Robyn Grady - New Year's Wish

She felt the wind on her face, and the poles started to feel right in her hands as she adjusted her stance and leaned into her run. She was skiing. Oh. My. God. She was on skis again and taking a run.

She didn’t do anything fancy, just kept her wits about her and tried not to think of all the possibilities that were opening up to her after this. This was one of the major things keeping her in limbo, and she felt as if she’d just ripped off her last bandage and found that she didn’t have a scar.

She reached the bottom of the run and skied to a stop next to Carter, who was standing there with his goggles pushed up on his head. Then she pushed hers up, too, and launched herself at him.

She caught him off guard, and he fell back onto the snow as she kissed him. Heart thudding wildly in her chest, she feathered kisses all over his face and then lifted herself up to look down into that intense blue-gray gaze of his.

“I skied.”

“I saw you,” he said, his voice husky.

He hugged her close, and she realized without Carter she might not be here. She looked down at him again and saw the man she’d known for all of her adult life, but she also had the feeling she was seeing him for the first time.

She’d had sex with this man, but lying in the snow on top of him after taking a run that she’d never thought she’d be able to again, she finally realized that she’d had him pegged all wrong. This was intimacy. This sharing of something that went beyond the physical.

It scared her, but it also exhilarated her, and there was no way she was going to keep him at arm’s length after this. She wasn’t sure how long the magic of having Carter with her was going to last, but she intended to ride it for as long as she could.

She lowered her head and brushed her lips against his—a soft sort of thank-you to the man who’d pushed her and forced his way past all of her barriers until he got her to do the very thing that had been scaring her for way too long.

He smiled up at her, looking smug, as though he knew that he’d done something for her that she couldn’t have done for herself.

“Caught ya,” she said at last, reaching past him and scooping up a handful of snow.

“Dang it. Now I’m going to have to put up with more kisses,” he complained.

“Not just kisses, Carter. I’m afraid you stepped over the line. I did warn you,” she said, rolling over and shoving the handful of snow into the crook between his neck and shoulder.

He yelped and scooted back from her. He grabbed a handful of snow and lobbed it at her. She laughed as she unbuckled her skis and gathered more ammo to hurl at him. She kept throwing snowballs and ducking his until he rushed her. Scooping her up into his arms, he kissed her, and this time it felt real. Not a dare, not a thank-you, but that red-hot lust that always lurked beneath the surface whenever he was around.

“Enough, gorgeous,” he said, letting her slide down his body and lacing his fingers through hers. “I’m proud of you. I knew you could do it, and you proved yourself.”

She swallowed hard. “I didn’t know I could. Thank you, Carter. You always know just what to do to nudge me out of my comfort zone.”

“I intend to do a lot more nudging tonight when we are out with my friends,” he warned her softly. “I think you’ve been the Ice Queen for too long and you’re overdue for a thaw.”

She arched a brow. “I think you know that I’m not always icy.”

“I do, and I like it.”

They walked back to the rental building and Carter said goodbye to her. She watched him walk away, and this time he glanced back over his shoulder and winked at her before he disappeared around the corner.

12

THERE WAS ONE more week of the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, so the bars were crowded with some celebrities and a lot of film industry insiders. There were a few people she had met at the big winter games last year but Lindsey mostly avoided them. Instead she sat nestled on a high bar stool at a table jammed with people. Carter sat next to her with his arm casually draped over her shoulder.

She tried to be cool and casual, but this wasn’t her kind of place and she felt uncomfortable. Plus, Carter was different here. It was as if he was aware of an image he had to project, or maybe a person he had to be, and he wasn’t acting like himself.

If she’d been aware of that, she would have turned him down when he’d invited her to come along with him today.

Oh, who was she kidding? She would have been here anyway, because this afternoon after she’d skied she would have said yes to anything. There had been such a rush of adrenaline flooding through her, making her feel lighter than air.

That she could do anything.

“Another drink?” the cocktail waitress asked.

“Manhattan, please,” Lindsey said.

“Vodka and Thunderbolt,” Carter said. “A round for the table.”

The waitress nodded and moved away. She turned to look at Carter, who wore an Oxford shirt with some sort of graffiti-style art on the left side of a snowboarder doing a “crippler”—an inverted 540 spin. He hadn’t shaved, but that little bit of stubble on his jaw made him look roguish, and his hair was styled in that messy, casual way he always wore it.

“We have to show the sponsors some love,” he said.

“I’m not drinking an energy drink and vodka. That kind of thing makes me feel weird. I mean inside.”

He leaned in close to her. In his eyes she saw a hint of the guy who’d sat in her kitchen and played cards with her, but it was just a glimpse. “Don’t tell, but me, too. I just order them and then leave mine on the table.”

“Why?” she asked.

He tugged her to him as he leaned back from the table. It was as if they were cocooned together with the cacophony of noise around them.

“I have to order them. It’s my image.”

“But kids might buy into it. And they think you love those drinks, so they try it...”

“Damn. You’re right.” He winced. “But I can’t change who I am now.”

“Why not?”

“Because Stan and his company pay me a lot of money to do what I do. And I like it.”

“So money makes it okay?” She was pushing because she was uncomfortable, she knew that. Maybe she should just let it go. Smile and be like the scantily clad energy drink girls, but she couldn’t.

“Do you get off on being a buzz kill?” he asked.

“No. Sorry if my pointing out the truth is messing with your fun.” She huffed.

“It’s not,” he said. “I’m just having a hard time being my usual self tonight.”

She rubbed her finger over his stubble, liking the way it abraded her skin. She sat there thinking about her life and this year. Three weeks into January and already it felt as though things were changing.

“Maybe that’s not a bad thing,” she murmured. “I wasn’t trying to slam your choices, Carter. Lord knows I’ve made a few of them that haven’t been the best. I guess I’m feeling out of place so I’m not being my nicest.”

He had the prettiest eyes, she thought. Especially when he leaned even closer and she noticed those little blue flecks in his irises.

“I like it when you’re not all nicey-nice,” he admitted. “And when have you ever made a bad choice? My entire amateur career I’ve heard how perfect Lindsey Collins is.”

She doubted that. Her coach had pointed out every little flaw she had on every run she’d ever taken. Her mother thought her hair was too long. Her sponsor—a manufacturer of a beeswax-based lip balm—thought she needed to look Nordic and had asked her to wear blue contacts for her last photo shoot.

“Well, I’m far from perfect,” she informed him. “And I have many regrets.”