‘You’re making friends, then?’
‘Not quite.’ Another awkward shrug. ‘Not yet. But at least I don’t have enemies. That’s something, right?’
‘Right,’ said Hare gruffly.
Now she’d embarrassed him. And exposed herself. Not a place of comfort. Definitely time to flee. ‘You ready to send that gondola downhill yet?’
‘Just waiting on another passenger.’
‘Who?’ The ski field had been closed since lunchtime on account of the unpredictable weather. Jolie figured that all the other employees and skiers on the mountain would have headed downhill hours ago. All except for Hare, who lived on the mountain in a cabin half a kilometre away from the main complex.
‘Cole.’
‘Cole who?’ But Hare wasn’t answering. Nor was he looking her in the eye. Jolie’s stomach began to churn and churn hard. ‘Cole Rees is here on the mountain?’
‘Came up a couple of hours ago. He’s up at the lookout.’
‘Doing what?’
Hare shrugged.
‘But … how can he be here?’ She’d planned her foray to the cabin for a time no member of the Rees family would be anywhere near here. ‘Why isn’t he at his father’s funeral?’
‘Didn’t ask. The man wasn’t looking for conversation, Jolie. He was looking for space.’
And now he’d be sharing space with her all the way back down the mountain. Just Cole Rees and Jolie Tanner and a box full of evidence of her mother’s twelve-year affair with his father. ‘Great,’ she muttered. ‘That’s just great. Any chance of rolling another gondola around so that Cole can ride down on his own?’ The ski lift consisted of several eight-berth sky gondolas and was a twelve-minute ride, top to bottom.
‘None,’ said Hare. ‘Blizzard warning just came in. You’re lucky I’m prepared to run this one.’ He looked out of the triple-glazed window of the control hut and nodded once. ‘Time to go, girlie. There’s Cole.’
Jolie followed Hare’s gaze. And there he was. Cole Rees, large as life. Striding down the lookout path towards the gondola, his raven hair windblown and his pretty face set against the worsening weather. A man so reckless, unpredictable and downright sexy he made Jolie’s insides clench. And that was before she factored in his hatred of all things Tanner. ‘Great,’ she said grimly. ‘That’s just great.’
Jolie grabbed a ratty sheepskin hat with earflaps from the assortment of old lost-and- found attire hanging on the back wall of the tower and jammed it on top of her beanie. The hat wouldn’t be missed, and, besides, she’d give it back. She added a thick black scarf and lost-and-found ski goggles to the ensemble while Hare looked on, deadpan.
‘I take it you’re keeping my coat,’ he said.
‘I’ll give it back tomorrow.’ Not for the first time today, Jolie gave thanks that she’d worn her oldest ski gear. Unisex attire purchased years ago during a mercifully brief phase in which she’d attempted to downplay her looks and her femininity. Her ski boots were black, chunky, overworn and all about getting the job done. Nothing feminine about them either.
‘Hair,’ offered Hare.
‘Oh.’ She took off the hat and goggles, twisted her auburn tresses round and round and then up beneath the beanie, and then jammed the hat back on her head. Her red hair was a legacy from her mother and truly distinctive. Men were fascinated by it. Hairdressers wanted to bottle it. Jolie had no complaints of it, truth be told, but right now she wanted it hidden. She pulled the hat’s earflaps down. ‘Better?’
‘You look like E.T.’s Alaskan cousin,’ said Hare. ‘I take it that’s the point?’
‘Yes,’ she said, snapping the goggles down over her eyes.
‘Or you could be yourself,’ murmured Hare.
‘No, I really couldn’t. Meet JT. J for Josh. He works for you.’
‘Go,’ said Hare with a roll of his eyes. And as Jolie leaned in to embrace her old minder and mentor, ‘Well, don’t kiss me!’
‘Suit yourself.’ Jolie gave him a manly thump on his arm instead. ‘We going to see you at the bar tonight?’
‘If the weather clears,’ said Hare gruffly, glancing at his computer screen and the satellite weather map currently dominating it. ‘Which it won’t. Tell your mama I’ll be down for that drink tomorrow night.’
‘Will do.’
‘And tell her I’m sorry for her loss and mind you say it right.’
‘I’ll say it right,’ said Jolie, with a catch in her voice on account of Hare’s deep understanding of her mother’s position. Brazen bar owner Rachel Tanner—the bar reputedly a gift from James Rees—would get little sympathy from anyone on account of James’s death. Instead she would grieve for her lover in lonely silence. ‘I’ll practise beforehand.’
Hare just rolled his eyes again and looked out of the tower window and up at the sky. ‘Kia waimarie, little one.’ Good Luck. ‘Keep your head down. And close up behind you as you go.’
Hare waited until Jolie was out of the door before rubbing at his aching arm again and letting out a sigh. The girl wasn’t wrong to want to avoid Cole Rees on this of all days, but whether she could was a different matter altogether. Chances were that at some point during the ride down the mountain Cole Rees would look twice at the youth who rode down with him. Chances were that he’d start adding up the inconsistencies.
Hare employed teenagers on the mountain if they had the experience and steadiness he was looking for, but he didn’t take them that small. Ever.
Nor did they come with alabaster skin, a delicate jaw and, if a man could get past those lips—and some couldn’t—eyes the colour of snow clouds.
It’d be Jolie’s eyes that would give her away. No one had eyes like the Tanner women. Not that colour. Not that … challenge that lurked in their depths. A siren’s mix of sensual self-awareness shot through with aching vulnerability.
Fact: a man could get lost in such eyes and never surface.
He’d seen it happen.
And witnessed the carnage it had caused.
‘Eyes down, girlie,’ he whispered. ‘You give that boy a chance.’
Cole Rees put his head down and quickened his stride as he headed for the ski gondola. The weather matched his mood: filthy and unpredictable, his emotions a roiling mess of sadness and regret, anger and defiance. He hadn’t been able to sit through his father’s funeral, not all of it. The glowing accolades had turned his stomach. His mother’s genuine grief had fuelled his fury. His sister’s anxious pleading for him to please not make things worse had only cemented his decision to get the hell out of there before he cursed his feted father to rot in hell for eternity.
There would have been no coming back from that.
His mother the society maven would have crumpled completely.
Hannah, his sister, was stronger than that. Hannah would have made him pay dearly for subjecting the family to yet more scandal.
Only the gossip mongers would have been satisfied, but not for long. They never were.
He’d wanted a woman to lose himself in—and there were plenty around—but even that small comfort reeked of his