Snow Angel (19 page)

Jacob bounced through her mental vision, a smile flashing against the tan of his skin. If she moved up, she’d have more time with him, and that sounded like an excellent reason all on its own.

Everything was more fun in Jacob’s company.

Flexing her fingers and scrunching her toes inside her stiff ski boots, Melinda tried to work out the nervous tingles scurrying through her bloodstream.

The expert lifts were so
high.

They reached the top and hopped off their lift chair, Melinda grateful to put aside her line of thinking. She didn’t want to examine her sudden urge to spend extra time with Jacob. Not yet. That path seemed even more dangerous than the double-black-diamond slopes.

“Race you!” Karen yelled and took off down the run with a gleeful cackle.

Grinning, Melinda followed at her own pace. Her mother was a daredevil, not even bothering to turn on the slope, simply heading straight down at breakneck speed, her body tucked into a crouch, face forward, her poles lifted behind her. Snow flew beneath her skis, sending a delicate spray in twin lacy plumes at her back. She’d reach the bottom long before Melinda would at her more sedate pace, but Melinda was well used to coming in last on the ski slopes.

In the water it was another story. She could challenge just about anyone to a race and come out lengths ahead, even against Jacob or the other guys and their longer reaches.

The air was sharp enough to sting, but Melinda reveled in the beauty surrounding her. There was nothing like swooshing down a powder-covered slope through a winter wonderland, the sun and wind on her face, her muscles flexing.

The sheer joy of it filled her like song.

At the bottom, she and her mother changed courses to another intermediate run and hopped on the lift. This one soared steeper than the first and felt faster, as though they were hurtling through the bright blue sky at a reckless pace.

Melinda breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, studiously ignoring the ground as it fell away in a rush below her skis, reminding herself the lifts were simply the price she had to pay to engage in one of her favorite activities, and well worth the effort.

Cold bit through her protective layers like piercing needles now that she was stationary for the length of the lift. Beside her, Karen rubbed her hands together vigorously to warm them. Melinda hoped the weather would stay clear, at least. A storm could drop the temperatures to unbearable levels.

“Tell me about this ski instructor,” Karen said out of the blue. “We didn’t have a chance to talk last night.”

“Oh,” Melinda said with a small laugh, unsure why she suddenly felt uncomfortable. She gave what she hoped looked like a careless shrug. “He’s from Denmark, and he travels all over the world teaching skiing and surfing. His life’s been pretty incredible, I think.”

Karen tilted her head to the sun. “That sounds amazing. Getting to see so many places, meeting people, experiencing so much. He must have been interesting to talk to.”

“He was. He’s only five years older than me, and he’s been practically everywhere. I’m a little jealous.”

“Traveling is a wonderful gift,” her mom agreed. “You should do more, especially once you get out of school. See the world a bit before you settle down.”

“Mm-hmm,” Melinda murmured, thinking of her conversation with Jacob the night before.

He had lots of travel plans, not to mention the traveling he’d do for work once he got on with a professional sports team like he wanted.

She wanted to see more of the world, for sure, but she was a homebody at her core. She’d never be happy without a solid home base to go back to after every journey, no matter how long or short. And that home base meant
home
—Pasodoro, where the great majority of her family and friends were never more than a short drive away—not some soulless apartment in New York City or Podunk Wherever.

“Is he cute?” Karen asked, pulling Melinda’s attention back to the present.

Melinda couldn’t see them beneath Karen’s knit cap, but she was sure her mother’s eyebrows were wiggling up and down.

“Yes, cute,” Melinda answered, blowing out an amused breath. “But—” She broke off, not sure what she’d intended to say.

Karen didn’t let her stop there. “But?”

“I don’t know,” Melinda answered. “He’s just not...”

She trailed off again, flailing her free hand around, searching for words.

“Not like Jacob,” Karen supplied, her voice supremely casual.

“Now why do you say that?” Melinda asked, frowning. Was she giving off some sort of Jacob-vibe she wasn’t even aware of somehow?

“You’ve always held him up as a sort of ideal,” her mother said innocently.

“I have?”

“Sure, ever since you decided to marry him.”

“What?” Melinda gasped, choking on a laugh, even as her heart gave a little lurch. “I was four!”

“Well, you always were a wise little thing,” Karen said, her tone comfortable. “He’s a good ideal to hold.”

Melinda shook her head as though her mother had hit her flat in the face with a frying pan, trying to re-gather her scattered wits.

“What I was going to say is it’s not like Dane has any potential, so it doesn’t really matter if he’s cute or interesting.”

“Of course not,” Karen said, surprise in her voice now. “I didn’t ask if you were going to marry him, sweetheart. You’ve just met, and it’s unlikely you’ll see him again once we leave. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your time with a cute, interesting boy while we’re here.”

“Well, right.” Back on track, Melinda nodded her head decisively. “We’re only here for a week, and he’s a world traveler, probably with the clichéd woman in every port. Besides, I’m still getting over Mitch—” she broke off in exasperation at Karen’s indignant snort “—and Dane’s not really my type, anyway. And not because he’s not like Jake!” she added when her mother opened her mouth to make another comment.

Folding her arms across her body in agitation, Melinda momentarily forgot all about holding onto the bar, frowning over the tops of the trees as the end of the lift rushed toward them.

“Good to know,” Karen said, her voice once again as mellow as could be. “I’d hate to see you pining after someone who’s rarely around. Long-distance relationships are tough. Lots of extra work. They’re only worth the effort for someone truly special.”

With that, they skied off the bench, and Melinda followed her mother down the next slope, traversing each curve slowly, her thoughts a jumble.

Her mother’s last comment seemed sort of double-edged. Was she warning Melinda off getting involved with anyone long distance, or intimating that Jacob would be worth the trouble if they got involved, given his future plans?

Or was she reading too much into an innocent statement?

Why did it seem like everywhere she turned the last few days, Jacob was there?

Her cheeks heated as a vision of waking snuggled on top of him that morning wove before her eyes. The absolute rightness of that moment had staggered her before she’d managed to wake herself up fully and tried to bury those unwelcome emotions. Jacob’s obvious reaction to her had sent more than embarrassment and an uncontrollable answering heat winging through her body.

Of course, she understood about guys and mornings and all that stuff. She’d taken sex ed, after all, and had spent the night with Mitch plenty of times. It didn’t necessarily mean anything beyond basic biology.

Except for the look in Jacob’s eyes.

Nope, not going there.

It was all too soon after Mitch, and too dangerous with a friend as close as Jacob. It didn’t matter if he’d found his way into her fantasies more times than she wanted to admit, it didn’t matter that she admired him above any guy she could name except for her dad, or that she loved spending time with him more than any of her other friends.

It didn’t matter that he knew her inside out and could make her laugh even when her heart was breaking, or that he’d stuck by her through even her ugliest phases, both the physical and the emotional ones.

He could very well be the most perfect guy on earth for her, but traveling that path was a journey to nowhere. He wanted to light the world on fire, living the glamorous life. If they got involved, she’d be lonely all the time, not just on the slopes. The consequences would be disastrous to her heart.

Speeding up to catch her mother, Melinda determinedly left those thoughts behind like so much powder flying away beneath her skis.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“So, Jake,” Christian said, holding out his ski pole to stop Jacob from screaming down the next slope after the rest of their rapidly vanishing group. “Hold up a sec.”

“Yeah?” Jacob asked, following Christian to the side and out of the way of any other skiers, though the steep, mogul-covered trail stood empty as far back as he could see.

Christian settled himself in a small open space between two soaring pine trees, and Jacob matched his comfortable stance, sitting back a bit on his skis.

When the younger man lifted his goggles to the top of his forehead, Jacob did that, too, so they could see each other’s eyes.

Rocking slightly, Christian scrutinized him with uncharacteristic solemnity. Jacob had the sudden urge to fidget the way he did when his parents lasered him with remarkably similar stares.

The silence stretched out until Jacob finally opened his mouth to speak, but Christian dove into the breech.

“What’s going on with you and my cousin?” he asked, knocking Jacob completely off stride.

Of all the topics he might have suspected Christian wanted to discuss, that one would not even have made the list.

“Uh,” he said, and actually felt his brain grind to a halt.

“You think no one’s noticed?” Christian asked, his pale blond eyebrows raised in superior disbelief.

“Uh,” Jacob said again, trying to kick start his brain like one of Gabe’s pre-rehabbed motorcycles. “Hmm.”

“Because we’ve noticed.”

Twin spots of bright red color, the curse of the pale-skinned, splotched Christian’s cheeks, but his eyes, nearly as deep a blue as Melinda’s, never wavered.

Stalling, still kicking over his brain, Jacob asked, “What? What have you noticed?”

That was possibly a stupid question. Did he really want Christian to spell it out? Jacob blamed his faulty mental wires for tossing words out of his mouth before he’d fully considered the consequences.

“You can’t keep your eyes off her, man,” Christian said, sternness riding his baby face. “It’s obvious. And she’s… I don’t know. Something’s changed. I want to know what it is and what you’re gonna do about it.”

Jacob stared at the ground, suddenly very aware of the stinging cold, though waves of heat rolled through his body on the inside. He blew out a breath that puffed white on the crystalline air and wondered how to answer his life-long friend. His thoughts were a tangle, his words locked in his chest.

Christian sighed. “Look, Jake,” he said, “you’re a good guy. You’re my friend, practically another brother, and I like you a lot. Fact is, you guys could be good together, but…”

Looking up when Christian broke off, Jacob said, “But?”

Awkward now, Christian shifted on his skis, his eyes staring over the stunning vista spread out below the mountain, and Jacob followed his gaze. White as far as the eye could see, so pure it almost hurt.

“We’ve talked about it.” Christian faced him again, his eyes piercing.

“We who?” Jacob asked, admitting nothing.

“Dan and Rick and me.”

The idea of the brothers holding a powwow about him and Melinda had squirmy eels writhing through his belly. It hadn’t occurred to him to worry about their approval.

In hindsight, that seemed incredibly stupid.

They were more than family to her, more than friends to him. A relationship with Melinda would impact all of them, both of their families, all of their friends. They were too tightly entwined for it to be any other way.

He’d considered the extended family as potential collateral damage in the event of a breakup, but he hadn’t given any thought to seeking their pre-approval for him and Melinda to get together in the first place. The only approval he’d been thinking about stemmed from their parents.

Now that Christian had confronted him, he silently admitted he needed to cast a much wider net.

How did it all get so freaking complicated?

“They’re worried about it,” Christian continued, and Jacob’s stomach sank to the tips of his skis. “We’ve all been friends a long time. So there’s that.”

“Yeah,” Jacob murmured. “There’s that.”

“And she got dumped like four days ago by a guy we all thought she’d marry someday.”

The squirmy eels writhed some more. He’d known it was too fast, hadn’t he? Too soon. But damn it, he couldn’t help the way he felt, and that wasn’t a new thing, as much as he might have tried to ignore it for months and months.

If the timing sucked, so be it, but…

“Have you thought about what you’d have to give up?” Christian asked.

Jacob looked at him, not understanding.

“I’m just saying, you better think this through, dude. Do you want this big, famous lifestyle, or do you want Melinda? You won’t get both, at least not if you really want to make her happy, which you’d better.”

His conversation with Melinda on that very topic confirmed Christian’s words. But they were young still, years of schooling still ahead of them. And internships…

He shied away from thinking about what the rest of the group didn’t know. His future plans were the least of his worries at the moment.

Surely, once she got out of school and had some freedom, Melinda would realize there was way more to life than hiding away in Pasodoro forever.

Christian was still speaking. With the thoughts whirling around his head, Jacob almost missed his friend’s words.

“But if we’re honest,” Christian said, “there’s no one else we’d rather see her with. Definitely not that Mitch bastard.”

“You—what?” Jacob asked, surprise almost stealing his tongue.

“Yeah. The friendship angle’s tricky, though. So be sure. ‘Cuz if you’re just screwing around, if you hurt her, we’ll take you out. Clear?”

Jacob studied his young friend in return. He had half a mind to deny it, to deny the whole thing and keep it private for at least a while longer, but there was a spark inside him that wouldn’t let him get away with such an obvious—and ultimately pointless—deception.

There
was
something different going on.

He might not know what to do about it all yet, or what would happen, but he could at least be honest about that much.

“I—” he said, then broke off, unsure what he wanted to say.

Christian simply raised his brows again.

“Hell,” Jacob muttered. “Yeah. Yes. We’re clear.”

“Okay, then,” Christian said, his normally cheerful smile back in place as though the last uncomfortable moments had never happened.

He clapped Jacob on the shoulder, dug his poles into the soft powder, and pushed off, quickly careening out of sight down the next steep section of slope.

Jacob stared after him, his brain as twisted up as when the conversation had first started, but for one gleaming light shining through the rest of the chaos.

Had Christian, in playing Head Of The Family, just given Jacob not only permission, but outright approval, to date Melinda?

Head in the clouds, an uncontrollable grin stretching across his face, Jacob pushed his goggles back in place and glided forward, tipping his skis over the edge of the steep incline, hardly watching where he was going.

Dating Melinda.

That was the trick, wasn’t it, the crux of the whole matter.

A relationship, for them, could never be as casual as dating. They had too much history, both between themselves and between their families, too many events and memories and life-long traditions shared to ever allow such a complicated thing as the two of them dating to be simple.

Complicated meant serious, and serious shot his personal timeline all to hell. The nerves in his belly woke up. He wasn’t ready for serious now. He had plans, a schedule, goals.

But…

Hadn’t his mother always told him that the best things in life were worth working for, worth the risks, worth the complications? And hadn’t he, on some level, compared every girl he’d ever dated to Melinda?

And they’d all fallen well short of her perfection.

Everything seemed so serious all of a sudden. Was she really the one for him? Forever? The idea put a hitch in his breath, shot shivers down his spine, but no one could possibly mean more to him than she did. Of that, he had no doubts.

An image of waking with her that morning made his smile stretch even wider.

It was a big leap from that morning to happily-ever-after, though.

They’d go slow. They had time. Time to work things out, talk about it all, decide what they really wanted. No reason to rush into anything.

Timing would be crucial, but the fact that they were such great friends could, instead of portending potential disaster, make their relationship even deeper and more special than either of them could ever imagine.

His aunt and uncle’s divorce, and even Carl and Donna’s ruined relationship, flashed in his mind. He shoved them aside.

Sometimes relationships failed.

That didn’t mean they all failed, and it was stupid to compare himself and Melinda to anyone else.

It was time to go for it—cautiously, for her sake—but full out, the way he did everything. If he wanted her, and he did, full out was the only way to go.

She’d come around once she understood his plans. Twenty-one was way too young for her to decide to bury herself in Pasodoro forever. Life waited for them beyond the boundaries of their small hometown, and together, that life would be amazing.

Suddenly cheerful, Jacob gave himself over to the slope, exhilarating in the speed and challenge of the terrain. His laughter floated behind him like ancient gonfalons proclaiming a victorious knight, one who’d successfully scaled the castle walls and won the hand of his fair princess.

Okay, so maybe he’d watched
Shrek
with his young cousins a few too many times over Christmas break, but something about a knight, a small-town castle, and a princess Melinda in need of rescue seemed fitting.

Zooming around a sharp, steep curve with that fanciful notion painting pictures in his mind, Jacob flew off the jump.

He soared flat-out, his joyful whoop ringing in his ears and echoing across the mountain. He tucked, preparing to land, and never saw the small shape hurtling straight toward him from the far side of the trail.

The collision knocked him out of his skis, and he plummeted down the slope, end over end off a second jump, finally tumbling to a stop a good sixty feet past the point of impact.

Dazed, Jacob flopped onto his back, spitting snow and filling his lungs to get his breath back, taking stock, aware of a dull throbbing in his left wrist.

“Crap,” he mumbled, using his right hand to push himself to a sitting position, cradling his left in his lap.

Icy snow trickled down the back of his neck and inside his layered clothing.

Great.

He shook his head to rid his ears of a persistent ringing, unsure exactly what had happened. Had he hit a deer?

Another trickle—this one from his nose—caught his attention, and he threw his head back to keep the blood from dripping on his jacket.

“What the hell.”

Fumbling in his front pocket, Jacob tugged off his right glove, snagged a small packet, and ripped it open, staunching his bloody nose with several tissues.

Looking back the way he’d come, he identified his poles, wide-flung across the trail, and the swath his body had cut through the deep powder as he’d slid down the mountain. Nothing else was visible from his vantage point below the second jump.

As yet, no one else approached down the run. He needed to gather up his gear before another skier flew around that hairpin turn and tripped over his equipment.

Jacob stood, surprised to find his legs a bit wobbly, and started climbing up the hill, sinking to the knees in the drifts of still-pristine white along the sides of the path. Not many people aside from his group of friends had attempted this run since the last snowfall.

He had to stop twice to catch his breath, cradling his arm against his side. Evidently the fall had knocked more air out of him than he’d realized. His head swam, oddly light.

Grabbing the first pole, Jacob tracked across the trail to snatch the second, grumbling to himself and using the first pole to prop himself up.

Stupid deer.

Glancing up to the next level, he blew out another breath.

Damn.

It was a steep incline up to his skis. Usually not a problem, but he was very aware of his heavy breathing and less-than-steady legs, and the drop from the jump was nearly vertical.

He ended up moving into the tree line and finding hand-and-footholds to climb beneath their sheltering branches where the snow wasn’t so deep and the incline was more manageable.

His left wrist continued to throb.

It wasn’t until he stepped back onto the run to pick up his first ski that he finally saw the motionless body in the middle of the path, and his heart plummeted to his toes as dread and panic filled the spot it left behind.