They sat around the lodge’s communal table. A few guests had come in to use the kitchen and were stomping around, leaving dripping trails. Gavin’s grandparents were back as well, bustling to prepare dinner. Grandfather Peter turned out to be a tall, narrow, mustached man who was even quieter than his grandson. He’d said a simple hello before returning to his labors.
“I told them only to come if they weren’t busy,” said Gavin.
Dennis’s chest shook with a laugh, and he held up his hands. “I came out here to pick you up, not to chastise. We need to get back to the house. Get things ready for people to come over.”
“I did a lot of the prep this morning,” said Gavin. “I don’t think there’s much left…”
“More than I can do on my own,” said Dennis.
“Such as?”
“The lights,” said Dennis with a snap of the fingers and a wink to go with it. “Don’t want me to fall off the ladder and break something, do you?”
Rowan stared at him in disbelief. The appeal might have made sense coming from a frail old man, but Dennis McCreery was a mountaineer.
This man is the definition of learned helplessness.
Despite the obviousness of the ploy, Gavin gave in. “Of course not,” he said before looking at Rowan with a small smile of apology. “I guess it is time we head out.”
She looked from Gavin back to Dennis, who smiled at her with a gleam of triumph.
“I’ll ask Grandpa Peter to get the snowcat going,” said Gavin.
Dennis was already shaking his head before Gavin finished. “I brought along our skis. We can get our traditional Christmas Eve run in.” He fixed his gaze on Rowan. “Of course, if Rowan can’t ski…”
“I grew up here—I can ski,” said Rowan, frustration bleeding into her voice. “Though it’s been…a while.”
“Your muscles don’t forget,” said Gavin, smiling down at her. “And I’ll be right there.”
“I don’t have any skis, though,” she said.
“Ahh, such a shame…” began Dennis, but Ana stepped out of the kitchen, cutting him off. The look she shot Dennis suggested there was no love lost between the old woman and her son-in-law.
“She can borrow a pair of mine,” said Ana. “Leave them at the shed in the parking lot. We’ll grab them when we go down for guests later.”
“Excellent,” said Gavin, eyes bright. “We can all go together!”
If he noticed he was the only one excited about that, he didn’t acknowledge it, only got to his feet and prepared for the journey down the mountain.
25
Ana helped Rowan try on borrowed boots and skis as Gavin and Dennis readied themselves across the snowfield in front of the lodge. While the old woman fussed, Rowan said, “I visited your elf houses.”
“Did you now?” asked Ana. A smile fluttered on her face as she stabbed a set of ill-fitting skis back into the snowbank and grabbed another.
“I left them a treat.”
“I hope it wasn’t licorice. As soon as our family moved to America, the little folk refused to eat any more of it—chuck it right into the snow.”
Rowan laughed. “Exactly where it belongs.” She hesitated a moment before continuing, “I think they helped me find an answer to a problem I’ve been having.”
She tensed, wondering if Ana would laugh at that. But Gavin’s grandmother only nodded as if it made perfect sense. She laid a new pair of skis at Rowan’s feet, sweeping excess snow from the bindings.
“Be a good neighbor,” said Ana, “and your neighbors will be there when you need them.”
Kicking her boots free of snow, Rowan stepped into the skis with a satisfying click. Across the snowfield, Dennis said something that made Gavin’s face crack in a soft laugh. Rowan studied them, wrestling with feelings of irritation that Dennis had hijacked their day—and that Gavin had let him.
“Let’s see you turn in a circle,” said Ana. “Try to keep them parallel. That will show us what your body remembers.”
