by Jill Shalvis
“Okay,” his wayward skier said. “I stand corrected. You’re not cute. You’re kinda badass with all that bossy ’tude. Happy now?”
Happy? More like dizzy. “Let’s just get you to the lift,” he said. Calm. Authoritative. The same tone that people usually listened and responded to.
Usually…
“I’m good now,” she said, and with a wave pushed off on her poles, thankfully heading directly toward the ski lift.
Not surprisingly, she wasn’t all that steady. This was because she kept her knees locked instead of bending them, incorrectly putting her weight on the backs of her skis. Whoever had given her those lessons at Breckenridge should be fired.
But she hadn’t asked him for tips. And he no longer worked at the ski school.
She’d be fun to teach though. The thought came unbidden and he shrugged it off. All he cared about was that she was on the right path now, leaving him free to take Devil’s Face hard and fast the way he’d wanted.
Except…Her helmet lay in the snow at his feet, forgotten. He had no idea how anyone could forget the eye-popping cherry-red thing against the white snow, but she had.
And so had he, when he rarely forgot anything. It was those pretty eyes, that sweet yet mischievous laugh, both distracting as hell. “Hey,” he called after her. “Your helmet.”
But she must have put her earbuds back in because she didn’t stop or turn back.
Hud scooped up the helmet and, giving Devil’s Face one last longing look, headed toward the lift as well, catching up with her halfway there.
She’d stopped and had her weight braced on her poles. Bent over a little bit, she was huffing and puffing, out of breath. They were at well over eight thousand feet and altitude could be a bitch. It affected everyone differently, but breathlessness was the most common side effect.
Although an uncomfortable and worrisome thought came to him that maybe it wasn’t the altitude at all. When he’d lifted her before, she’d been light, almost…frail. People didn’t realize it took a lot of strength and stamina to ski, and he was nearly positive she didn’t have either. He put a hand on her shoulder.
She whirled to face him, saw the helmet dangling off his finger, and pulled out an earbud with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I think the altitude’s getting to me. I really should’ve gotten some caffeine down me before facing the mountain.” She slid on the helmet. “Thanks, Prince Charming.”
“Huh?”
“You know, Cinderella,” she said. “The prince had her slipper and you had my helmet…Never mind,” she said with a pat to his arm when he just stared at her. “Ignore me. Probably I should’ve put far more practical things on my list than skiing in the Rockies.”
And then, before he could ask her what the hell she was talking about now, she’d tightened the strap beneath her chin, put her hands back into the handholds at the top of her ski poles, and pushed off.
He watched her head for the lift that would carry her back to safety, thinking two things. One, he really hoped she knew how to stop. And two, she was definitely a nut, but possibly the prettiest, most bewildering nut he’d ever met in his entire life.