A Holiday to Remember by Lynnette Kent Page A

let alone notice, was more than she could explain.
    “I’ve felt worse.”
    “While you were working?”
    “A couple of times.”
    “Taking pictures in the middle of a war seems foolhardy.” Jayne spooned instant coffee into two mugs. “But I suppose we need to know what’s going on.”
    “Truth and consequences.” When she turned around, his gaze fixed immediately on her face. “Last night wasn’t my first vehicle crash, either.”
    “Really?” She felt his eyes like pricks from a sword point as she walked into the library to ladle heated water into the mugs. “Does that mean you’re not a good driver?”
    “I was a kid, the first time around.” He didn’t stop watching her as he took a long drink. “But it was a slick mountain road, just like last night.”
    The long silence, and the pressure of his unswerving focus, broke Jayne’s nerve.
    “Why are you staring at me?” she demanded. “Is there a problem, Mr. Hammond?”
    “Call me Chris, for God’s sake.” He clanked his mug down on the library table. “As for problems—here’s the big one. I can’t believe—”
    Taryn burst into the kitchen, pigtails flying. “Is there breakfast yet? I’m starved!” She caught sight of Chris. “Did you see how much snow we got? Isn’t it wild? I can’t wait to start sledding.”
    Monique and Selena came in behind her, with the other girls on their heels, all of them nearly as excited as when they’d left to get dressed.
    Thankful to have whatever he was about to say postponed, Jayne shifted her attention to food. “We’ve got oatmeal,” she announced, “orange juice, bananas, apples, sugar and butter.”
    Haley flopped on the sofa. “I hate oatmeal.”
    “I usually eat half a bagel,” Sarah added.
    Jayne took a deep breath. “There is also cold cereal and milk, bagels and cream cheese.”
    “But no toaster,” Monique pointed out.
    “So toast over the fire,” Chris suggested. “All you need is a long, pointed stick.”
    Jayne looked up at him from where she crouched by the fire. “There are toasting forks,” she told him. “In the main kitchen behind the dining hall. We use them as decorations on the wall.”
    He gave her a two-fingered salute. “Be right back.”
    In his absence, Jayne marshaled the girls into the kitchen to set the table for breakfast. As she ladled water for those who wanted oatmeal, Chris supervised the toasting process and produced enough warm, buttered bread for all of them to enjoy. The cleanup process was another group effort, mademore difficult by everyone’s eagerness to enjoy the snow. Everyone but Jayne.
    Finally, with the kitchen tidied to her satisfaction, she gave the girls permission to go outside. “Stay near this building,” she told them from the front portico of the manor. “I’ll expect to see all of you when I get out there.”
    She fetched her own boots, coat, hat and gloves from her office, and had her hand on the doorknob again when Chris joined her.
    “You don’t exactly look enthusiastic.” He’d scavenged a bulky coat, wool cap and work gloves from the cleaning staff’s office.
    “I hate snow,” she told him, opening the door to avoid being alone with him even for a moment. She didn’t want to give him a chance to finish that sentence he’d started earlier.
    “Why?” His voice was casual, and when she glanced at him, he was watching the girls rolling barrel-style down the hills on the Hawkridge lawn. “Did you grow up in Michigan, with snow every winter, shoveling day in and day out?”
    She started to remind him of the accusations he’d already made about her background, but realized at the last moment that he’d laid a very neat trap for her to fall into.
    Well, she would spring that trap, without getting caught. “I grew up about fifty miles from here, in the mountains. We had snow there, though rarely this much.” She smiled when he frowned in her direction. “But I don’t know why I don’t enjoy it. I get cold