Snow Angel (35 page)

They’d agreed to meet at the lodge for lunch at one, as usual. The rest of the guys, plus Aunt Pat, headed for the expert, double-black-diamond runs. Jacob led Melinda toward a black-diamond lift line. She did her best to ignore her mother’s surprise as they skied past her and Karen noted where they were headed.

Once in line, the nerves set in again. Melinda pushed them firmly to the back of her mind. She’d be with Jacob, and he rode these lifts all the time. It would be fine.

They didn’t talk much while they waited their turn for the lift chair. It was too cold, the wind too biting, to be comfortable standing around chatting. The lifts would be worse, sitting still and moving through the frigid air. She shuddered and moved closer to Jacob.

Finally, they skied into position for their chair. Was it her imagination, or did this lift seem to move faster than the intermediate ones?

She had no time to worry about it, because almost as soon as she got set, the chair arrived, hit the backs of her legs, nudging her into the seat, and they were off.

“Oh,” she said involuntarily as the chair swung more than she liked in the swirling wind and seemed to shoot straight up from the ground to the top of the first tower, which was much higher than the lifts she was used to.

“Okay?” Jacob asked, though his voice was muffled through his scarf and the multiple layers he’d piled on.

“Yeah,” she said, determined for it to be true.

“Freakin’ cold,” he added.

Melinda merely nodded and stared straight ahead, though that didn’t help much, since each tower they moved toward seemed higher than the last, raising them farther and farther from the ground and up along the steep side of the mountain. Cold as she was, fear-sweat sprang beneath her arms and slicked her palms inside her gloves. Unpleasant tingling increased in her extremities.

Jacob told jokes and made her laugh, at least a little, helping to distract her from the heights. If he could keep that up all the way to the top, she might make it off without a problem.

Then the lift jerked to a stop.

The chair continued to swing in the wind, and the two of them sat, stuck at a standstill far above the ground.

“Oh, man,” Jacob said, tilting his head back. “Not a good sign first thing on our last day.”

Melinda’s free hand vised on the bar next to her. She concentrated on sending her heart back into its chest cavity from where it had lodged itself in her throat.

Swallowing convulsively, she breathed slowly, deliberately, in through her nose, out through her mouth.

It’s no big deal,
she told herself.
This happens all the time. It’ll start up again any minute, and you’ll be fine. Just don’t look down.

As soon as the words formed in her head, of course she looked down.

Melinda’s whole body seemed to freeze solid. She couldn’t even gasp through her locked-tight lips.

They were so
high
.

In defense against the view, she closed her eyes, but that made the attack of dizziness even worse. Popping them open again, she stared resolutely straight ahead at the backs of the skiers on the chair in front of them, who seemed to be chatting serenely and taking in the view as though nothing was wrong.

Okay. Okay, okay, okay. You’re securely seated on a sturdy chair, with Jacob right beside you. Hanging from a sturdy cable. Just breathe.

But cables break…

No, no, no. You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. Please, God, let it be okay…

The cold seemed to increase exponentially every ten seconds they sat there, waiting for the chair to move forward again. What was taking so freaking long?

Jacob was still speaking, though his words wouldn’t process through the buzzing in her head. The tingling in her feet and hands increased, until she worried she’d have trouble maintaining her grasp on the bar and her poles, or standing if they ever got to the end of the lift.

Slow breaths, slow…

Shame bit at her. If Jacob noticed, she’d have to tell him now. She could only hope he wouldn’t think less of her for her stupid, irrational fear.

How much longer was it going to take for them to fix the problem?

A tiny, shameful part of her hoped they’d have to close the lift, and that would give her the excuse she needed to put the rest of this testing day off until her next time out skiing.

Of course, they’d have to get down somehow, and there were other black-diamond lifts…

The waiting was making her crazy. If they didn’t hurry up, she was going to totally lose it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“Mel?” Jacob asked. He leaned toward her, but she didn’t answer.

Determined to keep things light and low-pressured between them today, he’d deliberately talked a lot of nonsense. She hadn’t responded to any of his jokes since the lift stopped.

“Mel?” He patted Melinda’s thigh.

She jolted in surprise, her eyes flying to his, wide and scared even through the protective covering of her goggles. He frowned back at her. Something was definitely up.

“Hey,” he said, patting her again. “Are you okay?”

All that came from her lips was a sort of high, thin keening, even as she nodded. Then shook her head. Then nodded again.

“What’s wrong?”

Shifting so that he had one arm around her shoulders, Jacob peered into her face, concerned.

“Sweetie?”

At that moment, the chair jerked forward. She startled again, violently, but her obvious relief to be moving again was so great that whatever paralysis had had hold of her lifted. She tried to speak.

“I-I-I—” she stuttered, stopped, seemed to gather herself.

Melinda leaned into him a little, so he pulled her closer.

“I’m afraid of heights,” she mumbled, just loudly enough for him to hear her over the wind. Clearly ashamed.

Confused, Jacob said, “Yeah,” and waited.

She looked up at him. He stared back at her quizzically.

Dragging in a wavery breath, Melinda said, “When I was younger, I fell off the diving board, and—”

“Yeah, I know,” he interrupted. Where was she going with this?

“What do you know?” she asked, surprise in her voice now.

“Mel, I was there that day, don’t you remember? I saw the whole thing. I followed you home.”

“You—what?” She gaped at him, obviously confused. “You were there? I—”

“I saw that stupid kid bounce the board, saw you fall.” And, he distinctly remembered, he had nearly swallowed his heart in fear. She’d landed so fucking close to that concrete. “I saw the lifeguard pull you out. And I followed you home, to make sure you got back okay, ‘cuz you were pretty shaken up.”

He had been, too. He’d even had nightmares about it a couple of times.

Melinda frowned at him. “I have no memory of that at all.”

“So you’re afraid of heights. So what? Lots of people are. It’s not like you let it stop you from doing anything.”

“I do, though.”

“Like what? Who cares if you don’t go bungee jumping or dive out of airplanes.”

“I let it stop me from taking the black-diamond runs. Until today.”

“Is that why…” Jacob trailed off.

That
was why she stuck to the lower slopes. He’d always supposed it was some silly lack of faith in her skiing abilities—hence the classes every year—but he should have known better. She was one of the most confident people he knew, and a strong skier. Always had been.

Now it made sense.

Melinda stared at her gloved hand fisted around her ski poles, making him frown again.

“So why now?” he asked.

She blew out a breath, the only indication the rise and fall of her chest, as the exhalation flew away soundlessly in the wind.

“I don’t want to be a coward,” she said, low. “I don’t want you to think I’m a coward.”

Girls. They got the weirdest ideas.

“I don’t think that, not at all. You come out here, every year, you ski, you ride the lifts. It doesn’t matter what hill you’re on. What matters is you’re here.”

“That’s not all, though,” she said, still not looking at him. “This thing with us—it scares me, Jacob. A lot. But I don’t want to let fear hold me back, hold us back, from what might… I just—”

Now he hugged her, just one arm around her shoulders, but he pulled her in as tightly as he could. He wouldn’t deny it hurt not to have her jump in with both feet, but he’d had months to come around to the idea of them together, even if the final push had come in a sort of blinding flash. They had plenty of time to work it out.

“There’s no rush,” he said, “and no pressure. We’ll figure it out together.”

The end of the lift approached, finally, and they disembarked, skiing down the path away from the lift exit and around toward the slope.

“Are you going to be okay with this?” Jacob asked, indicating the run.

It looked like a normal black-diamond slope to him, nothing too fancy, nothing too steep, but Melinda’s face had blanched as they’d skied forward.

“You don’t have to prove anything, you know,” he said when she didn’t answer right away. “No one thinks you’re a coward, least of all me.”

Melinda took a deep breath and nodded.

“The lifts are the worst,” she said. “Skiing, at least I’m on my own two feet. But I don’t go that fast.”

Jacob looked back at the slope. She wouldn’t have a lot of choice on this run. There wasn’t room to do much of her usual slow back-and-forthing. Expert-level skiers had to go for it or roll to the bottom. He hadn’t even taken her to the true top of the slope yet, this was only the midway station. There was another lift that went on up to the run’s peak.

He opened his mouth to say so, then thought better of it. Best if he didn’t influence her expectations one way or the other.

“Let’s go,” she said.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Melinda sucked in another breath and, ignoring her inner coward, prepared to break her neck. The expert run stretched out below her skis seemed impossibly steep, and narrow, and full of obstacles.

On one side of the trail, a sheer rock face, heavily draped in snow and ice, extended straight up the mountain, only a few weedy trees clinging here and there to soften its edges. On the other side, the trees grew in dense lines to the edge of the slope and trailed away toward the valley.

Moguls and high piles of snow dotted what she could see of the descent, which appeared to angle nearly straight down, but the trail curved around to the left out of sight, making it impossible to know what else she’d face.

She had no one but herself and her monumental pride and ego to blame if she died.

Melinda tried to laugh at her melodrama, but her little internal joke fell flat—since she feared she might do exactly as she’d thought and not survive the mountain.

It was too late now, and Jacob was waiting patiently for her to make a move. If this was her last hurrah, at least she’d spend her final moments with Jacob.

With that cheerful thought riding foremost in her brain, she nodded to Jacob, and tipped her skis over the edge.

He took the lead, and she followed him as best she could. He moved like lightning down the impossibly steep grade, even though she suspected he’d deliberately slowed his usual pace to try to accommodate hers. His form was amazing.

She’d never seen him move quite like that, almost like an Olympic skier. The crisp sound of his skis cutting through the snow and ice flew to her ears over the howl of the wind.

Gradually, as they flashed around curves, hurtled over moguls, avoided trees and other skiers, the exhilaration seeped through. Her lips curved into a small smile, then grew into a grin, then her gleeful whoop echoed down the slope.

It was incredible, amazing. Almost like flying. In some places
actually
flying off the ends of the jumps and down, down, down.

Because they’d started out so high up the mountain, the slope seemed to go on nearly forever, and Melinda gloried in every foot of it. How many years had she deprived herself of this nearly sexual pleasure?

Too many, but never again.

This might be their last day in Utah, but she determined to head out to Big Bear or Wrightwood as soon as possible—as often as possible—once they were home, and master their black-diamond runs all through ski season.

Melinda swooshed to a stop in a wave of snow beside Jacob, still laughing, warmed through despite the wind-chill, on top of the world.

“Let’s go again!”

Jacob, a smile tugging at the lips he’d exposed by pulling down his scarf, leaned forward and kissed her smack on the mouth.

“You got it,” he said, and led the way to another black-diamond lift.

Melinda chattered all the way up, her hand locked tight on the bar, but otherwise ignoring the height of the chair. The exhilaration running through her veins was something she’d never experienced to such a feverish extent.

Pride, victory.

Joy, made all the richer because she’d shared the experience with Jacob.

It was a heady drug, and she mentally urged the lift to faster speeds so she could partake of it again and again. The day would be over before they knew it. She wanted to get plenty of runs in.

This time, she took the hill faster, stayed closer on Jacob’s flying heels. The run was slightly wider than the first one she’d tried, so she had more room to maneuver. The moment they reached the bottom, she grabbed Jacob’s hand and tugged him back toward the first lift. Then again, and again.

The next time they reached the top of the lift, they disembarked just as the gray sky darkened even more, went leaden, and opened wide. Snow dumped down on them in heavy buckets. The meager morning light seemed to die completely, the winds picked up, and soon it seemed they were skiing through a snowy tornado just to exit the lift area.

“If this keeps up,” Jacob shouted over the suddenly howling wind, “they’ll have to close the mountain.”

She followed Jacob away from the lift. Instead of turning to head down the slope again as she’d expected, he led her to yet another lift. She had to tilt her head back to follow its lines up the sheer face of the mountain, where the first tower disappeared at a dizzying height inside the storm.

She said, “Oh, shit.”

“What?” Jacob yelled, leaning in closer to hear her.

Melinda shook her head, closed her eyes, and counted to twenty, hoping the dizziness would pass before she had to get on the lift. She’d already conquered two slopes. Multiple times. This one was step two of the challenge, the true top of a black-diamond run.

You can do it, Mel. You can. Just breathe.

There were four groups ahead of them waiting for a chair.

Then three.

Then two.

The last couple went, and it was their turn to ski into position for the next chair.

This lift was definitely faster. It took off with an audible whoosh, even over the sound of the storm, and Melinda rocked back in the seat as it traveled up, and up, and up some more, snow blanketing them in sheets, then blowing off, then blanketing them again.

“I wish they had enclosed gondolas here for days like this,” Jacob said, his voice still raised, though they sat close together. “They’re a hell of a lot warmer.”

Nodding her agreement, Melinda shifted closer to Jacob, not for warmth, which was pointless in the wind, but for the extra sense of security.

She’d almost stopped worrying about the lifts. They trucked along smoothly enough, despite the winds, exactly like the beginner and intermediate ones, and the snow was so thick, she could no longer see the ground in any case. It helped reduce the fear.

Until a new realization intruded that made the lift-heights issue seem quite trivial by comparison.

She would shortly arrive at the top of the mountain, safe and sound, delivered by the speeding chair. Then she would have to let go of the handle, let go of Jacob, and ski down it.

In the blinding storm.

It was one thing to take an expert run with relatively clear visibility, even as steep and twisty as their first slopes had been. And she’d loved them. But this one would be steeper yet, twistier and longer yet, and visibility on the mountain was rapidly reducing to zero.

She hadn’t intended to increase the challenge level on her phobia quite so suddenly or so dramatically.

“Still okay?” Jacob yelled.

Anxiety already had razor-sharp claws sunk into the back of her neck. Her throat worked up and down while she tried to unlock her rigid mouth to answer him. It stayed locked shut.

However much she wanted to deny it, her heart was pounding, racing, and her limbs tingled in that unpleasant, about-to-black-out-from-fear way she only associated with heights.

But she would not let him see her cower again after the triumph of the first two slopes.

She nodded, dragged her courage up by the hair. Jacob would never let anything happen to her, and she’d already proved she could handle an expert run. This was simply a different slope, that was all. Higher, yes, but the same skill level.

They reached the end, hopped off the lift, and she followed Jacob blindly, her eyes focused only on the back of his black ski jacket. The snow came down in sheets, and the wind pierced. If nothing else, skiing down the mountain would warm them through.

Jacob pulled to a halt right before starting the descent. “Just follow my lead,” he shouted, and she nodded gamely to show she understood.