After Midnight (14 page)

“Once? Surely more than that,” he said, taunting her.

“Stop it, your ego can’t take much more inflation. It was interesting reading the articles about you. I’ve never read that much of my own press. Have you read yours?” she asked.

He shook his head. He didn’t mind press interviews and the like because it was the only way to get his sport more into the public consciousness, which they needed if it was going to continue to grow. But he never read it. When he’d first started, he’d read a few articles where they’d twisted his words totally out of context. He couldn’t get them to change what they’d printed and had made a conscious decision to stop reading the stuff after that.

“I haven’t. But I have read the articles about ‘Skiing’s Favorite Ice Queen,’” he said.

She flushed and shifted on her seat to put more distance between them. “I’m not anyone’s favorite this year.”

He put his hand on her shoulder and used his other hand to tip her face up toward his. “You’re my favorite, gorgeous.”

“You’re just saying that because you think it might soften me up and maybe I’ll get naked in your SUV,” she said.

He laughed as though he could tell she wanted him to. But he knew he’d been serious. She was his favorite. He who’d never allowed himself to hold on to anything—or anyone—wanted her. Desperately. He’d always had the feeling that his life was like quicksilver, always changing, and he’d gone with the flow. But right now he wanted to pull her into his arms and never let her go.

He needed her with him, but that made him weak, and he wasn’t going to be weak. There had to be a way to keep her close without losing himself. He shoved his feelings down as he always did and smiled.

Then he kissed her. A soft, slow, sweet kiss that he hoped showed her the emotions he’d never admit he had. But he wanted to. Not for the first time, he wished he was a different kind of man. Someone who would easily be able to share what was in his heart.

But he wasn’t. He never had been. That just wasn’t his style. And he had the feeling it might never be.

“We should go in and get changed so we’re not late,” he said after finally releasing her. “The person I spoke to said the guide left for the crater promptly.” He opened his door, grabbed the bags from the back he’d put in earlier and handed one to Lindsey as she came around to his side. They walked into the hotel and he watched her enter the change room.

A few minutes later as they snowshoed out to the crater, he wondered if they looked like a couple to the other people on the tour.

She didn’t say much and neither did he. Part of him wanted to believe they were both just enjoying the majesty of the Utah winter, but another part knew that too much had been said.

He wasn’t good at sharing, because every time he did, it ended up this way; further away from Lindsey than he had been before.

14

W
HEN
THEY
GOT
to the crater, Lindsey caught her breath. It was spectacular. The water was actually about seventy-five feet from the opening in the crater, and getting down to the water had been tricky. But now that they were here and the instructor was explaining the diving safety information, she couldn’t contain her excitement.

She looked over at Carter and he smiled back at her. They were both treading water, and it was warm. Almost hot. It felt surreal being here with him.

They spent the next hour diving in the crater, and she saw some of the most spectacular sights of her life. Carter stayed next to her. A few times he reached out to tap her arm to point out the sunken wagon wheel and fake mermaid she might have missed.

While there weren’t any fish due to the high calcium content, the dome over the cavern filled it with light. The crater was in the shape of an hourglass, and Lindsey followed the rugged arc of the walls. As she dived beneath the surface, she saw the chunky white surface of the wall that jutted out.

Finally they surfaced to sit on the edge of the pool while the rest of their group finished diving. She looked over at Carter. His hair was rakishly slicked back, eyelashes thick and dark from the water, his body long and lean; she felt a spear of desire go straight through her.

If they were alone, she’d be tempted to climb onto his lap and start kissing him and not stop until he was buried deep inside her and she was riding him to completion. She blushed at the thought and felt the heat move up her neck and face.

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing,” she said. “This was a great idea.”

“Thanks, but I’m pretty sure you have something on your mind besides diving,” he drawled.

“I might, but it will have to wait. Unlike you, I’m not into exhibitionism.”

“Who said I was?”

“
GQ
winter issue two years ago. It was on your turn-ons,” she said.

He cocked a brow. “You read that?”

“I did. How else would I know that fact?”

“I just said that because the reporter was irritating me,” he admitted. “I’d had a big fight with my board sponsor and it was pretty public and he kept trying to get me to bad-mouth them, which I wasn’t going to do, so I said that instead.”

She put her hands back on the tile behind her. Their worlds were weird. In one way they spent all their time training and trying to be the best in their sport, and then had to deal with sponsors and media. It was hard to balance it all, and she envied how Carter had always seemed to manage it.

“That was a clever way of keeping him from asking about it. Plus, it probably got a bunch of new women to watch your sport,” she said.

“Well, it didn’t hurt,” he responded. “Our sport has been like the bastard of winter sports for so long I’ll do whatever I have to do to get more people interested in it.”

“You’re very outspoken. I remember when you first showed up at the training center and all the coaches weren’t sure how to take you guys,” she said. “You snowboarders were a group of really young athletes and coaches. No one really knew what you’d be doing.” She paused. “But you’ve been a vital member of the winter sport family and have even brought some new events like ski moguls into the sport.”

“It has been a long, hard fight,” he agreed, “trying to get some respect.”

“Why’d you do it?” she asked curiously.

“I like recognition as much as the next guy. My dad was impressed when I got my gold medal,” he said. “Plus, I liked being part of the team that represented our country.”

“Me, too. Most of the time I don’t think about being from the US, but when we walked into the opening games and the anthem played, I really felt it. I wanted to win not just for me but for everyone back home.”

He smiled at her. In that moment she realized there was a lot more to Carter Shaw than he wanted the world to see. He seemed like this tough badass, but in truth he was a softie just like her.

Their tour guide gathered them together for the hike back to the hotel. This time Lindsey didn’t seem as distant from Carter as she had been on the way down. She reached for his hand and held it in hers as they walked back.

After they’d changed and she headed out to meet him in the lobby, she noticed he was talking to a group of people but stopped when he saw her.

He waved goodbye to the group and walked over to her. He made her feel special. As though, despite her flaws and scars, she was enough for him.

* * *

I
N
THE
WEEKS
that followed their diving at the crater, Lindsey felt they’d fallen into a safe routine. She got up each morning and took a run down the bunny slope. Each time she felt paralyzed with fear at the top, but when she got to the bottom she felt exhilarated. She often met her friend Elizabeth for breakfast and then worked her shift at the school.

Carter was always in one of her classes. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but she was starting to really care for him, and that worried her. This new life where she could only ski the easiest slope and where Carter was part of her joy was odd, but she liked it.

It was time for her last class of the day, and she skied out to meet the kids, a little disappointed when Carter wasn’t there. Though he hadn’t said he’d be at the class, this would be the first day he’d missed. These kids had been taking lessons for a while, and most them already had the skills they needed to ski. They were ready for something more advanced, as was she. She felt nervous, but made the decision after checking with their parents to take them to the ski lift for a moderate run.

This would be her first chance to try out something other than the bunny slope. She was nervous, of course, but having the kids along made her focus on them and not herself.

“This kind of thing must seem pretty tame to you,” Courtney said as they got off the ski lift and readied to take their run down the mountain.

“Not at all. I love skiing, and when I’m on the snow I’m just happy to be there,” she said. The words were press friendly and sound-bite worthy, but she realized that she meant them. This was what she’d needed.

And she didn’t need Carter Shaw to do it. Not that she ever had, but she realized she’d sort of been leaning on him as a crutch.

Dan, one of the other instructors, had come along for the run and taken the first group of kids down the slope. The ski patrol was nearby and always on alert, so she wasn’t worried. These kids were good skiers. She was more concerned her nerves might snap, but her fear of embarrassment was greater than her fear of a fall, and as she led the last group down the mountain, she felt a little of her old confidence returning.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it until this very moment. And when she got to the bottom, she knew that something significant had changed inside her. Everything was telling her to go to the top and take a run.

Lindsey released a sigh. She was a little freaked out that she hadn’t heard from Carter all day. And there had been no answer to the texts she’d sent earlier. She wanted to take her run, but now she was worried about Carter.

This just wasn’t like him.

Something had to be seriously wrong for him not to show up or to return her texts.

She stowed her skies and signed out at work. Changing out of her ski gear into a pair of faded jeans, a thick sweater and her Ugg boots, she decided to swing by his place to check on him.

But as she walked into the lodge and up the patio, she noticed a large group around the pools and hot tubs. Looked like a camera crew, even. They were probably filming a new commercial for the resort, but as she looked closer she recognized a couple of Thunderbolt women from the shindig at the bar a while back.

She started for the group, thinking maybe they knew where Carter was, when she saw him. Sitting in the middle of the hot steaming water with his arms around two bikini-wearing hotties. Her heart sank. She’d heard that expression before, but this was the first time she’d actually experienced it.

She felt light-headed, as though she wasn’t all there, and then she felt her face turning red. This was so embarrassing. She’d been worried about him. She’d given up skiing to come find him because she’d thought that surely something must really be wrong.

And he was sitting in a hot tub with a bunch of women!

His laughter rang out over the pool area, and she clenched her fingers together. She felt stupid. As though she should have known this would happen. As though the relationship she’d thought they were building was just a thought on her side.

She almost went to confront him, but then Georgina caught her eye, and the look of sympathy on her face made Lindsey feel so small she just turned and walked away.

She didn’t want to think about Carter Shaw. She got as far as the lobby where Elizabeth was talking to one of the front-desk staff. Her friend waved, but something on Lindsey’s face must have showed her inner turmoil because Elizabeth rushed over.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m great,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Uh, let’s go get a drink and talk.” Elizabeth wrapped her arm around Lindsey and led her to the bar.

Lindsey could only nod. She needed someone to talk to, and hadn’t realized how much until this moment. She was used to keeping everything inside. Had made her reputation in skiing by being the Ice Queen... Maybe it was those months when she’d been here working and not practicing, but suddenly it felt as if she had no control over her emotions anymore.

She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t change it.

“What’s up?” Elizabeth said once they had secured two empty seats in a corner of the cocktail lounge. “You look like... Well, if it was anyone else I’d say you look pissed off.”

Lindsey nodded tersely. “I am.”

“At who?”

“Carter Shaw.”

* * *

C
ARTER
HAD
HAD
a
really long day, and when he was finally free of the corporate people his first thought was to go find Lindsey. She’d become his touchstone. The calmness in his crazy world. He’d hoped to make it to one of her ski lessons today but was disappointed he’d missed out on it.

“Hey, Carter, you got a minute?”

Georgina was one of Thunderbolt girls, though calling her a girl was a bit of a misnomer. She was his age and had been married to Stan Poirier, the owner of the Thunderbolt energy drink company, for a few years now. He liked her—she was nice enough and had always sort of had a way of making the overtly sexy ads he shot for her husband’s company seem almost okay.

She also must have the temperament of a saint to put up with Stan’s flirting. But there was some real love between those two, and somehow they must have figured out something that worked for them.

Carter wanted that with Lindsey. But he was honest enough to admit that he had no idea how to get it. He wasn’t good at the normal days. He could do nights of sex and fun adventures, but the everyday living was harder.

“Actually, I was just on my way out,” he said. He was anxious to find Lindsey. And, if he was honest, to wash away a bit of the fake attitude he’d had to step into to be the spokesman for Thunderbolt.

“It won’t take long,” she promised, leading him away from the others to a cozy couch set up in one of the alcoves in the long hallway in the lodge.

“What’s up?” he asked as she sat and gestured for him to sit next to her. Sitting would mean this wasn’t going to be as quick as he had hoped, but he complied.

“That woman you were with at the nightclub, Lindsey...I think she’s an Alpine skier,” Georgina started.

“Yes, she is. What about her?”

“She saw you filming. She didn’t look too happy and I wanted to let you know before you went charging off to see her.”

Ah, hell.
That was the last thing he’d expected. “Thanks.”

He started to stand, but she stopped him. “Do you want some advice?”

He just looked at her, and she smiled.

“Probably not, right? Who wants to listen to another person when it comes to relationships? But I’m going to tell you about Stan and me. He’s always interviewing those gorgeous girls. You know how they look at him, and he likes it. He likes that they fawn all over him.”

“It’s not like that for me,” Carter said. “Lindsey makes all the rest of them pale in comparison.”

“Good. Make sure you tell her that.”

He studied Georgina for a moment. “Does Stan tell you that?”

“Not often enough,” she confessed. “But I know he loves me.”

“How?” Carter asked curiously. Women had sometimes mentioned the
L
word around him, but the truth was he’d never experienced it in a relationship. He loved his dad, but then the old man had been his only constant in his life. His mom had died giving birth to him, and it had always been just him and his dad. A part of him thought maybe the fear that gripped him when he thought of not having Lindsey in his life might be love.

Or maybe it was something else. He just had no idea.

“Stan shows me every day,” Georgina explained. “Does special little things that he knows I like, and he always makes me feel like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world. I don’t know if that will work for Lindsey, but it does for me.” Leaning closer, Georgina reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “Every year those girls seem younger, and I feel... Well, that doesn’t matter. I just wanted you to be aware of what she’d seen. I like her.”

“I do, too. I’ll explain that I had to do the photo shoot today.”

She arched a brow. “You’ve known about it for weeks.”

“I...I’m not really good with the relationship stuff,” Carter admitted, releasing a frustrated breath.

“Don’t try to pull that kind of BS with her.”

It was funny that Georgina could see through it; most people just shrugged and assigned it to his snowboarder, live-free attitude. But she knew that it wasn’t. He didn’t like the fact that she could read him, and wondered if his mask was slipping now that he was spending so much time with Lindsey.

With her he felt as though he could be himself. But he didn’t feel that way with the rest of the world. Certainly not with the Thunderbolt energy drink company. He needed to keep his guard up.