After Midnight (16 page)

And that was far from the truth.

“Thanks,” she said.

“I didn’t help, did I?” Elizabeth replied with a very kind smile.

“No. But I’m beginning to believe this is something that I have to figure out for myself.”

“The toughest decisions are. But that’s the way it should be, since you’re the one who has to live with the consequences.”

Consequences. She had left him this morning, and it had been hard. He was leaving soon to get back to his touring schedule and his new professional life. He’d said last night that he didn’t want to lose her, but she knew him better than that.

Eventually he would move on.

And where would that leave her?

Lindsey took a sip of orange juice to wash away the parched feeling in her throat. She should put some distance between them now, instead of skiing with him and asking him to stay the night at her place.

“I guess you must really like him,” Elizabeth said, “if you are that confused about what to do.”

She did like him. A lot. But as with all the other things in her life that she wanted, he was right out of her grasp. He wasn’t like skiing, something she could train for and master. He was always going to keep her guessing and trying to keep up with her own feelings.

She had to cut her ties to him, and she had to start doing it now.

“Sure, what’s not to like? Carter is sexy, charming and just the sort of guy a woman uses as a distraction.”

16

C
ARTER
WOKE
UP
feeling pretty good. He’d done just enough to get Lindsey back in his bed where he wanted her. Or, as it was in this case, his bed. He saw her note and swung by his place to shower, change and collect his snowboard. Hitting the slopes with Lindsey was going to be fun.

It felt right in his bones to be doing this with her, and after yesterday’s setback, he was ready to move forward. He hoped that he didn’t have to talk about his emotions ever again.

That had easily been the scariest moment of his life. He smiled at the valet as he tossed his keys to him and stopped by the little counter-service café off the lobby for a coffee before heading into the main dining room to find Lindsey.

He saw her sitting with Elizabeth near one of the windows. They were talking intently, and he felt something shift and settle in his soul. She was his. Lindsey looked pretty with her long blond hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She wore a pair of leggings and a long sweater, and when she talked she gestured with her hands.

He stood there in the shadows, just watching her, almost afraid to believe that he’d somehow convinced her to take a chance on him. The guy that the world saw as never serious about anything had a very serious crush on her.

His ice queen.

He’d melted her, and in return found that she had melted him. A part of that would never be the same again.

He took a sip of his coffee as the maître d’ came over to see if he wanted breakfast.

“Nah, I’m fine. I’m going to surprise those ladies.”

The other man nodded, and slowly Carter made his way through the tables. There weren’t that many people in the restaurant this morning. He noticed Georgina and Stan were sitting quietly together, and he thought of how it took all types of relationships. That there wasn’t just one kind of relationship or one answer to how they worked.

Maybe even someone like him could find true happiness with Lindsey.

“He was a distraction,” Lindsey said.

He paused. Was she talking about him?

“Are you talking about me?”

She glanced over her shoulder; all the color left her face and she bit her lower lip.

“Carter, how nice to see you this morning,” Elizabeth said quickly.

But he wasn’t interested in being sociable or pleasant right now. Unless he was wrong—and let’s face it, he wasn’t—Lindsey had pretty much just relegated him to booty-call status. Well, hell. He’d been thinking they were something special and she was getting ready to show him the door?

“We’re you talking about me, Lindsey?” he asked again.

She turned her face down and wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Yes, Carter, I was.”

He didn’t know what else to say to that. And he hadn’t been expecting her to admit it—especially not in front of Elizabeth.

“I thought we were past that.” He gritted the words out. “Didn’t last night mean anything to you?”

She stood. “I don’t want to talk about this now.”

“That’s too bad,” he said, blocking her path. “Your
distraction
isn’t going to be just brushed aside as easily as that.”

“Carter, please. I don’t think this is the right time.”

“Too bad. I’m tired of running after you and never feeling like I’m good enough. You know that you can’t keep me dancing to your tune forever.”

“You haven’t been dancing to anyone’s tune except your own,” she said, her temper flaring. There was a red flush on her cheeks as she stepped forward, pushing her finger at his chest. “We aren’t normal couple material. You have a life that takes you around the world, I don’t. I’m here working and trying to figure out—”

“Figure out what? How to not be afraid of the one thing that makes you special?” Sure, he had weaknesses, but she did, too. How could she not see that with her, he was different? With Lindsey he had a shot at being the man he’d always wanted to be but had never been able to figure out how.

As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he’d gone too far. She shoved her way past him. He wanted to take it all back. To pull her into his arms and apologize, but he couldn’t. He knew he should, but he wasn’t built that way. And the farther out of his grasp she moved, the meaner his thoughts became.

“Don’t walk away like that,” he said.

She shook her head, and he saw the sheen of tears in her big brown eyes...but she didn’t let them fall. “At least I have something that makes me special and I’m not afraid to admit it.”

What the hell did she mean by that? “I’m not hiding.”

“Yes, you are hiding. Everything you do is another barrier to keep everyone from seeing the real man. The boy I met at seventeen already had those barriers in place, so I wonder if you even know who you really are anymore.”

She’d cut a little too close to the bone with that observation, and later on he’d feel the bruising, not just to his ego but also to his soul. But right now he was too busy trying to even the score and make sure she walked away as deeply hurt as he was.

“You’re not seventeen anymore, either, and maybe hiding away in Park City isn’t the solution for you,” he said harshly. “You fell. So what? A lot of skiers fall. You were injured and now you’re better. It’s time you stopped hiding.”

He’d gone too far again, and this time she didn’t look as if she was going to cry. Instead it seemed she might actually hit him. “Congratulations, Carter, you’ve ceased being a distraction and become an irritant. And one I’m happy that I am able to walk away from.”

“Just like you walk away from everything else in life whenever it doesn’t come easily to you,” he said. “At some point, gorgeous, you’re going to have to stop running scared.”

“Screw you, Carter.”

* * *

L
INDSEY
WAS
HUMILIATED
, angry and hurt. She strode out of the restaurant and away from Carter and all the people who’d witnessed their argument. God knew no one was going to refer to her as the Ice Queen after that outburst.

She was shaking and felt as though she might be sick, so she sat on one of the chairs dotted along the hallway. She put her head in her hands and felt as if she wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come.

There were a lot of times when she had cried. The day they’d told her she’d need surgery. The day she’d gone back and found out she’d need a second surgery and a long recovery period. But this was the first time a man had made her feel this way. She wondered if she’d started the fight and pushed him away because it was easier to be alone than to figure out how to be with him.

In one preemptive strike she’d made sure she didn’t have to worry about him or who he was with when he was away from her. She’d pretty much made sure she’d never have to see him or talk to him again.

It was difficult for her to clear away the anger. But once she did, she knew that if she hadn’t been trying to save face with Elizabeth and called him a distraction, none of this would have happened.

She also knew that it had needed to happen. There wasn’t any path for the two of them. She knew that now.

She was flawed...but that wasn’t why she’d started the fight with him. She should have just been comfortable enough to tell him how she felt. That she was riddled with uncertainty, but admitting that she didn’t know what she was doing still wasn’t easy for her.

Especially with Carter.

She heard footsteps, and looked up to see one of the families from her ski lessons.

“Morning, Miss Lindsey,” Jeremy said.

Oh, crapola. Had they witnessed her fight with Carter? She forced a smile, grateful to have an excuse to slip behind her iron wall once again. “Morning, Jeremy. Mr. and Mrs. Smith. How are you today? Looking forward to our lesson?”

“I’m good. We are going for a toboggan ride this morning,” the boy said.

“Jeremy loves your lessons,” Mrs. Smith said. “I know you probably get asked this all the time, but can he take a picture with you?”

“Sure,” Lindsey said.

Jeremy came over to her, and she wrapped her arm around his little shoulders and leaned in and smiled. The same fake smile she’d used for years after defeats at world-champion events. And it seemed to fool them as they smiled and waved goodbye.

She sat back in the chair and realized that if she could find away to slip back into that persona as her normal, everyday self, she’d be fine.

Yeah, right.

“So, um, maybe you were right about not talking in the restaurant,” Carter said from where he stood across the hallway.

She’d been too caught up in Jeremy and his family to notice that he’d arrived. She hated that she’d said those mean things, but she knew under her anger there was a kernel of truth. For him as well, she thought.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I’m not,” he retorted, flashing that familiar smirk. “I put ‘big embarrassing fight with Lindsey’ on my resolutions list.”

She shook her head. “Glad I could help. I’m good at that.”

“Just like I like being a distraction,” he said, coming over to sit next to her. “That hurt.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not something I would have said to you.”

He lifted a dark brow. “Then why did you say it to Elizabeth? She’s my friend, too.”

She knew that. She’d said it because... Those reasons didn’t matter to her right now. “I don’t know. I just felt it was one more thing in my life that I had no control over and I hated it.” She took a breath, let it out. “It’s hard to deal with the way I feel for you. I know we hashed things out last night, but this morning it feels even more messed up than ever. I like sex with you. That part feels safe and okay, but the emotions and how tied you are to my skiing... I don’t like it.”

“What are we going to do?” he asked.

“You could maybe not always seem like everything works out for you. You act like nothing that happens between us fazes you,” she said.

“Of course it does,” he admitted. “I’m always running and trying to catch you, Linds, and you are always just out of my reach.”

She didn’t believe that for a minute. He had been there when she needed him, seen her at her worst, and always seemed so with it and cool. As if he was rolling on through life just as he had planned.

“It doesn’t seem that way,” she told him quietly. “I wish you had some flaws like me.”

“I have more flaws than you, gorgeous,” he said. “Everyone knows that.”

“You still have your career. You seem great at everything you try—even skiing—and I have to admit I was sort of hoping you wouldn’t be.”

“What can I say? I’ve always been good on the snow. You know...” Carter shrugged. “‘The cold never bothered me anyway.’” He sang the line from the Disney movie with a smile. “That’s why I’ve always been drawn to you.”

He was playing again. Trying to lighten the mood...to distract her from her very real fears. She knew that was why she’d started the fight today. He wasn’t just a distraction to her anymore. He hadn’t been for a while, and she was afraid to admit to herself how much she needed Carter. She was serious—too serious about her life and about having him in it. Her biggest fear was that to him she was a temporary stopover. And once he moved on, she’d be left alone again.

* * *

H
E
FELT
THAT
he was losing again. Last night he’d dodged the bullet and hadn’t had to bare his soul, and now it felt as if he might have shortchanged himself by not doing that. But her doubts were spurring on his, and he no longer felt as confident as he had when he’d woken this morning in her bed.

Alone in her bed.

Maybe that had been some sort of sign that he was too blind to see. He stretched his arm along the back of the seat and released a ragged breath. He wanted to hold her. To pull her into his arms, kiss her until she was aching for more and somehow fix everything that was broken between them. But he was afraid that he couldn’t.

That maybe there was no way for things to be fixed between them.

“Singing isn’t your strong suit,” she said at last in that quiet way of hers that really revealed nothing of her inner thoughts.

His lips twisted ruefully. “I guess it wouldn’t be fair if I could sing when I’ve got all this going on.”

“Probably,” she said, slouching back against the arm of the seat and looking over at him. “What are we going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I want to shrug this off and pretend that nothing happened, but we are both wounded by what we said. I’m sorry, too, by the way. Is there a way we can move forward from this?”

She tipped her head to the side, studying him. “Only if you are honest with me. You said that life isn’t as easy for you as it seems. Show me the real Carter.”

The real Carter. Did that man even exist? He had been pretending for so long that he almost thought that this guy was the real man. But he knew that he wasn’t. He knew from the way he’d been chasing after Lindsey, that each time she walked away from him he wanted something more.

“What’s real? I want you in my life,” he said.

“I know that. Why?”

How to put into words what he could barely understand as emotion. It was almost beyond him, and as he sat there in the quiet hallway he understood for the first time the real meaning of fear. He’d thought he’d experienced it before, but it paled compared with this. “You know how everyone in the world has an image of you?”

She nodded.

“Well, for me, I’ve always seen that beyond that you were this girl who wanted something more. You weren’t icy because you thought yourself above everybody.” He looked into her eyes. “You were cold because unless an endeavor improved your skiing, you didn’t bother with it. I liked that.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “You know how everyone thinks that nothing bothers me and I just keep rolling on?”

“Yes. That’s why I want to know what you feel,” she said.

“Well, I am the same as you. Underneath that, I do what I have to do to get back to the important stuff. I’ve always thought if we ever both dropped our guard, we’d have a lot in common and be a powerful pair. I’ve never told anyone, but I have dyslexia. It was hard for me to overcome.”