When she got to the top, she felt all of the crazy emotions that Carter inspired in her drop away. She stood at the top of the biggest run she’d dared to take since crashing out in Russia last year. Carter had made her realize a lot of things about herself, not the least of which was that she was no longer the woman she used to be.
But pieces of her still remained. She buckled her skis, pulled down her goggles and felt the breeze stir around her. The mountain was cold and very wintry today. Not the best day for a run, but she’d come up here, and nothing was going to stop her from taking it.
“Lindsey?”
She turned and saw that Carter was there. He’d followed her up the mountain. His hair was windblown, his shoulders broad as ever, and she had to turn away to keep from staring at him.
“What are you doing here? I thought we’d said all that we needed to.” She was secretly thrilled to see him.
“We have, but I promised you I’d see you back on the slopes, and last night we said we’d take this run together. Despite what you think about me, I’m a man of my word.”
She knew that. Maybe that was why she’d been pushing so hard for some sort of emotional commitment from him. She wanted some security in her life, and she had fallen in love with the one guy who was known for just drifting along.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. It’s a crap day, but I checked the mountain reports and there’s nothing too dangerous. Are you ready for it?”
She wrinkled her nose. She wanted to say yes. Hell, she was going to say yes. “Of course. This is what I do.”
“I’m glad,” he said.
“This is part of who I am,” she added, tilting her head up to meet his gaze. And she wanted to prove it to him. Downhill skiing was in her blood, part of her DNA at this point in her life. She’d spent more time on skis than off them.
“I thought you weren’t sure anymore,” he said wryly.
“I’m going to prove that I’m not only still a skier, but that I can beat you down the mountain.”
He put his snowboard down and buckled his boots. “I’d love to see you try. Hardly seems like a fair competition, though.”
She knew what he was doing, but she didn’t care. Driven by the need to prove him wrong, she put her poles in the ground and stumbled as a rush of fear swept through her body. It clouded her vision, and then all of a sudden images of her last tumble began playing through her mind. The crash that had left her broken and so flawed.
Not physically, she realized. No, she was hurting from the flaws the crash had revealed were inside her. The emptiness that was buried deep inside that she hadn’t even been aware of until Carter had started to fill it up.
She looked at him. He had his goggles on as well, but he was watching her with that keen gaze of his, and she wanted so desperately to believe that he was scared for her because he loved her. But she didn’t think for a second that was true. If she couldn’t find the courage to say those words to him, how was the man who had more women running after him than anyone else going to say them?
“You okay?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m just realizing how not okay I am.”
“I’ll call the mountain patrol and we’ll get down off the mountain,” he said. “No shame in that.”
She shook her head. “I have to do this, Carter. If I can’t ski with you now, how am I going to be able to do it at the event?” Why had she even signed up for that stupid event? She should have run the other way instead of working with the team and acting as if she was okay. She wasn’t.
“I’ll just say that I’m not going to do it,” he said. “You can say it wouldn’t be fair for you to ski if I don’t.”
She looked at him, and all at once it hit her how much she loved him and how the words she wanted to hear might not mean anything when she was presented with the truth of his feelings. He did care for her. And the fact that he’d be the one to take the blame, make it seem like it wasn’t her and her fear that was responsible, made her want to stop running.
And face life and her fears.
Fear number one: skiing. She had to do this, or she’d never be able to find happiness anywhere else in her life.
“Carter Shaw, you’re a great guy. I’ll have words with anyone who says different,” she said. “But I have to do this. I have to stop hiding and running away from what I am.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded and turned back to look down the mountain. The breeze blew once again around her, and this time it swept away those doubts that had been lingering. She had her eyes wide-open, and the trail in front of her was one she’d taken many times before her crash. And had studied just as many times after it. She could do this.
Not only because she had to get back to doing what she loved, but because without taking this run, she had absolutely no shot at future happiness.
* * *
CARTER WATCHED LINDSEY take off down the mountain and let out the breath he’d been holding. In his life he’d never been afraid of a mountain. It just wasn’t in his nature to see it as something to fear, but rather as something to conquer. But as he’d seen Lindsey on the precipice of taking her run, his heart had somehow climbed into his throat.
Talons of fear wrapped around him, and though he knew she had the skills to safely make it down the mountain, he couldn’t shake that fear. And it was at that moment that he realized he loved her.
He’d been “chasing” her from a distance, trying to protect his pride and safeguard his heart. Not because of any of the reasons he’d given himself before but because with Lindsey he knew his feelings were genuine. He had been giving her distance, hoping to keep himself safe, and now he was coming to realize how foolish that had been.
He should have held her closer to him while he’d had the chance. He should have held his tongue instead of pointing out her flaws to cover up his own. He should have told her he loved her instead of letting her believe that he didn’t.
He jumped and swiveled and started his own run down the mountain. He knew as he did it that he needed to figure out how to get Lindsey back into his arms. Back into his life, where he’d really missed her. Because without her, he saw a future of more faceless women who were nice for a night but not forever.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that for him there was only Lindsey. And it had always been that way. She was the only woman that he’d ever really wanted, but he hadn’t been ready for her until Sochi. And when she’d crashed, when she’d taken that devastating fall, everything had changed. He’d had no idea how to get back into her life until now.
She was ahead of him on the run, and as he watched her crouch low to increase her speed, he admitted to himself that her form was better than ever. She was good. Maybe better than she had been before because there was a new core of strength inside her from having lost it all and come back.
He wondered if while he’d been falling in love with her he had been giving her the very key to what she’d needed to move away from him. To go back to her old life where she wasn’t surrounded by scantily clad energy drink girls or a man who couldn’t control his temper.
It frightened him, but he pushed it aside as he hit a rough patch and barely caught his balance. He’d almost crashed out as she had last year. That shook him to the core. Was this how Lindsey had felt?
At the bottom of the run, he found Lindsey