Maybe This Christmas (O'Neil Brothers 2)

Brenna wasn’t amused. She was appalled.

Move in with Tyler?

She couldn’t think of anything worse. “I can’t live with Tyler!” She didn’t dare contemplate his reaction. She couldn’t look at him. She didn’t need to because she knew exactly what he was thinking. Because of Jess, he’d been forced to curtail his wild lifestyle, but now he was on the verge of getting back out there again. The last thing he needed was his childhood friend moving in with him. “That’s not a solution. I’ll rent an apartment. I was always going to have to do that once Snow Crystal started to recover, but there was no reason to do it when the place was half-empty.”

“You won’t be able to rent an apartment before Christmas.” Kayla was still pacing. “And even if you found one in the New Year, it wouldn’t be practical for you to be driving backward and forward. That’s why you started living in the resort in the first place.”

Brenna didn’t know which option was worse—the thought of renting somewhere away from Snow Crystal, or the idea of moving in with Tyler.

“I can stay with my parents as a short-term solution.”

“No, you can’t.” Tyler’s voice held none of its usual humor. “Visiting drives you insane, so living there is not an option. You can live with me. Jess and I have loads of room. It makes sense.” Those blue eyes locked on hers, and everyone else in the room faded into the background. It was just the two of them and her feelings, which were so huge, so out of control, she thought surely he’d see them.

He read her so well, but for some reason he was blind to this one thing.

She should tell him. She should stop avoiding the issue and be honest about how hard it was for her. That’s what he would do.

But she wasn’t going to do that in public, so instead she gave a shake of her head. “It wouldn’t feel right.”

“If it makes you feel better, we can share the cooking.”

“You’ll come off worse from that deal. I’m a terrible cook.”

“You can cook bacon, so we’ll put you in charge of breakfast.” Tyler stretched out his legs, those powerful thighs pushing against the fabric of his ski pants. “Bacon is a perfect way to start the day. And Jess would love having you around. She’ll drive you mad talking about skiing. That will ease the load on me, and we need extra hands to keep the dogs off the sofas.”

“I will fill your fridge,” Élise offered. “That will be my contribution to make up for the inconvenience you must suffer, Brenna.”

Food was going to be the least of her problems.

They were asking her to live with Tyler.

She’d have to watch him dress up and go out with some other woman. Maybe even bring one home. And it wasn’t only Tyler, was it? There was Jess to think about. She was relishing the time alone with her father after all those years apart.

How would she feel about having another person intruding?

It was Christmas. A time for families.

She’d be in the way.

“Perhaps I could stay with Elizabeth.” Desperate, she scrabbled for an alternative. “Until I can work something else out.” She looked at the woman who had been more of a mother to her than her own. “Elizabeth, would it inconvenience you hugely?”

“Stay with Elizabeth?” Kayla’s face fell, and she looked thrown, as if that option hadn’t crossed her mind. “Well, I er—”

Elizabeth stirred. “I’m so sorry, dear, at any other time of course you could, I’d love having you, but I’m expecting hordes of relatives over from England.”

“Relatives?” Jackson raised an eyebrow. “Which relatives?”

“Very distant,” his mother murmured, “second cousins. You’ve never met them. They’re on my mother’s side. British. You know I have relatives you’ve never met.”

“Hordes of them?”

“I don’t exactly know how many,” Elizabeth said vaguely. “I issued an open invitation, which probably wasn’t very sensible now I think about it. They wanted to come to Vermont, and it’s always a little lonely in the house at Christmas, so I suggested they visit. Oh, what a nuisance. Such bad timing. I’m so sorry, Brenna.”

“Lonely?” Tyler looked incredulous. “I would pay money to be lonely around here. The place is teeming with people night and day, and it sounds as if it’s going to get worse if Kayla keeps this up. We can offer many things at Snow Crystal but lonely isn’t on the list. Brenna, you can move in with Jess and me. You’d be doing me a favor. Otherwise, I’m going to turn round one day and discover Kayla has rented my empty rooms to tourists.”

Kayla’s face brightened. “That’s a—”

“Don’t even think about it,” Tyler growled. “Are we about done here? If there’s one guaranteed way of ruining a perfect powder day, it’s filling it with meetings.”