Page 28 of A Mountain Man Christmas

Whoa. “Lewis’s father? The one who died in an avalanche?”

He nodded slowly, keeping his gaze on the snowy ground. For a few seconds, he said nothing. He was taking his time, she realized. Merely thinking about his brother must be painful for him, much less sharing the details with her.

“Jason was a lot like me,” he said. “He loved to hunt. Back then, decades ago, we didn’t live in Elron. My family has always traveled across Frost Mountain over the centuries.”

“Because of the curse,” she guessed. “You had to move each time something happened.”

Another nod. “Jason and I would hunt together. When he died, his son Lewis was merely a child. The day it happened, we were out hunting. We had been snowed in due to a storm, and we needed more food. Jason and I left Ariadne behind, promising to be back by evening.” He fell silent again. Then: “I returned alone the next morning.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lyla breathed.

The sunlight cast a dark shadow across his face. “Sometimes, I believe itwasmy fault. I could have stopped him. I knew it was dangerous; Jason should never have pursued that reindeer across the hill. One second, he was there, and the next…”

“There was an avalanche,” she finished, feeling a tightening in her gut. “That must have been painful for you to witness.”

He gave another shrug. “When I returned, Ariadne was just as distraught as I was. But she was also furious. She drove me away and asked me never to return. She blamed me for Jason’s death. I took Lewis along with me. I felt he was my responsibility. Together, we traveled up the mountain until we found Elroy and settled there.”

He said nothing more. Lyla studied his features. This man had more on his broad shoulders than she’d realized. A brother whose death he blamed himself for, a nephew he’d raised as his own…if she had to guess, as much as he denied being responsible for the deaths of Angus’s sons, a part of him blamed himself for it.

The more time she spent with him, the more she wondered just how much she’d gotten wrong about him. It was getting harder to believe that the man who’d saved her life over and over was the same werewolf that had tried to rip her apart last night.

But if Tristan wasn’t the werewolf, then who was?

She frowned, unable to shake the feeling that there was something she was missing. Whatever it was, she had no idea. As far as he knew, he might as well be the culprit after all. Somehow, he and the werewolf never seemed to be in the same place at the same time. If she understood his curse well enough, he had little control over his transformation. The curse took effect whenever, wherever, and he was helpless to it.

But that didn’t make him innocent, did it?

Chapter Ten

“I Thought You Were Trying to Poison Me”

Ariadne’s home was a cabin built halfway into a mountain shelf, several feet above the ground. A series of slippery stone steps led up to the front door, which, aside from the windows, was the only wooden structure visible from the outside. The cabin overlooked a massive expanse of snow-covered pine trees stretching farther downhill and was obscured mostly from view by snow and the fact that the only people likely to come around these parts, besides the few who visited her now and then, were lost or insane travelers.

Tristan considered himself among the latter. He was definitely insane, thinking he could simply return to his sister after all these years.

“This…is where your sister lives?” Lyla asked.

She was staring around in awe. They’d ascended the steps and now stood before the door. Tristan picked up some movement inside the building. His sister was home.

He nodded. “If we’re lucky, she’ll let us in.”

“And if we’re not?”

He said nothing in response but simply knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” called a woman’s voice that set his heart racing a little. “I’m not expecting anyone this Christmas.”

A moment later, the door swung open, and the woman poked her head out. Silvery hair hung down the sides of a surprisingly young-looking face. For someone in her fifties, Ariadne looked at least a decade younger. Obsidian eyes peered out at them, settling first on Lyla, then on Tristan.

Ariadne’s lip curled. The door slammed shut.

“Ariadne!” Tristan knocked on the door, a little harder this time. “Sister, this is important.”

“I told you never to return.” Ariadne’s voice, dripping with venom, reached them from the other side. “You should have stayed away.”

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t an emergency,” he told her, biting his lip. “I need your help.”

“Help?” The door was suddenly wrenched open. Ariadne’s gaze was frostier than the mountain itself. “You allowed our brother to die all those years ago, and now you want my help? You must have traveled a long way, you and your…” Her gaze traveled toward Lyla, and he thought she saw some of the coldness flicker away for a second as his sister’s eyes roamed the woman. “You should go back.”

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