Page 74 of Mine For The Winter

“I thought you were going to act like a grown up.”

Annoyance washed over him. Where did North get off telling him to grow up? “Where haven’t I acted like a grown up?”

“You two talked yet?”

“Yeah.”

“About Lyle?”

His mouth dried. “Not in so many words.”

“So you messed around while the elephant danced around the room. And then you wonder why she bolted?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Kris protested. “She came to me. To my cabin. And I asked her if she wanted to talk and she said no.”

North sighed. “Look, I get it, I do. You and Kelly… there was always something there. Before Lyle, after Lyle. During Lyle…”

“We made sure there was nothing there during Lyle.”

North shot him an older-brother-knows-better kind of look, then strode to the next tree.

“I just wish I’d done things differently,” Kris said.

“Don’t we all? I don’t know anybody who’s got to our age that doesn’t have regrets,” North said. “I know I do.”

“I should have stayed around to help Kelly. Be the friend I thought I was.”

“Yeah, well we both know you can’t save people from themselves.” North gave him a small smile. “Look at Dad.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Yeah, me either.”

North scrunched his face together in concentration, then looked Kris in the eye. “I’m not a big one for talking about feelings. None of us ever were. But the one thing I’ve learned is that regrets are useless unless you use them for something. For change. Unless you take what you did wrong and turn it around to make it right. That’s the only time you should listen to them.”

Kris stared at him for a moment. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard his brother talk like that. It touched something inside of him.

Something that knew North was right.

Silently they cut down the next tree, and North’s words reverberated around Kris’ head. He’d been an idiot. He’d come here to talk to her. To apologize. To make up for the hurt he’d caused all those years ago.

And instead he’d taken the easy way out. Given Kelly what she needed. Taken what he’d needed.

He’d loved it. Loved that she’d come to him to be soothed. That every time he touched her somehow she felt softer in his arms.

But it was too early. Or too late. He wasn’t sure which now.

“I need your help,” he said when North had finished cutting through the trunk.

“Yeah, that’s patently obvious.” North lifted a brow.

“I don’t mean I need your lectures.” God knew he’d given enough of those to himself. “I need your help to talk with Kelly.”

“I’m listening.”

“I need to talk to her but finding the time to talk is something else altogether,” Kris told him. “She’s working at the tavern all day and night.”

“It’s the holiday season. She’s busy.” North shrugged. “We all are.”

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