Cathryn Parry - Something to Prove

Her gaze never left his. “New Hampshire.”

His pulse picked up. Few people knew it, but he’d lived there as a kid for a while. It was where he’d first tried skiing, where he’d first found his escape. “Where in New Hampshire?”

She nibbled the inside of her lip, as if debating whether to tell him. “Deanfield,” she finally said. “It’s a really beautiful place in the mountains.”

He stared at her. She’d grown up right down the road from him. What had she looked like as a child?

Haunting. With inquisitive eyes that saw through a person, and luminous skin. The two of them created some kind of magnetic vacuum that sucked all the air from the room. Under the table, her bare legs crossed and uncrossed. He could practically feel her heat.

In the old days, if Harrison hadn’t been present, Brody knew exactly what he’d have done next. He would have already been across the table, settling her into his lap, kissing her…

He shook off the vision. This wasn’t what he needed in his life anymore. He’d been through hell these past few years, and as a result, he’d changed every concept of what was meaningful and real to him. Meeting a woman and hooking up with her before he knew anything about her was the last thing he could afford to do.

But, he noticed, despite her former reticence toward him, she was leaning forward, not fighting the connection. Obviously she felt the pull, too.

He doubted she was lying to him, at least not about that. No, she seemed to have dropped her mask altogether and was being herself.

The way she really was.

The way he was glad she was.

CHAPTER TWO

AMANDA FELT A HUMMING INSIDE her and willed herself to stop looking at Brody’s mouth.

Instead, she gazed out the window at the mountainside punctuated with tall pines. And skiers. But none of them were solid and haunting, with lips that were flat on the bottom and bow-shaped on top. The kind she could feel herself kissing…

What was she doing? Fantasizing about an interview subject was wrong, and completely unlike her. She needed to get a grip.

“So…” Shifting in her seat, she aimed the voice recorder at him. Time to get to work. “I understand you have an amazing record, Brody, ten years and fifty World Cup podiums. You’re the most accomplished skier from North America in quite a while. You’ve won everything there is to win. Nobody is even close to your record. I’d like to know why you’ve come back after being gone from the circuit for two years, and what you hope to accomplish this season.”

He eyed her. He eyed the recorder.

Please, Brody. Talk to me.

“I’m here to win my next race,” he said.

Good, that was good. She nodded. Please keep talking.

“I’m here to win it my way.”

“What does that mean?” she asked softly. “I really would like to know.”

His agent grew nervous, fidgeting with his pockets. “Brody means he feels privileged to be back, and he’s looking forward to having a great season.”

Brody met her gaze and held it. Her insides heated. She felt that invisible line again, tugging her to him.

No. She couldn’t give in. Obviously, something was going on, something he and his agent were hiding. She wasn’t an investigative reporter for nothing. She had intuition. Gold-plated hunches, the editors called them in the newsroom of her first reporting job, back when she’d been still in high school.

She leaned forward on her elbows. “Brody,” she said, purposely ignoring the agent’s coughing fit on the other side of the table, “what makes you different from the other competitors in the circuit? In the way you ski, I mean? What makes caravans of people follow you from race to race just to catch a glimpse of you in action?”

As if you don’t get it, Amanda. It’s called world-class sex appeal, and you can’t buy that in Walmart.

“Have you ever been on skis?” he asked intently, his smile slowly forming again, his hands inches from hers.

She held her breath, not wanting to go there. But his eyes were insistent. And if she wanted to get her story, she needed to keep him talking. “Yes,” she admitted, “but not since I was little.”

“Do you remember how it felt?” His voice was low. “To go fast? To feel the wind in your hair? To feel like nothing could stop you and you were part of heaven and earth?”

Her gaze felt tied to his. She couldn’t help swallowing, because those visual cues—the intensity of his facial expression, his strong athlete’s neck, the proud affiliation of his ski-team jacket—brought back the bad parts of skiing, the things she’d always hated and felt terrorized by, growing up. For too long, skiing had been about failure, humiliation and shame. And now, her sister’s broken, ruined body.

She swallowed again, but she could never get rid of the bad taste in her mouth; it always came back to haunt her. There was no solution, even though Brody Jones seemed to sense her discomfort.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.” But tears were threatening, so she blinked fast. She had one strong point in her life to fall back on—her job—and here, with this skier, she couldn’t even do that properly.

Exhaling, she lifted her chin. She needed to hold on to whatever shred of an interview she had left. “We all grow up, Brody. Life changes. Nobody can help that.”

“True.” His brow creased as he looked not at the voice recorder, but directly into her eyes. “But we can remember when life was simpler. At heart, I think people want to recapture that. Maybe that’s why they go to mountain races—to breathe in the air and soak up the sun and ring cowbells like they’re kids again. You could, too, if you wanted.”

She dropped back in her seat and stared at him.

He smiled, embarrassed this time. “Or not. It’s a theory, but you asked.”

He’s giving me amazing quotes, the reporter part of her brain said. Brody hadn’t said anything like this, not that she’d read, to any other reporter.

“You…stayed away from the circuit for two years,” she pressed on. “Even after you were healthy. You said you were finished, that you’d accomplished all you wanted to accomplish. What made you come back to the tour?”

“Time is up.” The agent stood. “Miss Jensen, it’s been a pleasure to meet you.”

But Amanda looked to Brody. Her hunch was right. His mask was back in place, as if he regretted opening up to her. Something was wrong, and he was hiding whatever it was.

“I’m not going to screw you over, Brody,” she murmured. How could she, after the kindness that he’d shown her?

He reached over and turned off her digital recorder. “You’re a journalist,” he said with an edge to his voice. “It’s what journalists do.”

“Some journalists maybe, but not me.” She pointed at him. “Let’s get something straight. You talk about the joy of youth. Well, I’ve known since I was a kid that I was a born writer, and that I loved doing it. I caught the enthusiasm for reporting early, and I never lost it. Believe me, I don’t compromise my journalistic integrity for anyone, including my employer.”

He smiled widely at her. “Then you’re the first of the breed I’ve met.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“We’ll see, won’t we? I gave you quotes. Let’s see what you do with them.”

“Cynical, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “I’ve had my words twisted by all the so-called nicest journalists. They write what they want to write, for whatever agenda they have. I’ve learned better than to try to control it.”

“Refusing to speak—is that the way to control it?”

He shook his head. “Even that doesn’t work. Stuff still gets made up.”

“Believe it or not, Brody, I take my job seriously. I might go undercover now and then, I might bust a person’s chops, but I never, ever mess around with quotes. Are you kidding me? That’s for hacks, and I don’t care how many awards they might have won, it’s still hack reporting. That’s like, like…” She was so mad she was stuttering.