Wyatt’s hand slid along her arm, and she grabbed his hand before reemerging into the chilly night air. Wyatt paddled beside her to the edge of the pool. They sat on the ledge together.
“You can’t quit now, I’ve got a title to reclaim,” Steve said.
“No. I’ve got water up my nose and in my eyes, and I just want to sit down for a bit,” Marie said from the end of the pool.
“Yeah. We should have known Wyatt would win.” Steve treaded water in the middle of the pool.
“We could pair him with a two-year-old and he’d still win.” Kayla hung on the ledge on the far side of the pool.
Harper wasn’t athletic. She knew that. She really didn’t think they meant to insult her, either. But their comments did serve to remind her that Wyatt and she were not on the same level here in Chile, or anytime he was with his friends.
“Seems to me the last time we did this, Kayla, Steve and Marie beat you and me.”
“That was a fluke,” Kayla said.
“Twice.” Wyatt grinned up at Harper. She thought he winked, but couldn’t be sure in the moonlight.
“It was three times,” Steve said. “Kayla was pouting so badly by that last time, it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d have been on Superman’s shoulders. When you get mad, you play stupid.”
“I’m outta here,” Kayla said, moving to the edge and coming out of the water with a splash.
“Yeah, I’ve got to work tomorrow.” Marie rose from the water and pulled herself out of the pool.
“Me too.” Carlos glided over and got out behind Marie.
“Hang here for a second, Pickles. I’ll get our towels.”
“Oooh, look at Romeo, getting the girl’s towel.” Steve picked himself out of the water and followed the others over.
“Let him alone. I think it’s great that he’ll get her towel,” Marie said, grabbing her own.
“Hurry up, champ. Get the girl dried off. We’ll race you home.” Kayla shook her towel and bent her head, toweling her hair.
“How about it, Harper? You up for a race?” Carlos asked.
“Sure.” She wasn’t. Not really. But there was no way she’d admit it. She took the towel Wyatt handed her, moving quickly to dry off and dress. If there was a race, she didn’t want to be the cause of them starting last.
“That’s one race you won’t win, Wyatt. Not with two people on your sled.” Steve flipped his towel behind him and swiped back and forth, drying his back.
“You’re right. How much of a head start is fair?” Wyatt asked.
“Five minutes,” Carlos called.
Her swimsuit wasn’t dry, but everyone else was getting dressed. Harper pulled on her snow pants.
The others chattered in the background as Wyatt leaned over. “You okay with that?”
Her stomach had knotted up again, but she ignored it. “As long as I get to ride with you.” She pulled her shirt on and tried to continue faking calmness. “Wasn’t it you that said you hadn’t saved me all those other times just to let me die now?”
He laughed. “Well, it could get intense. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“So you’re saying once we start, you’re racing to win?” Of course he was. He was a competitor, after all.
He shuffled his feet and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. I can turn ’em down. No problem, because there are two of us. But once we commit, I don’t want to back down.”
“Is that your stubborn streak coming out again?” she teased.
His smile was self-effacing. “Like with the whole prenup deal?”
“Yeah. So, once you commit to being married, even for pretend, you’re not planning an out—you’re all in.”
“Yep. All in.”
Harper pulled her boots on, slanting a glance at the rest of the group. They were almost dressed.
“I’m jumping in, too.”
Wyatt bent even closer and spoke low. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Harper said.
Wyatt pulled his ski hat down over his head and handed her hers. “Give us a five-minute head start.”
“We came together,” Carlos said of Marie and him. “So we’ll leave with you.”
“Fair enough,” Wyatt said. He buckled Harper’s helmet, brushing her hands aside, then his own.
Harper held his gloves out to him. Her insides were buzzing. Nervousness or excitement, she wasn’t sure which.
He climbed on, looking at her as she climbed on after him, before turning to stare straight ahead and flipping his visor down. Flicking his fingers, the motor roared to life.
They idled past the first two snowmobiles, leaving the hot spring behind, and pulled even with Carlos and Marie.
Harper tightened her arms around Wyatt’s waist. He patted her hands, then shouted at Carlos, “You call it.”
Carlos didn’t hesitate. “Go.”
His sled took off. An instant later the front skis of their machine lifted from the ground as they ripped off after them.
Harper crouched down, hiding her body behind Wyatt’s. The large plastic windshield provided a windbreak, but she didn’t want to contribute any drag that might slow them down.
Even in the daylight, the snow-covered landscape all looked the same. In the moonlight, it was almost impossible to differentiate between straight and hilly terrain. With her head behind Wyatt, she felt, more than saw, the changes in the trail. His body tensed and leaned, and she moved with him, bouncing over bumps and careening around turns. The wind whipped around them, and snow flew up and over the windshield, blowing in short gusts. Harper held tighter to Wyatt. She couldn’t see the tail light of Carlos’s machine.
Once, Wyatt glanced around. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she shouted.
“We’ve got a fouled plug. We’re not catching Carlos, but we might be able to beat the other two.”
She had no idea what a fouled plug was. However, she understood there was a problem, but the competitor in Wyatt couldn’t quit.
They travelled on in silence for a while, the only sound the revving of their motor. They were going too fast for her to enjoy the night ride, but Harper still cherished the hardness of Wyatt’s torso, the way his energy seemed to channel into her and the way it seemed like they were alone on the planet. Together.
A light cut across her shoulder, and she twisted enough to see a machine coming up on their left. Wyatt leaned forward fractionally, and she imitated his movement. For a few moments it seemed like they might pull ahead, but the trail straightened and the other sled slowly gained on them. Harper squinted over at it. Steve, she was pretty sure.
As they bore gradually left around a sloping curve, he pulled ahead. Still, Wyatt didn’t quit, and Harper was reminded of the tortoise and the hare. There was always the possibility of something going wrong, so it would be foolish to quit until the end.
Steve was barely by them when again a headlight shone over Harper’s shoulder. Dim at first, it got steadily brighter.
They had reached a part of the trail that twisted and turned in a narrow ribbon. Not enough room for the sled behind them to pass. The headlight moved from their right side to their left, like the machine behind them couldn’t wait to get an opportunity to pass.
Ahead, the reflector that indicated the crevice Wyatt had shown her earlier, on their way up, blinked in the light of their headlight. Harper’s chest tightened. Her heart thumped against her ribs. She realized she was holding her breath.
Wyatt eased off on the throttle just a little.
The sled behind them seized the opportunity, slipping out from behind them and pushing around. The crevice grew closer, the shiny reflector the only indication of its presence. He began to ease to the left, following the trail, which curved then narrowed.
Beside them, Kayla drew even, then nudged ahead. The proximity of her machine did not allow them to turn as sharply as Harper thought they needed to. She leaned, expecting to turn. Both sleds continued straight. The reflector was mer
e yards away. Harper closed her eyes and concentrated on the feel of Wyatt. She didn’t believe that he would drive off the trail, but she’d said she trusted him. She needed to prove it.
Kayla fishtailed, then bore left, speeding around the curve and out of sight. Wyatt turned the handlebars but the sled did not turn. Were they on ice?
Harper’s entire body froze in terror as the reflector careened toward them. A scream built in the back of her throat, but Harper swallowed it. The analytical side of her brain didn’t want Wyatt to die with her terrified scream being the last thing he ever heard.
His body leaned left, way out over the side of the sled.
“Lean!” he shouted.
She was already behind him, out over the frozen snow, her face mere inches from the ground.
Their machine plowed over the reflector. The skis seemed to grip as the front end turned left. The back fishtailed right.
Harper’s body pressed into Wyatt’s back as the sled slowed. She kept her upper body poised out over the side of the sled.
Snow flew everywhere. Big clouds of white that obscured the hole that gaped, bottomless and black, nearby.
The front right side of the sled tipped.
Harper gasped. She gripped Wyatt’s waist with all her might. Her stomach felt like it was going to come flying out of her mouth at any second.
Still hanging over the side of the snowmobile, Wyatt pushed back.
The sled stopped. The motor died.
Harper held her breath. The front right ski hung suspended over the edge of the crevice. The sled dipped down. It rocked back and forth like Satan swinging a baby’s cradle from one finger. She could almost hear the evil laugh echoing up from the pits of Hell where, surely, this crevice led.
She still leaned to the left beside Wyatt but, just moving her eyes and lifting her head a fraction, she could look to the right and see there was nothing there. The snowmobile sat on the very edge of the precipice. Except the one ski, which…didn’t.
“Get off the sled, Harper,” Wyatt said low, but very calmly.
She opened her mouth to argue. She wasn’t getting off while he stayed on. She wasn’t leaving him. But this was his gig. She wasn’t going to start now, thinking that she knew better than he did. At least not about something like this.
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. Not with her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth the way it was.
“Slowly,” he said in that same low, calm voice. Like talking might shift the weight of the sled and cause it to tip down, like a ship sinking to the depths of the ocean.
She unclenched her fingers from around Wyatt’s waist. Stiff and frozen in place from the force from which she’d been gripping, they didn’t want to move. The sled rocked gently as she slid her arms slowly back.
“Harper?”
“Mmm?” She couldn’t risk trying to say more. A scream, blood-curdling and agonizing, crouched just at the back of her throat. So close, the slightest effort to open her mouth might allow it to get loose. She was afraid that, once she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop. Not in this lifetime. Which could end up being very short.
“You know I love you?”
“Shut up,” she said. Not mean, but firm. He wasn’t going to get all mushy-gushy on her now. To do so meant that he was acknowledging the fact that they might not make it. If he did that, she’d lose it.
She scooted back a little more. The sled rocked. A clump of snow broke off the edge with a muted crack and fell silently into the earth.
On the other hand…
“I love you, too.” He’d probably think she meant friend love, the love he’d been talking about. He didn’t need to know it wasn’t that kind of love.
She’d heard that as a person is about to die, their thoughts became clearer, and maybe that was true. Because it was obvious there was a very fine line between love and hate. She wanted to beat Wyatt, but she also wanted to kiss him. Long and hard and just as thoroughly.
“You slide back, too.”
“I’m not moving until you’re off.” He stopped talking as the sled rocked. “If this thing starts to go, dive left.”
She didn’t answer. The drive to save herself was strong, but she wasn’t sure she could jump while Wyatt rode the machine to his death.
Her butt touched the back end of the seat. “I’d rather we survive together.”
“I love it when we agree.”
“If you even crack one joke…”
“What? You’ll push me?”
“I can’t make dying jokes right now.” Harper carefully lifted her butt and settled on the very back of the snowmobile. It seemed more stable now.
“I’d rather die laughing than die scared.”
“We disagree on that one, because I would rather not die at all.”
“See? Brains trump brawn.”
Gingerly lifting her leg, she swung it over. She grabbed the back rest, which was just a bar that went up, over and down.
“I’m sitting on the very back edge, holding onto the handle. If it goes, all I have to do is stand up. You slide back now.”
Wyatt didn’t argue. He tucked his legs back, and slid, slowly and steadily back until his back touched Harper’s leg.
“You get up, and I’ll follow you.”
“Let’s do it together on the count of three.”
Rather than answering, Wyatt started counting, “One. Two. Three!”
Chapter Nineteen
Wyatt brought his arm around Harper, pushing her off in front of him.
After taking a good five or six steps, they stopped and turned.
The sled wobbled, but stayed on the edge.
Adrenaline buzzed through Harper’s body, making her feel like she could run back to the lodge, or back to Pennsylvania, which seemed like a haven of safety right now.
After a high like that, she was cognizant enough to know that the emotional and physical crash would be huge. She wanted to get back to the lodge, and preferably be in bed, when her body came down, since it was probably going to involve an ugly cry, a lot of shaking, and the fetal position.
Wyatt didn’t seem to be affected.
Harper tried to pretend casual. “I can’t believe Kayla didn’t stop.” She looked around. Blue-white, moon-washed terrain as far as she could see in all directions. She didn’t even see any lights which could be from the lodge or ski resort.
“They’ll be back when we don’t pull in.” Wyatt put both hands on his hips. “But I think I can pull that baby away from the edge. I’m not sure why it shut off…”
“Because you scared the crap out of it.”
Wyatt snorted. “Same thing happened to me.”
“Fooled me.”
His head snapped around, and he seemed to search into her soul.
“I was scared. Trust me.”
She believed him. She spoke softly. “I’ve done nothing but trust you lately.”
Something seemed to flash on his face, and she thought he was going to step toward her. Did his hand move toward her face? But his expression cleared and he muttered, “Thanks.” He turned back to the snowmobile.
“Stay back here.” He glanced over at her, maybe to make sure she heard him. “Sometimes with crevices, there’ll be a buildup of snow along the opening. Like, there’s snow, maybe four or five feet deep around the top, but nothing under it to support it. Know what I’m saying?”
“I’m just thanking God I didn’t know that five minutes ago.” The very idea made her want to pee her pants. She took another step back. “I’d feel more comfortable if you’d step back here with me.”
“I will.” He flashed her his practiced grin.
She put her hands on her hips. “That one doesn’t work on me. Remember? This is Harper, not some floozy you met on the slopes.”
He looked over his shoulder and raised a brow. “Believe me, Pickles. I know who I’m with.”
“Well, then you should remember that smile hasn’t worked on me since you us
ed it to convince me to bungee jump out of the maple tree.” She pressed her lips together.
“I visited you in the hospital.” He spoke without looking back at her.
She rolled her eyes and huffed, “That’s because you were there with me.”
“That was ten years ago. I can’t believe you’re still holding that against me.”
“You might as well figure it out now that there are certain things a girl doesn’t forget.” Like almost dying.
“You forget nothing,” Wyatt replied with a smile in his voice.
“I’m not going to forget that Kayla tried to run us into that crevice, then booked it out of here.”
He shook his head. “She didn’t do it on purpose. She wanted to win as bad as I did.”
Harper was not convinced of that, but she kept her mouth shut. If Wyatt were out of the picture, Kayla would not have any competition for inheriting the resort. Maybe she’d read too many murder mysteries, because Wyatt didn’t seem the slightest bit worried.
He stepped forward.
Before she could clamp her teeth around them, words spilled out. “Please be careful.”
Maybe it was her tone, more than the actual words that caused him to pause, midstride, and slowly look back. A muscle bunched in his jaw.
“I will.”
Their eyes held for a second that stretched like eternity. Emotions roiled in Harper’s chest, but neither of them said anything more.
Then Wyatt turned back around and walked carefully toward the snowmobile.
Grabbing the back handle, he spread his feet wide, planting them to the side and behind the machine, then gathering himself, he pulled.
Nothing happened at first. Harper just prayed that the snow beneath his feet wouldn’t suddenly give way. There could not be anything worse than seeing Wyatt disappear downward in a cloud of dusty snow. She had no idea what she’d do if that happened. Run for help. Jump in after him. Dissolve into a pile of incoherent muck. Yeah. Definitely.
She banished those thoughts from her head. For now. They would come back to haunt her tonight, she was sure.
As Wyatt exerted steady pressure, the snowmobile began to move. At first, she thought it was her imagination, it happened so slowly. But then, inch by terrible inch, it came back. Until, suddenly, it broke free.
Better Together Page 15
