Sleigh Bells in the Snow (25 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

N
OW
WE
BOTH
know where we stand.

Kayla stamped her feet into her skis and zipped up her jacket. She had no idea where she stood. She’d made it clear she wanted him to back off, and he’d made it clear he had no intention of doing that. Part of her wanted to argue further, but she didn’t want to prolong a conversation she found terrifying.

He’d accused her of running away, but that wasn’t what she did. True, she avoided emotional entanglements, but that was a lifestyle choice. It had nothing to do with running and yet somehow he’d made her feel like a coward.

“Remember what I taught you—” Jackson removed his gloves and bent to tighten her boots.

She put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself and was immediately transported back to the night before. She’d explored the dip and curve of those muscles with her fingers and mouth. She knew the feel of his skin and the power of his body.

He straightened, his gaze holding hers.

Around them skiers whizzed past, their jackets a swirling kaleidoscope of bright color against a background of white, but all she saw was the blue of Jackson’s eyes.

Her mouth was dry, her fingertips frozen. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. It’s an easy run and I’ll be right next to you.”

“I wasn’t talking about the skiing.”

“I know.” His voice was gentle. “But you need to stop panicking and have some fun. Live a little, Kayla.”

“I like the way I live. Is it so wrong to enjoy work?”

“No. But when work becomes something you use to prevent you facing the things that scare you—that’s not good.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I’m trying. And I know that when you’re scared, the best thing to do is throw yourself into whatever it is that scares you. Just do it. Don’t think about what could go wrong. That’s a surefire way of never doing anything in life.”

“It’s a surefire way of getting hurt.”

“I’m still not talking about skiing.” He covered her lips with his fingers. “Stop assuming something bad will happen.”

She tried to ignore the feel of his fingers on her lips. “Maybe I’ll fall.”

“Maybe you won’t.” He stared deep into her eyes, and there was humor there and something much, much more serious.

She was definitely falling. Tumbling headlong into something she’d avoided all her life. “Maybe I’ll break a leg.”
Or something more important, like a heart.

“Maybe you’ll have the most fun you’ve ever had.” His voice soft, he dragged his thumb slowly over her mouth. “And maybe you’ll want to do it again and again.”

Her heart raced away faster than a downhill skier going for gold.

She tried to ignore it. Tried to ignore
him.
“I’m too old to learn to ski.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

His mouth flickered at the corners. “Your age is not getting in the way.” He pulled on his gloves. “The only thing getting in the way is your mind.”

“There is nothing wrong with my mind. I like my mind.”

“I like your mind, too. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like it to shut up once in a while. Now follow me and turn when I turn. That way you won’t gain too much speed.”

She watched him with a mixture of frustration and fascination thinking that, with the exception of Walter, she’d never met anyone more stubborn. Or maybe Jackson wasn’t stubborn. Maybe he just knew what he wanted.

She shivered.
Was that her?

He was right about one thing. Her mind did get in the way. It made her pick the safe route. But was that so wrong? Was it wrong to protect yourself...or sensible?

As he moved to one side, sure and confident on his skis, she had her first proper view of the slope.

“Oh, God, that’s steep! Now I understand why you were giving me the talk about facing my fear.” Terrified, she dug her poles and skis into the slope. “The only way I’m going down that is in an ambulance.”

“There is no way to get an ambulance up here.” He was laughing. “If you fall and you’re injured, you’ll be pulled down on a toboggan by the ski patrol. It’s not the most comfortable of rides.”

“Thank you for the motivational speech.” The slope fell away beneath her, the smooth groomed surface of the snow sparkling in the bright winter sunshine. The contrast of snowy mountains against blue sky would have taken her breath away if she hadn’t already been holding it in sheer terror.

Far below, through the veil of trees, she could see the village nestling in the valley and to the right the lake and the Snow Crystal cabins. “It’s comforting to know that if I fall I might just land straight in my bed.”

Maddeningly relaxed, he slid away from her. “Ski, Kayla.”

“Ski, Kayla,” she muttered under her breath. “Can I climb back up to the top? I’ll sacrifice my nails if that’s what it takes to get me back up to the lift.”

He glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “Trust your skis. And me.”

He had no idea what he was asking.

“I’m not big on trust.”

But he was.

He was a man who trusted family bonds to hold. She’d only ever seen them snap. “We’re incompatible.”

“Ski, Kayla, or I’ll carry you down, and that will make you dizzy.”

She was already dizzy, but she let the skis glide, tentatively at first, heard a soft rushing sound and felt the cold air on her cheeks. Her stomach knotted in terror and then she saw him turn, still watching her over his shoulder. She faltered, postponing the moment when she’d have to commit to going straight down the fall line. And then she saw a little girl no more than four years old careering down the mountain with her daddy and remembered what Jackson had said about her mind being the only thing getting in her way.

Holding her breath, she turned, ignoring the instinct that told her she was committing suicide. For a split second her speed increased, and she forced herself to concentrate, forced herself to remember what he’d told her about her weight and the edges of her skis and then she was turning and traversing the slope behind him.

Turn, glide, turn, glide—they went down the mountain, gradually increasing speed, and fear turned to enjoyment and then exhilaration. All worries left her mind as she focused.

There was a sense of peace that came from being out in the mountains, surrounded by people having fun. Her own smile stayed on her face right up until the moment she realized Jackson had stopped and she was going to crash into him.

He caught her easily, stopped her from plowing into the snow heaped at the side of the mountain restaurant, but her ski flew off and they both ended up in a tangled heap.

“And here I am, on my back again.” She was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe, and he was laughing, too, and cursing at the same time, as he took good-natured ribbing from two members of the ski patrol who happened to be passing.

“You just ruined my reputation. Thirty-two years I’ve skied here and I just fell on a baby slope. Do you know what this is going to cost me? I may have to move to Colorado.” He showed no sign of releasing her. His arm was around her and she was pressed hard against him. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, but I think my skis might have landed in Canada.” Her mouth was inches from his, and she was shocked by how badly she wanted to kiss him.

His eyes were intense blue, shadowed by lack of sleep and she knew hers were the same.

It had been the most incredible night of her life.

She rolled away from him and tried to get up. “Why did my skis come off?”

“I adjusted the bindings so that they’d come off if you fell. I didn’t want you to break an ankle.”

“Did I hear talk of broken ankles?” A man skied to a stop right next to them, showering them both with snow. “That’s my specialty.”

Jackson swore softly and brushed the snow off his jacket. “You pick your moments to show up.” He stood up and rescued both pairs of skis while Kayla stared at the man in disbelief. Apart from the fact he was clean-shaven, she was looking at another version of Jackson.

Jackson dug the skis into the deep snow next to the restaurant. “Kayla, meet my brother Sean.”

“Twins,” she murmured. “Identical twins. You said you were the eldest.”

“I’m the eldest by five minutes.”

“We are most certainly not identical.” Sean snapped his feet out of his skis. “My taste in wine is much better than his, and he might help you break your ankle but there’s no way he’d be able to fix it. Our taste in women, however, occasionally coincides.” His smile was as sexy as his brother’s. “You must be Kayla. Good to meet you.”

* * *

“
Y
OU
WANT
TO
offer up a piece of me as part of your PR campaign?” Tyler sprawled in his chair on the terrace of the mountain restaurant, nursing a beer while Jess sat close to him, soaking up each word he spoke.

Kayla poked the creamy froth on her cappuccino with a spoon. “Your skills and reputation add something to Snow Crystal. It’s something other resorts can’t match.”

Tyler winked at his brother. “Are you listening?”

Jackson rolled his eyes. This wasn’t the way he’d planned it. It was supposed to be a low-key friendly lunch with Jess and Tyler. He hadn’t banked on Sean arriving.

Fortunately Kayla didn’t seem overwhelmed.

Instead she seemed fascinated as she listened to Tyler and Sean talking about the performance of a U.S. skier.

“He got sucked low on the top section. The snow was soft.”

“DNF’d twice at Val-d’Isère. Hooked a tip halfway down.”

Tyler stretched out his legs. “We all have a bad run sometimes. The important thing is to get back out there and race again.”

Jess looked as if she was memorizing every word, while Kayla just looked confused.

“DNF?”

“Did not finish.” Jackson reached across and knocked a lump of snow off her hat. “Unlike you, who finished in style.”

“Flat on my face you mean. I have a feeling DNF could be my specialty. So I know there are two types of ski racing—the one that goes straight down and the one that’s curvy.”

“Slalom.” Tyler looked pained. “It’s called slalom.”

“Slalom. The one when you turn all the time—” she drew the pattern in the air “—a bit like I was doing just now when I came down the slope.”

Tyler lifted an eyebrow in incredulous disbelief. “Honey, you were about as close to slalom as I am to Mars.”

“I was just illustrating a point.”

“Slalom is one of two technical disciplines, the other being giant slalom. Do you know
anything
about World Cup alpine ski racing?”

“Not a thing,” Kayla said happily, “except that you all wear supertight spandex like Superman. Fortunately skiers seem to have muscles in all the right places, which is a relief because if you put that outfit on the average London commuter it would
not
be a good look.”

“The outfit is designed to minimize drag.” Tyler scowled at Sean, who wasn’t bothering to hide his laughter. “You got something to say?” Without waiting for him to respond, he turned back to Kayla, determined to educate her. “As well as technical, you have speed disciplines. Downhill is the Formula 1 of ski racing. I presume you’ve heard of Formula 1?”

“Formula? Isn’t that what they feed babies?” Kayla grinned. “Just kidding. So it’s fast.”

“You ski a course like the Lauberhorn in Switzerland, one of the longest and toughest on the World Cup circuit, and you’re hitting speeds of around 90 miles an hour, and you’re not wearing a seat belt. And when you’re up there waiting to start there’s nothing but you and the slope. Think about it.”

Jess was on the edge of her seat with excitement, but Kayla shuddered.

“I can’t think about it without wanting to vomit. I’ve just skied as fast as I ever intend to.”

“Fast?” Tyler choked on his beer. “If you’d skied any slower, the season would have been over and the rest of us would have been sunbathing.”

She lived her life like that, Jackson thought. With the brakes on. He wondered what it would take to get her to release those brakes.

“Sunbathing sounds good right now. This place is freezing.” Zipping her jacket up to the neck, Kayla sipped her coffee. “So downhill is for adrenaline junkies. I’ve got that. What else?”

“Then there’s the Super-G.”

“Super-G?”

“Super Giant Slalom.” Tyler glanced at his brother in despair. “Where the hell did you find her?”

“He found me in an office in New York. And I may not be able to stay upright on skis, but I can do my job as well as you do yours. I got my last client on the cover of the
New York Times
and
Time
magazine.” She put her cup down and smiled sweetly. “In my business that’s the equivalent of two Olympic golds, just in case you’re wondering. And under my direction we generated over three hundred million media impressions for that account, which means the number of people who saw that product mentioned was probably higher than the number of people watching your performance on TV.”

Tyler narrowed his eyes. “I’d say you crashed and burned your first night here.”

Jackson swore under his breath, but Kayla laughed.

“I definitely DNF’d in that meeting. But we all have a bad run sometimes. The important thing is to get back up and race again.” Throwing his own words back at him, she leaned forward. “People would pay a great deal to ski with you. To hear you speak about your experiences. You’re passionate about what you do. You’re an attraction.”

“For God’s sake, don’t tell him that.” Sean reached across the table for a bowl of fries. “Who ordered these? Since when do we live on junk food?”

“Since I’m no longer competing.” Tyler removed the fries from his brother. “And I’m more of an attraction than you are. I’ve got medals to prove it.”

“All those medals prove is that you ski like someone on a suicide mission.” Sean let Tyler take the bowl but helped himself to a handful. “Not that I’m complaining. It’s people like you who keep people like me in a job, so you carry on and snap those bones, bro.”

Jackson saw Kayla wince. “Enough medical talk. You’re back early, Sean. We weren’t expecting you until Christmas Eve.”