“I have to ask my brother Dave,” Jo said. “If he’s around, I’m sure he’ll do it.”
Within minutes they were covering the tree, with Dave on his way over. Clarice Diamond leaned against the display window, a slim cell phone pressed to her ear, while her son danced in the aisles, a car ornament in each hand. Ava manned the sticky-tape dispenser at the base of the tree they were wrapping, singing carols as she assisted.
“O come, o come, amen you well ...” crooned Ava, her little legs huddled beneath the knit skirt of her dress.
My little bundle of Christmas cheer, Jo thought. Often she had to resist the temptation to drop everything and gather her daughter up in her arms. Ava was petite for her age, but she had gotten to the point where she did not want to be babied in public, and Jo tried to respect that.
Clarice joined them by the wrapped tree, sliding her phone into her purse. “Thank you so much for doing this so quickly. My husband will be so relieved to see Jason happy again.” She looked around to see if other customers were listening. “He’s Sid Diamond, you know.”
Molly rose. “The real estate guy who’s trying to trump Trump? The one who owns half of Boston?”
“Such a crazy reputation.” Mrs. Diamond’s eyes warmed a bit when she smiled. “We’ll be here for the season while my husband makes one of his famous deals. He’s looking at the base of Cannon Mountain.”
“Mmm. Well, if you’re going to be around, come back next week,” Molly said. “I hear Santa might be stopping by.”
Ava’s mouth dropped open. “Really?”
Molly shrugged. “Just something I heard.”
“We’ll be sure to check that out,” Clarice said. “And I hear that one of you is somewhat famous, too. My girlfriend said one of the young ladies running this shop was engaged to Shane Demerit.”
Awkwardness filled the pine-scented air, and suddenly Jo’s palms were damp. Jo felt Ava’s eyes on her, wide and eager.
“The famous skier?” the woman prodded, as if they needed reminding.
“Ay-yuh, that would be me.” Jo raised her hand, but her smile was gone, the good mood drained from her. “I’m Joanne Truman.”
“Clarice Diamond.” She extended her hand. “It’s so nice to meet you. Looking at you now, I remember seeing your photo back in the day. I was a huge fan of Shane’s.” She pressed a palm to her chest, biting back a smile. “Actually, I have to admit it. I had a crush on him. I saw him at a competition and though I didn’t know him at all, he had such a presence. When I heard that he died, I was in shock for days. Such a devastating loss to the ski world.”
And to the people who loved him, Jo wanted to say, as grief, cold and familiar, settled over her shoulders. In the five years since Shane’s death, the pain had eased. But the scars still throbbed, especially at this time of year when symbols of the holiday she loved threatened to remind her of that dark season when Shane had died.
“I’ve always been haunted by Shane’s story.” Clarice locked her sharp blue eyes on Jo. “I guess it was his bad boy reputation that intrigued the world. What made him do it?”
Jo had nothing to say. She had learned that she didn’t owe the public any explanation as far as Shane was concerned. She stepped back from the woman and let her eyes drop to the floor, where her daughter perched, bright and curious. Ava was her inspiration for pushing on. Ava was the light of her life, the beautiful aftermath of her darkest days.
“Can you believe that was five years ago?” Molly said as she applied another piece of tape to the tree. “Time does march on. And look at Ava, here. Five years old now.”
Ava frowned up at them, her eyes masked by hair. “Do you need any more tape?”
“I think that’s it, kiddo,” Molly said.
“Oh ... she’s yours?” Clarice looked from Ava to Joanne and back again. “This is his daughter? Oh, wow ...” She pressed her palm to her chest again, as if her heart couldn’t take the drama.
Jo reached down to Ava, pulling her to her feet. “Why don’t you put the tape away?” she asked.
“But I want to hear about Daddy.”
“Listen to your mum,” Molly said in her stern aunt voice, and Jo was grateful when Ava marched off.
“It’s all such a sad story,” Clarice said. “My heart goes out to you.”
Jo stared at the woman, wondering how such a thing of beauty could be so vacant. She wanted to point out that Ava had never met her father. She wanted to tell Clarice that they didn’t need her pity.
But she kept her mouth clamped shut and went back to the register, grateful that another customer was ready to be rung up.
Later, when Ava was settled in with her grandmother, and the customers had cleared out, Jo’s anger resurged at the thought of Clarice Diamond’s dramatic scene.
“That woman really pissed me off,” she muttered to her cousin.
“Still seething over Princess Diamond? She’s just a pretty face.”
“A pretty face in my face.” Jo brushed glitter from the counter. “In my daughter’s face. You’d think that a woman with a child of her own would be more sensitive to a kid who never got to meet her notorious father. It made me wonder if it’s right having Ava here. With me working ninety jobs, I thought it would be a good way for the two of us to spend more time together, but now I’m not so sure ...”
“It’s fine,” Molly reassured her. “Ava likes to hear about her father. You can’t keep the truth from her forever.”
“I’m just trying to protect her.” Jo sprayed glass cleaner on the counter and wiped down the sides. “I never thought I’d have celebrity mongers in here, sniffing around my daughter. Gushing sympathy.”
“The woman dropped a lot of sympathy here. A few hundred bucks’ worth.”
“Still ...” The whole thing left a bad taste in Jo’s mouth. “How do you tell a five-year-old the difference between famous and notorious?” she asked.
“You don’t.” Molly zipped the cash and receipts into a bag and went to the front door. “You say, ‘Bet you didn’t know your dad was so famous, did you, pumpkin?’ And you leave it at that.” She locked the front door. “It’s late. We’d better get going, ’cause we’re back open at nine tomorrow.”
“Give Ava extra hugs and kisses for me,” Jo said, wishing she was headed home, too. “And her Boo Bear is in the dryer.” Ava never slept without it.
“Relax, Mama Bear. I’ve done this plenty of times before.” Molly would walk Ava home from Jo’s parents’ house to the apartment in the carriage house that Molly, Jo, and Ava shared.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, cuz,” Jo said as she started turning off light displays around the store. She went to the display window—the only lights they left on after closing—and paused by the Woodstock snow globe. Ava had reminded her to replace the window sample with a globe from the stockroom after the Diamonds had purchased it.
She turned the smooth globe upside down and watched as snowflakes danced over the town, landing on the mountains and the rooftops. Let Molly have her wanderlust; Jo loved this town. It was here in the circle of the White Mountains that she’d fallen in love, had her heart broken, then been given a brand-new life with the birth of her daughter.
On this Thanksgiving weekend, she was grateful for many things ... her daughter, her family, her New England home. Thank God towns like Woodstock were still able to exist and prosper. Thank you, God. She turned the sign to CLOSED and followed her cousin out the back door to a real-life snow dance.
Chapter 2
The old window rattled as Sam slammed it shut and stripped off his sweater. Up on Dare Mountain, the falling snow would penetrate like slivers of glass, and the wind would freeze to the bone. It was crazy to go up on the mountain on a wicked cold night like this, but in the past few years, crazy had become the new normal for Sam Norwood.
Stripped down to his jeans, he turned and caught his reflection in the mirror over the dresser. A freakin’ horror show. The old colonial furniture had served him fine when he grew up in this room, but since he’d returned from Afghanistan, it was all another reminder of days long past, childhood plans and alliances that had been shattered and torn. He grabbed a pillow from the bed and propped it up against the mirror to block the ugly truth.
He pulled the titanium shell over the tender area of his shoulder, pausing to massage the scars, braids of skin that twisted like maps of the chambers of hell. He didn’t need the mirror to know the patterns of the wounds, the discolored skin that ran up one side of his neck, the distorted area where his ear had once been.
And to think, he and Cack really believed they were going to make it through in one piece. Cackalacky was the platoon’s nickname for Floyd Miller, a North Carolina boy. “If something gits ya, ya gotta hope you git damaged just enough to send you home still walking and talking,” Cack used to say. That was what Cack had wanted more than anything ... to get home.
Bitterness stung the back of Sam’s tongue as he slammed the drawers of the old dresser closed. That was the perverse irony, the sick joke of the universe—Cack had a family to return to and he went home in a body bag, while here was Sam sleeping in his old bedroom, with nobody who would really miss him, save for his ma, who’d made a life of her own.
Why was the person who had the least to lose always the survivor? Last man standing.
Not even thirty years old and he’d already outlived his two best friends. He’d joined the army to start a new chapter in his life. He’d been running from home, running from guilt, running from Shane’s ghost. But in trying to escape the tragedy that had happened up on Dare Mountain, he’d run straight into a fiery pit of more agony, the kind that wakes you up bawling in the middle of the night.
One thing he’d finally learned: There was no escape.
It was time to point his head into the wind and let fate finish knocking the crap out of him.
Sam opened the closet door and dug into a bin of winter gear. Gloves. Hat. Insulated socks. It was all there the way he’d left it four years ago. Even a face mask. That would work.
He stuffed the gear into the big pockets of his jacket and turned toward the door. The wall there was bright with posters of the U.S. Olympic ski team, and his gut tightened at the memory of the dreams and plans that he and Shane had hatched in this room. The two of them thought they were going to ski with Bode Miller. They were going to be champions, Woodstock’s first heroes.
A couple of idiots.
He flicked the light switch, thinking that it had ended that fast for Shane. One stupid decision on Dare Mountain and Shane was gone, leaving dozens of people to pick up the pieces and ask why as they reeled in pain. Missing him.
The house was tired and quiet around him. His mother had all but moved out, spending most of her time with Ted Provost, the groundskeeper down at the golf course. She probably should’ve sold this place while he was gone, given his stuff away to charity. One more way to erase the past.
Out in the shed, Sam found his ski gear, dusty, but the boots still fit and the bindings worked. He dumped the stuff into the back of the truck and headed out to the mountain.
Time to face the beast.
He hadn’t planned on coming home. Four years ago when he left for Afghanistan, he figured he’d seen the last of these mountains. But yesterday, on his way home from the airport, he saw the rock cliffs rising on the horizon and knew he would have to do it.
Time to face the mountain.
Dare Mountain was the setting for his nightmares, the place where he watched Shane disappear over a rocky ledge. It was also the setting for the Humvee nightmares, which didn’t make sense, since the hills of Afghanistan were carved from entirely different landscape.
But no one ever said dreams made sense.
On a clear day, from the top of the mountain, you could see four states and Canada, but most of the people in Woodstock never got that view. They kept their eyes on the road, on their kids ... on the pasta they were cooking for dinner or the fence they were painting. Normal people living normal lives. As a kid, Sam had always wanted more. He wanted to be up on top of a mountain, looking to the future.
Now that he’d spent time in the craggy brown mountains of Afghanistan, he’d learned that tomorrow isn’t on the next hilltop or valley; your future comes from the landscape within. That’s how he knew he was on shaky ground.
When you were dead inside, the terrain of tomorrow looked flat and dusty. Very bleak.
Chapter 3
Swabbing the mop in time with Glenn Miller’s version of “Sleigh Ride,” Jo made short work of cleaning the ladies’ room in the main lodge at the bottom of the mountain. Last Christmas she’d helped Les Benedict, the manager of the lodge, choose a few Christmas CDs after he’d read an article that said tips usually tripled when customers were jollied up by Christmas carols.
“Music calms the heart,” she’d told him. “People want to be generous and share goodwill. It makes us all feel good. We just need a little cajoling.”
Now as she backed out of the ladies’ room, she swayed in time to the swing band’s rousing climax of the song.
“I like a person who puts her heart in her work,” Les said from behind her.
“With a selection of music like that, who can resist?” Jo swiped the hair from her forehead with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
“You helped me pick those songs, Jo, and for that I’m very grateful.”
“It was a great idea you had. Sure makes my work here go faster.”
“That’s what I’m meaning to talk to you about.” Les tugged at the zipper toggle of his down vest. “What’s this I hear ’bout you quitting on me?”
“It’s true. Business has picked up at the shop, and Dad says they’re going to need my help at the inn over Christmas. As I told Carla, I can give you another week, two if you need it.”
“We’re going to miss you, Jo. Good worker like you’s hard to replace, but I’m glad your shop is taking off.”
“Thank you, Les. I don’t want to leave you in the lurch, but it’ll be good to be home with my kid at night.”
“I bet it will.” The radio on his belt crackled, and Carla’s voice called his name. “Excuse me,” he said, turning away to answer.
As Jo sprayed the windows and wiped till they gleamed, she wondered if one of her cousins might be interested in taking on this job. She’d like to help Les out, and one of the high school–age kids like Lauren or Katie could handle the hours, at least over Christmas vacation.
When she wheeled her cleaning cart toward the snack bar, Les was still in the hall, pacing as he spoke into the radio.
“Ay-yeah ... it’s the only way to handle it. I’ll send her up if she’s willing. Be right there, myself. Ovah.” Worry creased his face as he frowned. “Got some trouble up on the mountain. Ice storm up there has made our black diamond runs downright treacherous, and we need to close ’em off. Ski patrol is up there tending to an accident on the Crazy Eights Run right now, and with people out sick we’re short-staffed. Carla suggested you grab some skis and head up there to help us out. Mostly we need people to stand at the entrance to the black diamond trails and divert skiers.” He waved a hand toward the rest of the lodge. “If you can help us, I’ll get someone else to finish the cleaning in the morning.”
Jo felt her jaw drop at the prospect of heading up to ski on a night like this. “But ... it’s been years since I worked ski patrol. I was in high school.” She pointed up toward the mountain. “I don’t even ski anymore.”
“It’s like riding a bicycle. It’ll come back to you.”
“But I don’t have a parka or any equipment or—”
“Drop into the rental shop and they’ll fix you up with what you need.” He clipped the radio back onto his belt and patted her shoulder. “Appreciate you helping us out, Jo. I’m going to head on up there. See you at the top.”
Jo’s pulse tripped quickly as she peeled off her plastic gloves and wheeled her cart to the supply room. This was not good. She hadn’t been up skiing on this mountain since before she was pregnant. She hadn’t snapped skis on since Shane had died, and she wasn’t keen on getting back into the sport now.
Thirty minutes later she sat on the cable car decked in rental clothes from head to toe. Her feet and ankles felt mummified in the tight boots, and she couldn’t believe the weight of the black helmet in her hands, which Andy in the rental shop had told her was required for ski patrol these days. A dark, cloying dread gripped her, and she kept telling herself she couldn’t be afraid of skiing. She had grown up skiing. She used to give lessons. She could handle herself on the mountain. But then, Shane had been an expert skier, too. He’d placed in the World Championship and had been chosen for the 2006 U.S. team.
“Welcome to the White Mountains of New Hampshire,” Drake, the cable car’s operator, said as he closed the doors. “And tonight, as you can see, it’s really white out there. We’ve had ten inches of snow in the past twelve hours. Apparently there’s some ice mixed in with that, folks, because we have closed our expert runs. I repeat, the black diamond runs are closed due to icy conditions. Here at Dare our first priority is safe skiing.”
Drake nodded at Jo, then surveyed the passengers. “Do we have some newcomers here? A handful. Skiing for the holiday weekend? Then I’ll give you the short tour.”
As the car began to travel uphill, he gave a brief history of the area. “Home to Dare Mountain, Cannon Mountain, and Franconia Notch, where a natural rock formation on one cliff side became famous in the early eighteen hundreds because it resembled the face of an old man. People came from everywhere to see the Old Man of the Mountain, and in nineteen forty-five the state of New Hampshire adopted it as its state emblem. We still have it on state road signs and license plates. When the rock formation collapsed in two thousand three, people were devastated.”
Jo was sixteen when the rock face of the Old Man came tumbling down. She didn’t think it was a big deal at first, but when Shane gathered a group to drive over and check it out, she’d ditched class without a second thought. At sixteen she’d been glued to Shane’s side, whenever he wasn’t off drinking or raising hell with his buddies. Shane had had a small, elite circle of friends, stand-up guys like Sam Norwood and Tim Healey, who would have given anything for Shane. After Shane’s death, they’d been lost, too. Sam had joined the army, and Tim took a job somewhere in Massachusetts.
Trying to tamp down fear, Jo wiggled her toes in her boots and thought of Ava. She really should teach her how to ski. Ava was curious about it, especially since she’d heard that her father loved skiing.
Yes, skiing had been Shane’s number one passion ... or maybe it was passion number two, just after drinking. She wondered if the oh-so-perfect Clarice Diamond knew about Shane’s drinking problem when she had her crush on him. Or had Clarice been smitten with the media account of Shane Demerit, local legend?
Just before the 2006 Olympics when he was to be one of the top downhill competitors, twenty-year-old Shane Demerit had killed himself on a late-night run down the mountain. People called it a tragic accident, a great irony for a young skier to die on the brink of his success, a “perfect storm,” with an ice storm making conditions hazardous. People failed to mention the obscene blood alcohol level that had made even a simple descent impossible. Shane had “liked his beer” as Jo’s mother used to put it. A nice way of saying he was an alcoholic, an ugly drunk when he tied one on.
That was the side of Shane that Jo had always sought to hide from their daughter. But Shane had possessed endearing qualities, too. Despite his bouts of drinking and general craziness, Shane had a good heart, and Jo had thought their love could get them through the difficulties of her being a teen mother.
Unfortunately, Shane hadn’t seen it that way. “Trailer trash,” he kept saying. “I’m so sick of being trailer trash.” He’d thought he had found a way out of that with his skiing, but he was sure that a baby was going to send them back to the hellhole he’d escaped. He was sure they’d be ruined.
Although the baby was an unexpected mistake, Jo argued that she couldn’t destroy a part of herself and the man she loved. She would care for the baby and keep saving for their house. Her mom and Aunt Martha would help. They’d make things work, if he just gave it a chance. She had thought she could deal with his issues, help him, ease his pain. She had thought she could make him happy. Jo had gone over that last conversation a million times; it played like a top forty song she couldn’t get out of her head. But that night, talking to Shane was like talking to a wall. He was too drunk to process what she was saying, all liquored up like that.
She should have known that Shane had been drunk and “flipping out” as he used to say, but then, she’d been flipping out herself. Nineteen and pregnant and worried about losing the guy she loved.
Ay-yeah, she’d been wicked panicked.
As the cable car bumped into place at the top of the mountain, Drake gave a second warning about icy conditions and closed trails. Jo pulled the black helmet over her head, thinking that she really belonged home with Ava right now. She should be in her sweatpants and slippers, stringing beads for ornaments, peeking in on her daughter in the next room, checking for her soft, sweet breath as she slept peacefully.
Stepping out into the bitter wind reinforced that feeling. She clamped her goggles on so that she could see where she was going, tipped her skis over one shoulder, then tromped over to Les, who was easily identifiable in a red jacket with a red blinking light clipped to the front.
“It’s wicked cold up here,” Jo said, her voice raised against the noise of ice chips pelting her helmet. “I can’t believe you have any skiers up here in this weather.”
“People from the city want to get their ski time in on vacation weekends, and we attract a lot of them as we’re open more’n most.” He held out a gloved hand holding a dark disk. “Take this and head over to the entrance to Heartbreak Ridge. It’s blocked with barricades, but there are always a few show-offs who think they can defy gravity.”
Jo was well experienced with daredevils.
“The cable car stops bringing people up at eleven, so you’ve only got another hour or so. You got a cell phone?”
She pressed the pocket of the ski patrol coat, just making sure. “Sure do.”
“Call Carla down at the lodge if you need anything. You should be fine, though. It’s pretty quiet up here.”
“Okay.” Feeling a bit rusty, Jo snapped her skis on and herringbone-climbed the ridge to get to the main trail. Once she began to glide on the icy surface, it all came back to her. Her palms were sweating inside her gloves, but it wasn’t terrible to be cutting an edge or gliding downhill. Although it had been years since she’d been up here, the trail map was etched in her mind. Even in the blistering ice storm, she knew where to fork left and when to veer to the right to reach the top of Heartbreak Ridge.
The entrance to the run was marked by two short gray lumps. The cones blocking the entrance were covered with icy gray scales, nearly obliterating the orange color. Jo stopped beside one of them and poked at it with her ski pole. It would take awhile to chip the ice away, but then, she had plenty of time to kill.
It took ten minutes to clear off one cone, and during that time only a handful of skiers passed by on their way to the intermediate trail. One woman stopped to ask if the expert trails would be open in the morning, but, otherwise, the mountain was quiet. Almost eerie.
As she hacked away at the ice on the second cone, she imagined Shane here, speeding down the runs. Did he stay low and tuck his poles in a racing stance, or was he so sloppy drunk that he wavered on his skis?
Hearing a noise behind her, Jo staked her poles into the ground and turned to look behind her.
And there he was ...
A gray ghost of a man looming under the lights behind the curtain of falling snow. He swayed casually down the slope, as if cutting an edge in ice was no problem at all.
Her heart pounded in her chest, her pulse roaring in her ears as he approached.
“Shane?” She wiggled around to face him, nearly crossing her skis in the process.
She wasn’t so much scared of his ghost as she was alarmed that she could be losing her mind in a snowstorm at the top of Dare Mountain.
It couldn’t be him ...
Squinting through her goggles, she noted the way he leaned fearlessly, as if he knew the mountain would support him. That was Shane’s style.
But then, as she watched him crouch, she saw that his stance was closer than Shane’s. Closer and tighter.
It wasn’t him.
Thank God. She would have felt like a total idiot, thinking she was talking to a ghost. The skier’s face was covered by a black mask. Creepy-looking, though practical up here.
He didn’t turn toward the intermediate trail but shot straight toward her, spraying ice and snow as he stopped.
“Hey, how’s it going?” she called.
He stared at her in silence, and though the mask obscured his face completely, she sensed some undercurrent running between them, connecting them.
Then, he tilted his head, as if curious. “Jo?”
Her stomach lurched, and she had to remind herself it wasn’t Shane.
“Yeah. Who are you? I can’t tell with your mask.”
He pointed one pole down Heartbreak Ridge. “How is it?” His voice was muffled by the mask.
“The trail is closed. Didn’t they tell you? The icy conditions have made it treacherous.”