Chapter Eight
The bowl was exactly what it sounded like, a scoop hollowed out of the side of the mountain. It dropped down from a craggy ridge that ran in a jagged line up to the highest point. A few trees dotted the trail, but for the most part it was open, less a set trail than a windswept, treeless expanse.
This wasn’t an ordinary steep run, the kind where Sam knew to bend her knees and tighten her turns, and she would make it down. As if the bowl wasn’t hard enough on its own, the entire thing was a mogul field dotted with giant, snowy bumps. It was a different kind of skiing and to Sam, infinitely harder.
Sam had spent the better part of that morning staring at her phone, debating what to do. It wasn’t true what she’d told Austin. She’d known he’d pick up for her—or rather, for the person he thought she was. But even with the timeline she’d promised Steven, the threat of an anxious board, and emails from the Hendersons’ lawyers hounding them to finish the sale, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She’d told herself she was only skiing a few quick runs as long as she was here. But she’d been looking at every ski patrol jacket she saw. Of course she’d been looking for him.
Her father never would have jeopardized a deal like this. He never would have delayed a signing or given the board reason to doubt him.
But now was not the time to turn to Austin and say, By the way, I’m Samantha Kane, and I’m going to bring the full wrath of my billion-dollar company down on you if you don’t sign over half the land you clearly love. Now was the time to make sure she didn’t throw up from sheer terror as she looked at the drop they were about to ski down.
“Nervous?” Austin asked with a grin as the chairlift carried them up.
“You’d better wipe that smile off your face before I knock it off,” Sam grumbled, but that just made him laugh.
“Success,” he boasted.
She raised an eyebrow.
“I found a way to get under your skin,” he explained.
“That’s your goal?” she asked.
“Well, no. Not when you put it like that.” He bit his lip, no longer looking quite so gleeful. “You’re just so put together,” he finally said. “So calm.” He smiled. “I like it.”
“You’re the unflappable one,” Sam countered. “Oh, look, my prized skier is bleeding all over the trail. No biggie, let’s go finish the run.”
“I was trying not to escalate!”
“Which proves my point. Unflappable.”
Austin nudged his leg against hers in the narrow chair. She shoved him back as best as she could, even though it was like pushing a rock. At least his teasing helped take her mind off how much worse the bowl looked the higher they rose.
She swiveled to look behind them at the height they’d climbed. It was a rookie mistake. Her stomach dropped at the sight.
“You can do this, Sam. You’re the boss.” Austin put a hand on her knee, and Sam almost gasped out loud. Now was when he decided to tell her he knew what she was hiding?
But he flashed a grin and she realized it was just an expression, a way to pump her up before the big run.
There was no way he’d be here like this, touching her leg, grinning at her, if he so much as suspected who she was. The thought was reassuring—her secret was safe.
Too bad his trust made her feel even worse.
But he was right, wasn’t he? She was the boss. Whether she wanted it or not, this was her show. “Damn straight,” she murmured, adjusting her gear over her face as they got to the top.
“That’s my girl,” Austin said and pushed off quickly from the lift, making her scramble to catch up, because what the hell did it mean that she was his girl when all they’d done was kiss? She had to stop this, she had to come clean, she couldn’t take another second before she—
But then she was standing over the edge of the bowl, and all the words leaked from her brain.
“Don’t look at the sign,” Austin instructed.
“What sign?” Sam asked, whirling around to see what she’d missed.
“Don’t,” he repeated, using his pole to nudge her away. But it was too late—she’d seen. Maybe not the whole thing, but the words “caution” and “catastrophic” had a way of jumping out.
“Austin,” she pleaded.
“Don’t even think about telling me you can’t.”
“Are you this mean to your students? Because if I’m the boss then I’m firing your ass.”
He slid slowly down along the long spine that ran from the top of the chairlift over the lip of the bowl, but he kept his eyes on her. “I’ll do something to your ass, too.”
Hidden by her face mask, Sam’s jaw dropped. “What did you say?”
He shrugged. “Guess you’d better come and find out.”
“You are one dirty bastard,” she accused, but it worked. It got her to push off from where she’d been standing, paralyzed, and follow him along the ridge.
When Sam stopped beside him, he grabbed her waist and drew her near, their skis overlapping, his hips pressing close enough to make her heart pound from something other than fear. He leaned in, his lips next to her face, whispering as another skier whizzed past, “Oh, sweetheart. You have no idea.”
By now Sam’s heart was banging in her chest. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had ripped the words away from her like this. She knew this was a bad idea. She knew the closer she got the more it would come crumbling down.
She just needed a little more time—a night to get him out of her system so she could screw her head back on and get back to work.
Provided she could make it down this trail first. The top of the bowl was the hardest part, nothing but a clear drop away from the line where they stood. She looked for an escape route, some safer trail snaking out to the side. But Austin, seeming to read her mind, said, “There’s no getting away,” and she wondered if he was talking about the trail or something else altogether.
“Your dad didn’t take you up here?” he asked as they gazed down.
Sam shook her head, her mouth too dry to speak.
“It’s a shame. Look how beautiful it is.”
It was a reminder to Sam to look up, and when she did she was once more at a loss for words—but this time not because of terror or lust. The whole mountain stretched out at their feet, an endless expanse of snow and trees down to the valley below.
“It’s something else up here,” she murmured.
“Worth it for the view alone.”
“Unless it’s the last thing I ever see.”
“Would I let anything happen to you?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said truthfully. “I barely even know you.”
Austin leaned in to her again. “Yes, you do,” he whispered.
He was so close, kissably close, but Sam made herself concentrate on the trail. She couldn’t say yes to him, no matter how true it felt. Because he didn’t know her. And if he did—or when he did…well, she didn’t know what he’d do. She only knew it was going to be bad.
Her stomach knotted in a way that made her nerves from the ride up feel like nothing. Fear of the trail could be overcome. It was a boardroom, a speech, the day she officially became CEO. Her nerves rattled until it was over, and then it hardly seemed worth worrying about anymore.
This feeling with Austin was different. She pushed it down, hard, as small as it would go.
“Are we doing this or what?” she said.
He pushed over the edge so suddenly Sam wanted to yell for him to wait—she was kidding, she wasn’t ready, she couldn’t actually take this on by herself. But before she knew it he was down below, and she couldn’t wait another second on the rim by herself. Because if she didn’t do it now she never would, and there’d be no hope of anything further with Austin, because unbelievably hot Olympic-caliber athletes didn’t take home women and fuck them senseless if they had to be escorted down by ski patrol because they were too chickenshit to tackle the trail.
Plus, he was ski patrol. Which meant he’d be the one to save her, and he was already too far down to come back.
She clenched her jaw like when she was little, afraid to jump off the pier into Lake Washington on the hottest days of summer. Doing it anyway because she didn’t want to be left behind when her father jumped first. The thought of him sent a jolt through her heart, and then she was moving even though she didn’t remember giving her legs permission to go.
The first turn was sheer terror, weightlessness rising up in her stomach as the ground dropped away.
And then her skis found their purchase and suddenly she remembered how to do this. One turn led to another until she was past the lip of the trail and down in the thick of the moguls, and there was no going back. She was making it happen. Because she could, and because there was no other way.
She stopped next to Austin, breathless, her quads on fire even though they weren’t even halfway down the trail.
“How does it feel?” he asked, grinning.
“Holy shit,” she said.
“You looked good up there.”
“Holy shit,” she repeated.
Her legs were shaking. Her mind seemed to have gone blank except for her capacity to swear. Somewhere inside her jacket her phone buzzed, but no way was she getting it now.
“Come on,” he said. “Pick a line.”
She looked down at the trail and all that she still had to conquer. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “You go first, I’ll follow.”
“No, you choose. Look down below you and plan where you’re going to turn. Mark where on the bumps your skis are going to hit. It should be three-quarters up, just around the side.” He demonstrated with his pole where on the next mogul her feet should land. “You’re getting a little stuck in the ruts. That’s where it’s icy and it’s hard to stay in control.”
“But I can’t turn that fast,” Sam said. “I pick up too much speed.”
“That means you need to whip the turn around more before you go on to the next.” He bounced on his skis, facing sideways across the mountain. “Each time you bring your skis around, stay perpendicular to the drop. You can take the turns as slow as you want—you’re in control.”
“I always am,” she said pointedly.
“You’re in control, as long as you let the mountain take you just a little.”
“I can be taken, too.”
He let out a low groan. “I like the sound of that.”
“You go first. I want to see you,” she said, afraid to get too far off topic while she was still in the middle of this, heart pounding, exhilaration making her shake.
“Okay,” Austin said. “But don’t just follow my line. See the turns for yourself. Visualize what you’re going to do.”
Sam swallowed hard. Of course she could visualize what she was going to do…to him. But she nodded. She had to focus.
Austin pushed off on his poles and jumped—he didn’t ski but literally jumped down to the next bump, twisting his body and whipping his skis in the air. The accuracy was unreal. It was as though his legs were made of springs.
“Facing sideways,” he called up to her. “Not picking up any speed.”
“If you think I can do that you’re crazy.”
“I think you can do just about anything. And I’m pretty sure you know I’m right.”
He took off before she could answer, and she was once again swept up by the beauty of his body and what it could do. He took the bumps so quickly and with such precision her eyes were glued on his form, trying to memorize every move. When he skied down a ways and stopped to look up at her, she didn’t let herself fall prey to any more waiting. She pushed off and went.
It wasn’t the same as him—she knew she didn’t look like that. But she could feel the difference, the bumps falling into place so that she was skiing them instead of letting them push her around. Thank God yoga was the one thing that had kept her mind clear during the long stretch during and after her father’s death. She was stronger and more flexible than she’d thought. She was grateful to her legs for not betraying her in front of this man who watched as though he could see all the way through her. Not only to where her weight shifted and her limbs bent but to something deeper, so she wasn’t even sure what he was looking at when he caught her eyes.
She paused where he stood, and then they skied down together, riding the moguls, Sam trying to keep up even as she knew he was slowing down just for her. Her breath came fast, her heart racing. A bead of sweat trickled down her back.
“Don’t stop,” Austin urged, and she pushed harder, the trail beginning to flatten toward the bottom of the bowl but the bumps getting bigger where snow had gathered as it slid down the hill. But she was in it, she was soaring, she’d never skied like this before.
The next thing she knew she was flying, only her skis were no longer attached. For one brief airborne second her stomach jolted up to her throat and she wished everything would stop. And then she landed facedown with a mouthful of snow.
Austin pulled to an immediate stop. “Sam?”
She raised her head and gave a grunt.
“Please tell me you’re alive.”
She rolled onto her back and looked up at him. “Good thing I landed on a fluffy part,” she groaned.
Austin popped out of his skis, went to gather hers, and brought them over. “Not hurt?” he asked.
Sam did a mental check of her body. Arms, legs, back, head. A little soreness on her butt, but he didn’t need to know that. “Just my ego,” she finally said.
Anyone watching from above would have seen someone from ski patrol helping a woman who had fallen. But Sam knew what else was going on. Austin’s hand reached for her, but his eyes said he wanted to push her back down. And climb on top.
He held her a moment too long as she stood, then helped her brush snow from her jacket—not quite how she’d pictured his hands on her when he’d told her to visualize.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said.
“I don’t see you falling,” she said, knocking one boot against the other to get the snow out of the bottom so she could pop it back in her binding.
Austin laughed as he put on his skis. “You think I’ve never fallen before?”
“I bet it’s been a while.”
She expected him to keep laughing, his whole “you’re not hurt, get back on the horse” routine, but instead the smile dropped away and she thought she saw something new, a trace of sadness flickering over his face.
“I don’t have an opportunity to push myself as much as I used to,” he said.
Sam didn’t know how to respond. Because the Diamond Bowl wasn’t hard for him? Because he was no longer competitive like he once was?
But just as quickly he brightened again and so, like him, she decided not to push it. It wasn’t like she wanted to get personal. The more she learned about him, the more he’d ask about her. That wasn’t the way to make sure she wound up in his bed.
“I’m still embarrassed,” she grumbled, adjusting her jacket after her inelegant dive.
“Falling lets you know you’re doing it right.”
Sam screwed up her face. “I know you’re the expert, but I’m pretty sure falling means you’re doing it wrong.”
“Falling means you’re pushing yourself, making yourself get better. If you’re not falling, you’re complacent. You’ve stopped growing. And what’s the point?”
Sam forgot the promise she’d just made to keep things light. “Are you complacent? Have you stopped growing since you no longer fall?”
He took a breath, then seemed to think better of answering. She was afraid she’d blown it by taking things too far. Finally he said, “This isn’t something I can keep getting better at anymore. My knee’s not good enough to support me like it used to. I can ski all over this mountain, but there’s a limit, and I know what it is. Any time I forget, the pins keeping me together remind me I’m not nineteen anymore.”
He extended his left leg and knocked his pole against it. Sam pictured a massive fall, a blowout, the kind of thing you saw on the Olympics that made your heart rocket to your throat. No wonder he was so blasé about a bloody nose or a face plant into a powdery mogul, cheeks wet with snow but otherwise fine.
“You really have pins in your knee?” she asked.
“If you’re lucky I’ll show you,” he said with a wink.
“But that means you’ll have to take off your pants.” She flashed him a grin. No possible way to be more direct that she wanted him naked and on top of her, underneath her, standing before her so she could admire every inch.
“You must be good at your job, able to put two and two together like that.”
“Not that good,” Sam murmured, wishing he hadn’t had to bring up the J word just then.
“That’s okay. You don’t have to be too good around me.”
He was so close she could feel the warmth of his breathing, his sweat from the run. It was amazing there wasn’t steam coming off them from how hot they both were.
But he wasn’t touching her. He wasn’t kissing her. She should turn away, make this stop right now.
“You’re an excellent teacher, you know that?” she said quietly, raising her eyes to meet his.
“I’m a fast learner, too.” He didn’t let go of her gaze.
Sam was glad they were almost down the trail, because she wasn’t sure she could trust her legs to hold her up for much longer. She didn’t care that it was the middle of the day, they were on a mountain bundled in a zillion layers, and that vibrating in her pocket was probably Steven wanting to know if Mr. Reede had signed. Now. She wanted him now.
“We shouldn’t stand around,” Austin said. “We’ll get cold.”
“We should get moving,” she agreed.
But he didn’t pull away.
“You’re the leader.” Sam nudged him.
“But I called you the boss.”
“Not today I’m not.”
“I want to show you something.”
“The pins in your leg?”
“Not quite.”
“Am I warm, or cold?”
“I think you know how hot you are.”
Sam flushed down to her toes. “Tell me what it is.”
“I’m going to take you there.”
He pushed off before she could think of a clever comeback, and once again she was scrambling behind him, a trickle of snow melting down under her face mask, stinging her clavicle with the sudden cold.