Free Fall (11 page)

A
T DAWN
, L
ILY TIPTOED OUT
of Logan's room and quietly shut the door, then leaned back against it.

She had to get to work.

Or so she told herself.

Much better than thinking she was actually using any sort of avoidance technique, which she abhorred.

Aw, hell, she was using an avoidance technique. She closed her eyes and saw Logan again, looking gorgeous and rumpled all sprawled naked across his bed. She'd spent a good five minutes looking her fill before sneaking out into the hall, where she'd hopefully get to her own room and change before anyone realized she was still wearing yesterday's clothes—

“You taking up room cleaning now?”

Lily's eyes flew open and met the gaze of the one person she'd have liked to avoid this morning.

Gwyneth.

“Hey.” Lily ran her hand down her undoubtedly wild hair. “What are you doing up so early?”

“Well, I'm not tiptoeing out of a guest's room looking like I've been ravished all night long, that's for certain. I wanted to get a head start on the receivables, but a guest needed an extra blanket and I just
happened to get the call. Did you even look in the mirror?”

Lily tugged at her sweater.

“I'm talking about the love bite on your neck.”

“Back off.” But she put a finger to the spot on her neck as she moved past her sister.

Gwyneth grabbed her hand. Lily whipped around, prepared for battle, but in her sister's gaze was a soft worry. “Lily—”

“Not here.” Lily glanced at Logan's door. “Not here.” She started walking to her room. Gwyneth followed. “I'm taking a shower,” Lily warned. “Alone.”

But when she came back out of her room fifteen minutes later, her sister was leaning against the wall waiting for her. “I heard what you did yesterday for Pete, how scary and dangerous the rescue was. We have people for that—you no longer have to dangle off cliffs for a living.”

Lily began to walk toward their offices. “I happen to be good at it.”

“You have different responsibilities now. Bigger ones. You should have let someone else go.”

“Really?” She stopped in the still-dark common room. “One of our employees?”

“Hell, yes. They're trained and paid for it—it's not a crime if there's a rescue and you're not involved. But it's over and done, and you're safe, so I can let that go. There's something else.”

She meant some
one
else, of course.
Logan
. His name floated in the air silently between them.

“You shouldn't be sleeping with a guest, Lily. You shouldn't be—”

“I don't have time for the ‘shouldn't be' lecture.” She began walking again.

“Is that what you think I'm doing? Giving you a lecture?”

“Don't do this. Don't do that. Don't, don't, don't…”

“It's never stopped you before. Look, I love you, you know I do, but—”

“But. Love always comes with a damn but.” And she'd spent too many years chafing at the restraints, pretending not to care that she met exactly no one's expectations. “Maybe I'm tired of you not seeing me. I've grown up, Gwyneth. Years ago. Open your eyes and see it. I can handle this. I
am
handling this.”

Gwyneth just shook her head, and Lily wanted to scream in frustration. If this was love, it weighed a ton. Was it any wonder she'd never even attempted to find such an emotion in her own relationships with men?

“There's a staff meeting today.”

Lily drew a deep breath but it didn't help. “I know, I set it up.” She entered the office wing, then stopped in surprise.

Sara and Matt sat on Carrie's desk, making out. It didn't look easy, what with the baby in the way and the desk full of paperwork, but Matt had his arms possessively and protectively around his wife and a big hand spread wide over her belly.

That gesture scraped at a spot in Lily's stomach. No matter how crazy Sara was, or how laid-back Matt was, they were so in love, transcending all the dissention and discord around them to become this…this
unit
in a way that was both alien to Lily
and yet somehow so goddamn attractive it made her throat close up.

“Oh, for God's sake,” Gwyneth said. “Get a room.”

Matt lifted his mouth off Sara's and grinned. “We would, but that's how we got into trouble in the first place.”

Sara put her hand on his jaw and smiled up at him as if he was her entire world.

Lily sighed. It was cute. Beautiful, even. But not the world she'd chosen for herself. “Why is everyone up so early?”

“I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon.” Sara patted her belly. “I came in to get my stuff done.”

“And I drove her in.” Matt smiled into Sara's eyes.

“Oh, goody.” This from Gwyneth. “No more kissing on the desks.”

Lily rolled her eyes, but her mind was still on what Gwyneth had said about risking herself. She looked at Sara and Matt, so wildly in love, and wondered if she was this gone over someone, would she still want to go on the crazy rescues? And if the worst happened, and she died…would she go with no regrets?

She loved her life, and would have sworn she gave it her all, without holding back.

But she did hold back.

She held back where maybe she shouldn't—in matters of the heart—and for the first time, she asked herself what she was missing by doing so.

Gwyneth kicked Matt's feet off Carrie's desk, then nudged Lily past the lovebirds and into her office.

Lily went straight to her desk and the piles there, determined to sidetrack Gwyneth from the line of
questioning they were headed for.
Logan
. “Do you want to go over the summer brochures? The pictures came back, they're not bad at all. Oh, and the ads for the statewide campaign are due today, and I haven't even had time to look at them…. Wait. Where are they?” She flipped through the piles, no longer trying for a distraction since she'd found a real one. “They're here somewhere, they have to be.”

“You need to organize.”

“Don't start.” She shifted piles aside and kept searching. Damn it. She knew exactly which pile she'd put the advertising material in, but it was gone. Damn, she didn't need yet another problem, another reason for Gwyneth to assume she couldn't handle things. First it had been the out-of-bounds signs, then the bakery order, then the party—it was as if someone was specifically out to cause trouble for her.

She looked at Gwyneth, who was standing in front of her desk with the pinched look to her face that said she was gearing up for another lecture, and knew that she couldn't share her sudden suspicion with her sister—Gwyneth would think she was being ridiculous, passing her own incompetence off on some mysterious prankster. So she started riffling through the papers again. “We need to make a final decision on this stuff, and then decide where to place them. And now that the cafeteria is doing so well, I want to put in separate ads for that in all the Tahoe-area dailies and magazines, as well.”

“So you're sleeping with another skier.”

Lily's hands went still. “We're talking about the missing ad file.”

Gwyneth came close and put her hands over Lily's. “I'm worried about you falling for some ski bum who sees you as his meal ticket to old age.”

“Logan is the furthest thing from a ski bum I've ever seen.” She pointedly resumed searching for the missing ads. She didn't want to even think about falling for Logan, let alone discuss the possibility out loud—and especially not with either one of her sisters, who could be guaranteed not to understand.

Gwyneth didn't say anything and Lily tried not to look at her, but finally the silence became too heavy and she lifted her head.

“You didn't make a joke or scoff it off,” Gwyneth said quietly.

“Scoff what off?”

“The possibility of you falling for him.”

“It's only been a few days.”

“So say it. Look me in the eyes and say you aren't falling for him.”

Damn.
Lily looked her right in the eyes, opened her mouth and…nothing came out.

“Good God.” Looking shaken, Gwyneth perched a hip on the desk. “Maybe you'd better tell me about him.
All
about him.”

“I've got to find that file. If we don't, we miss our placement date. As our accountant, you can't possibly approve of that.”

“For once, I am not interested in money. Start talking, Lily.”

 

L
OGAN WOKE UP ALONE AND BIT
back his disappointment. Apparently fun time was over for Lily, which
was fine. After all, in a few days he'd be back in his world, far away from here, living his life, doing what he did best.

And like Lily, he'd be far too busy to lie in bed all morning, no matter how tempting.

He got up, showered, then headed outside. The weather was clear, the previous day's storm long forgotten and he skied for several hours before stopping at the lodge for something hot to drink. He was sitting on the outside deck, which overlooked the terrain park, where the boarders did their tricks, when a shadow fell over him.

Squinting into the bright sunshine, he looked up into a pair of whiskey-colored eyes. Lily smiled and gestured to the spot next to him. “Taken?”

“It is now.” He scooted over for her.

She wore boarder pants and a soft white hoodie sweater with the Bay Moon Resort logo on the arm. It zipped to just between her breasts, with two fluffy tassels hanging down. He wondered if she was wearing one of her sexy camisoles beneath, and if her panties matched. “Why did you run off this morning?”

“I didn't.” She met his steady gaze and blew out a breath. “Exactly.”

He flicked a tassel. “Then what, exactly?”

“I had work.”

“Did you get it done?”

“That's a matter of opinion, but I've got a few hours.” She looked at him. “To be with you.”

Unable to help himself, he touched her jaw and the scratch there from yesterday's rescue. “Then why
aren't we still in my bed wrapped around each other, me buried deep inside you, with you panting my name in that sexy little whisper you have?”

She let out a soft, little laugh as the pulse at the base of her throat took off. “Maybe I had something else in mind.”

“Like what?”

She lifted a challenging brow. “Scared?”

“Should I be?”

“I can't imagine what I could dish out that would scare you,” she said.

“Imagine again, then,” he said. “Because everything about you scares me, especially after watching you hang off that cliff yesterday.”

Her smile faded.

“No, never mind.” He shook his head. “I'm sorry. We both know I'd have done the same thing in a heartbeat, and have more times than I can count. It just seems that when it comes to you, my reasoning seems to fly right out the window.”

“Because you care.”

“Hell, yeah, I care.” He touched her jaw again, his own tight. “More than what makes sense.”

She said nothing but covered his hand with her own and held it to her, staring at him for a long moment. Finally, she stood. “Come on.”

“Where to?”

She drew him to his feet. “Does it matter?”

He looked down at her and felt his heart tug hard. “Not really.”

“Then it's a surprise.”

 

L
ILY DROVE
. “I
T'S NOT FAR
.” She took the narrow, windy mountain road around the back of the lodge. It led into the thick of the woods, where the towering pines blocked out the sun and shrank their world to the inside of her car.

“Where are we?” he asked, enjoying the ride.

“Still on our property, actually.” She turned onto another road, which had been plowed only one lane wide, with fifteen-foot-high snow berms on either side.

Logan held on as the road twisted and turned, wondering what they were going to do if they met another car coming in the opposite direction. But thankfully they didn't.

“Here we are.” She pulled up to a tiny log cabin with smoke coming out of the chimney and what sounded like an entire pack of dogs barking and howling nearby. “Bring your jacket and gloves.” She got out of the car, cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, “Mary!” and the unseen dogs redoubled their effort. He raised his eyebrows. There wasn't much chance anyone could sneak up on this place.

A woman poked her head out of the cabin and grinned broadly at Lily before she vanished. She appeared a moment later wearing a snowsuit, a beanie and that same grin. “It's a perfect day for this.”

“I know,” Lily said. “You too busy?”

“I have three reservations, all for later, so you're in luck. Come on.” She eyed Logan up and down and then back again. “What, about one-ninety?”

“One seventy-five,” Lily said, and the two women exchanged a look and then a grin.

Logan realized they were talking about his weight, and looked curiously to Lily, but she just smiled and led him around the back of the cabin.

There were two long kennels there, filled with what looked like wolves but turned out to be an intriguing mix of huskies and malamutes.

“You ever been dog sledding before?” Mary asked him, as the three of them walked toward a long sled that was sitting between the kennel buildings. The noise level rose even further, accompanied by the dogs trotting around in their individual indoor-out-door runs, jumping up on the chain-link fences that separated them from the sled and doing a damned good imitation of a bunch of teenagers trying out for a baseball team.

He shook his head. “No, never.” A new experience. Rare. “You know, it's like they're all yelling, ‘Pick me, pick me.'”

Lily and Mary laughed, and he looked over at Lily. She was smiling at him, excited and happy, and he felt a surge of that himself. Sure, the dog sledding would be a new experience—but so was whatever he was feeling for Lily.