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Free Fall
Jill Shalvis
Search-and-rescue expert Logan White is no stranger to high-pressure performance. That's why this ski vacation is so important…and so hard to take. He knows he needs to unwind, but since he can't seem to do it, this holiday looks like a bust. Then he meets ski patroller Lily Harmon, who shows him precisely how sexy daring can be. She has an extreme move to beat every one of his own on the slopes, during rescues and in bed! Now he has to figure out a way to keep this melt-the-ice affair going after the vacation.
“I thought maybe I had imagined it,” Logan said
“Imagined…?” Lily’s jacket was unzipped to her breastbone, with only a thermal silk undershirt beneath.
“This.” With a light touch he put his bare finger to the pulse racing at the base of her throat.
All she could hear was the thump, thump, thumping of her heart beating too fast in her ears. Her clothes felt too tight—or maybe that was her own skin. A heavy anticipation filled the cold air and she tried to tell herself it was something she’d felt often. Had acted on often.
But today, with this man, it felt startlingly, shockingly different.
She took some comfort in the fact his own pulse, beating at his throat, was no steadier than hers. “This…what?” she asked.
Something flashed in his eyes. “I’m not sure I can put it into words without being graphic.”
Her body let out a shiver and, honest to God, her knees wobbled. “I see.”
He leaned so close that visions of them ripping off each other’s clothes danced in her head and all she wanted was his mouth to touch hers. “So, what are we going to do about…this?”
Dear Reader,
The mountain and ski lodge in Free Fall is fictitious, but it’s a setting near and dear to my heart. I wrote this story during the summer, and every time I described the snow and the skiing, I yearned for winter and to be back out on the slopes! So I hope I made it come alive for you.
This is my last Harlequin Temptation novel, and I'll miss the line so much! Look for me in the Harlequin Blaze line if you get a chance. In the meantime, hope you enjoy Free Fall, and happy reading.
Jill Shalvis
Free Fall
Jill Shalvis
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Prologue
Denton, Ohio
“SO WHICH ONE OF YOU SEXY hotshots is the best man?”
Search-and-rescue expert Logan White looked up in surprise as his entire team pointed to him.
The nurse asking the question flashed him a hundred-watt smile. “You? Well, then, sugar, it’s your lucky night.” And she ripped the light blue scrubs right off her body.
Logan, a man who’d seen and done it all and who’d thought himself unshockable, nearly swallowed his tongue. Beneath the scrubs, the nurse wore a cherry-red thong with matching pasties strategically placed over her nipples.
His best friend, Wyatt Stone—the reason for the bachelor party going on around them—grinned at him. “A little something from me to you, man. Thanks for being the greatest best man and best friend a guy could ask for.” He hoisted his beer in a toast as their friends, normally as serious and intense as their profession demanded, laughed and hooted and hollered like a group of frat boys on spring break.
Just last night the lot of them had been rappelling down the side of a mountain in a vicious rainstorm, searching for a lost teen who’d gotten separated from her hiking group. Logan had flown the mission, and when the winds had kicked up, things had gotten so tense, so damned dangerous in the ravines above the river on a black, black night, that he’d been only half convinced he could help them all out to safety.
Now they sat in the swank private suite of a downtown hotel, surrounded by posh, elegant furniture and a fully stocked bar with the large-screen TV playing the latest basketball game, acting like a pack of dogs, howling at the three nurses who’d come into the room looking for someone to “make feel better.” It was hard to reconcile, especially since he’d been working so hard he could barely remember what it was like to just breathe.
Logan had expected the strippers—hell, he’d helped pay for them. But the women in hospital scrubs—a uniform he saw daily—had thrown him off. The now nearly naked bleached blonde smiled when her two accomplices, also stripping out of their uniforms, hit Play on their portable CD player. Loud, pulsing dance music filled the air.
The woman standing in front of Logan began to move to the beat. She was twenty-one, maybe twenty-two, making him feel ancient at thirty-one, and he turned to Wyatt. “She should be dancing for you—Oof.”
Teetering in her red five-inch stilettos, she plopped herself in his lap. With a shrieking laugh, she straddled his thighs, hers wide open as she wriggled and squirmed, writhing and arching to the thumping music, grinding her crotch to his, eventually getting the sought-for reaction from him, albeit a purely physical one.
Her arms encircled his neck as she thrust her large, expensive-looking breasts in his face. “Ready for your present, best man?”
“Uh—”
She wriggled some more, and the corner of a small envelope peeked out from the front of her thong. “Just for you,” she purred, continuing to shimmy and shake. Her breasts threatened to give him a black eye. “Take the prize, hot stuff.”
With a wince—hot stuff?—he pulled the envelope out of her thong and discovered she wasn’t a bleached blonde but the real thing. And then felt like a pervert.
It was a relief to focus on tearing open the envelope. The card inside was a certificate for a seven-night stay at a Lake Tahoe resort. Logan just stared at it. Sure, he loved to ski, but he didn’t feel the need to go away. Why would he, when he did and saw things on a daily basis that most other people wouldn’t even dream of: climbing mountains, flying helicopters and rappelling out of them. Lake Tahoe couldn’t possibly dish up anything to compare.
“Wyatt, this is too much. You and Leah should use this yourselves—”
“Oh, no. We’re off to a warmer climate, thank you very much, where little to no clothing is required. This Tahoe trip is yours, buddy, for all you’ve done for me.”
He was referring to how Logan had saved his life, and Leah’s, as well, only a few months back. But Logan didn’t want to be paid for that. That was what he did. It was who he was.
The stripper in his lap was still working the beat, and he gently set her off him. “I don’t need a week off. I don’t have a week off.”
“What are you talking about?” Wyatt laughed. “We work for ourselves. You want a week, you take a week.”
Yes, they worked for themselves. Mostly. He and Wyatt co-owned the helicopter he’d flown last night. They supported their joint helicopter habit with paying jobs—Wyatt flew for the local TV and radio stations, and Logan flew a couple of local millionaires around at their whim during their business day. But they also worked volunteer for the SAR team, both men living for and loving the times they were called to fly search and rescue.
“It’s not that simple,” he protested now. “I have jobs scheduled, and with you going on your honeymoon, I’ll need to be available to fly for SAR 24/7.”
“So wait until I get back. But you’re going. You need to get away, every bit as much as I do.” Their eyes met, and all the things they’d done and seen shimmered between them.
The stripper Logan had set aside shifted her attention to Wyatt, who sat back, easygoing and smiling at her slow, sensuous movements. But Logan knew his partner extremely well. Wyatt’s thoughts were elsewhere. Probably with Leah, who he’d be marrying tomorrow.
Marrying. Logan shuddered. He had no idea why in the world Wyatt would want to screw up a good relationship with marriage.
He watched his old friend draw the stripper’s attention away from himself and onto two of their oldest buddies, who eagerly lapped up everything she dished out, and he had to admit that if any couple could make it in the crazy, dangerous world he and these guys all lived in, Wyatt and Leah could. They had a rare, beautiful, deep connection—one Logan had never really experienced himself.
“Maybe you’ll meet a hot ski bunny,” Wyatt said, and waggled his eyebrows.
“A hot ski bunny.” Logan had to laugh. “Is that what you think I need?”
“You need something, starting with a week off. Take the trip,” Wyatt said quietly. “I have a feeling about it.”
“A feeling? Hell. You fall like a brick for a woman and now you’re thinking like one.”
“Okay, how about this—you worked every single day last month, and I think the month before that, too. If you haven’t been at the mercy of a Trump wannabe, you’ve been risking life and limb for perfect strangers. It’s a bad equation that equals burnout.”
Logan looked at the strippers, and—unmoved by their gyrations—he admitted that Wyatt had a point. Burnout was lurking, flickering at the edges of his mind. He needed to get away, and skiing his brains out on Wyatt’s dime sounded…good. Damn good. “Fine, but if you have to come drag me back, it’s your own fault.”
“Duly noted, man. Duly noted. Just make sure to cut loose and have fun.”
Yeah. Logan figured if he really tried, he might manage to do just that.
1
Lake Tahoe, California
“LILY ROSE? YOU KNOW IT’S payday, right?”
Oh, for God’s sake. Lily Harmon’s head was going to blow right off her shoulders. Truly. If she didn’t get a moment of peace in her immediate future, she couldn’t be held responsible for what came next.
Knowing that, and her own limited patience, she drew a deep, calming breath, turned away from her ski locker and smiled blankly at her older sister, Gwyneth. “Really? It’s payday?”
Gwyneth’s mouth fell open. “You did forget.”
“Nah. I just like watching you grow gray hair before my eyes.”
Gwyneth was thirty-five to Lily’s twenty-five, and not a single day went by that she didn’t fling around the extra wisdom that those ten years supposedly granted her. “I was just trying to help.”
“You can save your breath.” Lily dug back into her locker. “I have the general manager job down.”
“But—”
“Look, if you feel the need to waste some of your own time, go find someone else to waste it on. And, sheesh, while you’re at it, try to relax a little.” Lily pulled her red ski-patrol jacket over her head, then buckled on the small fanny pack that held all her essentials—not a brush or lip gloss or anything that Gwyneth’s pack might have contained, but a first-aid kit, a screwdriver for fixing bindings and other various handy items.
“How about the statistic reports?” Gwyneth said. “Did you get my memo—” She broke off at the look of steel in Lily’s eyes. “Right. You’re fine.”
“You know what you need instead of that anal accounting job, Gwynnie? Someone to boss around. Have some kids. Then you can bicker with them all day and turn into Mom.” Lily jammed on her helmet and eyed her snowboard and skis. Board, she decided. She stomped into her boots and snatched the board, and then glanced at Gwyneth, who was still standing there looking like the substitute teacher whose class had all ditched on her.
Shaking her head, Lily walked out of the ski-locker area and into the open lodge, where a handful of guests milled around in various stages of ski-gear dress. She moved past the huge stone fireplace where the roaring fire she herself had started at the crack of dawn this morning was still going strong. The comfy chairs and sofas in deep, inviting colors, strategically placed to capture the warmth of the flames, were filled with guests; some talking, laughing, some taking in the ambience of the cabin walls that were dotted with photos from the lodge’s past hundred years.
The scene always brought a smile to her face—a smile that faded when she realized that Gwyneth had caught up with her and was back to checking off items on her ever-present clipboard. “We’re having bear problems in the trash again.”
“What? After you authorized the purchase of the correct boxes with the suggested latches that the bears can’t get into?” Lily silently predicted that her sister would miss the sarcasm.
“Yes, but now the bears aren’t the only ones who can’t get into the trash. Our guests can’t, either, and they don’t understand that we actually get a lot of bears waking up all winter long. So now the bears are simply hanging out by the bins, waiting for the guests to leave the trash on the ground beside the bins.”
Yep. No sense of humor at all. “I’ve already ordered more Do Not Feed The Bears Or Else Lose Your Life signs, along with better directions for getting into the trash bins. It’s not rocket science, so I’m sure our guests will figure it out with the help of the extra pictures.”
Gwyneth’s mouth tightened. “Also, it’s end of month. The payables and receivables need to be—”
“Right. I’ve got a calendar.”
“Okay, but also there’s the—”
“Good Lord.” Lily tipped her head back to take in the huge wood beams running the length of the large lodge that she’d been walking through all of her life. Then she turned to her sister. “Look at me, Gwyneth. Do I look like I give a crap that you’re chasing after me and listing all my responsibilities, as if I was a five-year-old?”
Gwyneth’s lips all but disappeared now. “No. No, you don’t.”
“Good. So maybe you could try not to give a crap if once in a while I do things my way. What do you think?”
Gwyneth slowly let the clipboard down to her side. “I’m not trying to nag. I just want to see Bay Moon under control.”
Bay Moon Resort was a big, fancy name for a place that wasn’t really big or fancy but just right. They had fifteen guest rooms, a full-service cafeteria, a bar, a gift shop and a ski-rental shop. They also had a reputation for being one hell of a gathering spot, attracting so many repeat visitors on their mountain and in their lodge every year that getting into the place had become tough enough for the Lake Tahoe brochures to give them the coveted “exclusive” title.
Lily didn’t think of the place as exclusive so much as…home. Gwyneth didn’t feel the same way, nor did their middle sister, Sara. That’s because Gwyneth and Sara had lived with their parents in town while Lily, the problem child, had been sent here after a series of “unfortunate incidents” involving some admittedly bad choices on her part. She’d come to Grandma and Grandpa’s resort at age sixteen, as slave labor for “straightening out.”
And boy howdy, how she’d gotten straightened out. It hadn’t been her grandpa’s lightning temper or her grandma’s lectures, either, though both had probably contributed. It had been the mountain itself that gave her a sense of peace and the strength to just be herself. “Bay Moon is completely under control.” She stopped before the huge double wooden doors that would lead her into the glorious Sierra winter and right to the ski lifts that were her own personal wonderland. Before she’d even graduated high school, she’d been an emergency medical technician and certified professional ski patroller—nothing but a disguise on her part, really, one that had allowed her to work as ski patrol on the slopes she loved with all her heart.
Until she’d been given the general manager position.
She was still an EMT, still a certified patroller, only now things were different, more complicated, and she didn’t get out as often as she’d like. In fact, she hardly got out at all.
“Lily Rose, I’m trying to talk to you.”
“No, you’re trying to drive me crazy.” She pressed her temples to keep her brains from exploding. “And you’re doing a fine job, too. I’m asking you to back off.”
“How can I do that? If I didn’t stand on top of you, you wouldn’t get anything done.”
Lily gaped at that. Gwyneth still, after all this time, truly believed it was the nagging that made Lily tick. She could tear her hair out over that, but the truth was, there had been a time when she’d have needed someone on top of her. She’d sneaked out regularly. She’d pulled pranks, such as running the snowmaking machines in July or filling the water tap in the cafeteria with green food coloring, freaking out guests and employees alike. She’d even stolen a vehicle—if you could call it stealing to borrow a snowcat to go four-wheeling beneath a midnight moon…
She’d been a handful, no doubt, but damn it, she’d paid the price. Her family never looked at her and saw a grown-up—even now, they still saw her as that wild child.
She could deal with that. She was dealing with that. “You know I’ve been running this place since Grandma died last year, and without any major snafus.”
Gwyneth crossed her arms. “You say that as though you’ve never screwed up.”
“Right.” Lily had to laugh. “How could I deny it when we both know you remember each and every long-ago transgression?”
Gwyneth sighed. “This isn’t about your past. Wild or otherwise.”
The hell it wasn’t. But she absolutely didn’t want to get her sister going on the subject because it usually took Gwyneth a good long time to list every single indiscretion of Lily’s errant youth. Far too long to be standing still on a rocking January morning when a foot of fresh powder was calling her name. “Tell you what. Let’s call a truce.”
“A truce?”
“Yes. I’m sorry Grandma left Bay Moon to me and not you, and you’re sorry you’re uptight and anal.”
“But you’re not sorry Grandma left Bay Moon to you when she died last year.”
“Okay, you caught me.” She smiled, but Gwyneth did not, making her sigh. “Look, this place is small and perfect the way it is, and Grandma knew I’d keep it this way. That’s all. I’m doing this for her, for her memory.”
Gwyneth drew herself up to her full height of five foot two, the same as Lily. The resemblance between them was considerable. Both had unmanageable, untamable, wavy light brown hair, matching light brown eyes and full mouths that looked great in lipstick.
But only Lily had a ready smile.
Gwyneth’s mouth was turned down in a frown, as usual. “I wouldn’t have gone against her wishes.”
“I think you wouldn’t mean to, but you’d have found a way to justify it. The ski hill’s already at capacity on most weekends and our day lodge can’t handle any more than that. You would need to build another lodge, and then you would want more rooms…It would never end. We’d become one of those big, impersonal places I hate.”
“I’m not a bad person, Lily Rose.”
Lily had to grin at that. “Bad is relative.”
“As you would know.”
“Absolutely. And by the way, there’s nothing wrong with being bad once in a while.”
Her sister sighed the sigh of a martyr. “I can’t reason with you, you don’t have normal reasoning. And all I’ve ever said about Bay Moon is that with a little expansion—”
“We’d make a killing,” Lily finished for her. “That would be great, but it’d turn into something that Bay Moon was never intended to be.” She was adamant on this. When she’d first been dumped here by her at-their-wits’-end parents, she’d had all rights rudely revoked. No phone, no TV, no car, no friends and especially no boys. She’d been forced to serve the guests and worked the shop, the cafeteria and the lifts, only getting to ski or board as often as she could sneak out.
As a result, no one knew better than she that the best part of Bay Moon was its size and charm. Like the fictional Cheers bar, everyone here knew everyone’s name, their likes and dislikes. Expanding would turn it into another Park City or Vail, where no one knew anyone and it was all about fashion and who the celebrity guests were. That simply was not going to happen. “Grandma knew what you and Sara wanted to do with this place. Just as she knew that as the older, responsible granddaughters, you two were the logical choices to inherit. But the fact is, she left it all to me.” A burden she’d neither coveted nor asked for. Hell, she’d have been happy working ski patrol the rest of her life.
“Yes, she left it all to you,” Gwyneth said. “Even though you’d never held a business or finance position, didn’t balance your own checkbook and had never had so much as a single lasting relationship in your life.”
“And what do relationships have to do with anything?”
“Shows a lack of ability to commit, Lily.”
No, it showed a lack of willingness to commit—a direct result of her bossy, demanding family. Love was a burden, Lily had long ago decided, and an unwelcome one. “Okay, listen. Let’s save my failings for another time. Maybe Thanksgiving, when everyone can join in on the fun. For now, we have jobs, good ones. We make extremely good livings just the way things are.”
“Yes.” Gwyneth dropped her gaze over Lily’s ski-patrol attire. “And I see you’re going to be earning yours screwing off all day.”
She’d already put in two hours at her desk, but hell if she’d defend herself. It didn’t seem to matter what she said to Gwyneth, or how often she said it—her sister just refused to see the hours Lily was spending chained to her desk, the paperwork she was shoveling her way through or the results. Fine. She was done arguing. “Ski patrol is hardly screwing off.”
“We have people for that.”
“Never enough. Safety first,” she said, imitating her grandma’s mantra with a smile, refusing to be baited into admitting that while she loved this resort, the day-to-day running of it had been infringing on her enjoyment of the mountain for some time. Actually, it was sucking the soul right out of her.
“If you’d only listen to reason,” Gwyneth said coolly.
“I don’t have normal reasoning, remember?”
With a frustrated growl, Gwyneth whirled on her heels. “I’ll be in my office.”
No doubt terrorizing Carrie, their shared assistant, as she micromanaged the lot of them.
God, Lily missed her grandma with a physical ache. She missed the simple understanding. Her grandfather had been gone much longer and she missed him, too. Her parents weren’t gone, just not around. Chin up, she pushed open the doors, sucked in the brisk twenty-degree air and stepped down the three wide stone steps to take in the glory around her.
Towering forests of pines heavy with snow, and steep, rocky valleys watched over by the awesome Sierras…it was an amazing celebration of contrasts, she thought, her breath crystallizing in front of her face. With a smile, she dropped her board to the snow and buckled a foot into her binding. The air was cold enough to burn her lungs as she inhaled.
She wasn’t on the schedule to patrol today, just on call. She’d only put on her ski-patrol jacket to get past any siblings, and—with the exception of that little run-in with Gwyneth just now—her plan had worked. She was free.
And free was just what the doctor ordered.
She pushed off and headed down a small incline directly toward Sierra Gulch, the quad lift that would take her to midmountain. From there, she’d get on Upper Way, yet another lift, to the top of the mountain this time. And from there, she’d take whichever run caught her fancy.
She checked in on her walkie-talkie to patrol base. Danny, a patroller, told her to have fun. Not a problem.
It was barely eight-fifteen, and the chairs officially didn’t run until eight-thirty, so there wasn’t much of a line yet. With her jacket, and the white cross on the back denoting her as ski patrol, she was entitled to move ahead of everyone else, but she didn’t. Unless there was an emergency, she didn’t mind waiting in the lines, visiting with the people on what she considered “her” mountain.
She moved in behind a couple and their two young children. Another skier came up on her right. Craning her head intending to say hello, she felt a sudden jolt right down to her toes.
The man who’d caused the jolt smiled at her. And whoa, baby, but the way he did caused a rush of blood through her veins more thrilling than any first run on the slopes could give her.
Before she could return the smile, she was jostled from behind, and might have fallen flat on her face but for the man with the brain-cell-melting smile on her right. His gloved hand settled on her arm, holding her steady. Grinning her thanks, she used the moment to take a good look at him, at the dark, wavy hair that called to a woman’s fingers, at the complexion that suggested both a tan and an Italian heritage and at the wide, firm mouth that immediately brought to mind a long night of hot sin.
She couldn’t see the eyes behind his mirrored Oakleys, darn it, but at her lengthy perusal, he arched a slow brow. His smile became just a little heated, and in his easy stance she detected an edge, an aura of danger, a delicious, spine-tingling shiver of attitude.
God, she loved a fellow rebel.
And then there was his physique—all hard length and sleek power. His lightweight black jacket fit snugly to his broad shoulders and chest, loosely at the waist. His cargo ski pants were loose, too, but in no way hid the effect of his long legs. Here was a man who kept his body in prime condition—possibly an athlete.
Yum.
“Single?” he asked as the line shifted closer to the lift.
She knew he was asking if she was single for the lift, but she answered for both that and her personal life. “Very.”
He smiled again, and together they moved to the front of the lift. The operator was Eric, a twenty-five-year-old ski bum who’d been running lifts for seven years now. He gave her the thumbs-up sign. “Drop Off, dudette.”
“That’s where I’m heading now.” She couldn’t wait to have the icy wind in her face, the feel of the slope beneath her.
“Drop Off?” the magnificent male specimen next to her asked as they sat on their chair, swinging into the air over a popular intermediate run called Calamity Alley.
The snow looked like endless yards of corduroy, thanks to the grooming crew working nights on the snowcats. “Drop Off is a run on the back side, off the north cornice,” she said.
“Sounds like a good place to start.”
“Oh, no,” she said with a laugh. “It’s a horrible place to start. It’s a double-diamond run, expert only.”
And the Sierras had been dumped on last night, making it all the more challenging. A blanket of fresh white powder lay as far as the eye could see, coating the trees on either side of the runs below like stoically swaying hundred-foot-high ghosts. Lily’s adrenaline began to pump. She lived for powder days. Lived to huck herself off Drop Off, a two-and-a-half-mile run with a wicked three-thousand-foot vertical drop.
The man next to her pushed up his sunglasses, showing his eyes for the first time. Melting chocolate, was her first thought, and good Lord, but she was suddenly starving for some. “Double diamond?” he repeated.
“Yes. Have you been here before?”
He shifted his broad shoulders forward to adjust his narrow backpack to be more comfortable between his spine and the chair. “No.”
“But you have skied before,” she guessed, as evidenced by his ease getting on the lift.
“I do all right.”
He certainly looked all right. More than. And yet, just because he did, didn’t mean he was a good skier. She’d actually discovered that the more good-looking someone was, the less skill they required to get through life, skiing included.
Far too many times she’d been pulled in by a pretty face only to discover that all the expensive gear was merely a front. An illusion. Not that it had stopped her from enjoying said pretty face, but she understood and appreciated the fine art of one-night standing and happened to be extremely selective. It’d been a while since she’d indulged, but suddenly, looking into eyes the color of expensive, dark, rich mocha, she decided she was due.
Past due.
But whether she slept with him or not, she wouldn’t have any casualties on her conscience. If this hunk of amazing flesh couldn’t ski, she’d happily point him in the direction of the bunny slopes and go on her merry powder way. “I’ll get you a map at the top so you can find the right runs for you.”
“Thank you,” he said, sounding amused. “But I can figure it out.”
A bunch of loud catcalls and woo-hoos burst in the air. The four guys on the lift behind them had gotten a nice look at Calamity Alley, smooth and freshly groomed. They were young and exuberant, brimming with an unmitigated joy that was contagious enough to make Lily smile.
The devastating hottie next to her had shifted to look, too, putting an arm up along the back of the chair to do so. The material of his gear crinkled, and through the icy morning came the scent of his soap, his shampoo…and more. Clean, pure male, she thought with an inhale that had her nostrils quivering.
His eyes met hers, first with humor—he’d caught her sniffing him!—and then with an answering crackle of awareness and attraction. She just knew that he was thinking stuff, all sorts of wicked, unspeakable, bad-boy stuff, and suddenly the morning chill dissipated. She didn’t look away, she couldn’t, and neither did he. The moment stretched out, sizzling in intensity.
Far beneath them, a lone skier took the mountain in a series of long S-turns. She shifted her attention downward, nearly quivering, though now she wasn’t sure it was just the need to follow the fall line on her own freshly waxed board that had her senses on full alert.
“You get down there a lot, I take it, since you’re a local.” He nodded to her ski-patrol jacket.
“Born and bred.”
“You’ve been boarding a long time, then.”
And skiing, too. Her grandpa had put her on a board at the tender age of two. She’d been a holy terror ever since, as any living member of her family could attest to. “How about you? Where are you from?”
“Ohio.”
“Long way from home.” She loved hearing their guests’ stories. Plus, she just loved his voice, low and just a little husky. “So what brings you here, besides the wonderful resort and the fact we have the best skiing on the planet?”
“My partner gave me a week out here. Said I needed a vacation.”
“Wow. Nice partner.”
Before she could ask more, or what he did for a living, they were at the top of the lift. They got off together and skied forward to Upper Way, which would deposit them at the top of the world—or what felt like it at 11,150 feet. They got on with two boarders, who managed to get between her and her beautiful stranger, and this time there was little talk and lots of awe as they all took in the stunning Sierras in full winter splendor.
When they finally reached the top, Lily stopped to wave to the lift operator and pulled her sunglasses out from inside her jacket.
The two boarders quickly vanished down the front of Surprise, a lovely, groomed intermediate run that would eventually take them back to the midmountain lift. Her mysterious rebel had shifted forward, meanwhile, to read the large billboard map that exhibited all the runs. A dry-erase board beneath it listed which of them had been groomed and their conditions. He bent to tighten his boots—which gave her the chance to notice that his butt was as extremely fine as the rest of him—then he straightened and pushed off, heading toward the back side and Drop Off.
“Hey,” she called out, but it was too late. “Damn it.” She went after him. At the lip of the run, she hastily bent and locked her other foot into her binding. He’d already begun his descent, and as she watched, her mouth fell open. He’d said he was an “all right” skier, but the man was beyond anything even close to all right. In fact, he moved like poetry in motion, perfectly in sync with the fall line of the mountain. Was that ever sexy.
With a grin of anticipation and lust and pure joy, she threw herself off the edge of her world, flying down the mountain after him.
2
LILY PASSED HER HOT MAN In Black, waving as she swooshed on by. The beauty of Drop Off was its combination of sheer length and vertical drop, never failing to give her a roller-coaster, stomach-to-her-toes feeling—but today the run had an extra edge to it, courtesy of her sizzling audience.
The trees on either side of the sharp, creviced run blurred as her eyes watered with the icy morning chill. Still she pushed harder, happily losing herself in speed and adrenaline.
Halfway down, she leaped into a quick stop and, as she often liked to do, turned to look back up at the cliff she’d just taken. Breath coming in quick, short pants, she swiped at her glasses to rid them of the flakes of powder blocking her view.
He skied up beside her, stopping close enough to spray her with snow. “Still worried about me?”
She shot him a droll look. “You failed to mention you were expert.”
He let out a slow grin. “You failed to ask.”
True.
“Race to the bottom?” he asked casually.
The bad girl in her screamed, Oh, yes! But the sensible ski patroller in her demurred. “Racing on a hill not denoted for such things isn’t wise.”
He laughed, a sound that scraped low in her belly. “And here I thought you were so tough.”
She stared into his teasing eyes and nearly drowned in the dark orbs. “Tough and stupid aren’t synonyms.”
“We both know you’re dying to race me.” Leaning in close, he whispered, “I dare you.”
He had no way of knowing that she loved a good dare, that she’d never turned one down in her life. Not in second grade, when Tony Villa had dared her to put superglue on their teacher’s chair. Not in sixth grade, when Eric Orlando had dared her to pull down her pants and moon the baseball team. Even though a dare had led her right down the wrong path many, many more times than she could count she’d long ago given up fighting the lust for life that throbbed in her veins. She looked around to make sure they were alone. “I’ll show you �tough.’”
His grin was slow and wicked. “Are we on, then?”
“You bet your sweet ass.” With no one in sight, making the dare okay in her books, she blew him a little kiss, then leaped forward, going balls out, straight down the mountain. She could hear him on her tail, and then he was right next to her, and for long moments they stayed like that, side by side, the swooshing of the snow beneath his skis and her board a wonderful sound.
Finally she edged free just a little and eyeballed the next sharp turn. I can take him right here, I can pull ahead—
Her walkie-talkie chirped, and with a grand sigh for what might have been, she stopped short and answered the call. “Go ahead,” she said to base.
“Skier disappeared out-of-bounds, on the north face between Surprise and Drop Off. Friends say he has no business being out-of-bounds, and he’s not responding to shout-outs. Danny said you’re already up there.”
“I’m on Drop Off. I’ll ski between the trees to get over there, see if I can see him.”
“Chris is on his way, too.”
Chris had her old, beloved position of Patrol Director, and loved the mountain as much as she did. He, too, was only on call today, but undoubtedly hadn’t been able to resist the fresh snow any more than she had. She clipped the radio back onto her belt and eyed the trees off to her right, knowing she could board through the tightly growing pines and come out just above the area where the skier had gone out-of-bounds. Or so she hoped. She turned to go, then remembered. She wasn’t alone. She eyed her perfect stranger’s long, most excellent form.
“You think he’s lost?”
“Or down,” she said. “And hurt.”
“And so off you go.”
“Yeah. Sorry about the race. Maybe we can give it another shot later.”
He nodded, and with a good amount of regret, Lily took off through the trees, which in itself was an adventure on a board with a foot of fresh powder. With the pines packed so close to each other and this part of the mountain so incredibly steep, even experienced skiers ran into serious trouble here.
But because she knew the entire hill like the back of her hand, she came out of the trees just above the out-of-bounds area on the north face, which consisted of a steep cliff overlooking a valley of rough, unskiable terrain. Despite that and the clear boundary markers, there were still a few yahoos every year who tried to ski out this way.
Traversing along the edge a little bit, she indeed found a set of tracks. Someone had skied down right here and gone off the edge. She stared at the sign that read Unpatrolled Beyond This Point, Out-Of-Bounds Territory and shook her head. “Idiot,” she muttered. She used her walkie-talkie to check in with base and was clipping it back to her belt when she heard a skier coming. Puzzled, she turned to face Sexy Man In Black.
“I followed your track.” He stood with ease on his skis, white powder dusting halfway up his long legs. “You going down here?”
“Yeah.”
His smile was gone, replaced by an intensity that took her breath every bit as much as his good humor had. “Be safe.”
“You, too. Careful getting out of here.” She pushed off.
The terrain was even steeper than Drop Off had been, the way uneven, with the double threat of sheer rock and unmarked cliffs, not to mention the possibility of an avalanche. Granted, there’d been a patrolling team out at five this morning, checking on that very threat, but you couldn’t be too careful.
Or too careless. This area was unpatrolled for a good reason, and as she maneuvered her way along, following the tracks of the missing skier, she cursed him for putting even more people in jeopardy with his foolishness.
She pulled up short just before a heart-stopping cliff, gratified to see the tracks ahead veer off to the left. Again, she pulled out her walkie-talkie and verified with base that she was in the correct vicinity, had his tracks in sight and that, so far, he hadn’t fallen down the cliff. At least not this one.
“I think I see him.”
Jerking in surprise, she once again turned and met a dark, chocolate gaze. “What the hell are you doing following me?”
“Helping,” he said simply.
He was an even better skier than she’d thought if he’d gotten here without a problem. “Look, this is crazy stuff. It’s one thing for me to put myself on the line to find a thoughtless idiot, but you don’t need to or have to. Now, seriously, stop. Stay. I don’t want to have to worry about you, too.”
“I’m SAR,” he said, and when she just stared at him, he clarified, “Search and Rescue.”
“I know what SAR means.” Hmm. She didn’t have time to analyze the little skip in her pulse, nor did she know what to make of him, a man clearly as insane as she was.
“I can help,” he said.
Lily was very used to the people in her world trying to rein her in, hold her back, telling her she couldn’t, she shouldn’t, constantly reminding her how much of a screwup she’d been all her life—which, perversely, always made her want to step over the proverbial line. Or erase it.
But now, for the first time ever, she had the urge to rein someone in, to tell them they couldn’t, they shouldn’t, and she had to admit that it was majorly unnerving. She wanted to grab him, make him wait, make sure that he didn’t get hurt, that he stayed safe. Was that how her family felt? “Okay, so you’re trained, but this is my rescue—”
“There.” He pointed, then pushed past her to actually beat her to the rescue. Only about twenty-five yards straight down the vertical slope, a skier sat on a rock, looking a little sheepish as he lifted one foot, minus the ski he’d clearly lost into the vast valley below.
With one last sigh, Lily followed.
THE RESCUE WENT WELL, THE lecture given, the reports filled out, and before Lily knew it, the whole incident was over.
And her mystery man was gone.
She’d never even learned his name. Her pride chafed a little at that, and the fact that apparently he hadn’t felt the need to learn hers, even though he’d been the one to use the small first-aid kit in her fanny pack to treat a wound on the lost skier’s knee. He’d chatted with the young punk, joking about how he’d been given this trip while at a bachelor party for his best friend and about how much easier skiing was than rappelling out of helicopters, or flying them, which he apparently did on a daily basis in his SAR duties.
Watching him work had been an interesting experience. He had such an easygoing confidence and an authority that didn’t grate or grind on her nerves. That had been a first.
Still, she knew she hadn’t imagined the scorching heat in his eyes every time he’d looked at her, so if he was stupid enough to let her go, well, then, he could just damn well suffer for it.
Back in her office, she worked for several hours solid on her least favorite chore—paperwork. Even a small resort like Bay Moon generated mountains of it, all of which had to be done, though she’d have preferred to be outside on the real mountain. Trying not to resent it, she approved the budget for the ski shop’s fall stock, looked over Sara’s guest-services report and eyed the accounting reports for Gwyneth. Ugh.
Finally, she glanced at the clock. Three o’clock. A good time for the lunch she’d never had, she figured, and popped out of her office.
“You going out for a bite?” Carrie asked. She was a local, like Lily, who’d spent years enjoying her ultimate-ski-bunny status, until two years ago when she’d fallen on the slopes and tweaked her lower back. Now she occasionally skied a beginner slope, but mostly worked in the office, enjoying her great view, with an unbelievably good attitude.
If Lily had lost her ability to board or ski, she wouldn’t have been nearly so accepting. “Yeah, I’m going out.”
Carrie grinned. “Let me guess—you’re going to the midlodge for a burger.”
She was going to the midlodge, all right, but she wouldn’t be stopping for a burger. She’d be getting on yet another lift to get to the top of the hill for a few runs before they closed. “Mmm…maybe.”
“It’s snowing again.”
“Since when has that ever been a deterrent?” But she did dodge back into her office to trade her sunglasses for her goggles, grabbing them off their perch on her desk lamp.
Carrie’s laugh rang out as Lily left. “Ski one for me, would you?”
“You got it.” The lodge was full of skiers and boarders, all talking, some eating, and by the looks of it, everyone enjoying themselves. Lily found herself smiling as she walked through and went outside. Small flakes drifted lazily down as she got on the lift.
She’d no sooner gotten off at midmountain when she came across a fight between two boarders who turned out to be identical-twin fools. They were fighting over which run to take, and had gathered an audience. Lily swore, tossed aside her board and leaped in, pushing them apart, but not before she took an elbow to her chin, making her see stars. “You,” she growled, jabbing one in the chest. They were about twenty years old, lanky and looking a little worse for the fight in the snow. “You okay?”
He touched a growing bruise under his eye and glared at his twin. “Yeah.”
“That’s too bad,” she said, then whirled when his brother snickered. “Listen carefully. Go down Calamity Alley, go around the lodge, not through, and straight to your car.”
“Calamity Alley,” he whined. “That’s nothing but a bunny hill.”
She swiped her finger over his season pass hanging around his neck. “Go, or lose this.”
“Hey, I paid good money for that!” He pulled free. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
Her chin throbbed, and every moment that passed meant less time on the slopes before she had to go back inside. “See this jacket? It means I can tell you whatever I want.” She gestured down the hill. “Don’t come back today.” She turned to his brother. “And you. Go down Abby’s Lane, which runs parallel to Calamity Alley. Same rules. Around the lodge, not through, and don’t come back today or you’ll lose your season pass.”
A long, tense moment passed while they shot her matching sullen looks. With a few of their buddies egging them on behind her, she turned in a circle in the lightly falling snow, hand on her walkie-talkie, wondering if she’d have to call for backup, which would just really top it for her.
Then a man pushed his way through the small crowd to stand beside her, and her heart hit her throat.
Her Sexy Man In Black.
He’d replaced his sunglasses with goggles, as well, but other than that, looked the same. Which was to say, knee-knockingly good. He took in the situation with one quick, sweeping gaze, then settled that gaze on her, silently offering support while letting her remain in charge.
She eyed the twins again, but after a minute they both huffed out a breath. “It’s snowing anyway,” one muttered, and they went their separate ways with matching grumbles. Only then did she let herself relax as her gaze once again collided with a dark, melting-chocolate one.
“Fun stuff,” he said.
“Yeah. Sometimes it’s Idiot Central around here.”
He flashed a devastating grin that revved her engines. “You handled it.”
Yeah, she had, but that he’d noticed and given her credit for it made her take a good long second look at him. And a third. “You having a good day?”
“Oh, yeah. And seeing you again is a nice bonus, too.”
She bent to tighten the laces on her boots, giving herself a moment because the man seriously scrambled her brain, even more so now that she knew he wasn’t just an arresting face and hot bod. He had brains to go with both. And that he worked in SAR just upped the gotta-have-him factor because there was nothing, absolutely nothing, hotter than a guy capable of putting his life on the line to rescue another.
She both felt and heard him ski closer, his edges scraping into the groomed snow at his short stop. When she straightened, he was right there, facing the opposite direction to her, skis parallel to her board. Close enough to touch.
He took off his right glove. Reaching out, his jacket crinkling as it shifted over his broad shoulders, he touched her bruised chin.
“I’m okay,” she said.
He simply pulled her shaded goggles off her face.
“What?” she asked, squinting through the falling snow.
“I wanted to see your eyes.”
Hmm. Figuring turnabout was fair play, she tugged his goggles off, as well.
The air crackled as they looked at each other. Then he rocked back on his heels and let out a breath. “I thought maybe I’d imagined it.”
“Imagined…?”
Her jacket was unzipped to her breastbone, with only a thermal silk scoop-neck undershirt beneath. With a light touch, he put his bare finger to the pulse racing at the base of her throat. “This.”
3
ALL LILY COULD HEAR WAS the thump, thump, thumping of her heart beating too fast in her ears. Her clothes felt too tight—or maybe that was her own skin. A heavy anticipation filled the cold air and she tried to tell herself it was something she’d felt often. Had acted on often.
But today, with this man, it felt startlingly, shockingly different.
Again he ran the pad of his finger over her pulse.
She took some comfort in the fact his own, beating at his throat, was no more steady than hers. “This…what?” she asked.
Something flashed in his eyes. Impatience? “I’m not sure I can put it into words without getting too graphic.”
Her body let out a shiver, and honest to God, her knees wobbled. “I see.” At least her voice was steady. “Does this happen to you often?”
“No. You?”
Feeling as if she could dive into his eyes and happily drown? Wanting to rip her clothes off and take his hands and put them on her body, sure she would die if he didn’t hurry? “No,” she managed. “Not often.”
His gaze danced over her, from her boots to her legs, her body, her helmet, beneath which her hair was contained in a scrunchie at her shoulder blades. Finally, he met her eyes.
She knew she was nothing that special or extraordinary, and yet when he just kept looking his fill, she found herself squirming. “What?”
Now he stroked that finger carefully over her jaw. “At the rescue this morning, I heard the other patrollers refer to you as Slim, but that’s not your name.”
“No. It’s Lily Harmon.”
“Logan White.” His hand moved from her jaw around to the nape of her neck, where he tugged lightly, playfully, on her ponytail. “You’ve had a long day already, Lily Harmon.”
“And yet, given all I have left to do, it’s only just begun.”
“An overachiever?”
She laughed. Wouldn’t her sisters get a kick out of that accusation? “Not quite.” His shoulders blocked her view of anything but him, something she found she didn’t mind in the least.
“Are you still on duty?” he asked.
“I never really was when it comes to ski patrol today, I’m only on call. I…uh, work in the lodge.” I own it. A fact she usually kept to herself because it changed people’s perceptions, which in turn pissed her off. “I’m on a late lunch break.”
“That works.”
Anticipation quivered through her veins as the snow continued to fall lightly. She thought of all the things they could do on the rest of her break, none of which involved eating. At least not food. “Works for what exactly?”
“Well, we never finished our little run on Drop Off. You still think you can beat me?”
She stared at him, then had to laugh. A race on the hill. Not ripping off their clothes. Right. “Oh, I know I can beat you.”
His eyes flashed with the challenge and that in turn set off a little chain reaction of excitement within her. “Let’s go,” she said.
They took the lift, then made their way to the top of the run and looked down at the sharp incline. There were only a few skiers scattered on it, and they were moving quickly out of sight.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah.” She buckled herself into her binding. “Prepare to lose.”
He laughed, a low, sexy sound she could grow extremely attached to. “We’ll see about that—”
She didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence before she pushed off. Cheating? Only slightly. Besides, she’d seen him ski now, and truthfully, she wasn’t all that positive she actually could beat him, unless she caught him by surprise in some way.
As the wind whistled past her, the thrill of the run settled in and her heart started pumping in a staccato beat. He caught up, and for a while they were neck and neck in the falling snow, the only sound being the swoosh, swoosh of their equipment pushing at the powder snow.
Evenly matched, she thought with a rush. They were shockingly evenly matched.
Would they be so evenly matched in bed?
Just as the errant thought entered her head, a lone skier suddenly vaulted into action ahead of them, not looking, moving too quickly and recklessly on the trail as it narrowed to a width that allowed for only one person safely at a time. Lily edged ahead of Logan and slowed them both down as she realized the other skier was completely, totally, out of control going into the turn. Even as she thought it, he skidded and began to slide toward the sharp drop-off. “Hey!” she called. “Slow down!”
The skier jerked at her voice and, clearly realizing he wasn’t going to make the turn, went down in a tumble on his skis rather than fall over the cliff.
Lily began to board around him, planning on getting below him to stop and check that he was okay. But he struggled to get up, all scrambled arms and legs, managing to hook her with his pole as she went into her stop, tripping her into a dive.
She felt herself heading, airborne, directly toward the edge and the falling that waited past it, but then she was landing hard, in a tangle of limbs that weren’t her own.
Logan. He sat up, quickly reaching for her. “You okay?”
No, she was not. She’d fallen. Fallen. She never fell, damn it. She spit out a mouthful of snow and looked around, realizing he’d taken her down purposely, catching her inches from the cliff. Her stomach wobbled at the damage the rocks might have done to her body if he hadn’t been so quick-thinking on his skis. Before she could stand, he wrapped his fingers around her arm and held her still. “That was a helluva dive. Make sure you’re okay first.”
The only thing hurting was her pride, and she pulled free. “I’m fine.” She looked over her shoulder in time to catch the out-of-control skier bolt down the mountain, without so much as a backward look.
“Nice,” Logan said drily.
“Most are.” She stood and looked down at her left boot, no longer buckled onto her board. Great. “I broke the binding.” Snapped it right off, actually, which was nothing her screwdriver could fix. The prospect of having to walk down the damn mountain only added insult to injury.
“Hang on.” Logan shrugged out of his backpack and opened it, burrowing through the contents.
“A roll of duct tape?” she asked incredulously when he held it up.
“Watch.” Then he proceeded to pull a total MacGyver, using the tape to rig the board’s binding to hold her boot. “No more hotshot stuff,” he warned, stepping back so that she could buckle herself in. “Don’t want to push it.”
She stood there brushing herself off, torn between annoyance and a telling pain in her left knee. It was an old injury, and surgery, twice, had repaired it, but damn if it didn’t suddenly ache like a son of a bitch.
“Let’s take a minute,” he said, watching her closely.
Hating the weakness, she forced a smile. “Why, are you tired?”
“Lily—”
The walkie-talkie at her hip went off, and anything the two of them might have said or done was put on hold as Sara’s voice filled the air. She was the middle sister, two years younger than Gwyneth. Instead of cold, cynical and bossy, she was mothering, nosy and bossy. “Lily Rose, I’m at your desk, and you’re not here.”
“Amazing powers of deduction,” Lily muttered.
“Lily Rose? Can you hear me?”
She might be a badass to the rest of the world, but to Sara and Gwyneth, she was the eternal baby sister. “What’s up?”
“You need a maid. My God, your desk is a disaster.”
“Thanks. I’ll be down in a few,” she said into the walkie-talkie.
Less than five seconds later, her cell phone rang. She didn’t have to look to see it was Sara. “What now?” she said when she’d hit speakerphone rather than take off her helmet so that she could hear.
“I just wanted to tell you something.” Sara spoke with slow care, a sure sign she was miffed. “Two things. Aunt Debbie showed up earlier. She skied a while and now wants a suite.”
“Well, you’re guest services. Check with your reservations desk, but I’m sure both our suites are taken this week.”
“They are. She’s making a stink, saying she told you to clear one for her.”
Aunt Debbie was their mother’s younger sister, their grandma’s “surprise,” a late-in-life baby, and was only a few years older than Gwyneth. A born diva, she lived in New York, but always came out to ski once a year or so, wearing the finest designer gear, bearing embarrassingly expensive gifts and smothering hugs. She’d spend the time hanging around the lodge looking rich and beautiful, always choosing some particular spectacular ski stud to hook up with for the week.
Certainly if Aunt Debbie had told Lily she’d planned on coming to ski this week, Lily would have remembered to take an Advil in advance. “Well, she didn’t. Just give her the best room you can come up with.”
“I will, but, sweetie, you really need to remember these things or ask for help if you need it.”
Lily banged the phone on her forehead. Talking to her sisters was like talking to two particularly impenetrable brick walls.
“Oh, and Gwyneth says an old friend is coming in tonight for a week’s stay with his brand-new Jeep.” There was laughter in Sara’s voice now. “And that you’re not to steal it, as is your habit with Jeeps.”
Instead of banging her head again, Lily tipped her head back and looked at the sky, into the snow falling out of it like angel drops. It’d been ten years since she’d been arrested for stealing a Jeep. “Didn’t you get the bulletin? I don’t steal new Jeeps. Only old ones.”
Sara chortled. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist.”
Lily disconnected. “Aren’t you funny.”
“Older sister?”
Lily tentatively flexed and bounced on her knee, testing. Not good. “Yeah. She hasn’t grasped the fact that I’m no longer a wild child and that stealing Dad’s precious Jeep Laredo to go smoke weed on Mole Hill just doesn’t hold the same appeal.”
Logan laughed and once again pulled off his backpack, unzipping it. “Ah, the fond memories of our stupid youths.”
Impressed that he didn’t ask her a million questions about her past, she watched him kneel in the snow and shift through his pack. “Granted,” she admitted. “I had more stupid moments than most.”
“Because you got caught?” He pulled out an elastic bandage.
“It wasn’t difficult that time. I forgot to set the emergency brake, and when I got out to sit on the cliffs to smoke and watch the moon, the truck rolled down the mountain.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “And now I’m that stupid kid forever, no matter how many years I put between me and my…indiscretions.”
“I take it you’re the baby of the family?”
“Unfortunately.” She eyed him as he came close once again, tossing the bandage up and down in his hand. “And you?”
“The oldest.”
“Ah.” She smiled. “So are you an impossible, cold, hard know-it-all?”
“Undoubtedly.”
Slowly she shook her head. “You might be impossible, and the know-it-all part remains to be seen, but I don’t buy the cold.”
He ignored that and nodded to her leg. “What’s with the knee?”
“See? Cold wouldn’t have even noticed.” She came clean when he didn’t give up an ounce of the intensity. “Ancient injury.”
Crouching before her in the snow, he pulled her Gore-Tex pants up to her thigh while she silently thanked herself for shaving that morning. Then he bent his dark head. His breath danced over her skin. With his index finger, he traced the six-inch scar that rounded her kneecap in a half circle. His finger was warm and callused.
“It’s old,” she said.
“Not that old. Want the wrap?”
What she wanted wrapped was his body around hers, but she wasn’t too stubborn to admit the bandage would give her the support she needed to get down the hill. “Please.”
Tipping his face up, he smiled at her in a way that suggested he knew accepting help from anyone went against the grain. Still holding her gaze, he tugged his gloves off with his teeth, an oddly erotic thing all in itself. Then he peeled her ski sock down.
She hissed.
He went still. “Hurt?”
“Your hands are cold.”
He flashed a grin. “Suck it up.” With efficiency, he wrapped her knee, then pulled her sock back up and her pant leg down over her boot. “You should soak it when we get back. Do employees get to use the hot tub?”
“Actually…” She stared down at him, into those amazing eyes. It was unusual, and it made no sense, but she wanted him to know the truth. She wanted him to know her. “I’m not quite an employee.”
He straightened, standing a good head taller than her. “No?”
“No. I, um…” She smiled wryly. “I own the resort. Inherited it, actually.”
He didn’t even blink. “So I’m taking it you get access to the hot tub.”
She stared at him, then laughed. Still no ridiculously invasive questions, not a single joke, none of the usual stuff that always so completely and totally irritated her when she revealed that she, a twenty-five-year-old punk, owned a ski resort.
“Can you board down with your knee?” he asked.
As her other option was lying in a litter while a pair of her patrollers took her down the mountain, she nodded. Though she went slower this time, he didn’t try to pass her or continue their race. Instead, he followed, presumably to help her if she needed it. And though she’d skied with plenty of men she’d planned on sleeping with over the years, she’d never felt so…aware of one as she was of Logan.
The slopes were filled with skiers heading down to the lodge on their last run of the day as the sun began to sink. Halfway back, her walkie-talkie chirped again. It was Chris this time, with a new emergency on the east side. A boarder had fallen out-of-bounds. He was uninjured but unable to climb back up the sheer rock to safety.
“Just shoot me now,” Lily muttered, then lifted an apologetic gaze to Logan. “Fun’s over. Again. I have patrollers on their way, but I’m going over to help.”
“Whoever you were talking to sounded worried.”
“It’s going to be a little tricky getting him back up. It’s getting dark. And where he went over is sheer rock, covered in two months' worth of ice, topped with some powder.”
“Avalanche waiting to happen.”
“You got it,” she said grimly. “There are signs making it out-of-bounds for exactly that reason.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“No.”
“I have ten years’ climbing experience.”
She let out a breath. He’d fixed her binding. With duct tape. He’d wrapped her knee when most wouldn’t have even known she’d been hurt. Mr. Safety and Security, she’d give him that, and yet he willingly threw himself into any risk.
Damn if that wasn’t unbearably sexy all by itself. “All right, fine. You’re hired. Let’s go, ace.”
“Okay, Lily Rose.”
She arched a brow. “Use my middle name again and you’ll be the one left out-of-bounds.”
His laughter rang out in the snow-filled air and made her smile.
4
LOGAN WATCHED LILY’S PETITE form glide down the steep incline in the snow, doing so far more purposefully and carefully than she had earlier. He wondered just how badly she’d hurt herself.
He could hear Wyatt now…You can take the man out of the SAR team but you can’t take the SAR team out of the man.
Yeah, yeah, sue him. After a lifetime of watching after his two younger siblings for his overworked father, and then working search and rescue, taking care of others was nothing but pure instinct for him.
Granted, she was tough as hell and damned up-front and practical to boot, and could undoubtedly take care of herself—but that didn’t stop him from wanting to make sure.
And then there was the searing heat that shot back and forth between them like a Ping-Pong ball with every glance, every word. She might not be the drop-dead beautiful ski bunny Wyatt had had in mind for him, but she had a secret sort of try-me smile and a way about her that was far more sensual than any woman he’d been with in a long time.
They got to the lift they needed to take and headed back up again. In less than ten minutes they were standing at the lip of another dizzy drop-off where their skier had fallen, with four other patrollers who were dealing with the victim’s freaked-out friends, all of whom were eventually convinced to go wait at the lodge. The patrollers had already determined that their victim, down the precipice about forty feet, wasn’t hurt. Now they were trying to figure out where the out-of-bounds signs had gone.
“Just this morning, three of them were spread right here across the cliff,” Lily said, baffled.
“They’re gone now.” One of the patrollers scratched his head. “Hard to blame the guy for getting into trouble when he didn’t know he was heading into it.”
“Oh, no. No excuses. Anyone in his right mind would know to stay off this cliff.” Lily shook her head. “But still, this looks bad.”
“Some stupid punk prank,” Chris said, setting up a strobe light to help them see in the growing dark. “Someone thought they were funny.”
“What do you think?” Lily asked. “Take him down from there, or back up on a rope?”
“Either way,” Chris said, “it’s going to be a tricky rescue.”
They knew what they were doing, Logan told himself as he stood there silently, but he itched to pitch in and help.
Another call came over the radio. Seemed the identical-twin troublemakers hadn’t followed Lily’s directions and were now fighting on the front lodge steps. Adding to the problem was the crowd of their buddies hooting and hollering and urging them on, and an increasingly aggressive crowd.
Looking royally pissed, Lily nodded for three of the crew to go down and handle it, leaving just her and Chris. The snow kept coming down, plus it wouldn’t be long before they’d need the lights—daylight was fading fast, already impeding vision. “I’ll go after this idiot,” she said, resigned.
“Skiing out from there will be tough going,” Chris said. “And we’d have to send a snowcat to pick you up, which’ll pull someone away from another post. We’re already short-staffed.”
“It’ll be a climb back up, then.” She began to gear up with the harness and ropes the others had left. “Can you set up some caution tape to close off this area until we find the signs?”
Watching her, Logan discovered he couldn’t sit back any longer. “Let me go down for him,” he said.
“Logan—”
“Your knee might give out on you on the way back up. I’ve done this a thousand times. More.”
“In the snow? On ice?”
“In the snow, on ice,” he assured her. Maybe not at this altitude, and not at a ski resort, but so what? He could do this, more safely than she could at the moment.
She looked at her patroller. “Chris, you should officially meet Logan. He’s SAR out of Ohio, a helicopter and rappelling expert. We can use his help, yes?”
“Are you kidding? Yes.”
“Hey!” came a faint cry from over the cliff. “You guys ever coming for me or what?”
Lily rolled her eyes at Chris, then leaned over the edge in a way that suggested a great ease with heights and an even greater confidence in herself. “Are you injured?”
“No! Just cold!”
“I’m coming.” She grabbed the ropes but her walkie-talkie chirped again, and at the news from Danny at base she swore softly. They had a kid on his last run of the day with a broken wrist on the bunny slope, leaving her team stretched thin and thinner. “Chris—”
“I can’t leave you alone, Slim.”
“I’ve got Logan.”
Logan moved in. “I’ll do whatever’s necessary.”
Chris agreed reluctantly and turned to Lily. “Rappel down to him, but risk the ski-out, since you don’t have enough manpower to pull you back up. Keep on the radio. I’ll send in a snowcat to pick you up at the bottom.”
“And then there were two,” Lily said to Logan when Chris had left.
“My knee’s good enough for what needs to be done.” She prepared to rappel over the edge. “Don’t let me fall.”
He looked at her in horror. “I won’t.”
She smiled. “That was a joke, Logan. Gotta lighten up some. After I’m safely down, send my board down, too, then maybe you could gather the ropes for me and shut off the light. I’ll ski the guy down to meet the cat.”
And with that, she was gone. Totally trusting, believing in him, confident in her own abilities to make this thing happen.
She had to be the most amazing woman he’d ever met in his entire life. But that thought would have to wait because he now had her hanging off a sheer, icy cliff in questionable weather, her life in his very hands.
How many times had he put his own life in his teammates’ hands and never given it another thought? Hundreds. Thousands. So he had no idea why his stomach had fallen to somewhere near his toes, with his heart in his throat, where it firmly remained until she signaled to him that she had reached the victim.
He sent down her board, then pulled up the ropes, gathering them so that he could ski with them looped over his shoulder. When he took another look over the edge, Lily and her rescue vic were already gone. Safe, he hoped, knowing they were moving down harsh, unwelcoming terrain not meant for humans.
Logan quickly taped off the area and shut down the light. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the growing twilight, and then began his own descent, on the regulated, patrolled slope closest to the rescue, stopping only half a minute later when an odd flicker of reflection came from the cluster of trees to his right. Skiing off the trail, about five feet in, between two tight trees, he found three signs.
Three “out of bounds” signs. He gathered them up, tucked them under his arm and, with the ropes still looped over his shoulder, headed down again, not stopping until he was at the lodge, standing in front of the first-aid cabin to its right, listening to the radio conversation between a patroller on a snowcat and Lily.
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