After Midnight (18 page)

But she knew for a short while she’d had a good time pretending he could be hers. She had a selfie of the two of them on her phone from the day they’d gone diving in the crater, and she looked at it way too often. She’d almost deleted it but had been unable to because she wanted these small connections to him.

A part of her was tempted to go to him, to force him to see her because she knew that physically they still had that bond. But she had decided she wanted more from him than that. She knew if it was just sex, that bond would fade over time.

But it wasn’t just sex. At least not where she was concerned.

But it was hard. She wanted to call and talk to her mother about it, but really, what would she say? Finally, she had a problem that had nothing to do with skiing. Even the joy she found at being able to ski wasn’t enough to dull the ache left by Carter’s absence in her life.

“Skier number one is in position.”

The voice over the radio was deep and rich, and for a second she hoped it was Carter but then recognized it as TJ, one of the mountain patrol guys volunteering as a helper for their team on his day off.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Go.”

She hit the button on her stopwatch and waited for Georgina to complete her run, but her mind wasn’t on winning. It was on the feeling that dominated her thoughts whenever she was awake anymore. Where was Carter?

What was he doing?

Could she ever make him realize that he wasn’t distracting her from her problems, but helping her to solve them? Because she knew that he had. Without Carter’s quiet, steadfast support—taking her to places that weren’t familiar, pushing her and challenging her at every turn, encouraging her to find her feet again—she would never have taken that run. And she just wanted one more chance to tell him that.

If she could get back on skis after that horrible crash, then why couldn’t she do the same in their relationship? She’d been wrong to give in to her fears, and she wanted him back.

Now she knew she had to go and get him.

But winning back a man was something she had no clue about. She had an idea that her friend Penny would have some answers. She’d been a guest at the resort for two weeks during Christmas and had turned her holiday affair into happily-ever-after. If anyone could help her win Carter back, it was Penny.

18

C
ARTER
HAD
BEEN
avoiding Lindsey, but being a coward wasn’t his style so he’d decided to show up for her late-afternoon ski class. He liked the fact that he rattled her. He could tell by the way she kept losing her concentration with the kids. It wouldn’t have been obvious to anyone who didn’t know her as well as he did.

He was at the end of the line with two twin boys who looked like trouble and were barely old enough to be in school. They had freckles and matching bright red hair. Standing precariously on their skis, as though they were learning how to walk for the first time, they kept slipping back and forth and shoving each other whenever Lindsey’s back was turned.

“Hello, boys,” Carter said, stepping between the two of them to keep them from shoving each other. “I’m Carter.”

“I’m Benji and this is Russ.”

“Do you like skiing?” he asked, crouching to their level.

“No. I might if Russ would stop talking all the time. I can’t hear what she’s saying.”

At this level Carter noticed that Benji had a hearing aid in one ear. “She’s saying that you have to remember the skis are an extension of your leg. And that when you have them on you are gliding over the snow.”

“How do you know?” Benji asked suspiciously.

“I’ve taken her class before.”

“She mustn’t be very good if you’re back here again,” Russ pointed out.

“She’s very good,” Carter said with a wink. “I like coming back because of her.”

Russ scrunched up his face. “Girls are gross.”

“Sometimes they are,” Carter agreed. “Why do you keep shoving your brother?”

“He pushed me first,” Russ said, looking up at him with wide blue eyes.

“Fair enough. But how about you two stop fighting and we learn how to ski?”

“I’m done pushing him now,” Russ said.

Benji nodded in agreement. “Me, too.”

Lindsey demonstrated a basic move. The kids slowly took turns doing it, going to the front of the group where Lindsey would watch them and give individual feedback. Carter moved around so he could go last. When he got up there she looked at him.

God, he’d missed her. She seemed tired, but happy. That made sense to him because he knew she was taking a lot of runs down the mountain to get ready to go back into training. He wasn’t too proud to admit he’d asked Elizabeth about her.

“So you’re going back to the team after the winter season is over,” he said.

“I am. I figured out what I wanted for the rest of the year,” she said.

“You did?”

“Yes.”

“Care to tell me?” he asked softly. “I kind of have a vested interest since I started this year with you.”

She looked at the kids who were watching them, waiting for Carter to take his practice time. “Not right now.”

“And not later, either,” he said, one corner of his mouth quirking up. “We both know that we’re avoiding each other.”

“We were until you showed up,” she reminded him. “I can’t talk right now.”

It went against his nature to back down, so when the class went to the bunny slope he left, turned his skis in and went up to the lodge looking for a distraction. Something that would help him understand why he wanted that woman and why she kept freezing him out.

Granted, he knew that he hadn’t shared his feelings with her and that it was hard to admit to falling in love. She acted as though it was a bad thing, but he knew she might find it hard to believe in him, especially since he hadn’t admitted his feelings out loud.

“Hey, Carter! How’s it going?”

He was surprised to see Will Spalding back at the resort. The dude had come over Christmastime and fallen in love with one of the other resort guests. They’d both been groomsmen in Elizabeth and Bradley’s wedding.

“Not bad. What you are doing here?” he asked, shaking the other man’s hand and sitting next to him at one of the lobby conversation areas.

“Penny wanted to spend our first Valentine’s Day here and Elizabeth asked her to help plan the after-party for the charity event tomorrow.”

“It’s not too late for you to get in on it if you want to,” Carter said.

“Get in on what?” Will asked.

Lindsey entered the lobby and walked over to the concierge desk with one of her young students.

Carter stared at her. That woman made him crazy. He wanted her—
loved
her—but he was hopeless at how to tell her. In his entire life there had never been anything he’d encountered that frustrated him more.

“You seem preoccupied,” Will said.

“I’m just... Dude, I’m a mess. That woman is driving me nuts,” Carter muttered. His snowboarding friends didn’t get it. Had never had someone like Lindsey in their lives or they were still young and new to the sport so women weren’t important to them. But Carter had moved on.

When he’d moved from amateur sports last year he’d signaled that he was ready to start his life after sports. And he was just now realizing it. He needed Lindsey in ways he’d never thought possible before, because it wasn’t until he saw her standing by that kid in the lobby that he was struck with an image of her with
their
kid.

And that was precisely why he’d been running scared. It was time to stop running.

He started to get up to go over to her, but she was gone. She’d left the lobby. He looked around for her.

“Where’d she go?”

“I wasn’t paying attention,” Will said. “But I think she’s having dinner with Penny and Elizabeth tonight. You could crash that.”

Carter shook his head. He’d had enough of doing things with an audience.

* * *

D
INNER
WITH
THE
girls had seemed like a good idea when Elizabeth had first suggested it, but as she entered Elizabeth’s house and noticed that Bradley and Will were nowhere in sight, she wasn’t sure. The last time she’d been here had been when Elizabeth had tried on wedding dresses sent from California by Lindsey’s dress designer cousin.

It was funny that her cousin had gotten all the romance genes and she’d gotten none of them. She should have flirted with Carter today, or heck, at least given him some sign that she still wanted him in her life. But instead she’d acted true to form, gotten scared and frozen him out.

She was like that ice queen in the Disney movie who always hurt the ones she loved by keeping them away. Her parents were a good example of that. She loved them, but they weren’t close. Once she’d turned eighteen, she’d started living near her coach and never had time off to visit with them.

Her relationship skills were sadly lacking, and dinner tonight confirmed that until she had her second glass of wine and Penny turned to her.

“Rumor has it you’ve been hooking up with Carter Shaw,” Penny said as she arched her eyebrows.

“Rumor?”

“Well,
Elizabeth.
But I want to know all the dirt,” Penny replied. “You’re pretty quiet for someone in the midst of a red-hot affair.”

That was because, as usual, she’d doused the flames and there was nothing to tell. “I screwed up.”

“What?” Elizabeth said, coming into the living room with a new bottle of wine. “What did you screw up?”

“Everything with Carter,” Lindsey lamented. “I love him but I can’t find the words to tell him. He was at my class this afternoon and I just acted like I always do. Focused on skiing and pretended that I wasn’t excited to see him.”

Penny patted her hand. “Why did you do that?”

She glanced at Elizabeth. Her friend took sympathy on her and poured more wine into her glass.

“She called him a distraction and got into a huge fight with him in the restaurant,” Elizabeth said, filling their friend in. “It wasn’t pretty.”

“No, it wasn’t. But we sort of talked afterward and I realized that I’m not sure
I
wasn’t a distraction for him. I’m just not good at relationships.” She took a sip of wine, then went on, “Before this thing with Carter, I hadn’t really had time for one, and now... Well, as I said, I screwed up and have no idea how to fix it.”

“Sexy lingerie,” Penny said, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “That will get his attention, and then afterward you just tell him all of that stuff you just told us.”

Penny’s idea had some merit. She could do the seduction thing. That part was easy between the two of them. “What if he doesn’t feel the same way about me?”

“That’s the risk you have to take when you fall in love,” Elizabeth said gently.

Taking a sip of her own wine, Penny added, “And if he doesn’t feel the same, isn’t it better to know than to stay in the agony of what-if?” Penny had another valid point.

“Is that what you did?”

“No way. I just kept my guard up until Will stepped up and proved himself. I knew I loved him, but I had pretty much resigned myself to living with heartbreak for a while. But he made a big gesture,” Penny explained.

“The dog? Everyone knows it was Fifi,” Elizabeth said, poking her friend in the ribs.

“Well, not every guy has two great artists working for him so they can make a mural and hang it up for the world to see,” Penny fired back, referring to the gesture that Bradley had made.

Was that what she wanted? A big romantic gesture so she knew it was safe to fall for him? Safe to tell him how she really felt?

She wasn’t sure. Even if he did something like that, how would she be able to believe it? How would he believe it?

“Maybe I
should
do something to get his attention,” Lindsey said, biting her lip.

“Lingerie,” Penny reiterated. “Believe me, it works. Men can be brought around to your way of thinking once you have their undivided attention.”

Lindsey swallowed, remembering New Year’s Eve and how that night had worked out exactly the way she’d wanted it to. But since then she’d been struggling to figure out how to get him where she wanted him and not have to risk showing him any more of her weaknesses.

“It’s different with us. Sex is easy. He thinks I was using him as a booty call and he’s got all those scantily clad girls hanging around him,” Lindsey said. But deep down she knew that wasn’t true. She felt closest to him when he held her in his arms after they made love.

“Well, whatever the gesture, you better get moving. He told Will he’s heading back to California on our flight in two days’ time. And you’ve got the ski event and then my awesome party between now and then,” Penny said.

“Maybe I could do something at the party?”

“Like what?” Elizabeth asked. “Given that the last time you two interacted in public it felt like a nuclear meltdown, I think you need a plan.”

“I do need a plan. I need something that shows him that I’ve finally figured out that we belong together.”

“How?”

“Now, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

She put her wineglass down and thought again of all the things Carter had done for her and how he’d taken time to help her learn to ski again when he was so busy... But he’d never been too busy for her. Carter had been there for her when she needed him most, and he had been there to catch her when she’d felt like she’d been stumbling around in the dark. Now it was her turn.

It was time to take the ultimate risk. To prove to Carter Shaw, once and for all, that she wanted only one thing for this year, and it was him.

* * *

C
ARTER
AND
HIS
team were in high spirits, wearing the trademark green-and-gold Thunderbolt colors. The other team had gold with green accents, since Georgina and Stan had sponsored all the events. They were at breakfast in one of the ballrooms set up with two long tables on either side of the room. In the middle of the room were big, round tables draped in green or gold, depending on which team they had sponsored.

The tables in the middle were for the other big sponsors—resorts donating their instructors and their teams to help staff the event—and those tables were slowly filling. Carter stood to one side, smiling and joking with his team. Thunderbolt girls were moving around the room posing for pictures with the attendees.

They had their branded charity event logo on a big drape in the corner. It was set up with a backdrop of the Wasatch Range so that guests could pose for a picture to appear as if they were skiing.

The wounded vets were very popular. Carter was pretty sure that Lane, Duke, Marsalis and Wynn hadn’t had a minute to themselves all morning. Georgina and Stan were making the rounds, with Thunderbolt girls handing out beverages. Lars Usten had invited some of his old ski team cronies and they were all sitting at the head table.

Carter kept watching the room and knew that there was only one person he was looking for: Lindsey. But she had yet to show.

He worried about her, wondering if all the practice runs she’d taken had prepared her for this big run with so many people watching. Granted, it was nowhere near the pressure of the winter games, but this was the first time she’d be skiing in an event. It would bring back memories, he was sure of it.

“Hiya, Carter,” Will said, coming up to him. He was wearing a pair of chinos and a button-down shirt. He looked as though he should be in the office instead of waiting to go out on the mountain.

“Morning. Nice event your— What is Penny?” Carter asked. He wasn’t sure how to refer to her, but once people got out of high school it was hard to keep a straight face when calling them boyfriend or girlfriend.

“Well, girlfriend now,” Will said. “But I have a surprise for her on Valentine’s Day that should change that status.”

Carter smiled and nodded at him. “Glad to hear it. I like you two.”

“Thanks, buddy. You any closer to getting back in your lady’s good graces?”

“Hopefully by the end of the day I’ll have some good news for you,” Carter said. “If not you can find me in the bar.”

Will laughed as Carter had intended him to. Playing at being normal when he wasn’t. He didn’t have Lindsey and he didn’t have a broken heart. He was still hopeful he’d win her back, but if he didn’t, this would turn out to be the worst day of his life.

Yet he still was trying to play it cool so that no one could figure out how desperately he wanted and needed Lindsey in his life. He knew that nothing would be quite as good without her by his side.