• • •
After his massage, Jacob met Liz, as they’d planned, for a quiet dinner at a modest — but amazingly delicious — Italian restaurant he’d discovered a few years ago. He hadn’t been sure Liz would show; she’d been furious with him earlier at the hotel. She was a ski instructor who lived in Vail year-round, hiking and mountain biking during the summer. They’d had an on-again, off-again relationship whenever he was in town. It was casual, low-pressure. Exactly what Jacob was looking for.
Lately, however, Liz had seemed to want more. She’d hinted that she’d be willing to travel to spend more time him. And she was often angry about something. Like today, when she’d dressed him down for an imagined offense.
In the soft candlelight, she was beautiful, with strong, aristocratic features, blond hair to her waist, legs a mile long. She’d changed out of her sporty daytime attire into a simple black dress and strappy heels. With a twinge of regret, Jacob realized he couldn’t string her along, couldn’t allow her to believe he could be anything to her but a friend-with-benefits. Liz was talking about mountain biking, a subject that used to hold his interest.
“ … sweet single-track … ” she was saying, gesturing with her fork as she talked animatedly.
He nodded, dipping his bread in a dish of high-quality green-hued olive oil. Then he noticed that she was looking at him expectantly. “What?” he asked, and she dealt him a scathing glare.
“Do you want to ride this trail with me?” she repeated in a harsh tone. Then she brushed her hair out of her face and smiled a tight, brittle smile. “I mean, it’s beautiful. It has some climbs that I think you’d love. And then we can relax in the hot tub with some vino. We haven’t done that in ages.”
“Ummmm.” He dipped another piece of bread in the oil, searching his brain for a plausible excuse. He used to love casual rides with Liz through the mountains. But suddenly it seemed heavy. It seemed like she was judging his every word, every action, for a sign of commitment. “We’ll have to play it by ear,” he said. “I’m on a strict training schedule for the Classic.”
“Training involves taking it easy the week before a race,” she said acidly. “Unless I’ve missed some new discovery in sports medicine.”
“And I’ve got these sponsor chores,” Jacob continued, evading her eyes. “Interviews. Promo stuff.”
“Covering your body in oil and standing at the mall?” Liz rolled her eyes. She pushed away her plate of risotto. “Fine. Just let me know, okay? I’ll keep my schedule free until I hear from you.”
“Great,” said Jacob woodenly. He told himself that it was the pressure that was triggering his negative response. But it wasn’t just Liz’s demands on his time. As he looked at her across the table, another face superimposed itself on hers … one with more delicate features, higher coloring, surrounded by flame colored curls …
Jacob remembered the enticing way the rosiness had spread across Ariel’s cheeks and throat as she’d stared down at him in his bedroom. He’d given many interviews while getting massaged — in fact, it was during post-race sessions with their soigneurs that cyclists were most likely to be interviewed. But from the look on Ariel’s face, you’d have thought she didn’t know this scenario was a common occurrence in her line of work. Maybe she was new to Cycling Today. Or maybe she was responding to him as more than just a journalist. Maybe she was responding to him as a woman.
The thought made him grin. Liz saw his features light up and reached for his hand across the table. He returned her gentle squeeze half-heartedly.
“There’s my Jacob,” she said. “Now that I’ve got you back with me, I don’t want anything to come between us.”
After dinner, Liz asked him to come home with her. Jacob made excuses. A long day, exhaustion from the race. “I’m really bushed,” he said, the cliché tripping on his tongue. He almost winced at the false ring.
Liz looked at him incredulously. Then her face turned stormy. “I’ve noticed that you’re looking a little out of shape,” Liz said, that harsh quality creeping back into her voice. Her expression mingled anger and disappointment. “I’m sure the criterium was very difficult for you,” she added. “I heard Steven had to pull you most of the way.”
Jacob understood that she was lashing out because she was hurt. But it didn’t make her mean streak any easier to take. He cursed his own clumsiness. He had to admit he probably wasn’t handling the situation very well at all. He kissed her cheek as he said goodbye.
“I’ll call you,” he said and she muttered something unintelligible. He figured he was better off not trying to figure it out.
Back at the hotel, he was restless — tired but unable to relax. He had three women vying for space in his thoughts — Liz, Ariel … and the mysterious woman he’d found in the hotel pool. As if he didn’t have enough on his mind already. He scrolled through the dialed numbers on his cell phone, suddenly ready to make the call he’d been putting off since his fight with Brian at the Penalty Box.
It was far too late, of course. He listened to the phone ring on and on and on. He’d have to call back during the daytime. He dropped the phone onto the bedspread, rubbed a hand over his face. The muscles in his neck felt as though they were tightening. Was he ever going to be able to relax?
He found himself, without having consciously chosen to do so, collecting a towel and exiting into the hotel corridor, entering the elevator, punching the button for the rooftop …
When he stepped from the elevator onto the marble tiled rooftop, the stars were as brilliant as they’d been last night. The moon was fuller, hanging like a pearl above the twinkling lights of the town in the valley. But there was no one else there. Realizing how much he’d wanted to find someone floating in the pool — someone who was still a stranger, but somehow intimately known to him — Jacob was filled with disappointment. Approaching the pool’s edge, his eye was caught by a glint of metal on the tile. Stooping, he picked up a tiny object and examined it as well as he could in the moonlight.
As far as he could make out, it was a piece of gold jewelry — a little charm in the shape of a book. Something a woman would wear as a pendant or on a bracelet. Could it be a clue to the identity of the woman he’d nearly made love to in exactly this spot one night earlier?
Jacob slipped the charm into his pocket.
Chapter Six
Jacob finished stretching and sat for a moment on the grass at the bottom of the enormous hill in the shady northeast corner of the park. The park was on the outskirts of town and not nearly as well tended or attractive as some of the other parks he knew of in the area, but his coach hadn’t picked this park for its scenic appeal. He’d picked it for the killer climb. Jacob’s practiced eye could appreciate the slope before him in all its brutal majesty. A path led through the tall grass and the towering pines, a straight shot up the hill, which blended seamlessly into the higher mountains that loomed above Vail. It was the kind of long, steep hill that joggers walked up, and that casual cyclists gave up on within a few yards. Jacob had ten sprints to go. Then he’d be finished with his last day of hard training.
Liz had been right, of course. For the week leading up to the Classic, he’d be taking it easy. Of course, “easy” was relative. For Jacob, it certainly didn’t mean parking himself with potato chips in front of the television. He’d be riding nearly every day, but for only a few hours. He wouldn’t be driving his body to the limit. Instead, he’d be storing up power, allowing the muscles he’d worked ruthlessly in the past weeks to repair themselves in preparation for the supreme effort he’d be putting forth during the Classic. He loved the hard training, as painful as it could be, but he was looking forward to spending a few days riding at an easy pace through the beautiful Colorado landscape. He wanted to enjoy the solitary hours. He wanted a chance to think. To dream. He was rarely alone these days.
Sorry, Liz, he said to him
self, remembering her desire to mountain bike with him. He wouldn’t be taking her up on her offer. He wanted time to himself. He stood, put on his helmet, swung a leg over his bicycle. He took a breath and readied himself to climb the hill at top speed.
• • •
“Hey there,” called Ben. He was walking out of Covered Bridge Coffee in Vail Village. Ariel noted his signature smirk and had to fight to keep from rolling her eyes.
“Hey there,” she called back, tossing her purchases through the window of the rental car. She’d bought snacks to keep her blood sugar up while she tracked down Brian Jenks, as well as a road map of Colorado. So far, she hadn’t been able to find out much about the man who’d brawled so publicly with Jacob Hunter, but she hadn’t done much digging, just asked a few local teens in criterium t-shirts if they’d read about the fight. Blank stares for that effort. Oh well. Random cold questioning wasn’t exactly a topnotch journalistic technique. She figured a trip to the scene of the fight in Minturn would yield some juicy information.
By all accounts, Minturn was a depressed place, a mining town not far from the ritzier Vail. Ariel knew from experience that the friends you leave behind in hometown haunts can resent the hell out of you if you have the guts or the luck to get out. Now that Jacob Hunter was an international star, maybe his presence wasn’t exactly appreciated back in his old stomping grounds. Maybe the working guys in towns like Minturn, Redcliff, and Leadville were itching to teach Jacob a lesson about where he belonged.
But why would a man in Jacob Hunter’s position hang out in a hardscrabble bar so trouble could bite him in the ass? It didn’t make sense. Unless he’d been so hopped up on drugs he’d needed a chance to act out his aggressive energy. Ariel had heard of athletes on steroids doing terrible things — hurting their wives, their children. Performance enhancing drugs were no joke. Maybe Hunter had needed an outlet and Brian Jenks was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe Brian Jenks and Jacob Hunter had a history. If so, Ariel planned on getting the history from Jenks. She had a hunch that Jenks’s version would be more to her readers’ taste. After all, X-Ray was a magazine that prided itself on exposing the corrupt inner workings of corporations, the government, and now, professional sports.
Jacob Hunter was hiding something. She needed to find out the details. ASAP. The sooner she could turn in her article the better. Any contact she had with Jacob Hunter made things too … complicated.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Ben was asking. Ariel frowned. She didn’t feel like wasting time with Ben. She wanted to get to Minturn. She looked at Ben again and hesitated. She could ask him where Jacob was training today and put off going to Minturn until later in the week. But she wasn’t sure if she’d trust Ben to give a straight answer.
No, she decided, better to go to Minturn. She’d try to catch Jacob later, at the hotel. She’d call his room and have him meet her for a cocktail and an interview. After he’d finished with his soigneur and put his clothes back on. Before Ariel could formulate a polite rejection, Ben started waving his free arm over his head.
“Fratello, Henderson,” he shouted, and two muscular young men crossed over to Ben and Ariel’s side of the street. Ariel didn’t need to be told that these guys were cyclists. She was starting to recognize the type.
Muscular. Gorgeous. And with that unmistakably arrogant swagger.
The one Ben called Fratello was dark haired with lively brown eyes. Henderson was blond with California good looks. They high-fived Ben then introduced themselves to Ariel. Steven Fratello. Randall Henderson. Teammates of Jacob Hunter.
“Ariel Hayes,” said Ariel.
“Aren’t you the reporter profiling Jake?” asked Randall.
“How’s that going?” laughed Steven, brown eyes dancing.
Ariel laughed back. “Not well,” she admitted. “He stood me up for our interview.”
“Jake’s a prickly bastard,” said Steven. “I think it’s a little weird for him to be back in Colorado. He’s from here, you know.”
“I know,” said Ariel. “I did do some research on my subject.”
“Sorry,” said Steven. “I forget that anyone in the States knows anything about cycling.”
“In Paris, we’re famous,” said Randall with a cocky smile. “I got finger-cramps from all the autographing.”
“Well, you have a very long name,” said Ariel with a straight face.
Steven shot her an appraising glance. A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. Ariel found that she liked him. He definitely had a sense of humor.
“Look,” said Steven. “Jake’s not good with reporters. He’s a private guy. Don’t take it personally.”
“I don’t want to pry into his life,” said Ariel, with a twinge of guilt. “I just want to introduce his fans to the man behind … ”
“The spandex?” broke in Steven, that mischievous twinkle in his eyes disarming Ariel completely.
“Thanks, but I’ve already had the pleasure,” said Ariel and heard Ben snort. From the grins that Steven and Randall exchanged, Ariel was willing to bet they’d heard plenty about her undignified exit from Jacob’s hotel suite.
“Right now, Jake’s killing the hill in Packer Park,” said Steven. “You should check it out. I think you’ll understand more about Jake if you see him ride. Also, he can’t give you too much of a hard time if he’s out of breath.”
Why was Steven being so helpful? Ariel felt a surge of gratitude, followed by another, more pronounced twinge of guilt. If this friendly teammate knew what she was really up to, he wouldn’t be so open.
“Jake’s a great cyclist,” said Steven seriously, looking Ariel straight in the eyes. “It’s exciting to see him ride. Go to the park. Check him out. Good publicity for Jake is good publicity for cycling. He’s the best the sport has to offer. You can quote me on that.”
Ariel saw the unmistakable sincerity in the man’s face.
“I will,” she said. “Thanks.” With this opportunity handed to her, she realized that Minturn could wait.
Glancing at that map as she drove her sporty rental car to the park, she thought about what Steven Fratello had said. He clearly respected Jacob Hunter. He wasn’t just giving her the party line. Did he really think that Jacob was winning his races without drugs? Or were drugs such a ubiquitous part of cycling that he didn’t discount Jacob’s triumphs even though he was using? Ariel had a thing or two to learn about how the tight-knit cycling community operated.
She parked her car and set out to locate the path that Jacob would be riding up and down. When she found it, she began to walk uphill alongside it — and was amazed by its length and the steepness of its slope.
This might be a park, but Jacob is hardly on a picnic, she thought. Even after walking for several minutes at a brisk pace — enjoying the slight increase in her heart rate and the deep breaths of clean mountain air scented with pine needles she had to take to maintain it — Jacob was nowhere in sight.
Then she saw him. And nearly as soon as she saw him, he was alongside her — then past her. He rocketed by like a cannonball, coming downhill faster than she would have thought possible. So fast she felt the wind of his passing. As blazingly quickly as he was going, he looked poised, balanced. In perfect control.
She couldn’t keep herself from imagining those muscular arms around her. What would it feel like to be handled by someone whose body was so exquisitely tuned? Sensitive but powerful.
Right. That’s the story my readers want. Ariel groaned, disgusted with herself, trying to stifle her thoughts. I’ll just write an ode to Jacob Hunter’s overwhelming hotness. She kept walking uphill, knowing he’d be coming past her again eventually. Her thigh muscles started to burn. She was due for some exercise herself.
Within a few minutes — much more quickly than she’d expected — she looked back to see Jacob toiling up th
e hill. She was amazed by the speed he was able to maintain in spite of the punishing grade. His skintight spandex outlined every curve and plane of his amazing body. His thighs and calves bulged with power as he drove the pedals in their constrained circuit, defying gravity with every stroke. The muscles of his torso showed in clear outline through the fabric of his jersey. His biceps and forearms tensed as he gripped the handlebars, leaning forward and attacking the hill as if he held a grudge against it. He was sweating profusely, his skin shining in the sunlight. He was beautiful. And dangerously strong. His damp hair hung into his eyes, which were singularly focused, intense. Completely unaware of her presence. It was only when he came within a few feet of her that Jacob noticed her standing awestruck by the side of the path. Without slowing, Jacob grunted at her out of the side of his mouth, “Last rep. Meet you at the bottom.” Then he was away, moving steadily up the hillside at a fast clip.
Ariel couldn’t help but stare at him as he rode away from her, appreciating the view from behind as much as the one from the front. His narrow waist and tight backside swayed to the rhythm of his pedal stroke. His back swarmed with muscles, gliding against one another like sinuous snakes. And his legs … Ariel tore her eyes away, aware of a growing heat in her belly and a flush of warmth as blood rose in her face and her nipples tightened.
Journalistic objectivity, she reminded herself sternly, and started down the hill.
• • •
Jacob crested the top of the hill, then turned and shot back down. He sluiced himself with water from his squirt bottle, his jersey unzipped to the waist. He was breathing hard, his legs pulsing with blood, his helmet off and his BMC bicycle laid down on its side. He wasn’t sure how he was going to deal with Ariel in this condition. He always felt great after his workouts, keyed up with endorphins. But the subsequent relaxation and fatigue could put him in a vulnerable state.
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