Something to Prove
Cathryn Parry
Digging for the truth is what Amanda Jensen does. And interviewing ski legend Brody Jones is a journalist's dream come true. Yet something else is happening between them, something neither of them expected. Acting on their attraction, they spend one incredible night together.Still, Amanda's instincts tell her there's a bigger story waiting to be told.Being snowed-in is an advantage because Brody's definitely hiding something. But if she does her job to find out what that is, she puts his comeback in jeopardy–and risks what they share. Now Amanda has an impossible choice: her career…or his.
The past won’t stay buried
Digging for the truth is what Amanda Jensen does. And interviewing ski legend Brody Jones is a journalist’s dream come true. Yet something else is happening between them, something neither of them expected. Acting on their attraction, they spend one incredible night together.
Still, Amanda’s instincts tell her there’s a bigger story waiting to be told.
Being snowed-in is an advantage because Brody’s definitely hiding something. But if she does her job to find out what that is, she puts his comeback in jeopardy—and risks what they share. Now Amanda has an impossible choice: her career…or his.
I’ll never feel like this again, Brody thought
He buried his head in Amanda’s hair and took in a deep, cleansing breath. God help him, for just a moment he latched on to the fantasy that she was his girlfriend. Not this summer or next winter or whenever it was they were finished with their goals, but here and now. He imagined he could take her out in public, today, and have people respect them as a couple.
None of these setups of her with other people.
Nobody assuming he was dogging her because that’s what skiers did.
It felt good being with Amanda Jensen.
He could get used to this feeling.
Dear Reader,
I confess, I love heroes. I also love stories where the emotion between the hero and heroine takes center stage.
The idea for this story—my first published book—came in the months before the Winter Olympics. The elite athletes who train their whole lives for the love of their sport intrigue me. What if guilt over a past mistake drives a retired champion back to his sport for a shot at redemption?
Brody Jones is an alpine skier with something to prove. He and reporter Amanda Jensen share similar values of family, integrity and work that fulfills them.
But Brody has a career-ending secret he needs to keep hidden, and Amanda needs to uncover Brody’s secret in order to excel at her job. It’s an emotional dilemma that isn’t easily solved. As they’re drawn together during a week on the ski tour at close quarters, they’re tested to the utmost. But like all my favorite stories, the power of love shines through and heals all.
Thanks for picking up my first Harlequin Superromance. I hope you enjoy the romantic Italian Alps setting and the company of elite competitors. Drop me a line at www.CathrynParry.com and let me know what you think.
Best wishes,
Cathryn Parry
Something to Prove
Cathryn Parry
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cathryn Parry lives in New England where she loves to dote on her husband, Lou, and her neighbor’s cat, Otis (in that order). She enjoys traveling, sports of all kinds (but especially winter sports) and genealogy. After writing stories for nearly her whole life, she is thrilled to publish her debut novel with Harlequin Books.
Don’t miss any of our special offers. Write to us at the following address for information on our newest releases.
Harlequin Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
For Lou, first and always. You’ve supported me as I reach for my dreams, and your faith in me always lifts me up.
Acknowledgments
A debut novel takes many fairy godmothers to bring to fruition. Most important was my editor, Megan Long, who saw the spark of promise in the manuscript and worked patiently with me to bring it to form. I can never thank you enough!
Also, thanks to Laurie Schnebly Campbell, writing teacher extraordinaire, whose classes helped me develop the characters, and to Brenda Chin, who, through one of her famous workshop contests, gave me my first shot at submitting my manuscript to Harlequin. I appreciate you both so much!
Much gratitude goes to my nephew Charles, who, as a ski racer on an alpine team, inspired me to write about a downhill racer.
Where would I be without my writing friends? Thanks to Karen Foley, Denise Eagan, Barbara Wallace, Nina Singh, Michelle Drosos and Dani Collins. Thanks as well to my blogging partners at www.MoodyMuses.com: Barbara, Katy Cooper and Becca Wilder; and to the members of the New England Chapter RWA, for your encouragement and support.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE (#u857dcfe7-2a72-5005-8ca1-ae505fe0c4f9)
CHAPTER TWO (#u23bc65b4-25e5-5c89-b822-49ca92b2a849)
CHAPTER THREE (#u68db7d20-104c-5ddb-8a0d-35506f9cc84f)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u37727c6a-1337-59fd-9561-317ff78ea00c)
CHAPTER FIVE (#udebd4263-7003-5f32-8312-cfbb2a165c98)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
THEY HAD TRACKED HER DOWN, even at her sister’s Italian wedding hideaway.
Amanda Jensen disconnected the call from her boss and jammed her phone inside the pocket of her spa robe. Wouldn’t she love to shut off the thing completely? But since the magazine she worked for was going through layoffs and she was the last person hired, she couldn’t take chances.
“Sorry, but I have to go.” She wiggled her foot, hoping to gain the attention of the impossibly beautiful European woman with the glossy bun, wearing a white lab coat, who knelt over Amanda’s toes, meticulously applying a thin layer of French nail polish.
“But, madam, I have finished only one foot.”
She had, and it looked silly. Amanda stifled a laugh. “It’s okay, I’ll come back tonight to get the rest of the pedicure.”
“But, madam, our resort spa is full with the wedding guests.”
True. Jeannie’s wedding weekend had created a logjam of skiers, coaches, friends and ski fans, all clamoring to be made beautiful for the event of the season. Amanda’s stomach dropped. She was reminded of the subject of her interview assignment, and she felt queasy.
“Madam?”
“What? Oh, never mind my foot. It’s winter—I’m wearing closed-toe shoes.”
The European woman turned her doe eyes up at Amanda, insinuating what only doe eyes could insinuate.
Amanda shook her head. “No one’s going to be sucking on my toes anytime soon.”
Which was depressing now that she thought about it, but what could she do?
“It is winter in the Italian Alps, madam. Anything can happen.”
“Yes. Yes, it can.” That was how it had happened for her sister, and in this very resort.
Smiling, Amanda glanced through the plate-glass window at the glistening white slope dotted with pine trees, and for a moment she felt that old familiar tug in her heart. Mountains had been her home from her earliest memories. Now she lived in a concrete city, bustling, alive and powerful. And the demands of New York followed her, even to this snowcapped paradise.
Shaking off her wistful mood, she took one last inhalation of the siren’s call of cedar-and-rosemary-scented massage oil. She felt bad enough as it was, cutting out on her pampering afternoon with Jeannie, but work gave her no choice. She hoped Jeannie would understand.
Amanda pushed off the lounge chair in search of her younger sister, trying not to dwell on what she was missing. She and Jeannie had so little time together as it was. For months Jeannie had been recuperating in a hospital in Milan, healing from a horrific ski-racing crash. Amanda had been in the States, shuttling between her magazine job in Manhattan and their mother’s hospice in New Hampshire.
Home, she thought. Or what used to be home. Now her home was the place that employed her.
Jeannie’s home was Massimo Coletti.
“Ciao, bella.” Massimo ducked his head inside the herb-laced, steamy room, and immediately sent the temperature rocketing upward another few degrees. Her sister’s Italian skier fiancé was a knockout. Chiseled cheekbones, sleek shiny hair, glowing green eyes, dimples and a hard body that didn’t quit. But his sexiest trait, in Amanda’s eyes, anyway, was the way his gaze softened when he looked at her sister.
“Have you seen my Jeannie?” Massimo asked.
My Jeannie. Amanda sighed. Here was the man who made all the difference in healing her sister’s difficult past. “She’s in the massage room. I was just going to look for her.”
But Massimo beat her to it. He swooped in as the masseuse was leaving and gave Jeannie’s massage-radiant skin a hug. Then he leaned closer and kissed her on both cheeks. Amanda’s heart both gladdened and pounded. Jeannie giggled and threw her arms around Massimo’s neck, not shy about the towel that dropped to her waist.
It was the scar that undid Amanda. A long, jagged cut from a surgeon’s scalpel, winding its way down her sister’s left leg.
The old fury came back. This was her father’s fault. And Amanda hated skiing, she truly did. Hated it with a passion.
“Amanda, are you almost ready for the rehearsal luncheon?” Jeannie asked, gently touching her on the arm. “Because there’s this great guy I want to introduce you to. His name is Marco and he’s a friend of Massimo’s.”
“Marco is a writer like you,” Massimo explained, his arms around his beloved wife-to-be.
“He won the Milan Prize for literature. He’s very accomplished.” Jeannie squeezed Massimo’s hand and then looked at Amanda hopefully.
They wanted her to be happy. They truly did.
“You guys are sweet, but I’m an investigative reporter.” Okay, a fledgling investigative reporter. “There’s a world of difference in the kind of writing your friend does and what I do.”
Massimo’s brow scrunched. To a guy who sped down icy mountainsides at eighty-five miles per hour, one keyboard jockey was pretty much the same as the next.
“Just tell him I’m on deadline,” Amanda said. “If he’s a writer, he’ll understand.”
“Deadline?” Her future brother-in-law was so smooth that sometimes she forgot English was his second language.
“That means she can’t make it,” Jeannie said. “Why, Mandy? What happened?”
Amanda looked at her beautiful sister’s disappointed face. “Paradigm gave me an interview assignment here in the hotel. I’ll come back as soon as I’m finished, Jeannie, I promise.”
“I know you will.” The look of faith never left her eyes. Sometimes Amanda didn’t deserve her sister. “And this will give you incentive to come back.” Jeannie leaned over and rustled inside her purse, as if her upcoming rehearsal luncheon wasn’t reason enough for Amanda to hurry.
She felt guilty and sick. Why did her father have to be a famous ski coach, and why did she let it slip to her boss, who took advantage of it to make her interview a skier, of all people?
And not a sweet, hunky Italian skier, but an arrogant, aloof American skier who, her boss informed her, had once skied under her father’s tutelage.
Strike one, strike two. Could anything be worse about this assignment?
But her anger was erased by the photo Jeannie held up of one Marco D’Angeli. Marco of the Angels. Jeannie’s setup for her looked like an angel, with a cherubic face, the same glossy hair as Massimo, and the same soulful brown eyes. Unlike her sister’s fiancé though, Marco was thin and serious and…writerly. He posed with a pen in hand and not a stitch of clothing on his slight, studious frame.
Oh, my. “Is this one of those naked charity calendars?”
“His writers’ club is raising money for diabetes research.”
“Okay,” she joked, “sign me up for two copies. One for home and one for work.”
“Are you sure you can’t postpone the interview until tonight? Because then you could meet Marco in person.”
Amanda glanced at her younger sister’s pleading eyes. The younger sister who only wanted her to share some of the happiness and peace she’d finally found. Then she glanced at the hunky photo of the cute, nonthreatening Italian.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t right now. Chelsea made an appointment with the agent. I have twenty minutes for the interview, then I’ll need an hour or two to write up something quick. It won’t take me long, I swear.”
Jeannie’s head tilted. She would never understand Amanda’s drive—not completely. But how could she be expected to understand when she hadn’t been home when Mom was in hospice? When she hadn’t been there when Amanda couldn’t get their father to cover one godforsaken doctor’s bill?
Because in his world, their mother was a nobody. Just like Amanda was a nobody. Jeannie would never know that feeling, because Jeannie was a somebody.
“I need to secure my job, Jeannie.” Being an investigative reporter at Paradigm magazine was power. It was status. It was the ultimate trump card against people like her father. “Marco is a big shot like you and Massimo. I’m still on my way up in the world.”
“Amanda,” Jeannie said softly. “The right man will love you for who you are inside.”
Easy for her to say. “Sure he will,” Amanda said cheerfully. “Right after I nail this five-hundred-word profile. Now, will you help me prepare my interview questions? Because I have no clue who this guy is.”
“I’ll bet I know,” Jeannie said, the smile in her eyes again. “If they want to profile a skier in a glossy American magazine, there’s only one person.”
Massimo nodded. “Brody Jones. There is no other American skier.”
Amanda had never heard of Brody Jones before today. But that wasn’t saying much. When skiing came on television or showed up in the newspaper, then Amanda Jensen, daughter of the famous alpine ski coach, MacArthur Jensen, tuned out and turned the page.
Jeannie studied her nails. “Brody won’t be happy when you tell him who your father is.”
“No problems there,” Amanda said dryly. “Because I’m telling Brody Jones nothing.”
“And I wouldn’t expect him to give you any quotes.”
Amanda just stared. Her sister knew as much about being a reporter as Amanda knew about ski racing. “That’s what interviews are for, giving quotes. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. I give you print space to please your sponsors and attract fans, and in return, your exposure gives me readers and advertising. It’s an age-old deal.”
“She really doesn’t know Brody,” Jeannie murmured to Massimo.
“Doesn’t matter,” Amanda said. “He signed up for this interview, so he should know he’s expected to give quotes in return.”
Massimo laughed. Rather loudly, Amanda thought. Which was strange, considering she could see Massimo encouraging any media attention sent his way. As all the top-ranked skiers she’d known from childhood would have done.
Massimo turned to Jeannie and smiled gently. “Do you want to tell your sister about the American skier, or should I?”
BRODY PAUSED AFTER HIS THIRD set of single-leg squats and poured the last of the water in his bottle down his throat. The tiny resort gym was like a sauna inside.
“Um, are you Brody Jones?”
He glanced down to see a gangly American teen, his ski-team vest too big for his frame, standing beside the bench gawking at him as though he was his everlasting hero.
Brody shriveled inside. He wasn’t anybody’s hero. But he smiled at the kid anyway. Why disillusion youth? They grow up soon enough. “Yeah, I’m Brody. What’s your name, kid?”
“Aiden.” The teen shifted. “I, uh, want to be a great ski racer too.”
“Do you like to work hard?” At the kid’s awkward nod, Brody figured he’d spare him the lecture and just sign the autograph pad the kid was shoving in his face. Brody made a scrawl approximating his signature. Depending on his next race, the thing might end up on eBay.
Or not. Depending on his next race.
He smiled at the kid and handed it back. He really didn’t care where the autograph ended up. That was the beauty of it.
“You gonna win next week, Brody?” the kid asked.
“Of course. Are you gonna win your next race, Aiden?”
Aiden blinked at him. “Yes?”
“Say it proud, brother.”
“Yes!”
Brody high-fived him and the kid laughed, which made him laugh too. The world thought Brody was washed up, but he wasn’t. He had just one more race he needed to compete in, but that was nobody else’s business but his own.
“Can I take a photo of you, Brody?” The kid held up his phone.
“Sure.” He looked like crap, but he obliged Aiden with the photo op. Even smiled for the camera.
A throat cleared behind him. “We need to talk strategy.”
Brody turned from the kid to his longtime agent, Harrison Rice, hopping from one foot to the other, looking as if he was being raked over the coals, which he usually was.
“Yeah?” Brody picked up his dumbbells and decided to let Harrison say whatever he needed to say. Brody didn’t need to talk anything with him. He had his own strategy. Always had had.
He lifted the weights and blew out the tension. One more set. He knew the routine cold, and nothing and no one could snap him out of it.
Harrison sat on the bench beside him and wiped his brow with his handkerchief. It was hot in here, but Harrison was the only guy Brody knew who actually carried a handkerchief in his pocket.
“Here’s the deal, Brody—you can’t say anything this afternoon. If the reporter starts digging too much about your last season with MacArthur, or about your injury, then we’re screwed.”
Brody paused in his reps. “Exactly why did you agree to this interview, Harrison?”
“Because the Xerxes people wanted it.”
Right. Brody rolled his eyes. “You don’t see the irony of my sponsoring an energy drink?”
“It’s an excellent deal they’re offering.” Harrison spread his hands. “What am I supposed to do? If you want a comeback, you need training money. If you need training money, you need sponsors.”
True. Though Brody didn’t want a comeback, not a full-fledged one, anyway. Harrison knew that. Of everyone on his business team, Harrison was the one guy who’d been with him since the beginning when Brody had been a pimply rebel teen fleeing a lousy home life to the ski slopes of a New England prep school.
He lifted the weights again. There weren’t too many people he trusted and he surrounded himself with the few he did as coaches and equipment specialists. And Harrison, who was both agent and business manager. “Do we have any other options?”
“No. And I would tell you if we did.”
Brody breathed out and set down his weights. “Who’s the reporter?” he asked quietly.
“A woman from Paradigm magazine.”
“Paradigm? The monthly New York glossy?”
“They have reporters who cover sports stars,” Harrison said defensively.
“Great.” He felt like spitting. “A celebrity reporter. Even worse.”
“It’s what Xerxes wants, and it’s a puff piece. It’s tailor-made for our purposes.” Harrison shifted. “I’ve been thinking about it, Brody, and here’s how we’ll handle it. I’ll write up some quotes and put them on index cards for you. When the reporter turns on her tape recorder, you read from the cards. Better yet, memorize them. That’ll satisfy her, and get us what we want.”
Brody just stared at his agent. If Harrison wasn’t such a miracle worker with the sponsors—which unfortunately he really couldn’t afford to give up—then he would’ve told him to forget it. The same way he’d cut himself loose from his former coaches, trainers and the whole national ski-team organization in favor of forming his own team.
“So, are we on board?” Harrison adjusted his cuff links, and Brody couldn’t help smiling. Yes, his agent was a slick suit inside a sweaty gym. But he’d never turned his back on Brody after the accident, unlike almost everybody else in his life.
He curled a clean towel around his neck and headed over for his cool-down stretch. As a young hotshot, he hadn’t believed in stretching. But at thirty-two, with two debilitating crashes and rehabs behind him, he’d learned that wisdom was better than bravado.
Not always, but usually.
“Brody? Are you even listening to me?”
He gave Harrison a look. “Freaking journalists.” They mangled quotes. They chopped up quotes. They quoted out of context. They took old quotes and applied them to new situations. “Why don’t we just tell her to write what she wants, because that’s what those guys do anyway.”
“Yeah, I know. Everybody’s a lying jerk.” Harrison sighed.
But Brody grinned at him. “Everybody except you, Harrison. You’re the real deal.”
“That’s why you love me, Brody.”
“Don’t make light of it, or I’ll drop you, too,” he joked.
“Whatever.” Harrison wasn’t in a joking mood. “You just make sure the reporter doesn’t find out what we have to hide, not unless you want your reputation to go down in flames. Because sometimes I wonder.”
Brody’s knuckles went white as he gripped the water bottle. He suddenly couldn’t breathe.
“Yeah, something you care about,” Harrison said. “That’s good. You remember that, Brody.”
And then Harrison was gone. But his threat hung in the air—poisoning the rest of Brody’s cool-down.
AMANDA STOOD AT THE SINK in her hotel bathroom and sucked in deep, cleansing breaths. It wasn’t like her to be nervous. Then again, maybe it was finally sinking in that she could be facing her career Waterloo, and before her career had ever gotten off the ground. Because, knowingly or not, Chelsea had given her the one assignment that hit too close to home.
He’s a skier, she thought. And he’s just like Dad.
Therein lay her problem.
According to Jeannie, Brody Jones had a reputation for walking out on reporters without saying a word. He was aloof and disrespectful of anyone with a pen and microphone.
From long experience, Amanda knew what a losing proposition it was to deal with arrogant competitors like that. Her father—case in point. The last time she’d met with him, in his office in Colorado Springs near the Olympic training center, had been a disaster. She’d completely failed. She’d received nothing she’d needed from him, and their mom had been the one to suffer for it.
Grabbing Jeannie’s hairbrush from their mixed jumble of toiletries on the countertop, Amanda vigorously brushed her hair until it crackled with static electricity.
Slow down. Breathe.
I’ve learned since then.
She held on to the edges of the countertop and stared at herself in the mirror, struggling to find calm. This would be different. She’d done her homework and had thought through all the angles for her interview approach. She’d even dressed in full body armor for the event. Today she wore one of Jeannie’s feminine silk-and-Spandex shells over her thinnest lace bra. That was a new tool in her repertoire and one that wasn’t entirely comfortable, but she’d seen how the celebrity reporters in her office dressed, and she would do what she must.
By rote, she ticked through her habitual, pre-interview routine. She dabbed on her lip balm. Pulled her hair back from her face. Tested the batteries in her never-fail, top-of-the-line digital voice recorder.
The tiny gadget was inconspicuous and quiet; she would place it on the table beside her oversize purse and hope that Brody Jones would forget it was there and would open his mouth, just once. One good quote, that was all she needed from him, and then she could return to her sister and the safe, non-skiing man her sister had lined up for her to meet.
She glanced at her phone. Three more minutes. And she’d better set it to silent mode, because the fewer distractions to spook Brody, the better. That was why she’d memorized what she needed to ask him, because she’d figured it was best not to face him with a notepad. Or a pencil. Or anything that screamed Interview with a capital I.
No, with any luck, Brody would forget she was a reporter and would instead consider the twenty minutes as coffee with a friendly person he could chat with.
Taking a short, careful swig from her ever-present water bottle, she considered the major flaw in her plan. Her father, per usual. Under no circumstances could she let Brody discover she was MacArthur Jensen’s daughter. Jeannie had implied that would send Brody fleeing faster than the roadrunner on skis. Amanda had no problem with that aspect of his personality. Anyone who distrusted her father was wise in her book.
She shook off the last of her nerves and strode down the corridor, the air cool against her bare legs because she was wearing one of Jeannie’s pre-injury outfits—a short, trendy skirt and a pair of her formerly favorite heels. Despite Jeannie’s admonition “to be herself,” whatever that was, Amanda was a celebrity profiler today, so she’d better act like one. Which gave her two choices for an approach strategy, as far as she could see.
Plan A was to keep the celebrity-reporter persona she’d prepared for. Disarm the recalcitrant skier with a nonthreatening approach. Plan B was her regular, hard-hitting interviewing style. Grill ’em and stick ’em and then serve up the painful truths.
Depending on how Brody reacted, she would adopt one tactic or the other. There was more than one way to open up a closemouthed celebrity.
Please, just give me one decent quote…
She stood outside the conference room and wished there was a window she could see through, but since there wasn’t, she pasted what she hoped was a vacant smile on her face and swung open the door like someone who meant business. Plan A and plan B, in combination. Once she met Brody, she would choose her final course.
Immediately, she needed to shield her eyes from the blinding afternoon sun slanting through the window. For a moment, she couldn’t see.
“Um, are you Amanda? From Paradigm magazine?”
She blinked to see a short man in a rumpled suit standing behind a conference table, his hand extended. He must be Harrison Rice, the agent. And next to him…
Amanda swallowed. Like a warrior prepared for battle, she thought.
Jeannie had showed her a photo of Brody Jones, downloaded from her phone’s internet connection. In it, he was dressed in a black helmet and tight racer’s uniform, his body bent so he was impossibly close to the slope, his powerful thighs straining while his biceps bulged, gripping a ski pole as he surged past a giant slalom gate.
Amanda hadn’t been able to see his face, but she’d seen his power and his sex appeal. She’d understood his charisma.
And now here he was in the flesh. Six feet one, two hundred pounds—she could recite his stats in her head. He was built. Hard. Powerful. And recklessly daring.
But he wasn’t behaving recklessly now. Like her, he wore body armor—in his case, a hat with a brim so low she couldn’t see his eyes clearly. Several days of stubble obscured his facial expression. He wore a tight black T-shirt that showed off his powerful neck, and over that, a team sweat jacket that read Italia—great. Did he know about her connection with her sister?
Stop that. You’re psyching yourself out before you’ve even started.
She gripped the agent’s fleshy paw, giving him both a friendly wink and a hardnosed MacArthur Jensen squeeze. “Hello there, I’m Amanda Jensen. I’m pleased to meet you, Harrison.”
She still hadn’t decided yet which plan to choose, A or B, and so was fluctuating wildly between them. While Harrison winced, clutching his hand, she switched her gaze to Brody. What should she say to him? How would he react?
Before she could decide, his chair slid leisurely back. As he moved, preparing to rise, his head slowly came up. The visor of the sponsor’s ball cap came off. And the most amazing pair of baby-blue eyes stared at her, sizing her up.
Amanda felt the shock zing up and down her anatomy. This guy had It. The physical key to setting her hormones on fire.
Because, oh, God, there was something about his eyes. They were probing eyes. Intelligent eyes.
Eyes that sucked her in.
He braced his hands on the table and fixed that quiet stare on her. He didn’t feel like a skier to her, not like any skier she’d ever known, anyway. Nothing Jeannie had told her could have prepared her for this. Without a trace of a smile on lips that were tense, yet still so full she could easily picture herself leaning over the table and kissing him, he said to her, “Amanda Jensen. Are you related to MacArthur Jensen?”
Oh, she was definitely going for plan A. Hard wouldn’t work with him. Best to play soft and dumb with this powerful, guarded man.
“Who’s MacArthur Jensen?” she asked.
SHE WAS LYING. BRODY KNEW IT, but what he really wanted to know was why she was bothering.
He shifted in his seat, purposely tuning out the words she was saying and concentrating on her actions. Her essence.
She smelled amazing, like pine trees and winter. And…cooking? Rosemary, yeah, that was the herb he was catching. But that couldn’t be right. Her presence brought to mind good food and companionship. A hearty meal in the company of true friends. Wine and humor.
He glanced at her mouth and watched her lips move as she spoke. He could easily kiss that mouth. She had the clearest porcelain skin he’d ever seen, and long, dark hair like Snow White. He imagined running his hands through it, feeling it drag across his chest. Every cell, every nerve in his body was straining toward her, and that wasn’t good.
He pushed back his chair and jammed on his ball cap again. Pulled the visor down low. Crossed his arms against her.
That was better. She stiffened, the Miss Airhead persona falling away. For a split second her gaze narrowed. She was a helluva lot sharper than she wanted him to see.
“Brody, what do you think about Amanda’s question?” Harrison grinned madly and dug him in the arm. What do you know, he was completely snowed by Amanda’s phony routine.
“What do I think about what?” Brody said.
“Amanda has been asking about your record. Remember what we talked about?” Harrison coughed into his hand. Pull out the cards with the phony quotes, he was hinting. But Brody shook his head because he had already tossed the cards out.
Instead he pinned his gaze on the reporter, which was a bad idea because his heart had already softened toward her. Trust her, his intuition said.
His intuition had failed him before.
“You said you’re no relation to MacArthur Jensen?” he asked.
On the table, the voice recorder flashed its red light. She followed his glance and then looked back at him.
“Yes,” she said calmly, “I have no relationship with that Jensen.”
“What about Jeannie Jensen? Aren’t you here for the wedding?”
“The wedding…” Amanda licked her lips. Beside him, Harrison inhaled sharply. Brody could relate. She was stunning. So stunning, he literally ached.
She gave a small smile and stared full at him. Her eyes were the most amazing hazel-green. Playful, and yet as somber as he’d seen.
She smiled again, sadly this time. “I have to admit, Jeannie and I go way back. We went to boarding school together. We were assigned to the same dorm room, probably because of our last names. We had a hard…”
She faltered, and there it was, that accent. Her As were distinctive, from the north country. It came out when she was caught off guard, when she wasn’t concentrating on fooling him.
“You’re from northern New England, aren’t you?” he asked.
She looked up, genuine pleasure in her eyes for the first time. “You’re talking to me, I like that.”
“Where did you grow up?”
Her gaze never left his. “New Hampshire.”
His pulse picked up. Few people knew it, but he’d lived there as a kid for a while. It was where he’d first tried skiing, where he’d first found his escape. “Where in New Hampshire?”
She nibbled the inside of her lip, as if debating whether to tell him. “Deanfield,” she finally said. “It’s a really beautiful place in the mountains.”
He stared at her. She’d grown up right down the road from him. What had she looked like as a child?
Haunting. With inquisitive eyes that saw through a person, and luminous skin. The two of them created some kind of magnetic vacuum that sucked all the air from the room. Under the table, her bare legs crossed and uncrossed. He could practically feel her heat.
In the old days, if Harrison hadn’t been present, Brody knew exactly what he’d have done next. He would have already been across the table, settling her into his lap, kissing her…
He shook off the vision. This wasn’t what he needed in his life anymore. He’d been through hell these past few years, and as a result, he’d changed every concept of what was meaningful and real to him. Meeting a woman and hooking up with her before he knew anything about her was the last thing he could afford to do.
But, he noticed, despite her former reticence toward him, she was leaning forward, not fighting the connection. Obviously she felt the pull, too.
He doubted she was lying to him, at least not about that. No, she seemed to have dropped her mask altogether and was being herself.
The way she really was.
The way he was glad she was.
CHAPTER TWO
AMANDA FELT A HUMMING INSIDE her and willed herself to stop looking at Brody’s mouth.
Instead, she gazed out the window at the mountainside punctuated with tall pines. And skiers. But none of them were solid and haunting, with lips that were flat on the bottom and bow-shaped on top. The kind she could feel herself kissing…
What was she doing? Fantasizing about an interview subject was wrong, and completely unlike her. She needed to get a grip.
“So…” Shifting in her seat, she aimed the voice recorder at him. Time to get to work. “I understand you have an amazing record, Brody, ten years and fifty World Cup podiums. You’re the most accomplished skier from North America in quite a while. You’ve won everything there is to win. Nobody is even close to your record. I’d like to know why you’ve come back after being gone from the circuit for two years, and what you hope to accomplish this season.”
He eyed her. He eyed the recorder.
Please, Brody. Talk to me.
“I’m here to win my next race,” he said.
Good, that was good. She nodded. Please keep talking.
“I’m here to win it my way.”
“What does that mean?” she asked softly. “I really would like to know.”
His agent grew nervous, fidgeting with his pockets. “Brody means he feels privileged to be back, and he’s looking forward to having a great season.”
Brody met her gaze and held it. Her insides heated. She felt that invisible line again, tugging her to him.
No. She couldn’t give in. Obviously, something was going on, something he and his agent were hiding. She wasn’t an investigative reporter for nothing. She had intuition. Gold-plated hunches, the editors called them in the newsroom of her first reporting job, back when she’d been still in high school.
She leaned forward on her elbows. “Brody,” she said, purposely ignoring the agent’s coughing fit on the other side of the table, “what makes you different from the other competitors in the circuit? In the way you ski, I mean? What makes caravans of people follow you from race to race just to catch a glimpse of you in action?”
As if you don’t get it, Amanda. It’s called world-class sex appeal, and you can’t buy that in Walmart.
“Have you ever been on skis?” he asked intently, his smile slowly forming again, his hands inches from hers.
She held her breath, not wanting to go there. But his eyes were insistent. And if she wanted to get her story, she needed to keep him talking. “Yes,” she admitted, “but not since I was little.”
“Do you remember how it felt?” His voice was low. “To go fast? To feel the wind in your hair? To feel like nothing could stop you and you were part of heaven and earth?”
Her gaze felt tied to his. She couldn’t help swallowing, because those visual cues—the intensity of his facial expression, his strong athlete’s neck, the proud affiliation of his ski-team jacket—brought back the bad parts of skiing, the things she’d always hated and felt terrorized by, growing up. For too long, skiing had been about failure, humiliation and shame. And now, her sister’s broken, ruined body.
She swallowed again, but she could never get rid of the bad taste in her mouth; it always came back to haunt her. There was no solution, even though Brody Jones seemed to sense her discomfort.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.” But tears were threatening, so she blinked fast. She had one strong point in her life to fall back on—her job—and here, with this skier, she couldn’t even do that properly.
Exhaling, she lifted her chin. She needed to hold on to whatever shred of an interview she had left. “We all grow up, Brody. Life changes. Nobody can help that.”
“True.” His brow creased as he looked not at the voice recorder, but directly into her eyes. “But we can remember when life was simpler. At heart, I think people want to recapture that. Maybe that’s why they go to mountain races—to breathe in the air and soak up the sun and ring cowbells like they’re kids again. You could, too, if you wanted.”
She dropped back in her seat and stared at him.
He smiled, embarrassed this time. “Or not. It’s a theory, but you asked.”
He’s giving me amazing quotes, the reporter part of her brain said. Brody hadn’t said anything like this, not that she’d read, to any other reporter.
“You…stayed away from the circuit for two years,” she pressed on. “Even after you were healthy. You said you were finished, that you’d accomplished all you wanted to accomplish. What made you come back to the tour?”
“Time is up.” The agent stood. “Miss Jensen, it’s been a pleasure to meet you.”
But Amanda looked to Brody. Her hunch was right. His mask was back in place, as if he regretted opening up to her. Something was wrong, and he was hiding whatever it was.
“I’m not going to screw you over, Brody,” she murmured. How could she, after the kindness that he’d shown her?
He reached over and turned off her digital recorder. “You’re a journalist,” he said with an edge to his voice. “It’s what journalists do.”
“Some journalists maybe, but not me.” She pointed at him. “Let’s get something straight. You talk about the joy of youth. Well, I’ve known since I was a kid that I was a born writer, and that I loved doing it. I caught the enthusiasm for reporting early, and I never lost it. Believe me, I don’t compromise my journalistic integrity for anyone, including my employer.”
He smiled widely at her. “Then you’re the first of the breed I’ve met.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“We’ll see, won’t we? I gave you quotes. Let’s see what you do with them.”
“Cynical, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “I’ve had my words twisted by all the so-called nicest journalists. They write what they want to write, for whatever agenda they have. I’ve learned better than to try to control it.”
“Refusing to speak—is that the way to control it?”
He shook his head. “Even that doesn’t work. Stuff still gets made up.”
“Believe it or not, Brody, I take my job seriously. I might go undercover now and then, I might bust a person’s chops, but I never, ever mess around with quotes. Are you kidding me? That’s for hacks, and I don’t care how many awards they might have won, it’s still hack reporting. That’s like, like…” She was so mad she was stuttering.
“Cheating?” Brody asked.
That was it. Cheating. She nodded in excitement. “Exactly. You understand.”
“Yeah.” He smiled sadly. “Yeah, I understand.”
“Well, that’s good.” Harrison clapped from where he stood. “Time is definitely up.”
“Amanda Jensen.” Brody stood and moved around the table, then held the door for her. Her knees were suddenly weak and she wobbled on her too-high shoes. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
And then he leaned close and kissed her first on one cheek, and then the other. She felt the electricity from his kiss ricochet all over her body. By reflex, she reached up and touched his arm. It felt rock-solid.
He grinned at her sheepishly. “Sorry. When in Italy…”
Her cheeks flamed.
“Yes,” she breathed.
And then he reached up and tipped the brim of his hat to her.
Like a wayward cowboy, he was out of there. Taking all the air in the room with him.
BRODY SPLASHED COLD WATER on his face, the back of his neck, his forearms. He leaned over the sink, feeling wired, as if he’d just finished a challenging run and wanted to go back up the mountain and do it again.
Because he did want to do it again. He wanted to see more of Amanda Jensen, and outside the interview room.
He reached for the paper towels. Unfortunately that was off the table. Maybe someday they could get together, after he’d finished what he’d come to accomplish, but not now. He had so little free time as it was. Harrison was a pain about scheduling him.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Harrison muttered, his voice echoing off the tile in the empty men’s room. He’d already attempted to chew Brody out for being needlessly open with a reporter, but Brody had shut him down, reminding him there were times when going off-script was the best strategy. When he followed his intuition on the race course, good things happened. It was the reason for his wins, and nobody could deny that, especially his agent.
“Don’t worry about her. She isn’t going to screw us,” Brody said, but Harrison just grunted. Brody wadded the wet paper towels and turned, realizing that Harrison was preoccupied with reading text messages on his phone. He mopped perspiration from his forehead and cursed under his breath.
“What’s the matter?” Brody asked. “Xerxes yanking your chain?”
“No. Give me a minute,” Harrison said, furiously typing a text message.
“Not a problem.” He thought of Amanda again. Something about her niggled at him. What had upset her and tripped her up, enough to almost throw that one part of the interview?
“Why haven’t I heard of her before?” he muttered, though it was likely Harrison wasn’t listening. “News of a reporter like her would have gotten around on the circuit.”
“We could be in deep trouble here, in case you haven’t noticed.” Harrison snapped his phone shut and scowled at him.
His agent was always the jumpy type, but today he was excessively nervous. He’d been sticking to Brody in full-on babysitter mode, and Brody had taken enough. “Cut her some slack,” he said, more sharply than he’d intended.
“It isn’t her I’m worried about.” Harrison stalked to the far sink and soaped up his hands. “It’s you,” he said over the spray of water. “You don’t seem to grasp what’s at stake.”
“Are you talking about the note cards?”
“I’m saying I’m not sure we can pull this off anymore.”
Brody stilled. Everything in his life depended on them making this race a go. “What is it?” he asked in a low voice.
“You know you’re the center of my business, Brody. You always have been.”
He waited, his heartbeat slowing until it was a dull thudding in his chest.
“I met you when you were what…eighteen?” Harrison continued. “A local kid at a local race.”
Those days were a distant memory. Brody couldn’t go back there if he wanted to. He didn’t want to, but that was beside the point.
“You had it even then, raw talent compounded with charisma. Only a handful of athletes in any sport have those. But because you skied, the big boys were blind to it, agents bigger than me.”
“Why the trip down memory lane?” Brody asked sarcastically.
Harrison wasn’t laughing. “People mocked me when I signed you, did you know that? I was a small-time agent at a big agency, scrounging for crumbs. And you delivered, more than any American skier ever had. The sponsor deals rolled in. Companies signed you who hadn’t known what skiing was until you lit up their TV screens.”
“So what’s the problem?” Brody said, his voice hard. “Just spit it out and tell me.”
Harrison shook his head. “No, because I don’t think you get it. And I want to make sure you hear this from me—You crashed and burned, Brody. You. Everything ended because people don’t like losers or also-rans. They want to see successes.”
Brody felt the ice in his veins. He didn’t care about the successes. Not really. He didn’t even care about losing. That’s not what this comeback was about for him. And he couldn’t acknowledge the anger that Harrison so obviously wanted him to feel.
“You think I don’t know I allowed myself to be manipulated? You think I’m not serious about fixing what happened?” His voice shook. “Everything has changed about me. I’m not that guy anymore, Harrison.”
“You were talking about being a kid today.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“I have as much to lose as you do, which is everything. Not just every deal we’ve made together, but your entire legacy, demolished.”
Brody felt a shudder go through him as if Harrison had sucker-punched him. His name and his integrity were the only reasons he’d come back. To fix the mistakes that he’d made. To make it right this time, in a way he could be proud of.
He walked to the paper towel dispenser, avoiding looking at his reflection in the mirror as he did. To change that feeling—wasn’t that the whole point of this exercise?
“Are you chewing me out because I talked with a reporter?” Brody stared at the wall in front of him, doing his best to hold on to the good he felt about Amanda, the good that Harrison was doing his best to stomp flat. “Are you complaining because I dared to trust somebody, just a little?”
“I’m saying you should trust me. Me, Brody.”
Yeah, he’d ignored Harrison during the interview and maybe that had been out of line. “Okay. I’m sorry about the index cards. I should have told you before I went in that I wouldn’t use them. The last thing I’m going to do this time around is be someone I’m not.”
Harrison took a long breath. “Understood. And I accept your apology, by the way.”
“Good. So tell me what your text message says before I rip that phone out of your pocket and read it for myself.”
Harrison took a step back. Yeah, you should be worried, Brody thought.
“We need to get you out of this hotel, now,” Harrison said.
“Why?”
“Because Jean-Claude texted me that MacArthur Jensen is on his way over.”
“What?” Brody felt his anger flare. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking. There’s a cocktail party scheduled in honor of his daughter’s wedding tomorrow. He’s got one damn daughter, and she has to get married here, of all places. Jean-Claude is following him in the rental car as we speak.”
“You have my equipment manager tracking MacArthur Jensen?” Brody shook his head. “Never mind, don’t tell me.” He paced to the wall and back. It had obviously been a mistake to believe the rumors that his former coach didn’t plan to attend his only daughter’s wedding.
MacArthur Jensen was their wild card. Neither Brody nor Harrison had any idea what he would do when they bumped into one another for the first time in two years. Every nightmare Brody had was related to the knowledge that his former coach could destroy him whenever he wanted.
The goal had been to have the race long over before they crossed paths again.
“Brody, you know I’ll do everything I can to buffer you from the outside pressure.” Harrison touched Brody’s arm, but Brody backed away. Harrison shook his head. “See, you need to trust me when I give you advice. If you don’t trust me, this isn’t going to work.”
“Then what do you suggest I do?”
CHAPTER THREE
AMANDA FINISHED THE EMAIL to her editor, attached the document containing Brody’s five-hundred-word profile, and then pressed Send. The internet connection was slow, so it took a few moments for her email to go through.
Message sent, her laptop screen finally displayed.
She let out a breath and slumped across her keyboard, head in hands. She’d written and edited the piece as if she were in a fever. With every sentence she typed, it became clearer Brody was under her skin, which was confusing. She’d never behaved this way over any interview subject. She felt like a crush-ridden schoolgirl.
She pushed away from the desk and immediately saw Jeannie’s wedding dress hanging on the closet door. Her sister’s wedding tomorrow had to be playing its part in wreaking havoc with her good sense. Just the idea of couples being paired up for tonight’s party had surely put Brody on her mind where he shouldn’t be. The fact that he was a skier—and one of her father’s former skiers at that—should have been dampening her obviously confused libido.
She stood and walked over to lean her hot forehead against the cool glass of the hotel window. Three stories below, a small group of Jeannie’s and Massimo’s friends from the ski tour trickled in and out of the courtyard lounge with drinks in hand. The rehearsal luncheon was finished, and now they looked to be gathering for the evening cocktail reception. Couples would be buzzed, chatty and amorous. Did she really want to meet Massimo’s and Jeannie’s fix-up for her in the state she was in?
I’d rather meet Brody, a rogue voice in her head said.
Stupid voice. Brody was the subject of her work. Her future. That was something she could never risk.
She rose and circled the room, glancing at Jeannie’s clothes spread over one bed and her own papers, briefcase and notes across the other. Practical, the way she needed to be. If she thought rationally, she knew this pull toward Brody wasn’t an attraction of the heart, on either of their parts. Her reaction to him was one-hundred-percent physical, and that was all. She would never invest time in a relationship with him, or he with her, especially once he found out who her father was.
And he would find out. Her background, including her father’s connection to the American ski racers, would be detailed in a boxed blurb below her byline. When Brody saw it, he would never want to see her again.
Her cell phone rang. Brody, was her first thought. Which was crazy. He was leaving in the morning, why would he want to see her again?
Besides, he didn’t have her phone number. His agent was the one she’d confirmed the appointment with, after her editor had set up their meeting.
No, the call was more likely from Jeannie. Amanda leaned over and picked up the phone, checking the caller ID as she did so.
Yes, it was Jeannie, calling on Massimo’s phone.
“I’ll be right down,” she said into the receiver, her heart dropping despite her best intentions to the contrary. “I just sent the profile to Chelsea, so all that’s left is to change my clothes, okay, sweetie?”
“Hi, Amanda!” Jeannie’s voice was tipsy, as if she’d drunk a glass or two of wine at her luncheon party. Loud, happy laughter sounded in the background, intermingled with festive piano music. “How did it go with the interview? I’ve been dying to hear.”
“It went…well.” She settled onto Jeannie’s bed, kicking off the heels and drawing her knees to her chin. To keep her hands busy, she picked up one of Jeannie’s old sweaters and brought it to her nose. It smelled like her baby sister. “Really well.”
“He talked to you?” Jeannie sounded breathless.
“Even more than I’d hoped for. He opened up to me, Jeannie.”
“Oh, my God, you like him, don’t you?”
Like in Jeannie’s vocabulary meant want to hook up with. Which was the last impression Amanda wanted to give her matchmaker sister. “Don’t even say that,” she chided. “We have a professional relationship. Are you trying to get me in trouble?”
“Hold on a sec, Massimo wants to listen in. I need to move someplace quiet so we can both hear you, okay?”
Amanda found herself smiling even as she shook her head. Jeannie and Massimo were so sweet together. She’d landed in Italy a week ago feeling exhausted and weepy, still so frustrated over fighting her mom’s illness and furious over her father’s lack of caring. But Jeannie and Massimo had made her smile again. Amanda had never blamed her little sister for being unable to visit Mom when she’d been sick—those days, Jeannie had been too often hospitalized herself. They’d talked by computer video connection almost every day, though, and Amanda had frequently thanked God for Massimo. This week, especially, he’d brought them around to his big, extended family, fed them pumpkin-filled pasta and goblets of Prosecco, shown her his and Jeannie’s new village apartment, and talked incessantly about their future together.
“You should call him, Amanda.” The line was calmer now, just Jeannie’s voice with no background cocktail chatter. “Since your work is finished, bring Brody down to the party. Everybody else is here, it’s only polite.”
It would be disastrous, only partly because Amanda hadn’t told Brody who she really was. But her sister just wanted to help her.
“And to think, a few hours ago you were setting me up with Massimo’s friend,” she teased.
“Marco? How can I fix you up with Marco when you’re interested in Brody?”
Massimo’s assenting murmur came through in the background.
Amanda poked at her one pedicured foot. The truly ridiculous part was, Jeannie and Massimo had bugged out of their own party to huddle over a mobile phone, plotting Amanda’s potential hook-up. “Have you two thought of starting a dating service? Because you’d be really good at it.”
“You have his number, right? Or do you need me to get it from Massimo? He has it right here.” Another murmur of agreement.
Amanda crushed Jeannie’s sweater closer. It was apparent Jeannie and Massimo weren’t going to let this one go. “Actually, Jeannie,” she admitted, “there is a small problem. Brody doesn’t know who my father is.”
“You didn’t tell him?” Jeannie fell silent. Because, as a consequence, Amanda had also hidden the fact that Jeannie was her sister.
Jeannie’s hurt radiated across the phone line, even without speaking.
“You need to talk to Brody and tell him who you are,” Jeannie said quietly, “because Dad just called me, and he’s on his way over.”
Amanda’s palm slipped on the silicone sleeve of her phone, nearly dropping it. Dad was coming here?
“Amanda? What’s going on?”
Cold beads of panic broke across her forehead. I don’t want to see him just yet. I can’t see him just yet.
She wasn’t prepared. Hadn’t thought this far ahead, because she hadn’t wanted to think this far ahead.
Amanda stood and paced the carpet. How could she explain the situation to her sister? It wasn’t fair to drag Jeannie into her problems. Above all, this was Jeannie’s big day, and it wasn’t Amanda’s place to ruin it. If anything, the bastard owed Jeannie an appearance on the night before her wedding, especially after causing her accident.
“I’m…sorry I couldn’t tell Brody who you are to me,” Amanda said. “He…quizzed me about my last name. Dad must have left a horrible taste in his mouth, because I could tell that if he knew who I was, he was going to shut down. And I couldn’t have that, Jeannie. Above all, I couldn’t have that.”
Her voice sounded pleading, and she felt ashamed of herself. If Jeannie hung up on her, she wouldn’t blame her.
“I understand,” Jeannie said firmly. “What you need to do is call Brody. Meet with him, tell him the truth, and then give him a chance to react. Afterward, you and I will get together and talk.”
No, they wouldn’t. This whole situation was too embarrassing to discuss with anyone.
Still, Jeannie was giving her a perfect excuse to skip the close encounter with their father.
“Are you sure you won’t mind if I miss your party?” Amanda asked. “How’s the dessert bar? Do they have the lemon cake and biscotti you wanted?”
“They do. Massimo’s mother smoothed the way between the pastry chef and the restaurant manager. It worked out perfectly.”
“I should have been there. I’m a horrible sister.”
“You’re the best sister ever. You deserve all good things. And right now, you deserve time on your own, without us. You’ve been smothered by me and the Coletti clan all week, now that I think of it.”
“I haven’t. They’re so adorable, they make me want to cry.”
“I’ll see you when I get back to the room tonight, okay? Call him, Mandy. Please.”
She murmured her assent, knowing full well she wouldn’t follow through. Jeannie disconnected the call.
Lovely. Now, in addition to skipping out on her sister, she was also lying to her. Because no matter what Jeannie said, or what Amanda had agreed to, there was no way she could call Brody. Her job was simply too important to risk.
On the other hand, there was no way she could face Dad tonight either, and of all the minefields she needed to avoid this evening, that one was the most important.
Her phone beeped, letting her know she had a text. It was from Chelsea, her traditionally terse, “Got it.” Not a phone call, not a make-these-changes-now directive.
From experience, Amanda knew that meant she approved of the profile. As of this moment, her assignment was officially over.
Amanda flopped back on Jeannie’s bed and let out her breath with a whoosh. At last, some good news. After all the hassles of the day, all the worry about the layoffs at work and coming face to face with her father, now she had one less thing to stress about. Maybe she should call room service and order champagne so she could celebrate her one small victory in private.
Closing her eyes, she dared to let herself remember the low, sexy timbre of Brody’s voice, his interview responses that she’d played over and over as she’d drafted her article. When she thought of him, she felt as warm and comfortable as when she’d held Jeannie’s familiar sweater.
She was on vacation now. No one from her office was present. Who would ever know or care if she did call Brody Jones?
Forget the champagne—what if she arranged a short drink with him in the hotel lounge, at the other end of the resort from her sister’s pre-wedding party, just to get her through the night and away from her father?
Rolling onto her side, she scrolled through her contact list before she could talk herself out of it. H for Harrison, his agent’s name…
The house phone rang insistently beside her, that jolting, Italian ring tone she still wasn’t used to.
The front-desk clerks were the only people who’d ever called them on this phone. She tucked the receiver between her ear and her shoulder. “Hi,” she said to the staff member before he could launch into his business, “are you serving drinks at the lounge yet, or do I have to go to the restaurant to get served?”
A familiar laugh sounded, deep and rich. “I take it you’re finished with work,” Brody said. “Good, I was hoping that was out of the way.”
“Brody…I…hi…” A speechless reporter, wasn’t that nice?
“Amanda.” The quiet way he said her name calmed her pulse. Oh, yes, she definitely wanted to see him again. “Are you busy with the wedding, or do you have time to meet?” he asked.
She wrapped the phone cord around her finger. Obviously, they were on the same wavelength. This had to be a sign, didn’t it? “I just turned my profile in to the magazine, so, yeah, I’m free. And no, I don’t have any wedding things planned either.” She licked her dry lips. “Um, why? What did you have in mind?”
“I want to go skiing with you.”
Skiing? The word hit her like a knock to the gut. “What?”
“I, ah, need to get away for a while and just…forget about things.” His voice was low, as though he wanted to keep the conversation quiet. “I was hoping you’d join me.”
“On the mountain? In the snow?”
“Yeah. Do you have skis with you?”
She blinked, her fingers clutching the telephone receiver, pressing the cold plastic to her ear. “No, Brody,” she managed to say, “I did not fly ski equipment with me to Italy to be a bridesmaid in my best friend’s wedding.”
“Okay, then I’ll rent you a pair.”
Over her dead body. “You are out of your mind, do you know that?”
“You’ve been talking to my agent, I see.”
He thought this was funny? “Brody, you don’t understand,” she said, her voice shaking. “I can’t ski. I’m a lousy skier, in fact. And you professionals aren’t known for your patience, or your restraint.”
“Are you afraid of me, Amanda?” His voice was shocked.
“No, I’m not afraid of you, I’m just not cut out for your sport, is all. Trust me on this.”
“If it helps, the slope I’m thinking about has an old-fashioned chairlift like they used to have in Deanfield. We’d be up there for the last hour before they close, so I doubt there’ll be many people around.” He paused. “I promise to take it easy on you. I won’t let you fall.”
He didn’t get it. And her voice wouldn’t work to tell him so. Her brain wouldn’t work to tell him so. “Why can’t we stay at the hotel and have a drink together like normal people?”
“You think I’m normal?” He laughed. “Thanks, I’ll remember that. Look, there’s something on the mountain I’d really like you to see. I’ll carry you up there if you’d rather avoid the skiing part.”
Despite herself, she smiled. Carry her up there, huh? Yeah, she was a sucker for guys with warped senses of humor. Though he’d never get her anywhere near a ski-rental shop.
“So what do you say, Manda? Will you come and be a kid again with me for a couple of hours before we both have to leave?”
BRODY LEANED AGAINST THE Italianate marble fountain that stood in the rear of the main lobby. The crashing water did a world of good in helping him regain his center. His conversation with Amanda hadn’t gone the way he’d expected, or was used to. He figured it was fifty-fifty whether she’d show up at all.
He stared at the copper-colored coins tossed in the bottom of the fountain. Truthfully, this woman had knocked him for a loop. She showed real fear about the fact he was a skier. Since he’d turned pro, how many women had had that reaction?
None. He shoved his hands in his jeans pocket. Then again, in ten years he’d never pursued a woman during ski season. In his world, he’d learned there were too many temptations that could trip him up. People whose motives he couldn’t trust.
Not that their meeting today was a big deal. It was just a…two-hour date. Above all, he didn’t want to rush anything with Amanda. Since he’d been off the tour, he’d turned over a new leaf in his life: no more empty one-night stands. That went along with his skiing comeback. He was here to redo the things he hadn’t liked about himself and to make his life the way he wanted it to be. That included avoiding groupies. They were there for the picking, always around. What he wanted was something more substantial.
The elevator door dinged and then opened, causing him to stiffen with anticipation, but the car was empty. It looked as if she wasn’t coming after all. When he’d called her, he’d been hoping that if he got her outside, onto the mountain, maybe he could make that light come on in her eyes, the way it did when she talked about her job. Yeah, she was a girl from the north country, but by her own admission she had traveled a long way since those days. He’d needed to know if she could get past her aversion to skiing. For some reason, it was important to him to find out. Judging from their phone conversation, the answer was a resounding no.
Maybe it was better she hadn’t shown up.
He turned to leave as the elevator dinged again. This time, Amanda walked out. He stared at her, his fingers curling into his palms.
Her hair was loose and she wore tight jeans and a sexy red top that perfectly hugged her curves. Those weren’t ski clothes by any stretch of the imagination, but she looked amazing enough that it didn’t matter.
Then she saw him, and her smile lit up the entire lobby. All the tightness in his chest disappeared and he felt lifted and buoyed.
She marched right up to him. “Ciao, Brody.” Her smile was slightly higher on one side, devilishly crooked. She rose on her toes, then she was in his space and all he could smell was her amazing spa-forest scent that she carried with her wherever she went. She arrowed her gorgeous lips to his.
“Ciao, Amanda.” He bent his head. He was six feet one to her—maybe—mid five feet. She’s gonna tease me with one of those European double-kisses, he figured. But, nope, she shocked him and pressed her lips to his, kissing him firmly on the mouth. A hot, honest North American kiss.
Damn. His soul seemed to corkscrew, and he lost his equilibrium. Which for a skier was unheard of.
She stared up at him, her eyes wide, her lips parted. This was where, two years ago, he would have led her out to his motor home. Maybe she would have stayed for an hour or two, but then he would have helped her dress and leave, never to see her again.
He didn’t want that from her. This time, everything felt different.
Leaning his hands against the fountain, he steadied himself. “I, ah, wasn’t expecting that.”
“I know.” Her eyes sparkled. “Now what’s this about something on the mountain you want me to see?”
“It’s a surprise. You don’t want me to ruin a surprise, do you?”
She crossed her arms. “Did Jeannie put you up to this?”
“Jean—?” He shook his head. No, it was better to be honest with her. He wasn’t setting himself up for anything that could come back to haunt him.
“Truthfully, I’m, ah, under orders to get away and go free skiing.” He saw the confusion on her face. “That means to relax and enjoy myself. Naturally, you were the first person I thought to call.”
She tapped her foot as if skeptical, but he could tell she was pleased with his answer. “You couldn’t go skiing alone and then give me a call afterward?”
“Nope. Too dangerous to ski alone.”
“And everybody else is busy?”
He hoped so. By reflex, he gave a furtive glance around the lobby, but the floors echoed with the footsteps of a lone guy headed in the direction of the cocktail party. The guy waved at Brody. “Welcome back,” he called with a German accent.
Brody nodded to the skier. He wasn’t sure who he was, someone new on the circuit probably, but they’d catch up next week.
He turned to Amanda and gave her a wide smile. “Looks like it’s just us. Will you trust me to get you down the slope safely, or are you going to give up and go back to your room without even trying?”
A crease appeared across her brow. His hunch was right; she was too competitive to let him get the best of her, even if it meant facing her fears on the slope. Good—she had guts.
She smiled back at him. “Actually, that depends on you, Brody. Do you think your manhood can handle your fans seeing you taking the baby bunny trail down the mountain?”
“The baby…” Did she mean the easy slope? “Of course, Amanda, I will absolutely follow your wishes.”
“No matter how bad it makes you look to your friends?”
“Standing next to you, it’s impossible to look bad.”
She laughed and made a show of rolling her eyes, but beneath her joking exterior he did sense real vulnerability. “Sure, Brody, that’s what you say now. Just wait until you get to know me better.”
He was hoping he got to know her a lot better; that was the whole point.
But right now, he had a feeling she was far more fragile inside than she wanted to admit. So he led the way to the rental shop, taking it slow.
CHAPTER FOUR
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Amanda stood outside the rental shop by the ski lift to the bunny slope. Was she nuts? When she’d come down to the lobby to meet Brody she’d been fully determined to talk him out of his crazy plan. Never in a million years had she intended to actually go through with it.
And now look at her. Her feet were encased in boots as heavy as Frankenstein’s clunkers, and the skis made a hollow pinging sound when she stomped on them.
At least Brody had promised they wouldn’t tackle the difficult black diamond slopes. Her knees were shaking. Her hands were sweating inside her gloves, and she’d already dropped her ski poles twice. She was reminded why her ski-coach father had disgustedly given up on her years ago.
But Brody leaned over, patiently buckling her feet into the bindings on her skis. The one sweet spot in the last twenty minutes was in watching this new side to him. As he leaned over, the muscular curve of his back was visible even beneath his black parka. He glanced up at her, his skin flushed from the cold air, his baby blues on fire, and a longing for something she couldn’t define washed over her.
“How does that feel, Manda? Are you comfortable?”
“If you call being strapped into a death contraption comfortable,” she joked.
His brow crinkled. “What happened to the New Hampshire girl who used to ski as a kid?”
“She moved to New York and discovered the subway and all-night taxi service.”
He laughed and straightened, settling his dark, bad-ass sunglasses over his eyes. “Do you ever miss the fresh air? Or does concrete and smog make you happy?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t handle it.”
He smiled and guided her up the gentle slope toward the chairlift, his hand on her elbow. His touch, even through layers of clothing, sent heat flooding through her.
She had officially lost her mind. “Uh, Brody, I wasn’t lying when I told you I don’t know how to ski anymore. Sorry.”
He gave her a look that said he didn’t believe her. “You skied before. Once you learn, it never leaves your muscle memory.”
“Then I must be the exception to the rule.” She hastened to keep up beside him. “Because the only memories I carry in my muscles are typing and the occasional yoga class.”
“You take yoga?” He gazed at her with interest.
“Yep.” She nodded proudly. “Downward dog and the warrior pose. That I can do.”
His mouth quirked. “I’d like to see that.”
“Great. Then let’s go back to the hotel and forget this skiing stuff.”
He shook his head slowly but his smile was wide. “Because you think you can’t do it anymore?”
“I know I can’t. I’m no Jeannie Jensen, you know.”
He stopped and pointed behind them. “If you can’t ski, Amanda, then what do you call that?”
She blinked behind them at the dual trail of ski tracks in their wake. They’d covered about forty yards together across the snow. She hadn’t even realized.
“You grew up in the mountains,” he said. “You don’t lose what was part of you, deep down.” He stamped his skis on the hard-packed snow. “And you can trust my professional opinion, because I’ve taught clinics with newbies in the sport. Some of them can’t go five yards without falling on their duffs. Obviously, you don’t have that problem.”
She looked behind her again. The skis had shushed beneath her seemingly of their own accord. It had felt…natural. Beside him she’d flowed, without struggling and fighting the way she usually did.
Could it really be an instinct from a long time ago that had lingered inside her without her even knowing it?
She fell into silence as Brody helped her along the last few yards, easing her between the ropes of the corral line and distracting her with his dimples.
She hated to admit that maybe he’d been right.
But then the heavy clanking of the chairlift machinery drilled into her subconscious, and ever fiber in her body seized up and resisted.
“Um, no. Just no, Brody.”
“They have chairlifts in Deanfield, Amanda. I rode them often.”
“I can’t remember the last time I went up in one of those things. Honestly.” She shook her head. “They’ve been erased from all my memories, muscle and brain.”
“Then I’ll help you remember.” He guided her to the spot where skiers were supposed to stand, waiting for the chair that would bump beneath their backsides, scooping them onto their seats for the long, cold ride up the mountain.
“I don’t think so, Brody.” It had been so long since her body knew what to do here. And she was going up the lift with the master of his sport.
“You’re doing great.” Just as the automated chair brushed against the backs of her thighs, he lifted her effortlessly onto the bench seat. She hadn’t realized she was frozen, stammering, her mouth gaping open.
He murmured into her ear. “The pain will be worth it, Manda. You’ll see.”
His warm, sexy breath sent shivers up her spine. Why did he have to have this sweet side to him, too?
And why did she have to want to be with him so much? She’d talked herself into trying on the rental skis in the first place by convincing herself that it might prove useful with some mythical future article. After all, few people could say they’d skied with the great Brody Jones.
But she was fooling herself if she thought that was really why she’d followed him out here.
She blew out her breath as he settled the chairlift bar around them. Reaching across her waist, he gathered her poles, clasping them together with his. “Hang on,” he said. “It’s an old-style lift and it’s going to swing in the wind a bit.”
She nodded, her teeth chattering, and he tucked his free arm around her, holding her securely. Despite the danger, she felt protected, even as their chair swung and dipped in the air, as though they were riding a roller coaster.
To her surprise, sensations came flooding back to her from years past, bittersweet in their memories. Feelings and images she must have hidden deep.
Riding a lift like this one with her mom and sister as a child, Jeannie in the middle seat.
“I forgot how much I liked this part,” she blurted out. “Starting at the bottom of the hill with the whole journey ahead of us.”
“Yeah, it’s the anticipation of things to come,” he agreed.
Amanda drank in the view of the valley and the church-like quiet as they rose higher, their skis skimming along above the treetops. As far as she could see, the mountain and its snowy outcroppings never ended. The line ahead was long, with dozens of empty chairs in front of them and empty chairs behind. She heard Brody’s contented sigh, his deep intake of the clean, cold air that smelled of freshly fallen snow.
She’d missed afternoons like these. Buried beneath all the memories of the fights and humiliations with MacArthur, there had been earlier days when she’d felt happy on the slopes. A flash of her mom’s face shone clearly in her mind. She had worried she would forget what her mom looked like, but sitting on this old-style chairlift, in this old-style resort, how could she? Not while she was in the winter and the snow and the mountains, Mom’s favorite place.
Leaning into the warmth of Brody’s body, she gazed up at him. Without him, she never would have realized these things. He smiled down at her, too, with eyes as blue as the sky. There was no doubt in her mind that Mom would have liked him. Above all, he was kind.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
He exhaled and his head lowered. It was the most natural thing in the world to meet him halfway.
His lips brushed hers, a light touch considering all his coiled power. Everything physical about him—his arm around her shoulders, his chest close to her chest, his muscular thigh nestled against hers on the bench—bled into her consciousness. Sighing, she parted her lips.
And that was it, the warmth burst into sparks. Brody gave a low groan. She opened her mouth and he kissed her deeply, his lips catching her upper lip while she gently sucked and drew him in. It felt so erotic and sensual kissing him that her head swam. All she could do was gasp. Her sexual feelings, so long stifled, were swamping her.
For months and months she’d been deliberately closing herself off, listening to Jeannie tell her how great it was with Massimo. For months and months she’d been fighting to establish herself in her chosen career by weekday, and advocating for her mother’s care by weekend.
Now it was her turn to enjoy some romance. She sighed and held Brody tighter, kissing him as if he was hers. And groaning, he kissed her back. Under the heavy parka, sweater, turtleneck and bra, her nipples came awake and peaked. Wriggling on the bench, she pulled off her glove to unzip her jacket, to settle herself closer to him.
“Manda—”
“Hmm?” Just as a wave was beginning to hit her, he broke away and raised the chairlift bar, then lifted her by the waist and glided with her down the short exit slope.
She felt breathless and dizzy, trying to orient herself, clinging to Brody. At the end of the path, he set her on solid ground.
Except it wasn’t solid ground. It was slippery, frozen snow. With her weak knees, her skis went out from under her. What a metaphor, she thought, but then Brody caught her and smoothly held her upright.
She inhaled a breath of cold mountain air and gazed up at him. His face was flushed.
“You kiss really, really well,” she said.
Humor was always good. Worked in every situation.
“I’m, ah, sorry about that.” He wiped his mouth. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“Don’t ruin it. I’ve never been kissed so well.”
BRODY SHOOK HIS HEAD. Was he out of his mind? He hadn’t intended anything physical with Amanda, not at all. Maybe that was why his pulse raced as if he’d just finished a slalom run. And stupidly, all his body could think of was going back and doing it again.
Forget it. He swiveled and looked for the marker pointing to the Leopardo trail. Four trails originated at this lift, but he’d made a lousy decision because not only were the snow conditions icy and hard, but the Leopardo trail was too steep for a novice. He really would have to carry her to the ledge he’d wanted her to see, a loaded proposition given the way he’d already kissed her, but what choice did he have?
“Ah, Amanda, sometimes I ski with blind kids. I have them ski in front of me, and I hold their waists and guide them down the slope. Are you game to try that?”
“You do charity work?” she asked, that inquisitive reporter’s look wrinkling her nose.
“Don’t even go there,” he warned.
“Why? I’m interested in what you do.”
He glanced away so as not to get trapped by those probing hazel-green eyes of hers. “I have a foundation that works with kids—not just blind kids—but I don’t want to talk about it with a journalist.”
“Is that how you think of me?” She crossed her arms and frowned at him. “We just kissed, Brody.”
Yeah, no kidding. His body was screaming at him to take that one last step toward her and kiss her again, here in the snow at the top of the cold, darkening peak. Because he was burning so hot, he needed to cool down.
Two skiers came off the chairlift and turned toward them. “Hey, Brody,” one of them called. “Get a room!”
He muttered a curse. Which was a mistake. Because at the word, Amanda sucked in her breath and pointed her skis down the Leopardo trail. Planting her poles, she pushed off with a cry, tucking her body in a fair approximation of an alpine ski racer.
And damned if something about her form didn’t remind him of Jeannie Jensen. He’d seen the video—like thousands of people he’d watched the internet clip of Jeannie’s horrific, head-over-heels crash run last winter.
That’s why Amanda is afraid of skiing. Kicking himself, he followed her down the slope. He caught up to her within seconds, and the sight of her cute bottom in the tight black pants, wiggling from side to side, made his mouth drop open.
Yeah, she was hot, but it was her technique that shocked him. Somebody who knew their stuff had taught her to ski, whether she wanted to admit it or not. Maybe she wasn’t fast or aggressive—certainly not reckless like him—but she knew how to turn cleanly and plant her poles.
He was about to pass her so he could motion her to stop at the outcropping at the base of the hill, but when she saw what he’d brought her up here to see, she abruptly halted.
A MAGNIFICENT WINTER SUNSET spread orange and gold rays across the valleys of the Alps. Amanda stood on the ledge, her breath puffing in front of her, and thought she’d never seen anything so beautiful.
The scrape of skis against snow sounded behind her, and she knew without turning that it was Brody. She heard the clank of metal against plastic as he released his feet from his ski bindings, then the crunch of hard-packed snow as he stabbed the ends of the skis into the mountainside.
He stalked toward her and stepped between the backs of her skis. “What was that all about?” His voice was rough against her ear.
With a sigh she leaned back into his chest. “This is a beautiful sunset.”
“Someone taught you,” he insisted. “You have textbook technique.”
She nearly laughed. “You don’t know how ironic it is to hear you say that.”
And then, because she owed him an explanation, she did the difficult thing and told him the truth. “Okay, I’m just…upset because my mom would have loved it up here. That’s all.”
Brody’s cheek pressed against the side of her cap and his hands went to her waist. “Is she the one who taught you to ski?”
Her heart was going to break wide open if she wasn’t careful.
“Y-yes.” She bit the inside of her cheek and turned to him. “I told you, I’m a girl from the north country, and so was my…mom. Like you said, we all grow up learning to ski.” She faked a shrug.
“How long ago did you lose her?” he asked quietly.
She thought about deflecting him, but couldn’t. “Sh-she died two months ago.”
He pulled her close and kissed her on the cheek. “Manda, I’m sorry.”
“Why? It’s not your fault. I’ve been putting it out of my mind, but being in the mountains, it was bound to come back.” She blinked quickly, forcing herself past the rawness of her grief. “What about you?” she said with a phony smile. “Do you often come up here just to visit the sunset?” She kept it as light and teasing as she could, because she didn’t want him to know how badly losing her mom had hurt. The wound was still too fresh, too raw, so she simply did her best to pretend it didn’t exist.
She laughed and rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll bet you bring a different woman with you up here every time you ski this resort, don’t you, Brody?”
But he just looked at her as if he understood the emotion she’d been fighting and didn’t judge her for it. “I’ve been training on this mountain for over ten years, Manda, and this is the first time I’ve brought anyone here.”
She might not have believed him if she hadn’t seen the flush creep into his cheeks. “Oh,” she murmured.
“You coming from home and all, I thought you were the right person to finally see it with.”
Her eyes felt moist and she realized it was because his motives were pure. He’d come up here not to make out with her on a chairlift, but because he liked her and wanted to spend time with her. She couldn’t remember the last time a guy had genuinely wanted to get to know her better, with no ulterior motives.
Who was she kidding? It had never happened. Going to a ski-country boarding school and then college, she’d found most guys who pursued her only did so because they wanted a chance to meet her famous ski-coach father. But Brody already knew her father, and he didn’t want a thing to do with him. Brody was up here because of her.
She pulled off her heavy ski glove and wiped at her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She just shook her head. Tomorrow in church with Jeannie would be one of the hardest mornings of her life, if she were honest with herself, but right now was perfect. “Nothing about this day is wrong,” she said softly. She held out her hand and he took it. “I like skiing with you.”
But the sun was sinking, and soon it would be too dark to ski. She wasn’t ready to let him go just yet. She felt comforted by his presence, and she didn’t want him to leave. She certainly didn’t want to go back to Jeannie’s party.
“Do you want to grab some dinner?” he asked, still holding her hand. “I can ask one of the guys on my team to pick up some sandwiches for us. If we take that trail—” he pointed with his chin toward the left fork “—there’s a place at the bottom where we can meet him. It’s a harder trail, but I know you’re capable.”
She made a small laugh. “I’ll never get over how ironic that sounds.”
“Will you stay?” With his free hand, he fumbled inside his jacket pocket for his phone.
“Yes, Brody. I’ll stay.”
CHAPTER FIVE
AMANDA LOVED THE TINY, QUIRKY Leopardo Hotel. One of the guys who worked for Brody met them there with a grocery bag filled with sandwiches, a bottle of wine, real cutlery and glasses for a mini-picnic in the room Brody rented. As he set it on a table in front of the already-burning fire, Amanda smelled fresh salami, cheeses and yeasty bread fresh from the oven.
“There’s a woman in the village we trust,” Brody explained, opening up his wallet and pulling out some cash. “She has a clean kitchen and makes great food the way we ask her to.”
Amanda’s stomach growled. She unzipped Jeannie’s ski jacket and then stepped out of the rental boots the way Brody had done.
“Sorry,” he said, turning from paying the young guy for the meal. “Amanda, this is Steve. He’s my ski tech. Steve, this is Amanda.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Amanda held out her hand, but Brody’s ski tech ducked his head, his shaggy blond hair covering his eyes, and mumbled something she couldn’t catch. He was out the door before Amanda could say anything more.
“Don’t mind him,” Brody said, “he’s shy.”
There must have been a lot of that going around, because she was suddenly feeling it too. She bit her lip as he pulled out a bottle of wine from the bag and immediately started uncorking it. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
He passed her a glass of red wine—Barolo, according to the label. “Do you want to toast?”
She looked at the glass for a long time. The wine glittered in the firelight like rubies. “I really shouldn’t drink anything.” She could feel the flush in her face. What the heck, she might as well state the obvious. “Jeannie’s wedding is tomorrow morning, and then I’m flying home afterward.”
She gazed at him so he’d know. “To New York City.”
“I…YEAH.”
Brody got the message, loud and clear. There was no future to this…whatever they were doing. But was it bad that he only cared about now?
He tossed the corkscrew into the grocery bag. They should just eat dinner and then say goodbye. He could take her phone number and call her when he’d accomplished what he needed to.
But he didn’t want to eat or to say goodbye. Not yet. He didn’t want anything but for Amanda to stay a while longer.
He stabbed the metal poker at a burning log, licking with flames. The wisest thing to do was to end the day on a high note. Escort Amanda back to her hotel and get his head straight for tomorrow, which was packed with training sessions and meetings.
Amanda’s soft laugh sounded behind him. He glanced back to see her holding a condom box.
Whoa. The kid had packed condoms with their dinner? He shook his head. He needed to have a talk with Steve, pronto.
But she was laughing, her head tilted. “Magnums, huh?”
A roaring sounded in his ears. She wasn’t shooting down the idea. “I didn’t tell him to do that.”
“But he’s used to your habits, isn’t he?”
“No, I don’t have habits—he’s just a stupid kid who doesn’t understand that I don’t do this. Not for any reason.”
Maybe he was too vehement, because a look flickered across her face—like disappointment or sorrow.
What was happening here?
Touch her. If I don’t touch her, she’ll leave.
And he didn’t want her to leave.
In a moment he was beside her, pressing her to him and pulling off her woolen cap and resting his chin on her soft hair. He gathered it up and inhaled. Her shampoo smelled like summer raspberries. She was the summer to his winter, and it was killing him.
“Brody…” she breathed. And then her sunny gaze settled on his mouth, tempting him.
He exhaled and closed his eyes. He needed her to stay. With a guttural moan, he kissed her full on the mouth again, and as before, she made a small sound of need then opened her lips to him. His tongue swept inside, mingling with hers, kissing her like he’d never kissed another woman. She tasted so good, he didn’t care if tomorrow never came.
“Please,” she whispered, urging him on, and her slight hands were tugging at his waistband. It was so easy to slide his hands down from her silky hair and along the sides of her torso to the edge of her shirt, before pulling it over her breasts and up over her head. He dropped the shirt, heard it whisper to the floor.
Her bra was lace. Peach lace, and he could see even pinker skin beneath and a beaded, rosy nipple. A feeling of helplessness overtook him, as if he’d jumped into a pool so deep he couldn’t escape if he wanted to. “Yes,” she murmured, and he slid his thumb beneath the lace and stroked.
She felt so soft, so welcoming to him. He’d never wanted to be anywhere more. His mouth went to her breast. She gasped and pressed her hips against him, against the hardness in his jeans.
“Are you sure you want this?” he asked in a low voice.
“Since the moment we first shook hands in the interview room.”
He smiled, his cheek catching against her fullness. During the interview he’d been distracted by the same thought. He lifted his head, smoothing back her hair and gazing into her eyes.
She nodded. And to let him know exactly what she wanted from him, no mistake, she reached under his cotton shirt, dragging it up and across his skin.
He sucked in his breath at the feel of her cool hands touching him—across his chest, his shoulders, down his arms. He had a scar there, from stitches when he’d been a teen and had face-planted at Whistler. Her fingers hesitated and then shook, as if he scared her.
He stood motionless. She could still back out if he wasn’t careful.
“Does this hurt?” she whispered.
“No,” he said honestly.
With a sigh she raised his arm and pressed kisses across his scar. He lost it and picked her up, carried her to the couch. Something seemed to drop away—the gate he’d been keeping closed, the control he’d been adopting for her sake. But she’d asked for it, and he was here, and yeah, maybe this was truly who he was.
He peeled away her bulky clothing—all of it, every last stitch—and he was glad for the crackling fire. “You, too,” she said, and he sat back, letting her undress him, helping her take off his jeans.
Her fingers rested on his erection tenting the cotton boxer briefs, and he hissed out a breath.
He was waiting for her to stop him. He didn’t want her to—he was ready for this—but if she was going to change her mind then he needed her to tell him so now, because he no longer could think of any reason he shouldn’t—
Her hand edged beneath his boxers and gently stroked him, skin to skin. It took all his concentration not to move. His mouth was so dry he couldn’t swallow.
“Brody, it’s been so long for me,” she whispered, “you have no idea.”
Like hell he didn’t. It had been two years for him, too, living like a monk in his self-imposed new way of life. “Believe me, I know.”
And then he cupped her face in his hands. She’d shown him that what he’d done those two years was right. Just as what he was doing now was right. He wanted her to know that though he’d known her only a short time, in that short time he’d shared a deeper connection with her than he’d had with any other woman. And he wanted to complete that before she left. Because their time together was only temporary.
But their connection didn’t have to be.
She blinked and tilted her head to him, questioning. But he couldn’t tell her everything he’d been thinking, he could only show her what he meant. He was a physical guy; physical was what he did best. By making love to her, he would be holding on to the moment as long as he could. He pulled her onto his lap. “Will you stay with me tonight?”
She smiled, her cheeks flushing. “Yes, Brody.”
“Good.”
And then he pushed her hair back from her face and kissed her, deeply, again and again, using her gasps and whispered pleadings as his course markers.
Her hands dropped from his shoulders to his waist, clutching him. And it was a pleasure to stroke her bare skin. To take his thumb and drag it through her beautiful curls. He caressed her, a rhythm she set with him by dragging her hips against his hand. Her skin was dewy and damp and she was smiling at him. It was more than a pleasure to glide his fingers inside her as her body pulsed and contracted around him.
“You’re killing me,” she whispered.
He drew back his hand.
“No, I mean, I want you to…do everything. I want to feel you inside me…”
The condom packet, he remembered. Cripes, the kid was smarter than he was. And then they were both fumbling for the box.
“Let me do this,” she said. He let her take the condom and sheath him with shaky, unpracticed fingers, but he didn’t interrupt to help her. It was more erotic to him than anything he could imagine.
When she was done, he took her hand and kicked open a door until he found the bed. It had a thick feather comforter, and he led her to it. She immediately pulled him to her, body to body, skin to skin. Her legs wrapped around the small of his back, and he almost lost it right there. He tasted the sweetness of her skin before he dragged himself to his elbows and cupped her cheeks. He kissed her, gently at first, and then more deeply.
“Brody, please, I can’t wait.” She arched her hips to him and without hesitation, he stroked inside her. It was as if he were made to fit her. She rose to meet his thrusts, gasping every time his body touched her where she wanted it most, and when his mouth caught her nipple and sucked it.
“I need this so bad,” she whispered.
He became intent on loving her, his aim to fill her up, to bring her somewhere with him, to keep her pleasured and content. He could barely take a breath before she was rocking into him, coaxing him higher, better, closer to fulfillment.
With a cry, she gripped his shoulders, shattered and came, a sweet release that went on and on. He caught her cries in his mouth and he came himself, muttering her name as her drove into her body, unable to stop, not for anybody or anything.
“Oh, Brody.”
He slumped in her arms, a roaring in his ears. He felt more rooted in his own body than he’d ever known. What’s going on? he dimly thought. Is it supposed to be like this?
And then her eyes met his, so shy and shining with happiness just to be with him, and he thought, Yeah. Yeah, it is.
She drew the sole of her beautiful foot up his leg to the small of his back, settling there. Maybe he’d found a little piece of heaven.
This, he would hold on to. This, he would make a place for.
HOURS LATER, AMANDA STRETCHED, her body throbbing. She and Brody lay tangled in the twisted sheets, the scents of their skin intermingled.
Never had she done anything so outrageously out of character as to have sex—and unbelievable sex, at that—with a man she’d only known for a day.
It must be Italy. Smiling to herself, she caressed her fingers over the broad, hard planes of Brody’s chest and biceps. He was built like a masterpiece. Thick muscles, masculine, lightly haired skin, a rugged jaw lined with a day’s growth of faint, prickly beard.
He stirred, shifting his weight to lay his head across her belly, holding out an apple slice to her, snagged from the picnic basket Steve had brought them. Opening her mouth, she let him feed her, the fresh fruit tart on her tongue, his fingers sweet to her lips.
Amazing how she felt so little embarrassment or self-consciousness in being with him, completely naked and unashamed, not a care in the world.
Sighing, she rolled over and nuzzled her head inside the crook of his arm, as naturally as if she did this sort of thing all the time. Which was funny because it wasn’t as though she had a lot of experience with men. Yeah, she’d been with a couple of guys in college. Not during the school year—she’d taken her course work too seriously for that—but during summer breaks. That was before her mother had gotten sick, before the trouble with her father. Back then, she’d been so young, really, so untouched by love and loss.
She looked away, out the window and to the black night beyond. She’d turned off her phone—they both had—but from the darkness outside, she guessed it was midnight. Jeannie’s party would soon be over.
“Brody?” she asked.
“Hmm?” The syllable from his chest echoed inside her core, striking a chord deep within her. There was something about him. It was as if she instinctively knew he’d been through the wars, just as she had.
She reached out and pushed a lock of light brown hair from his eyes. He wore his hair short and straight and it felt soft in her fingers. “What was going through your mind in the interview room today?”
He smiled and rolled to his side. With his hand tracing her cheek, he said, “I was thinking there was nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Her insides heated. She wanted him again. Reaching for a condom, she rolled it onto his erection.
“Will you say that again?” she whispered.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” He lifted her hips to slide inside her. The sweetest sensation filled her; she felt as if she’d never understood what lovemaking was until now.
She would remember this night and this man for the rest of her life. Squeezing her eyes shut to block the emotion, she cupped her hands around Brody’s butt. So amazingly muscular and round. A skier’s butt. She could hold him there all night.
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