Mary Wilson - Holiday Homecoming

It was beyond a series of ridges that jutted out into the air from the mountainside. If you hit the top of the run just right, you’d clear the ridges. If you didn’t, the ground below was deep with snow and hopefully you’d land safely, missing rocks and small trees. He’d always been lucky that way.

Now he climbed, ignoring old signs that said Private Property and No Skiing—Danger! Jack had mentioned that Old Man Jennings had died and he was working with his heir. So there wouldn’t be a frantic man screaming at Cain and ordering him off the mountain.

The sun was up completely, the day keenly bright with light glinting off the fresh snow, and his glasses tinted everything slightly blue. His boots sank calf-deep in the snow, and he climbed much more slowly as he went around the ridges and up the back way. He spotted the tree grouping he was looking for—a stand around a clearing at the top, right where the run started.

At last he stood on the top of the mountain, the heavens above him and the whole valley of Silver Creek below.

He took a deep breath of the thin, cold air, then jammed his skis and poles into the deep snow and just stared at the view. Beyond the grounds of the Inn, the town appeared like a Christmas-card scene, all white snow, the spread of quaint buildings, the distant ski lifts and the smoke from numerous chimneys drifting into the sky.

He studied the Inn. It was just as pleasant looking, but years and years newer from all the development. The scattering of expensive cottages, each positioned for the most privacy, gave the impression of being their own small town. Smoke curled into the air from many chimneys, and the main lodge spread out in both directions, nestling into the snowy land.

He lifted gloved hands, cupped them around his mouth and did something he’d done every time in the past. “Top of the world!” he yelled. The sound echoed clearly to him five times, then with the vaguest whisper of a sixth time, before it was gone.

“Six,” he yelled, letting the single word come back to him over and over. “Still champ!” His voice was everywhere, then faded away. He reached for skis, put them down, stepped into the bindings and bent to fasten them. Then he stood, flexed his legs and made his way to the start of the run, the one spot that was perfectly aligned with the outcropping below.

He flexed his hands on the pole grips and was ready to push off, when he heard someone yell, “Hey, there!”

His lifted one ski, pivoted and looked behind him. He thought he glimpsed something yellow, then it was gone. It appeared again off to his right, and then the teacher broke out of the trees. She was skiing her way toward him. Her yellow knit hat was pulled low over her brilliant hair, the colors a vivid contrast with her dull gray jacket and ski pants. When she was four feet from him, she tilted her head back and peered up into his face.

The sight of her stirred something so basic in him that he had to inhale a deep breath to level out his thoughts. He took in the deep amber eyes, the lift of her chin, the flame of her hair. Old goggles hung around her neck, and plain knit gloves covered her hands. She wasn’t his type—at least, he’d never thought “tiny and cute” could be sexy—but he knew better right then. He’d always been a risk taker in every sense of the word, and he had a niggling feeling that being attracted to this woman was risk taking at its best. He didn’t back down. He didn’t even care that she was staring at him as if he’d stolen the crown jewels.

Holly spotted the red first, the flash of color where there shouldn’t be color, then she’d heard the sound. The echoing voice that rang through the valley, bouncing off the mountains. She hesitated going closer, then couldn’t stand not going to see who was there. Few ever got up this way, except…That made her move faster. Except Jack Prescott’s people, surveying the land by hers. She dug in, partly gliding on the snow and partly sinking in spots. She awkwardly made her way to the sound. Through the trees she saw a single man by the ridge.

He yelled again, letting his voice echo at him, then he made a grab for his poles. Someone from the resort? One of Prescott’s men? They were on her land. She hurried, shouted to him, “Hey, there!”

She went forward for the widest opening in the trees, pushing hard to move faster, and broke out of the snow-laden grove directly across from the single person. He was turning, the bloodred of his vest brilliant against the clear blue sky behind him. Fancy clothes, she thought, expensive skis. Reflective glasses that bounced back at her the glint of the morning sun. She skied closer to him, ready to tell him to get off her property, then she realized the intruder was Cain Stone.

That stopped her within two ski lengths of him. She took a gulping breath, then demanded, “What are you doing here?”

He looked unruffled at her arrival, almost as if he was enjoying it. “I’m not going to be basket weaving,” he said with the hint of a smile twitching at his lips. She had no idea what was in his eyes. The glasses just reflected her own, distorted image.

She’d taken this run for years, and she had no doubt she could ski it, but she didn’t know too many others who would even try, except Cain Stone and his cohorts years ago. Back then she’d thought they had to be either stupid or arrogant. Now she realized this man had to be both. “You aren’t going to ski down, so why don’t you go back that way.” She motioned behind her. “There’s a road about a quarter mile beyond the trees. If you’re lucky, you can hitch a ride back to town.”

She expected him to get angry or annoyed, but she didn’t expect him to laugh right out loud. The sound echoed around them. “I don’t hitchhike,” he finally said.

“Do you read signs?”

“Every one of them.”

“How about the Private Property signs you had to pass on the way here?”

His laughter was gone now. “I read every one of them.”

“Then get off this land. It’s private.”

“I don’t see a badge.”

“What?”

“I assumed that you’re some sort of security, policing this area.”

She shook her head. “It’s private land.”

“Oh, and you own it?”

She stared right at him. “Damn straight I do.”

She couldn’t tell if she’d shocked him or not. His expression didn’t change—at least, she didn’t think it did. And she couldn’t see his eyes. “How?” was all he said.

“How what?”

“How could you own it?”

“All you need to know is I own it. And this isn’t a public run. It’s posted, and—”

“The kid,” he exclaimed. “You’re the kid, aren’t you?”

“What kid?”

“The hair. I remember the hair. Jennings coming after us, and you running up behind him, a tiny little thing, but with a booming voice.” He smiled suddenly, an expression that shook her. “You’d yell, ‘Get off my mountain,’while Jennings threatened to shoot us on the spot.”

Her dad had been furious at their intrusion. “I’ll skin them alive,” he’d say. “Maybe shoot them, too.” But he never caught up with them. As she and her father had come out of the trees, one by one the boys had turned and taken off. By the time she got to the edge, the boys were shooting down the run, their voices echoing into the mountains as they yelled, “Yahoo!” Then she’d go back to the cabin with her dad, and while she’d wait for her mother to pick her up, she’d keep the fire going and watch her father get drunker and drunker, all the while muttering about “those blasted teenagers.”

“You were trespassing back then, too,” she murmured, not wanting to remember that time of her life clearly.