbelief. “I’ve been telling you some of this for months. You told me I was an idiot.”