by E. J. Noyes
“Thanks.” I shrugged out of my jacket and unwound my scarf, hanging them both carefully.
Cate watched me as I toed out of my boots and used a foot to push them to the side where an assortment of shoes and boots were lying haphazardly. After a chaste brush of lips against my cheek, she murmured, “Follow me.”
It was a beautiful house, warm and open, and the interior architecture reminded me of my house back home, all stone and wood and high ceilings with exposed beams. Discomfort fluttered through my body. I made a conscious effort to push it aside by focusing on Cate walking in front of me. I didn’t want to think of my house. I didn’t want to think about the past.
Cate slid the pizza boxes onto the counter. “Can I get you something to drink? Beer? Wine? Something else?”
“Wine would be great, if you’re opening a bottle.”
“We’re on vacation.” Cate laughed, gesturing to a half-full glass of red near the sink. “There’s always a bottle open around here at night.”
Gemma and Tim rushed into the kitchen and straight to the fridge. They both said a smiling, “Chewbacca!” Clearly a planned greeting.
“Rey, Han Solo. Yo!” I gurgled a few incoherent Wookie noises for good measure.
They laughed and I made a mental note to lend Cate some DVDs so the kids could watch Star Wars while they were here. Cate pulled a wineglass down from the cabinet above the counter. “What on earth are you guys talking about?”
“Nerd stuff,” Gemma explained.
“Mmmm, clearly. Gem, Tim, this is your only Coke of the night, okay? Can you take dinner into the dining room please?”
The kids carried the boxes out, leaving us alone in the kitchen. Cate looked behind me then grasped my hip, yanking me forward to meld against her supple curves. Then her lips were on mine, soft and warm and oh so inviting. “I’ve been thinking about this all day,” she murmured.
“Me too.” Taking a loose fistful of her hair, I flicked my tongue along her lower lip, tasting her red wine kiss. Heat blossomed when Cate’s tongue came to meet mine. She had me pressed against the sink and while the kiss was fast becoming inappropriate for the location, I was too far gone to complain. Hands made their way under my shirt and almost unconsciously, I pushed my leg between hers.
Cate’s soft groan was cut short by obvious footsteps, and we pulled away from each other as Danielle poked her head around the doorway. She snorted. “Hey, teen make out session. Dinner’s ready to be inhaled. Phoebe’s declared she’s starving and apparently ‘needs to eat lots and get strong so she can go to the ’lympics like Aspen’.” She disappeared again, leaving soft laughter in her wake.
I turned back to Cate and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Have you been talking about me?”
“She asked to see what fast skiing was.” Cate’s hand slid to my ass. “And I may have showed her a video online. And I may have watched it a few times after she left.”
“I see.” The thought of Cate watching me in my old life was strangely unsettling. “Did she like the fast skiing?”
“She did. And I really like looking at you in that racing suit.” Cate kissed me again quickly then led me out of the kitchen and into the dining room.
Phoebe insisted I sit next to her for dinner but after a long contemplation, allowed Cate to sit on my other side. How kind. As Phoebe tugged on my hand to make me sit down, Danielle shot me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, she’s in that hero worship phase.”
I smiled. “It’s fine.” And it was.
Everyone else was engrossed in the comfortable conversation that passed between family and longtime friends. Then there was me and Phoebe. With an ear cocked to the discussion around me, I tried to eat dinner and answer her questions at the same time. Pheebs asked everything from how you stand up when you’re going fast on skis, to did I know she was starting first grade soon and why was there was something shiny on my nose?
When she told Danielle that she wanted a nose earring too, Danielle laughed. “Less talking and more eating, please.”
Cate’s hand against my knee caught my attention. Leaning over, her nose brushing my ear, she murmured, “You’re doomed now she knows you’re a captive audience.”
I pressed my lips together to stop myself laughing and reached for my wine. After I’d taken a sip, Melissa asked, “So how come you’re not skiing professionally anymore, Asp— Ow! Really, Cate? Kicking me under the table? Mature.”
I grinned at Cate and rubbed my hand over her thigh to reassure her. “Oh, well I heard there were three kids coming to Thredbo for the twenty-seventeen season. Thought I’d better give up my pro racing career so I could teach them.” I winked at Tim and Gemma. The table was silent for a few moments until the three adults started laughing.
Danielle picked up pieces of Phoebe’s dropped pizza, still chuckling. “Oh, you can come have dinner with us any time, Aspen.”
Cate’s hand slid into mine, her fingers interlacing. “I agree.”
By the time we’d watched some television, and played a weird board game called Carcassonne—which I lost, to Gemma’s teasing delight—it was nearly midnight. I said my good nights to the older two kids, and gathered my things to leave. “Thanks for inviting me ’round. I had a great time.”
Melissa leaned into Danielle’s side, smiling tiredly. “It was our pleasure. Maybe we can do it again soon.”
“Absolutely. Good night.”
Cate placed a hand on my back. “I’ll see you out.”
After I shrugged into my jacket, she took my scarf from the hook in the doorway, folded it in half and reached up to place it around my neck. I lowered my head to watch her and let out a soft sound of surprise as her beautiful, delicate fingers fed the loose ends through the loop. Cate raised her eyes to mine. “What?”
“Nothing.” But it was everything. So simple, how she’d noticed the way I always wore my scarf. I leaned down for a kiss. “Don’t come out, it’s freezing.”
But she pulled her coat down and followed me outside anyway. I started the car and closed the door to keep the heat in. “Thanks so much for tonight, I had a really great time.”
“Me too.” She paused, brushing her hand down my forearm. “You’re wonderful with the kids.”
I leaned against the hood. “Well, they’re wonderful kids.”
“Yeah.” She smiled fondly and stuffed her hands into her coat pockets. “What are you doing tomorrow on your day off?”
“Probably sleep in a little, spend an hour or so on the mountain and do some housework.” I grinned. “Fun stuff.”
“Did you want to meet up?” She asked it casually, but her expression told me the question was anything but casual.
Time alone. My mouth went dry and I had to pause before I could answer. “I’d like that. A whole lot.” I made a quick calculation. “How’s eleven thirty or twelve at my place?”
“Sounds perfect.” She pulled a hand out of her pocket to extract flyaway hair that was in her mouth. That mouth, with lips that were constantly begging to be kissed, was a constant distraction.
I nodded, trying to still my suddenly racing heart. “I don’t live far from here, if you head back along—”
“Aspen,” Cate interrupted gently, stepping close and taking my hand.
“Yeah?”
“Just text me the address when you wake up and I’ll put it in the GPS.” She stood up on tiptoes and kissed me, softly but there was an undercurrent of need. It echoed in my belly, the fluttering building and spreading through my chest. Lips parted, I invited her in and she accepted.
Pushed against the car, the heat of her against me, I felt a tremble that had nothing to do with the freezing car at my back. Her hands were at the nape of my neck, fingers gently massaging as she slid one of her thighs between mine, pressing hard until the flutter in my belly went south and turned into a deep ache. I inhaled sharply. “Wait. Stop.”
“What?” she breathed.
“I can’t do this here.” Gently, I pushed her
hair back from her face. “If you do that, if you start, then I can’t stop.”
Cate backed off, dropping her head against my shoulder. Her words were muffled. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just…”
“I know. Me too.” Using a finger under her chin, I lifted her face. “I feel like making out in front of this house is becoming a habit.”
“Are you complaining?”
“No. But it’s a habit I’d like to break all the same.”
A hint of a frown crossed her face and I ran my thumb softly over her lips. “What I mean is, I want to make out with you inside and anything that might come after that. I want you, Cate, so badly it’s almost painful. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Cate let out a slow breath. “Me too,” she said hoarsely. “Now go, before I drag you back inside. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Chapter Eleven
After only a few hours in bed, I woke and knew after ten minutes of staring into the dark that I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again. I shoved my feet into Uggs and trudged out to the living room where I stayed on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and watching movies until Ed slipped back in around seven a.m. After a quick shower, he left again, grumbling about the unfairness of me staying inside and out of the wind, while he had a work shift. Like he’d never waved cheerfully from his perch on the couch when I’d had to work and he didn’t.
Once I’d warmed up enough to move without hobbling, I cleaned the house and put fresh linens on the bed. As I tucked the sheet under the mattress, I knew exactly what it meant. Fresh sheets for our first time in bed. Cate and I had been teetering on the brink of intimacy and now it felt like we were both ready to fall over the edge together. Did I want to share my bed with Cate? Would she be more than a casual lay? More importantly—could she be?
Cate and her daughter would be gone in a few weeks and I’d still be here. Even though we barely knew each other, I couldn’t help but wonder at what might happen after that, and the more I stared at my fresh sheets, the more I realized how deeply I cared. About intimacies. About possibilities. About trying to get the things I’d always wanted.
Cate arrived right at midday, three light taps on the door echoing through the house to herald her arrival. I opened the door to a hurricane of blond hair, tangled and tousled around her face. She grinned and used both hands to push some of it back again. “This wind is rotten.” With cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling, she practically glowed with vibrant beauty.
I sucked in a breath, willing my pulse to settle. “Christ.”
Her smile wavered. “What?”
“You are so…” I swallowed, unable to find the words to express how stunning she was. Instead, I pulled her through the door and we shared a toe-curling kiss as she shrugged out of her coat. When her tongue lazily stroked mine, I had a flash of fantasy where I carried her to the bedroom and had her before we’d said another word. Where are your manners, Aspen? With a reluctant groan, I took a step back, breaking the kiss.
After declining my offer of a drink, Cate followed me around the house as I gave her the quick tour. “Kitchen, lounge etcetera. Ed’s room.” I paused at the open doorway at the end of the hall. “And…my room.”
Her gaze swept around the small, neat bedroom before lingering on the four photographs sitting on top of the dresser against the back wall. Being apart from my family stung, and I carted these photos around the world with me.
“May I take a look?” she asked. I nodded, and followed her all the way into the room. Cate leaned closer to one of my favorites, taken by my mom—me at age four on my first unassisted run down a slope. My father was laughing in the background, his arms thrown up in the air, fists clenched in a victory cheer. “This is you?”
“Yep.” I pointed to the other child in the photo, who stood off to the side with arms folded petulantly over her chest and an unmistakable pout. “And that is my sister.”
Cate laughed. “She doesn’t like to ski?”
“She does and she’s actually pretty damn good when she wants to be. She just hates the cold. And I think she didn’t like giving up four years of being the special only child. When Dad realized I was really into skiing, Hayley resented me even more.”
“Are you two close?”
I nodded. “Very. We don’t see each other as much as we want to, but other things kind of get in the way.”
“I know what that’s like.” Cate moved on, gesturing to a photo of Hayley and me with our mother. “Your mom?”
“Mhmm. She died when I was nine. Ovarian cancer.”
“Oh, Aspen. I’m so sorry.” Cate’s grip on my arm was gently supportive.
“It’s fine, really.” My mother was a strange emotional gray area where so many of my memories seemed to be not mine, but what my father and sister had told me. More than twenty years after her death, I still wasn’t sure if I missed her so much as I missed the idea of her. I pointed out Hayley and Ryan in a photo with Anna and David. “Sister and husband, and my niece and nephew. Anna’s a little older than Phoebe, and Davey just turned three.”
“They’re adorable.”
“Thanks.”
“What about your dad? Do you see him much?”
“No, he died at the start of last year.” It was easier to say than I’d expected. “Heart attack in his sleep which is something I guess. He was a snow groomer at Beaver Creek, loved his job so much, used to say he was making the runs perfect for me. He was out working the night he died, came home and went to bed like he always did. And that was it. No warning at all, or at least he’d never mentioned anything. Hayley and I were pretty caught up in our own stuff.” I cleared my throat. “I was working in Japan. I was going to call him that weekend, but yeah…”
“Sweetheart…” Her hand came to my face, gently stroking my cheek.
I shrugged. “Part of life I guess. It’s okay.”
She had that same expression as our first day on the mountain, and again it was so sweetly tender that I had to look away. Cate was still for a few long moments, then turned away to pick up the only photo that wasn’t of family—a head and shoulders candid of me as I reached up to make sure my goggles were snug. I liked the photograph as much as I could like any of the photos of myself, but this one was taken in Vancouver, right before my last ever Super-G. I kept it with me to remind myself of what I’d had and what I could do.
Now, so far removed from the person in the photograph, I always had to look hard to find myself in the picture. Some days it was like looking at a twin I felt I’d never met. I wondered what she was seeing, what she was thinking.
“This is a great shot.” Cate set the frame back down. “You look scared,” she said, out of nowhere.
I couldn’t think of what to say. Unlike most people, I’d always seen the fear etched on my face. After a long, tense moment I finally managed to answer her. “I was ahead by a good margin, until I crashed. I would have won it. Should have. Super-G was always my best event.” I swallowed the uncomfortable feeling in my throat. “I fell badly in training before I left for the Games. Pushed it out of my head to get bronze in Combined and gold in Downhill, but then I just couldn’t anymore.”
She frowned. “You fell? I don’t remember that.”
“You mustn’t have been reading the sports pages. A journalist interviewed me right after that training session.” I parroted my response for her, unable to keep the mocking tone from my voice. “Oh yeah, ha-ha it was nothing. Happens all the time. You know what they say, right? Bad dress rehearsal, great opening night. My training’s right where we want it. I feel really good, strong, and I’m ready to move up on the podium.” I made good on my boast, one time at least.
Cate said nothing but her eyes were soft, waves of compassion pouring off her.
After all this time it was still hard to believe I’d screwed up so badly, and I had to make a conscious effort not to clench my fists. “I was so damned stupid.”
“Or brave,” she amended quietly.
I laughed, but it was so dry I almost choked on it. “No. Bravery would have been to admit my fear years before so I could get it out where I could deal with it. For ages, I couldn’t figure out why it’d happened, you know? Why I’d suddenly grown so afraid of the thing I love so much. It’d become insidious. Unrelenting.”
“Did you ever work it out?”
“Mhmm, with the help of a very good therapist. She once told me my fear was a box.”
“A box.” Cate tilted her head, eyebrows drawn together. “What do you mean?”
“Like…every time I fell, or injured myself, or someone on the circuit was injured, my brain put that fear into a box. Then I jammed the lid on and kept the box hidden because that’s what I needed to do so I could keep racing. Eventually the lid wouldn’t hold any more.” I massaged the suddenly tense muscle at the back of my neck. “And it kind of exploded out right at the moment I really needed that lid to stay on.” It’d exploded and I’d crumbled—under the weight of my own drive to succeed and the expectation of others.
“That makes sense,” she said evenly. After a pause, Cate added, “I can’t imagine what it cost you.”
“Back then? Everything. All the time.” I drew a deep breath, catching a trace of her perfume again and the scent was oddly comforting at such a raw time. “Now it costs me nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
I grinned and amended my response. “Most of the time.” I couldn’t help looking at the photo again. “After the crash, once I’d stopped sliding, there was like a few seconds where I couldn’t feel my legs and I thought I’d broken my back. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe and my next thought was thank God I was dying because I didn’t want to live and be paralyzed. Then the pain hit again and I almost wished I was paralyzed so I couldn’t feel it.”
The shudder at the memory came unconsciously. As well as the bones piercing the skin of my left leg, I shattered my knee, wrecked my ACL again, broke my nose, and for good measure dislocated my hip. Then there was the concussion, cuts and abrasions that come with flying through the air at over eighty miles an hour, landing on ice and hard packed snow, then skidding down the course. I hadn’t even had the fortune to hit the netting to stop my out-of-control slide.