Better Together

by Jessie Gussman

  Harper picked up another carrot stick. “So you might as well be here versus anywhere else?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” If he couldn’t be with her, one place was as good as any other. And he’d already committed to being here.

  She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

  He gave her a little grin. “I suppose I love the idea of working with my dad. And I really do like being an instructor, working with people, even the business side of everything isn’t something I mind. But I can’t shake the feeling that Dad only wants me because of what I can give.”

  “And you want him to love you for yourself?”

  He sat on the bed, his shoulders slumped. “I want him to be proud of me. I want him to look at me and see something worthwhile. More than a worker in his empire. Is that too much to ask?”

  “You want him to be your dad first, your employer second?”

  “I knew there was a reason I put up with you.” He stood and laughed to break the seriousness that had descended on them. Harper knew him. She had him pegged better than anyone he’d ever known. Maybe he was just never satisfied because he wanted her to see him as a man and not just as her goofy half-cousin or her best friend. Which might have been what was happening earlier, but that moment was long gone and he didn’t want to ruin the present by forcing her to dissect the past. He was going to talk to her about it. Just not now.

  He motioned with his hand. “Come on. Abuelita said Dad was getting ready to start beginner ski instruction. You’ve never been on the slopes. We’ll catch what we can and I’ll show you the rest.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Harper stood at the back of the small crowd of people. She hadn’t quite gotten used to walking with what seemed like big boards on her feet, but so far she’d managed not to run into anything or poke anyone with her poles. Gotta be grateful for the little things.

  She wasn’t the only adult in the group, but there were still more under eighteen than over.

  “Grip your pole like this.” Wyatt adjusted a matronly woman’s hand. She twisted her arm and Wyatt jumped to avoid being struck in the leg with her pole.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she wailed.

  “It’s okay.” Wyatt laughed. “That’s the perfect grip if you have an intruder break into your lodge room. Put a little more oomph into your swing. However, for skiing, we hold it this way.” He loosened her fingers and helped her set her pole at the correct angle, while a group of teenage girls giggled behind their hands.

  Wyatt looked over at them. “You and your friends were in the beginner class two years ago, Felicity.”

  The girls giggled again. One flipped her hair over her shoulder and put a hand on her hip. “These are different friends. Are you going to kick us out?”

  “If you want to spend the winter in the beginners’ class, no one’s stopping you.” Wyatt shrugged, then looked back at the lady he was helping and flashed his dimple. “That’s perfect, Mrs. Czerdy.”

  Wyatt’s long-sleeved shirt emphasized his broad shoulders, and he moved like he was born on his skis. Her heart fluttered. No question why Felicity would rather be in the beginner class than out on the bigger slopes. Apparently, Harper wasn’t the only one who thought Wyatt made everything more fun.

  Her mind flashed back to their room and that almost-kiss. If it really was an almost-kiss. She could have sworn he was going to kiss her.

  Harper’s heart thumped painfully. It might have been an almost-kiss, but Wyatt had backed off and not even mentioned it when Abuelita left. Wyatt was too handsome, too athletic, too much at ease here in the mountains, to be interested in her in that way. Maybe being back at the only place he’d ever stayed longer than the farm had made him lose his head with her a little. Once he’d realized it was Harper, he seemed embarrassed he’d almost kissed his best friend.

  Wyatt gave the girls a friendly smile, pointing and saying something to one of Felicity’s friends. Completely professional, but friendly and funny. This side of him fascinated Harper. When he was with her he was goofy, sometimes even downright silly. And he touched her all the time—a hand on her elbow, an easy arm around her shoulders, a tug on her ponytail. But now he was the perfect instructor, walking that line between coach and teammate with an effortless grace.

  He looked up as though he felt her gaze on him. His brows lifted and he stopped in the middle of whatever he was saying. Harper quickly schooled her features. Maybe there had been more than friendly admiration on her face.

  She focused on making a V with her skis like he’d been instructing the group.

  A pair of skis came into view. “What do you think?”

  She gave up on trying to get her skis going the right way and smiled at him. “You were born to do this.”

  His eyes were hidden behind his aviator sunglasses, but his mouth curled into a bemused half smile.

  “You think I look good in my ski pants, huh?”

  “I’m sorry, but ski pants will never be sexy.” Such a liar.

  “You look kind of cute in yours. Makes me forget that in another life you’re a serious professor.”

  “I meant, Goofy, that I’ve never seen you look so relaxed and natural, and I’ve never been in a class with a better instructor.”

  Wyatt stared at Harper. Drat those stupid glasses. His mouth wasn’t smiling, and she couldn’t read a thing in his eyes since she couldn’t see them.

  “You mean that.” The statement came out more like a question.

  “I do.”

  “You keep surprising me.”

  She wasn’t sure what to say about that. “It’s probably going to come as no surprise that I have the feeling that if I try to move at all in these things, I’m going to fall flat on my face.”

  “No, that’s not a surprise. Phys Ed was always your lowest grade.”

  “Yeah. And I’m supposed to use my hands and feet together here.” She shook her poles without lifting them up. Wyatt probably didn’t want to lose an eye today.

  “You can do this, Harper.”

  “I am going to try. For you. Only because you’re my best friend. Not because I’m actually interested in learning to ski.”

  He tapped her nose with his finger. “Get interested. That’s the single thing that will help you learn the fastest.”

  Harper sighed. Because it was true. “You are going to come visit me in the hospital when I break my neck on this baby hill, right?”

  “Once.”

  Harper pointed at him. “Funny. And you won’t leave Chile without me?”

  “For very long.”

  Harper laughed again and Wyatt started to turn away. A woman stood, blocking his way, one hand on her hip, her ski pole expertly pointing down. Okay, it actually was possible for ski pants to look sexy. This woman pulled it off with enviable ease.

  She lifted her goggles revealing a pure olive complexion, a perfect heart-shaped face, and dancing dark eyes.

  “My stepbrother has returned to claim his kingdom.”

  “Nah, I’m just visiting.” Wyatt stepped back and put his arm around Harper. Something instinctive prompted her to lean into him.

  “Harper, this is Kayla. Kayla, Harper, my fiancée.”

  Kayla’s eyes narrowed. A small shot of adrenaline whipped up Harper’s spine. Immediately, she suppressed it. This could be the woman Wyatt wanted. Despite Harper’s own feelings for Wyatt, she truly wanted him to be happy.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Kayla.” Harper tried to hold her hand out, but her ski pole snagged on the ground, jerking her arm. Wyatt steadied her.

  Kayla’s brows rose.

  Wyatt laughed. “I’ve finally found something Harper isn’t good at.”

  “I’m just not used to having a bunch of extra stuff attached to my body.” Harper’s cheeks grew warm. She hoped they were already rosy from the cool mountain air.

  Kayla ignored her, looking at Wyatt. “Steve’s here.”

  Harper remembered Steve from
Snap Chatting with Wyatt. A blond, rosy-cheeked guy Wyatt snowboarded with.

  Wyatt nodded. “Oh, yeah? We just got here a couple of hours ago, and Dad roped me into this class.”

  His dad had taken Wyatt’s place at the front of the group and was showing them how to set their poles.

  “I should get back to helping him.”

  “We were heading to the springs tonight on the snowmobiles. Steve and I, and a couple of others, maybe. You’re welcome to join us.”

  Wyatt looked down at Harper. Again, she cursed the glasses hiding his eyes. There was no mistaking the little upturn to his lips. He wanted to go.

  “Will you be too tired?” he asked.

  She would fall down dead of exhaustion before she’d admit to being tired in front of Kayla. “Snowmobiles sound like fun.”

  “Oh, they are,” Kayla said. “Maybe we’ll see you tonight.” She glided away, as natural and smooth as an eagle in flight.

  Wyatt pursed his lips and gave a little shrug.

  Harper returned the look, feeling like they were sharing their thoughts without talking. She liked that feeling.

  “I’d better head to the front. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  She shrugged. “Don’t worry about me. If I get fed up with all this sports-related stuff, I brought my Kindle and I’m not afraid to use it.”

  He laughed and started to turn away, but stopped short. Harper twisted to see what he was looking at. A group of five or six men, all dressed similarly in ski pants and bulky hoodies, talking and laughing, walked the last few yards to them. The man in front lifted his goggles. His blue eyes were piercing and intense, with deep laugh lines along both sides. His ruddy face shone with health and blond hair stuck out from under his ski cap.

  “Wyatt, dude! We heard you were in for a visit.” He grabbed Wyatt in a bear hug, which Wyatt returned with vigor.

  He pulled back and Wyatt said, “Great to see you.”

  “Who’s the chick, man?”

  “Steve, this is my fiancée, Harper.”

  Harper, remembering how she had almost fallen on her face in front of Kayla because of her ski pole, simply smiled and nodded. Steve took a quick step and grabbed her and hugged her. She tried to hug him back without killing him with her pole.

  Steve smacked her shoulder. “Never seen him with a girl before. Where’d he pick you up?”

  She kept from rolling her eyes. “I rescued him out of a volcano crater.” Picked her up, indeed.

  Wyatt snorted and coughed.

  Steve looked at Wyatt in wonder. “Yo. Awesome, dude.”

  “Yeah, I’ll have to tell you the story sometime. It involves a multi vitamin and a lot of vegetables.”

  Harper smothered the snicker threatening to escape from her lips.

  “Huh?” Steve’s brows twisted and he tilted his head.

  “Some other time.” Wyatt indicated the guys standing around them. “You have yourself a following.”

  “They’re vacationers from a prep school in California. I’ve been telling these guys about your free-style snowboarding championships, so of course as soon as we heard you were here, we had to see if you’d give us a show.”

  “I don’t know…” Wyatt shuffled his skis and glanced at where his dad had the beginners’ class well in hand. If the expression on his dad’s face counted for anything, he was pleased Wyatt could entertain this category of patrons.

  Harper tried to mask her horror. Freestyle anything sounded dangerous.

  “Don’t turn him down because of me.” Crossing her fingers that her smile looked more natural than it felt, Harper channeled her thoughts into the positive. He hadn’t died yet. That thought wasn’t reassuring, either.

  “I’ll keep your girlfriend company.”

  Harper turned toward the voice. Long, shiny black hair emerged from a knit cap and hung in curls over a lime green ski jacket as the woman stopped beside the guys.

  “Hey, Sophia,” Steve said.

  “Harper, this is my stepmother. Sophia, this is my fiancée.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sophia,” Harper said, hoping it was true.

  “You, too.” Her smile seemed real and she gave Harper a quick, tight hug. “I would say I’ve heard so much about you, but, well, I really haven’t.” She lifted a finely trimmed brow at Wyatt.

  “I haven’t heard much about you, either,” Harper replied.

  Sophia smiled. She was the most beautiful woman Harper had ever seen. “Looks like we need to spend some time getting to know each other then.”

  Wyatt shifted and poked his ski pole into the ground, slightly harder than necessary.

  She remembered what he’d talked about in their room, and the feeling she had that there was more to the story.

  He tapped his ski poles on the ground and looked away.

  Steve slapped Wyatt on the back. “Come on, man. Sophia’s got your girl covered. Let’s take those sticks back and get a board.”

  Wyatt turned a questioning glance on Harper. Whatever made him uneasy, it wasn’t the idea of snowboarding. He couldn’t hide the brightness of his eyes or his eager grin.

  “Where’s the best place to watch you?” she asked.

  “Aren’t you going to keep learning to ski?” He indicated the group that had skied away behind his dad.

  “The master teacher is leaving.”

  “Ha.”

  “Plus, I want to see you snowboard. I’ve known that you can, but I’ve never seen you.”

  The corner of his mouth tilted up in a lopsided grin. He moved closer to her. His voice, gravelly and low, sent shivers up her spine. “Somehow, I don’t think that me snowboarding, no matter how good I might be, is going to impress you much.”

  She matched his low tone. “I promise to be impressed.”

  Sophia cut in. “I assume you’re using the expert course. I can take her to the best vantage point. We’ll swing by the house and grab the binoculars.”

  Steve held his gloved hand up for a fist bump. “All right, dude. Let’s split.”

  Harper squeezed her hands together tightly. The back of her throat seemed to be permanently closed. Wyatt had already fallen twice. The second time she’d handed the binoculars back to Sophia and declared since Wyatt was the only one in navy blue, she could see him just fine against the white snow.

  The fact of the matter was, without the binoculars, she couldn’t see the blood flowing from the cut above his left eye, nor the bright red spots of it on his coat. He was good. Better than good. Even she, with her limited knowledge of anything sporting, could see the vast difference in Wyatt’s skill and the skill of the men around him. It made her hot and cold at the same time. Proud that he was hers, if only for this trip, but every time he fell, every time it even looked like he was going to fall, her heart clawed up her throat and beat against her tonsils, her knees went weak and black spots swam in front of her eyes. The two times he’d fallen she would have too if the railing hadn’t held her up.

  Rugged and strong, he seemed invincible. She couldn’t keep from watching, from admiring, from being totally attracted to his toughness. But every bump, every fall, every cut…she felt it. It was exhausting to constantly run through that gauntlet of emotions—pain, anxiety, fear and, she had to admit, pride as well.

  Sophia nudged her. “Check this out. Wyatt’s the only one I’ve ever seen do a double flip half-twist off this jump.”

  Harper straightened and locked her knees, looking out over the snow.

  Heading down the short, steep hill so fast he was almost a blur, Wyatt flew up the jump, tucking his body and doing two full summersaults in the air, twisting to land backwards. He used the momentum to do a little hop at the end, twisting back to the front. Impressive.

  When he had landed safely, Harper allowed herself to breathe again. “I had no idea he was this good.”

  “You two couldn’t have been together long. Hasn’t Wyatt ever taken you to the slopes before?”

  “No.” />
  “Don’t you want to go?” She sighed. “I don’t mean to be nosy, but this is such a huge part of who Wyatt is.”

  “I teach at the university in the winter, tutoring during break. And Wyatt’s spent the last few winters in Colorado. Skiing isn’t that big of a deal in Pennsylvania where we live.”

  “I can’t believe he wouldn’t have somehow gotten on the slopes.”

  “When he first moved up, we had a couple of mild winters in a row. The winters we had more snow he was already out west.”

  “I see.”

  Maybe Sophia meant to make her feel bad with those words, although Harper was inclined to think not. But, after all, she and Wyatt weren’t really engaged, so even if Sophia meant her remarks to be cutting, she could hardly be successful.

  Or maybe she was since Harper was asking herself how she could have missed this part of Wyatt. And had to clamp her lips together to keep from trying to give Sophia more excuses as to why she’d never gone skiing with Wyatt before.

  Harper looked back out at the slopes. Wyatt had disappeared, but now reappeared, almost at the bottom of the run, weaving figure eights with Steve.

  “He’s so good,” she murmured.

  “He’s won awards for snowboarding, but he’s also a great skier, and last I heard, he’d been working on ice climbing.”

  Harper nodded, but didn’t say anything. Wyatt had climbed Mount Rainier, but she was pretty sure ice climbing was different than mountain climbing.

  “Have you travelled the world with him?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Sophia shifted. “Can I ask what you do?”

  “Sure. I have an advanced degree in nutrition and teach at the university near our home. I’ll be working with a few colleagues on a research project this fall.” She didn’t say anything about tenure and she wasn’t sure why.