Nobody's Business (Nobody Romances) (12 page)

"I'll go fast, but safe," he amended, flashed a thumbs-up,
then pushed off on his one pole.

Lyn watched him slide away, until he was lost to her sight
over the next ridge. Oh, God. Please let him hurry.

The sky turned deep purple as the sun finally sank behind
the mountains. When the last of the daylight ebbed away, the
cold seeped into her bones.

Regardless of her warning, Doug picked up speed once out of
Brooklyn's sight, then struggled to maintain his balance on the
slippery slopes. Refrozen slush created rough terrain, and
the waning light only increased a skier's difficulty in reaching
the base safely.

No more than thirty seconds into his run, his skis skidded
on a bald patch, and he flailed. While his brain struggled to keep
calm, his heart pumped panic juice harder. After several sec onds where his one arm and ski pole whirled like the Tasmanian Devil in his childhood cartoons, he managed to find his
center of balance, plant his pole into the ground, and stop his
stumbling forward momentum.

He stood stock-still and blew out the breath he hadn't realized he held. Every muscle trembled violently. If he chanced
pressing on before regaining control, he'd wind up in a worse
position than Brooklyn.

Moron, he chastised himself. Slow down. On the slopes,
and in pursuit of this story.

This wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind when he'd dared
Brooklyn to a downhill race. It was supposed to be a test. A test
to see what she'd choose, given an escape route. He'd purposely
offered her the chance to wriggle out from their dinner date.
Knowing who she was, he also knew there was no way he could
ever out-ski her. He'd hoped, though, despite his demands to the
contrary, that she'd let him win at the last minute. That she'd
decide she wanted to have dinner with him.

Yeah, so it took an ego bigger than Wyoming to think that
way. But hey, he considered as he pushed off again, stranger
things had happened. Especially today.

Around him, twilight faded. The goggles obscured more
than protected at this stage. Again he stopped. With an angry
jerk, he yanked them above his helmet.

Without the yellowish outlook that made everything seem
jaundiced around the edges, he studied the shadowy ski lifts
and tried to gain his bearings. Up ahead, the run forked. A
weathered sign tacked to a skinny birch tree offered him the
option of taking Snow Problem on the left or Snow Me the
Money on the right. Both were posted as blue square trails.

He hated these cutesy "snow" names. Snow Problem. Did
that mean there were lots of problems on that particular run?
Or no problems?

Left or right? Which would get him to help faster?

In contrast to the rapidly plummeting temperature, a bead
of sweat trickled from his hairline into his eye, stinging like a
wasp. He blinked several times to ease the burn, but that only
blurred his vision somewhat.

Useless. He was completely useless right now. With no trail
map, no familiarity with this mountain, the wrong decision
could screw him up entirely.

How far away was the first-aid station? For that matter, how
far away was the base lodge? He stood like the perfect fool, in
search of some kind of sign. Instead, only cold and darkness
blew in.

He'd only been here a week, for God's sake. Thirty minutes
ago he'd been a beginner. Now he had to ski better and faster
than he ever had in his life. Better than Brooklyn Raine. Because she needed him to get her help.

The skis kept sliding forward, edging to the right. Okay.
Instinct, right? Go the way the skis told him to go. Toward
Snow Me the Money. With renewed determination, he pushed
off for more speed.

The tips clipped the side of a bump. He wobbled, but gritted
his teeth and forced himself back into an upright position. Just
in time to crest the top of the next hill and stare down. A pattern of bumps gleamed on the dusky trail. Moguls.

He'd taken the wrong turn and now had to meander his way
down a mogul run. In the dark. With one arm and a bunny-slope
education. Terrific. Why not make it really interesting and throw
in some sniper fire from the dense line of trees?

He inhaled sharply. No time for whining, wussy-boy. You've
been through rougher situations than this. Think about crawling on your belly in hot sand while bullets whizzed overhead
and fiery wind pelted your face. A mogul run was a playground,
compared to that day.

Pushing his edges deep into the snow, he slowed his speed
to a near crawl. With the ever-darkening night, being able to see
the bumps before he hit them became more crucial than zipping through blind. He tightened his jaw and slid forward, allowing his left ski to crest the side of one mini-hill. He barely
finished the turn before his right ski rode the natural incline of
another bump. Then another on the left. Right. Left. Right.
Left.

Beneath his helmet, his hair, soaked with sweat, plastered to his scalp. His calf muscles burned. A powerful thirst dried his
throat. The bumps grew steeper now, with little room in between
to ski around them. His knees absorbed the sledgehammer-like
blows again and again and again. As the punishment continued,
he toyed with the idea of removing his skis and walking the rest
of the way. Yet, he realized that would only slow him down even
more. So he pushed on.

At last the trail opened up to merge with another from the
opposite end of the tree line. The two trails widened into one,
which ran the length of the triple chairlift. Smooth as polished
glass.

Hallelujah! He'd made it.

And not too far below, the base lodge loomed.

Gratitude renewed his sagging spirits, and he schussed the
rest of the way down with ease. As he neared the base, he spotted several dark figures scurrying around the snowmobiles and
sleds.

"Hey!" he shouted, waving his arm frantically. "Help! Please!"

One of the figures turned and faced Doug.

"Brook-" He cut himself short. "Help, please," he repeated.
"It's Ms. Hill. Lyn? She fell on Snow Business. She needs a
sled."

Immediately, the three men went into action. One yanked the
chain from around the skis of the first snowmobile in the line.

"How far up is she?" another asked as he jammed a helmet on
his head.

Meanwhile, the third hustled off toward the door below the
Red Cross insignia.

How far? Doug considered for a long moment. Did he remember any landmarks in the area? Of course not. "Around
the fifth crest, I think. Before the fork for Snow Me the Money
and Snow Problem." That much, he knew without a doubt.

"What happened?"

"I'm not sure. She was ahead of me so I didn't see her fall.
I came upon her when she was already on the ground."

"How bad? Is she conscious? Bleeding anywhere?"

"She says she's okay, but doesn't want to push her luck by skiing down the rest of the way. I'm not so sure it's as simple
as she tried to make me believe. Nothing broken that I can tell
and no blood, but-"

The first man straddled the snowmobile, and the engine
roared to life. The second man hooked a sled to the revving
vehicle. The third returned from the first-aid station with a
bundle of blankets and dumped them on the sled.

"Okay," the first man shouted over the noise. "We'll find her
and take it from here. Thanks."

On a spit of snow, he rode away, speeding toward where Lyn
lay waiting.

"Why don't you go inside for now?" The third man clapped
Doug on the shoulder. "Grab something hot to drink. Kitchen's
closed, but there's stuff in the employee lounge. Tell anyone
who asks you're here with Lyn."

"But-"

"Go on," he said with a dismissive wave. "We'll take care
of Lyn."

And didn't that idea burn him? Suddenly, he was the additional, unneeded appendage.

One thing he'd learned in the last few months: there was no
such thing as an unneeded appendage.

Lyn snuggled deeper into the soft folds of her plush pink
bathrobe and forced her eyes to focus on the words in the novel
she'd picked up from the inn's library. No matter how hard she
tried, she couldn't concentrate on the murder mystery. Even
with a roaring fire in the parlor's hearth, the ice wrap around
her hip sent chills through her body. Luckily, the horse pills
prescribed by Dr. Ryder in the emergency room dulled the pain
to a throbbing ache. They also wreaked havoc with her eyesight,
so she'd pulled out a pair of store-bought reading glasses a former guest had left behind. Still, the words on the page continued
to elude her, in favor of revisiting what had occurred on the ski
trail.

She couldn't help running her tumble over and over again in
her head. Daddy always said reviewing mistakes on the slopes
would prevent her from repeating them. Marc, naturally, disagreed. Marc thought a skier was better off putting the mistakes in the darkest corners of his mind to focus on the next
run, the next day, the next race. Such divergent opinions always
left Lyn to weigh the logic of each and decide for herself which
option to choose. Today, Daddy's advice held more weight
than a crowd of elephants.

Of all the stupid things to do ...

As if insulted by her thoughts, her hip sent a sharp, stinging
pain through her bones. She sucked in a breath until it eased.

Technically, her injury could have been a lot worse. X-rays
showed no fractures or bone chips. Still, a pulled hamstring was
serious enough to sideline her for a minimum of two weeks. Two
prime ski weeks.

She squirmed in the high-backed wing chair and tossed the
matching throw pillow on the floor. God, could her timing have
been any worse? Why couldn't she have fallen in the spring or
summer? When icing her hip would have been an excellent way
to cool off. And when she didn't care about missing days on the
mountain.

"You sure you don't want me to stick around till your sister
gets back?"

Lyn looked up from the pillow's perch against the andirons
to find Mrs. Bascomb near the foyer closet door, shrugging
into her red plaid coat. The black lines crisscrossing the rotund
scarlet figure seemed to move at a high rate of speed, making
Lyn dizzy. Only several deep breaths restored some semblance
of her equilibrium.

"Go." She waved off the older woman. And take that nauseating coat with you. "I'll be fine."

Hoisting her hands to her hips, the older woman harrumphed.
"You shouldn't be alone right now."

The brass knocker on the front door suddenly thundered
through the room.

"Apparently someone agrees with me." Mrs. Bascomb
thunked across the gleaming oaken floorboards. Between the
coat and her lime green vinyl snow boots, she resembled a traffic light swaying in a windstorm. "I'm guessing Richie decided
to stay with you until April comes back. Thank God. You'll be
in good hands, and I can rest easy knowing someone's here to
take care of you."

Mrs. Bascomb yanked open the door, but Richie Armstrong
didn't step inside. Nor did April or any other member of her
entourage. A man crossed the threshold. Big, brawny. With a
large brown paper bag in his gloved left hand. And nothing in
his right. Not even a matching glove. In fact, his right hand
hung uselessly at his side, mannequin-like.

Lyn blinked once, twice. How on earth ... ? Her jaw dropped.
"Mr. Sawyer?"

"Doug," he corrected as he shook the snow-flaked hood off
his head.

His presence in her parlor, where he stood surrounded by dainty antiques, delicate china knickknacks, and floral fabrics, only enhanced his masculine aura. She recalled a scene
from some old movie where a former he-man wrestling star
played with a little girl in a dollhouse. The wrestler looked
almost monstrous in a tiny pink chair with a thimble-sized
teacup in his massive paws. And yet, he also looked adorable,
because his love for the child resonated so beautifully through
that image. The picture, once drawn into her brain, refused to
leave.

Only now, Mr. Sawyer portrayed the he-man, and her inn became the dollhouse. She, on the other hand, was no child. Selfconsciousness washed her cheeks with heat, traveling down to
her chest.

Despite the sudden perspiration drenching her skin, she
clutched the collar of her robe and gathered the chenille fabric
beneath her chin. "What are you doing here?"

"We have a date, remember?"

"A date?"

He hefted the bag into her line of sight. "Dinner. You lost
the bet. I beat you to the base lodge."

Dinner? He'd come here for dinner? Here? Panic shot through
her. She couldn't wrap her head around this situation. She had
completely forgotten about Douglas Sawyer, what with her quick
ride from sled to ambulance to emergency room gurney. He,
however, apparently hadn't forgotten about her.

Her hand crept up to smooth her hair. God, could he have
shown up when she looked any worse? If she dared to stand in
front of a mirror right now, she'd probably see that Hallmark
card character, Maxine, staring back. Complete with fuzzy
pink robe and bunny slippers on her feet.