Completely Smitten (25 page)

“A lot of people believe that Darius is incapable of the softer emotions—love. Even friendship.”

She frowned. “Do you believe that?”

He broke the entire muffin in half. “Sometimes.”

His voice was soft. She got a sense he never opened up like that to anyone.

“So you’re not telling me to protect me?” she asked.

“And me.” He grabbed the butter and slathered some of it on the half of the muffin he hadn’t ruined. “If he hurt you, I don’t want to be the one responsible.”

“How would you be responsible?”

“If I let him near you.” He took a bite of the muffin, then set it down. “Besides, he’s gone now.”

“Gone?”

Vari nodded. “I have no idea when he’ll be back.”

“And you wouldn’t tell me if he did come back, right?”

She sounded bitter and she knew it. She tried to sound calmer, but his matter-of-fact tone was destroying any hope she had. In some ways, Darius had been her focus since she’d come out of the mountains, his kindness all she’d had to hold on to, his kiss what she dreamed about at night. Without that, what would she have?

“You know, there was an Ariel Summers who was a world-ranked triathelete,” Vari said, not answering her question. “Is that you?”

She blinked at him in surprise.

He lifted his cup toward her in a mock toast. “Just because I’m short and ugly doesn’t mean I can’t dream a little. Triathlon is the ultimate sport. Ironman tests endurance like nothing else. And I remember watching an Ariel Summers surprise the world in Australia a few years ago.”

The turkey sandwich had lost its flavor. She set it on the plate, resisting the urge to stand up and leave. “Yeah,” she said, and it cost her more than she thought it would. “I used to be a triathlete.”

“Used to?” He leaned his chair back on two legs. She got the sense that he was calmer now that they weren’t discussing Darius. “I can’t believe that an ankle injury would ruin a triathlete’s career.”

“That happened after.”

“What did?” He was watching her, as if she were a test subject, but for what she couldn’t tell.

“The ankle injury. I was done before that.”

“Why?”

“I tore my rotator cuff.” And in this rainy weather, her shoulder was constantly sore.

“I thought things like that heal,” he said.

“Sometimes,” she said, “but they run the risk of permanent disability. And I couldn’t seem to get my strength back up. The swim was always the worst part of my tri career. The shoulder injury sort of sealed my fate. And then the ankle …”

She shook her head, not willing to go on. The ankle had been the last straw. She felt as if she had been betrayed by her entire body.

“What about the ankle?” He brought his chair back down on all four legs, his expression avid.

She shrugged. “It was just one more thing.”

“But it’s healed, right?”

“Enough to wait tables.”

“What about running?” he asked.

“What about it?”

“Is the ankle healed enough for that?”

“I suppose. The doctors said it would be fine.”

“So why aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Running.”

“Why should I? I can’t race anymore.”

“There’re marathons,” he said. “And bike races. You don’t have to be a triathlete to compete.”

She touched the sourdough bread on top of her sandwich. The bread was flaky and light, very good. But she still didn’t want it.

How could she explain to him that marathons were nothing? She excelled at much more than that. She swam 2.5 miles, then biked 120 miles and then ran a marathon all in one day. That was what she thought competition was. To break it down into a single tiny piece was silly. It wasn’t competition at all.

He tilted his head. “You have an opinion you’re not sharing.”

She picked up her sandwich and took another bite. It was good and she was still hungry. She ate a bit more, savoring the way the sharp cheddar blended with the smoked turkey.

“You think it’s too easy to run a marathon.” He gave her a half grin. “You see it as part of a race and not the entire race.”

She shrugged, amazed that he could see through her that well, this man who obviously didn’t run marathons or race.

“What about extreme marathons?”

She knew about them, but they were part of another sport, something she didn’t do and didn’t care to do. When she had been racing, she had been very focused on her sport. She hadn’t had time for the others.

“What about them?” she asked.

“You think twenty-six-point-two miles is an easy length to run in an afternoon,” he said. “It’s not a challenge for you.”

“I’ve done it,” she said. “More times than I care to think about.”

“So what about a hundred miles?”

“Running?” she asked.

He nodded. “They’ve been doing those races for years now. It’s been the subject of some controversy in the sports field. Is that pushing the human body too hard? Too far? Rather like the early days of Ironman, when everyone was considered a nut.”

She stared at him. How did he know all this?

“In fact, it’s like the early days of marathoning before everyone and his dog decided to try it. In those days, marathoners were considered fringe. Remember?” Then he shook his head. “Of course you don’t remember. You’re a baby.”

She felt a flash of anger. “And how old are you, oh ancient one?”

His gaze met hers, and she saw a challenge in it. “Two thousand, eight hundred and one years old.”

She let out a puff of air. “I didn’t ask how old you felt.”

“Isn’t that the truest judge of age?” he asked.

She shook her head, unable to believe the way this conversation had gone.

“So what about it?” he asked.

“What about what?”

“Extreme marathoning.” He put his elbows on the table and studied her. “One hundred miles in one day. Could you do that?”

She felt a surge of anger, followed by a feeling she hadn’t had in almost two years. “I can do anything I put my mind to.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“Yes,” she said.

“So you don’t have to run a hundred miles in one day to know you can do it.”

“That’s right,” she said, finishing the sandwich and grabbing the brownie plate. “I know I can do it.”

He leaned back and studied her. “But can you win?”

Her gaze met his, and she frowned. She hadn’t expected the conversation to go this way. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Because,” he said softly, “I sponsor athletes, and I’m looking for a greyhound. Someone who can train and try this new sport, test its limits. I’m willing to bet one has just fallen into my lap. Are you game?”

Her hands were shaking. She hadn’t thought about returning to sports. Not at all, and she wasn’t exactly sure why. Suddenly she had an offer of a sponsorship and something to train for.

“Why are you doing this? So that I won’t nag you anymore about Darius?”

His eyes glinted. “If I sponsor you, you won’t have time to nag.”

She stared at him. How long had it been since she’d had purpose? She’d tried to make the hike her purpose and that had failed. Then she lost her management job—her attempt at a real life, as most people called it—and all she had left were her fantasies.

They weren’t taking her very far.

But she didn’t know this man, and the few times he had talked with her, he had been rude to her. Suddenly he was offering her a life on a silver platter.

It made her nervous.

“Well?” he asked.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

His smile was wide and real, and she got the odd sense that he was relieved. “Thank you,” he said, as if she had done him a favor.

“I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“But you’re going to think about it,” he said. “That’s more than enough for me.”

She frowned at him. “You act as if this matters to you.”

“It does,” he said softly. “It matters to me more than I can say.”

She studied him for a moment, and saw the light behind his eyes close. He wasn’t going to tell her any more. She wasn’t sure she wanted to stay here. He made her nervous. Not just because he was strange—he was—but because he made her feel warm and attractive and crazy all at the same time.

“I should be heading home,” she said. “Thank you for dinner.”

“You’re welcome.” He made no move from the chair.

She gathered her coat and left him. As she stepped outside the deli, she glanced through the rain-streaked window. His back was to her, and he was hunched forward, as if protecting himself from the world.

What an odd, lonely little man. Then she shook her head. Oh, no. She wasn’t going to trade her fascination with a Greek god for someone like Andrew Vari. She’d find something else first.

Maybe he was right. Maybe she should think about running again.

After all, she had nothing else.

*Fourteen*

Darius sat in the deli for a long time, staring at the mutilated muffin. His large double tall had grown cold, but he didn’t have enough energy to get up and buy himself a new one.

Ariel had left, a bounce in her step that hadn’t been there before. He hoped the bounce would stay.

He couldn’t believe what he had just done. He had told her parts of the truth to take her attention away from her precious Darius, and he had tried to redirect her back to sports.

He’d planned, as he left Cupid, to talk to her about marathoning. It was an accepted sport. The top athletes were well known. There was some good prize money and there were good endorsement deals.

But he’d seen that contempt in her gaze and knew that marathons wouldn’t hold her. She thought they were for wimps. He shook his head. They weren’t, but she had been one of the top female Ironman athletes in the world. She ran marathons for
practice
. No wonder she had looked at him that way.

He had only seen her weak and broken, as in the mountains, or listless and lost, as she had been here. He had only seen hints of the woman she really was, the one who had enough physical strength to be a distance athlete in three different sports, and the one who had enough mental toughness to compete in all three on the very same day.

Except for the moments during her fall. Then he had truly seen what an exceptional woman she was.

That expression on her face when he had mentioned marathons had startled him, and he had spoken without thinking. He knew that groups of runners who no longer felt challenged by the marathon had started the 100-mile races, but he had no idea if those races were sanctioned or if they were taken seriously.

He kept up with sports, but until now it had been an idle curiosity, not a passion.

If he was going to sponsor Ariel, it had to become a passion.

Sponsor. He sighed, slid his chair back, and walked to the counter. There he bought himself a meatball sandwich and another large double tall. This time he was going to eat, not pick at his food.

He needed to think.

He wasn’t sure where the sponsorship comment had come from. Being at Ariel’s side for the next six months was certainly not something he had planned on. The more he thought about it, the more the idea made him feel uncomfortable.

After all, he was the cause of her problems in the first place. If the Fates hadn’t needed someone to fall in love with him or lust or whatever it was—to test him—then she wouldn’t have been shot by Cupid, and she probably wouldn’t have been on that mountainside at that time, in that place. She wouldn’t have broken her ankle, become obsessed, and moved to Portland.

She would have found something else on her own, something to fulfill her and give her life meaning.

Instead, she would have him, the cause of it.

Darius sat back at the table, pushing the ruined muffin away and setting his meatball sandwich in its place. He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. His fingers smelled of the marinara they had put on the meatballs, and he was tired.

So very tired.

Maybe this was what the Fates wanted him to feel about his entire life. Guilt, remorse, and unworthiness. Emotions he didn’t even know existed in his arrogant youth. People, he believed then, had an obligation to
him
because of his magic, his talent, his natural athletic abilities, and his clear superiority.

What he had learned in the intervening years was that he had no clear superiority, that for all his talent, his magic, and his natural athletic abilities, he was more of a screw-up than anyone else he had ever met.

Maybe he was humble enough now. He wondered if he should go to the Fates and ask.

He raised his head and picked up his sandwich. He’d seen Cupid; that was enough for one day. Maybe he should stop focusing on himself and try, instead, to focus on someone else.

On Ariel, and helping her rebuild her life.

Ariel unlocked her front door and stepped inside. She flicked on the overhead light, closed the door, and leaned against it.

The building she lived in was actually a guest cottage behind a house built in the 1920s. The cottage was small— one main room, plus a small bedroom and a bath—but it was private, and she didn’t share her walls with anyone.

The owners had recently remodeled the cottage and she was its first tenant. It had a large main room, with a kitchen area and a dining area, as well as a place for a couch and a few chairs. Above the kitchen’s bar was a skylight that she really valued on gray Oregon days.

A narrow hallway led to the bathroom and the bedroom, which was barely large enough for her queen-sized bed. She had brought some of her furniture from Boise: the L-shaped couch, the overstuffed chairs, and a kitchen table that had been with her since college. A TV with cable, her best friend since she had gotten laid off, sat on a built-in shelf in the corner, beside the stereo system she had purchased at one of the outlets for less than a hundred dollars.

Small, intimate, and hers. Yet it meant so little to her that if someone told her she had to move tomorrow, she would find a truck and pack her things.

She had never really had a place that she called home, only a place where she rested when she was done training, or hid when she was feeling bad. She had never had a place she valued so much that she would do anything to stay there.