Page 48 of No Business Like Snow Business

“Has it still got that wall full of hunting trophies?” Win waited for my next nod, and then flashed a wry smile. “Man, those freaked me out when I was a kid.”

I felt curiously out of step with this moment, almost dizzy. Win was speaking about our family, our shared experiences, like he hadn’t just dropped dramatically back into my life like an evil relation on a telenovela who had literally clawed their way out of a grave. Which, hehadn’t. I was the one who’d invaded his life, shattered his peace. And he didn’t even seem angry about it. If my father could see me now, struggling with uncertainty, he wouldn’t recognize me. Neither would anyone who’d ever faced me in contract negotiations or an unfriendly board meeting. And neither would the Sterling Van Ruyven from as little as a week ago.

Harvey knocked his leg against mine and gave me a reassuring smile.

“Me too,” I said. I pressed my leg back against Harvey’s, needing his wordless support. “Grandfather—your father—he passed away.”

Win’s smile faded. “I know.”

“You know?”

“Saw it online.” Win held my gaze, but I couldn’t read his expression. That Van Ruyven poker face gene was strong.

“The funeral was last week. If I’d known where to find you, I would have invited you.”

“I wonder what Quentin would say about that,” Win mused. “Does he know you’re here?”

“No.”

Win might have informally taken Kyle’s surname, but he was still a Van Ruyven at heart. The corner of his mouth quirkedas he saw straight through me. “Don’t worry, Sterling. I’ve had plenty of opportunities in the last thirty-odd years to cause legal shit for the family if I’d wanted. The old man’s death doesn’t change a thing. He’s been dead to me since the day I left, and vice versa.”

I blew out a breath. “Okay. I…I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t part of why I came here. Or, at least, why I told myself I was coming here. Initially.”

He watched me, expression inscrutable. He didn’t help me out of this one.

“I found this.” I pulled the dog-eared photo from my pocket, an echo of all the times I’d done this over the past few days. I passed it to Win.

“Oh, wow,” Win murmured.

Kyle stared over his shoulder at the picture. “Aww, look at us.” He took it from Win and smiled as he studied it.

“And I just thought…no one ever talked about you.” I winced saying it. Win said my grandfather had been dead to him for years, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt, this reminder of how we’d turned our backs on him. “I wanted to know where you’d gone. Wanted to know more about you. And wanted…”

“To make sure I wouldn’t come barging in during the reading of the will, shouting about my rightful claim to the business?” Win supplied gently.

I flushed. “I guess. Something like that.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about on that front. I’m happy here.”

He said it like he meant it. Like it was a simple fact. All at once, Iburnedwith a longing unlike any I’d ever felt before. To have what my uncle had. Minus the tartan stag head.

I wanted to someday declare, simply and easily, that I was happy. I wanted to leave behind the people who weren’t on my side, and be with someone who was.

I continued, “I came to Christmas Falls to show the photo around and see if anyone knew you. Except I drove my rental car into a snowbank, and then I—the people in town were so nice. A guy named Rob drove me to my hotel. The next day I met Harvey, and he agreed to help me ask around…” I was rambling now, but I couldn’t stop. I looked at Kyle. “A bunch of people thought they might know who you were. But everything turned out to be a dead end. The more I searched for you—” I looked back at Win “—the less it became about the business, the will, any of it. I didn’t want anything bad to have happened to you. I know what my family’s like, and I just kept hoping that you’d found somewhere better to be. Better people to be with.”

Win smiled again. But instead of agreeing that the Van Ruyens were shit, or reiterating that he was infinitely happier here, he just said, “You drove into a snowbank?”

“Uh, yeah. Black ice.”

Win glanced at Kyle, and they shared a private smile before facing us.

“I got stuck here because of a blizzard,” Win said. “I’d been bumming along the Eastern Seaboard for a while before I finally decided to make my way out west. I had it in my head I was going to drive all the way to California. You can imagine the allure San Francisco held back then, for someone like me. But I never made it that far. I was passing through Illinois in early December when a freak blizzard hit. Just when I figured I needed to get off the road and find somewhere to stay—boom! Black ice. I skidded right into a tree.”

Kyle reached out and caught his hand and squeezed it.

“I barely had a dollar to my name, but as you said, the people in Christmas Falls are kind. I got a ride into town with the Whitnalls—he was in construction, and she was a teller at the bank—and they let me stay above their garage until I could get the car fixed. Well, by the time the weather cleared, I was stillthere. And one afternoon I went downtown to buy the Whitnalls something for letting me stay, and Kyle was selling roasted chestnuts from a little stall in the park.” Win’s smile grew impossibly fond as he gazed at Kyle. “And after that, I stayed for good.”

It was a little bit too neat, too tidy—like much of my Christmas Falls experience. There was no way Win wasn’t nursing some hidden pain, no way he’d never wondered what life would have been like if he’d made it all the way to San Francisco. Or if he’d felt able to stay in New York. But I did believe him when he said he was happy. That what he’d gained more than made up for what he’d lost.

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