by Jill Shalvis
she sped up, and then what the hell, ran, wishing she could outrun her demons as easily. Inside the lodge, she raced up the stairs, and then at the top, ran out of gas, sagging against the accolades-laden wall.
Whew, this altitude was killing her.
That, or it was the panic attack, which sucked. While she concentrated on getting air into her overtaxed lungs, she tipped her head back and read Cam’s plaques for the hell of it. Slope-style champion. Overall champion. Gold medalist. Half-pipe champion. Winter X Games champion…It went on and on.
It was amazing to her, the guy who’d appeared at her bedside last night, the same guy who’d been at turns irritating, surprisingly kind, then irritating again, seemed to have won just about every single winter event there was over the past twelve years.
There was nothing for this entire year, though, which struck her as odd.
Since thinking about Cam was infinitely more appealing than facing the fact she’d just had a doozy of a panic attack, was still having if her near-hyperventilating breathing was any indication, she kept at it. She had to wonder why, after the incredible career outlined in front of her, had he suddenly stopped placing in events. Had he retired? “I could get behind retiring,” she muttered, “if I wasn’t so fond of eating.”
“Do you always talk to yourself on the job?”
As she turned to face the champion himself, her damn glasses, clearly not aware of the panic attack in progress, fogged.
Chapter 4
Okay, so apparently he was always going to appear when she was somehow embarrassing herself or out of her element. She turned to face him. With her glasses fogged, she could see only the outline of him, the tall, dark, and attitude-ridden Cameron Wilder. He was encroaching in her space, so she put her hand out to hold him off, setting it against his chest. He was solid, so unexpectedly, thoroughly solid, with the heat of that strength radiating through his sweatshirt, that she ended up holding on instead, fisting her fingers into the soft material just below the Burton blazed across his chest.
“What happened back there?” he asked quietly, calmly, and as the cool snow had, his voice soothed her frazzled nerves. He brought his hands up, running them down her arms once in reassurance.
“Oh, nothing. Just a little panic attack.” Okay, a major one. “No worries, it passed.”
“Okay.” She could feel him looking at her very carefully, he of the sun-kissed unruly brown hair, razor-sharp green eyes, and scruffy face. He removed her fogged glasses, cleaning them on the hem of his sweatshirt while she squinted and focused the best she could, surprised to find what she’d said was true—her panic attack had passed.
“Why do they fog?” he asked, which wasn’t the question she’d expected.
But then again, nothing about him was expected. “Um…they do that sometimes.” Apparently, if a hot guy got too close, which almost never happened.
He set her glasses back on her nose. She could have told him not to bother, that if he kept doing stuff like breathing, they were probably going to keep fogging, which was odd, because this close up she could see that he wasn’t classically handsome. Nope, his nose was slightly crooked, and then there was the scar bisecting his left eyebrow. He had fine lines fanning out from his eyes, reflecting he’d lived his life, a real life out here in the mountains, and also apparently all over the planet with a board strapped to his feet, which fascinated her.
She bet he never had to remind himself to live balls out.
Now that she was okay, his eyes were filling with a general mischief, wicked bad-boy glint, but she also sensed a hint of something much deeper inside him, something…haunting, and though she had no idea what it was exactly, it was that that drew her in.
“So why the panic attack?”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “It’s just a residual thing I’m dealing with.”
“A residual thing. Such as…?”
“Really? You want to talk? Because last night you paid me not to—”
“I want to know what scared you.”
Ah. So he still didn’t want to chat, not really, but was asking out of concern. Probably wondering if his brother had hired a crazy woman.
She picked up the phone message pad and turned on her computer, watching as Safari automatically loaded Yahoo news. And there for her horrified eyes popped up a news video of the Santa Monica bridge, collapsed as if it had just happened, cars sticking out from beneath like from a horror flick.
She didn’t see her car. That was because, as she knew all too well, hers had slid off the cliff, catching on two large trees, leaving her hanging, literally.
A few gray spots swam in her vision. Shit. She heard something hit the floor and realized it was the pad falling from her fingers.
“Katie?”
She swallowed hard and shut the browser on the screen. Marginally better. “Long story.”
“Cliff Notes version,” he said, eyes narrowed in on her face.
“Okay.” She’d done her best not to talk about it, never to talk about it, but clearly that wasn’t working for her. “I had an…accident. A bad one. I nearly died. Actually, I sort of defied the odds by not dying. It messes with my head sometimes, that’s all.” She looked at him, saw the sympathy in his eyes, and decided she liked it better when he was irritated by her. Much better. “So what do you say you give me a hand with month end?”
She saw the relief come in to his eyes. He’d probably been worried that she was going to do something horrifying, like cry. Ha! She was tougher than that. Way tougher.
Almost always.
“You do remember me from last night, right?” he said, playing along with her, letting her change the subject. He leaned that tightly muscled body against her desk, hooking his thumbs into his front pockets. “The most unhelpful man you’ve ever met?”
“Yeah.” Much as she was grateful that he’d let the panic attack go, she winced at the memory of him finding her in his bed. “But in my defense, I was a little…discombobulated last night.”
“Yeah.” He offered a little smile that fried more than a few brain cells. “Me too.”
“Really?” He’d seemed…exhausted, but definitely at ease, especially in his own skin.
“Hell yeah. I came home and found a beautiful woman in my bed that I didn’t put there.”
She stared up into his face. It didn’t say much about her love life that having him call her beautiful made her melt in spite of his extreme unhelpfulness.
Except now that she knew he’d been a professional athlete, she knew something else too. He probably had women throwing themselves at him all the time. Groupies and snow bunnies and the like. “I didn’t realize you were a celebrity.”
He looked puzzled until she gestured to the walls that were a shrine to him.
“Annie did all that.” He looked around and gave a visible wince. “I’ve taken it all down a hundred times. The last time, she threatened to cut off my food supply, and I take my food supply very seriously.”
“It’s just so surreal. You’re an Olympic champion. An X Games champion. You’re—”
“I’ve read my bio, thanks.”
He didn’t like to talk about it, which was hard for her because she wanted to talk about it. “Okay, well, we could pretend we’re meeting for the first time.”
“And that I didn’t find you in my bed?”
“Yes, that would be really great, actually.”
He gave a slow shake of his head, his gaze filled with a good amount of trouble. “I don’t think I can do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because every time I close my eyes, I see you there.” The glint in them turned positively wicked now. “Naked.”
She nearly choked on her shocked laugh as he effectively did what nothing else had been able to—make her forget. She looked at him and realized that he wasn’t just being crude for the fun of it, he really was trying to take her mind off whatever had gotten to her.
And it was that, that right there,
which opened her heart to him just a little.
But only a little, because hot or not, he was still quite contrary.
And hot, and oh good Lord, there went her glasses again, completely fogging over. She ripped them from her face. “You know I wasn’t naked.”
“That part must have been my dream then.”
“You dreamed about me being naked?”
He shot her a crooked smile filled with both shameless admittance and a wry humor, and she had to laugh. “That’s a guy thing, right?”
“So I take it you didn’t dream about me naked.”
“No.” And yet she knew she would tonight. “But we irritate each other. Don’t we?”
“Yes, but see, irritation originates in the brain. That’s not the part of me that was dreaming about you.”
“I work for you.”
Some of his good humor left. “No, you work for Stone.”
That was quite a distinction, one that she wasn’t sure she understood. “Are you not a part of Wilder Adventures?”
“I am now. Apparently I’ll be planning expeditions and doing some of the leading.”
“And sign the paychecks?”
He stared at her for a moment, then let out a breath. “Maybe. Probably. Stone handles most of that, though; he loves paperwork. I think he has a screw loose somewhere.”
“I used to love paperwork.”
“Used to?”
“Not so much anymore.” She broke the disconcerting eye contact because it seemed like he could see inside her. “So. Month end.”
“Not my area of expertise.”
“What is?”
He merely smiled again, naughty to the bone. Her knees wobbled, and it had nothing at all to do with the big, bad, scary Sno-Cat. “Okay,” she said on a laugh. “Never mind. How about this. If you could just tell me what reports Stone wants to see…”
“I’ve been gone all year. I have no idea.” But instead of escaping, he leaned back, feet and arms casually crossed, still very much at ease. She had a feeling he was pretty much always at ease.
“You’ve been gone a year?”
“Give or take.” He picked up a file from her pile and opened it. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“It’s the application you filled out, and a copy of your driver’s license, and—Huh.”
“What?” She stood up, trying to see what he saw.
He tipped the file and revealed the picture on her license. It’d been taken last year, and showed her with her hair neatly up, glasses on.
The old her.
Cam eyed it, then swiveled his gaze to her.
“It’s not my best picture,” she said a little defensively. “But it does reveal that I’m responsible and—”
“Not an ax murderer?” She caught the quick flash of humor in his eyes as he took in her fuzzy sweater, wool trousers, and high-heeled boots. “I don’t think you have to worry, Goldilocks. I don’t think cute office managers from LA who wear high-heeled boots can be ax murderers. There’s a code or something.”
She stretched her legs so they slid beneath the desk, hiding her feet. “Okay, so I’m a little overdressed, but that’s just me wanting to make a good impression. It doesn’t necessarily say I’m from LA. I mean, maybe I just like high fashion.” Or Target sales…“You shouldn’t assume—”
“Your application says you’re from LA.”
“Oh, right.” Her curiosity won over her embarrassment. “What else are you learning about me?”
He lifted the paperwork out of her view, not hard since he was so tall. “That you went to college at USC for accounting but didn’t take your CPA because you weren’t sure you’d stick in accounting. You have a good head on your shoulders, though you’re a little uptight and cautious.”
She blinked. “My file says I’m uptight and cautious?”
“No, that part was me.”
When she looked into his green eyes this time, they were definitely smiling, accompanied by a quick quirk of his mouth.
Oh boy. If she’d thought him attractive when he was all edgy and badass, it was nothing compared to how he looked when he smiled.
Note to self: Don’t make him smile again.
“I’m not uptight and cautious.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Really?”
She deflated like a popped balloon. “Okay, so maybe I’ve been uptight and cautious, but that’s in my past.”
At that, he out and out chuckled, and every single inch of her reacted.
Amendment of note to self: And don’t even think about making him laugh.
“Give me that.” She tried to snatch the file from him, but he simply used his superior height to his advantage, still reading as he held the papers out of her reach. Not for lack of trying, though. Her hands were back on his chest now. Such a hardship, once again soaking up the heat and strength coming through. And something else. The beat of his heart. It was steady as a rock.
Like the man.
A little surprised at the depth of her reaction, she pulled her hands free and stepped back.
Oblivious, he was still reading. “Your reference said you’re conscientious, tidy, and a hard worker.”
“That’s true.” To give herself a minute, she turned away. She’d never combined a panic attack with annoyance and lust before. It left her a little quivery, from the inside out.
“It doesn’t say anything about being adventurous.”
She turned back.
Tossing the file aside, he leaned back against the desk again, all casual as he gripped the wood at his hips and looked at her. “Do you have a sense of adventure, Katie?”
“I slept with you, didn’t I?”
His mouth twitched. “It only counts as adventurous if it was without clothes.”
The image of just that left her a little breathless, as if she didn’t already have enough problems. And she couldn’t have explained her odd reaction to him if she’d tried. In her life, men were aloof, quite preoccupied, and hard to get. Her father. Her last boyfriend, who’d been so laid-back about their relationship he’d had to be checked for a pulse. Of course, as it had turned out, he’d already been married to someone else.
Cam didn’t seem aloof or particularly hard to get. And she’d bet her last dollar that there was far more to him than what he revealed. She didn’t know what exactly made her so sure of it but knew it had something to do with the hollowness she kept catching glimpses of. “I have plenty of adventure in me.” It was a daring statement, but she was feeling pretty damn daring. And she had no idea what made her say what came out of her mouth next. “I was on the Santa Monica bridge.”
“Me too,” he said. “Though it’s been a while.”
“No, I mean I was on it when it collapsed.”
He went completely still, staring at her over the file. “Jesus. Really?”
“Really.”
“How did you—” He shook his head in disbelief. “My God. There was only one survivor, a woman. That was you? How did you make it?”
She let out a shuddery breath. She’d wanted to say it, and she had, but she didn’t want to talk about it. She never did. “I don’t really know. But afterward, something inside me sort of snapped. I looked around at my boring, staid life and…” She shook her head. “It wasn’t enough. So I packed up and set out to make it worth something, at least to me. I promised myself adventures, risk. Excitement. So I got in my car and drove.”
