"Did you kiss her?"
"There might have been a kiss."
Paul raised his brow in surprise. "I'm shocked. She let you kiss her?"
"She kissed me back. Until she remembered that she didn't like me."
"What happens now?"
"No idea. The ball is in her court. And Hannah is so damn stubborn. She sees everything in absolutes. There is no gray area. People are good or bad, right or wrong. In her mind, I'm bad, and I'm wrong."
"She wouldn't hate you so much if she didn't also like you. But this dance that's been going on between you and Hannah—it needs to end, Jake. It's gone on too long. Even when you're with other women, you're never really with them."
"That's not true," he said, frowning at his brother's analysis of his love life.
"Yes, it is. That's why no one lasts longer than a few months. No one is ever Hannah. If you want her, then go get her. Don't let the ball bounce around in her court. Take it, shoot it. That's what you do best. What you don't do best is wait."
"You have a point."
"You need to either get her back or let her go so you can move on with your life."
"Since when did you get to be so smart?"
"I've always been this smart. You just don’t usually listen to me," Paul said dryly.
"Well, I hear what you're saying. It's good advice."
"Are you going to take it?"
"I think I will. But right now, I have to get ready to take a group down Skyhawk."
Paul grinned. "That sounds like fun."
"What are you doing this afternoon?"
"Helping Mom pack up her cakes and cookies for the carnival. Want to trade?"
"Not a chance," he said with a laugh. "But we should hit the slopes tomorrow or sometime this week."
"Maybe. I have some studying to do."
"It's Christmas."
"And I have six months left in medical school. I can't blow it now."
"You won't. I'm proud of you, Paul."
"Even though I'm following in Dad's footsteps?"
"You might become a doctor like him, but you are nothing like him," he said firmly.
"I wish you and Dad would find a way to get along," Paul said, his smile fading. "It would be nice to spend a Christmas with the four of us happy together, like the old days."
"We can't recreate the past."
"Isn't that what you're trying to do with Hannah?" his brother challenged.
"Actually, no. I don't want to go back to where she and I used to be. I want to discover where we can go now."
"You could do the same in your relationship with Dad."
He shook his head. "I don't think so."
"It's my fault, isn't it?" Paul asked, a serious gleam in his eyes.
He was shocked by his brother's question. "Of course it's not your fault. Why would you say that?"
"Because when I was sick, I took a lot of attention away from you. I know you got shafted."
"I did not get shafted. I wanted you to have everything you needed."
"And I did, but somewhere along the way, you and Dad lost your relationship, and I can't believe it had nothing to do with me."
"Well, it didn't." He didn't want to lie to his brother, but the situation between him and his father was much more complicated that Paul's illness.
"Then what was it?"
He let out a sigh. He was starting to realize that both his mother and his brother were losing patience with the situation between him and his father. They wanted him to fix whatever was wrong. He didn't know why it was on him to fix anything. "Let's not do this now. I don't have time, and it's Christmas."
"The perfect time to get the family back together," Paul said. "It's not like you to just accept a bad situation and not try to change it. That's not who you are. You can't quit on Hannah. So maybe you should consider not quitting on your family."
He frowned, wishing Paul's words weren't echoing his own thoughts. He could see a connection between the way Hannah treated him and the way he treated his father, but the situations were completely different. "I'll think about it," he said. "In the meantime, I have to get ready to take on a mountain."
"Good luck, although I don't think you'll need it…unless the mountain's name is Hannah," Paul joked. "I still think that one might take you down."
Hannah paced around the living room, wondering if she'd made the right decision in calling her mother. Usually her mother's assistance created more problems than it solved. But Adam wanted to talk to her mom, and the news of Brett's appearance and her sister's disappearance would make the rounds of Whisper Lake no matter how quiet Adam kept the investigation.
Practically speaking, it would also be impossible to hide Brett's existence with so many holiday events happening over the next several days. She had to work Santa's house at tonight's Christmas Carnival, which meant she would have to bring Brett with her, and she would have to tell people he was her nephew. She would try to keep the problems with Kelly private, but even those would probably leak out. She'd accepted friendly, concerned gossip as an integral part of small-town life a long time ago.
As she waited for her mom's arrival, she went upstairs to check on Brett. She'd put him down for a nap earlier, and he was still fast asleep. She was grateful that he hadn't asked a lot of questions about where his mother was or when she was coming back, but she wondered if that just meant he was used to his mom disappearing. She hoped that wasn't the case. She hoped this was the first and only time that Kelly had abandoned her son.
The doorbell rang. She quickly closed the bedroom door, and then went downstairs. She was greeted by her mother wearing an annoyed look on her face. It wasn't unusual to see that expression on Katherine Stark's face; Hannah got it a lot, usually because she was the
