He’d have known her anywhere.
His heart turned over as she began walking alongside her father. It was the first time he’d seen her on her feet. Until this moment, the damage she’d suffered had been confined to his imagination. Now he could see the reality of it. Instead of her former graceful walk, Wendy’s hip and knee were stiff. Her limping gait after all those years of rehab, was evidence of the severity of the accident.
They reached her father’s SUV. Howard held out his hand, but she shook her head and said something that looked like “I can do it.” And she did, navigating the icy sidewalk toward the curb and the truck door with studied care.
Seth’s eyes narrowed.
Why wasn’t she using a cane? Why wouldn’t she take her old man’s hand? Why was she so damned thickheaded? She could fall. She could go down in the ice and snow and…
And it was none of his business.
Except it was. Wendy had meant something to him once upon a time, even if that time was long ago.
He got off the stool, dug out a bill, tossed it on the counter and zipped up his jacket. What was the matter with people in this town? Didn’t anybody consider what it would be like for him to discover that she was back by stumbling across her?
He strode toward the door, slapped his hand against the glass. He wasn’t going to let Wendy get away with treating him as if he didn’t matter, the way she’d done nine years ago. He’d go straight up to her, grab her and shake some sense into her. Yeah, that was it. He’d march out of here, take her by the shoulders, shake her…. God, he’d pull her into his arms, tell her that it broke his heart to see her like this, her leg hurting, her dreams shattered….
“Mr. Castleman?”
He looked around. The kid who worked the counter was holding out a bunch of bills.
“You gave me a twenty,” he said. “Here’s your change.”
Seth turned toward the street again. Wendy was getting into her father’s truck. He watched Howard shut the door, then trot around to the driver’s side and get in.
“Mr. Castleman?”
Seth swallowed hard and swung around. “Yeah. Thanks.” He plucked a couple of bills from the kid’s outstretched hand, left the rest behind. “Keep it,” he said. It was the least he could do, considering that the boy had just kept him from making an ass of himself.
Wendy was back. So what? It didn’t change a thing. Seth whistled through his teeth as he got into his truck and drove along Main Street toward Sawtooth Mountain Road. Yeah, they’d had a thing going for a while there. He’d thought he loved her, thought it enough to have flown to Norway the second her mother phoned in hysterics to tell him that Wendy had fallen during a practice run and nobody knew if she was going to make it or not.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
He hadn’t wanted her to go to Norway to start with. He knew how much it meant to her that she’d made the Olympic team, but he’d wondered if she was really up for it. She had the talent and the determination, but those last few weeks, watching her…
He shook his head, thinking back, still seeing the exhaustion on her face, the dark circles under her eyes. She’d been tired all the time, and why wouldn’t she be, the way her old man cracked the whip? As part of the American Ski Team, she had the best coaches in the business, but Howard had taught her to ski. He’d been her trainer from childhood on and he wasn’t about to let that change. He’d still been coaching Wendy, taking her out on the slopes early in the morning, bringing her back late at night, working her and working her until she’d looked ready to collapse.
Seth saw less and less of her as the time for her departure drew close. She was worn out by the end of the day. The few times they did go out, Howard would come to the door, flash a practiced smile and say, “Don’t forget, Seth. Our girl can’t stay out too late.”
As if he hadn’t figured that out for himself, Seth thought, his jaw tightening. He’d been more concerned about her welfare than Howard, when you came down to it. He wasn’t the one who had her skiing and lifting weights and doing leg lifts a thousand hours a day, her old man was.
But Howard was his girlfriend’s father. He deserved respect. So Seth would nod and say yes sir, he understood, even though he didn’t.
The road rose steeply ahead as it climbed the mountain. The plow and the sanding trucks had already been through. Seth downshifted, made it up and over the rise and into his driveway, but he didn’t pull into the garage. Instead, he shut off the engine and sat quietly in the gathering darkness.
He’d never understood how Howard could push his daughter the way he had and not see what he was doing to her.
Seth had finally told Wendy that one evening.
“Honey,” he’d said, “don’t you think your dad’s overdoing things?”
“He isn’t,” she’d replied. “He’s just helping me.”
“Yeah, but you’re so tired….”
Wendy, curled against him with her face buried in his neck, sighed deeply and snuggled closer.
“Just hold me,” she’d murmured. “I love being in your arms.”
He’d held her tighter and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“You can be there all the time,” he’d said huskily. “Just say the word and I’ll drive us to Vermont. We’ll go to the county clerk’s office the minute it opens in the morning, get a license, and by noon, you’ll be my wife.”
Wendy had sat up and looped her arms around his neck. “We’ve been through this before,” she’d said with a little smile. “You know I want to marry you, but—”
“But,” he’d said, trying for a light tone, “first you want to bring back the gold.”
“I just want to go to Lillehammer and do the very best I can. Is that so wrong?”
It wasn’t wrong at all. He knew that, and he told her so. After a while, he just kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to quarrel with her, especially not with the Olympics so close. She didn’t need any more stress. Besides, he knew he’d miss her terribly while she was gone, and he didn’t want his memories tinged with bitterness.
Instead, he made the most of those last few evenings together.
Some nights they went to Pittsfield and took in a movie. Others, they just drove around for a while, maybe stopped in at the Burger Barn for a double order of the fries she loved.
But the best nights, the ones he’d never forgotten, were when they drove up Sawtooth Mountain and parked in the little clearing they thought of as their very own. He’d turn on the radio, find a station they both liked, and take Wendy in his arms.
“Seth,” she’d whisper, her voice going all low and smoky, and he’d kiss her, gently at first, then with more passion. Her breathing would quicken and he’d undo her bra, slip his hands up under her sweater and cup her breasts, so silky, so warm, so sensitive to his touch.
Her soft moans were sweeter than the music coming from the speakers. The heat of her against his questing hand when he slid it inside her jeans was like flame. Together, they’d undo his zipper and she’d straddle him, kiss him as she lowered herself on him….
“Hell.”
Seth shifted