Immersed: Book 6 in The Ripple Effect Romance Series (A Ripple Effect Romance Novella)

by Jennifer Griffith

  Quite a way off, Erik sailed lazily, skiing to the right, then jump-switching to the left, skiing a bit more before jump-switching to the right again, and in this way was making safe progress down the mountain. He made it look so simple, the bloomin’ showoff. He and his black diamond runs. Was he trying to kill her? She should’ve stuck to the bunny hill where she belonged.

  Off she went. Down, down, slowly. Her teeth clenched. Every switchback elicited a little shriek from her lungs. Her hands gripped the poles for dear life. Her ankles were definitely not used to these boots. Pain, with a touch of claustrophobia at not being able to move her toes, seared at her shins.

  She could be on this mountain past sundown and die of exposure. Or bears.

  It’s not like she hadn’t been stupid like this in the past. There was the time in college when, to impress a guy, she agreed to go rock climbing then rappelling. It scared her to death going up, only to have that fear eclipsed by the fear of going down—when her long hair caught in the carabineer, which threatened to scalp her. She wasn’t cut out for these sporty things. And yet here she was, saying stupid idiot lines like, “Sure! Let’s go!” when cruel, show-off men asked mean questions like, “Are you up for the black diamond run?”

  No. Heck no! should have been the only reply. Put me on the bunny slope. Or better yet, give me an inner tube. I’ll slide down once and meet you in the lodge for hot chocolate with a swizzle stick. You go breaking your spine on black diamond runs all day. I’ll stoke the blaze in the fireplace for when you get back to the lodge—or put 911 on speed dial for you.

  Blessedly, the run leveled off a bit. She cursed herself as she inched forward. At last, she got her balance and moved twenty yards on down the slope. Erik wasn’t that far ahead, after all.

  Suddenly, she got the hang of things. Yeah!

  Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Down the mountain she sailed. After a few minutes of exhausting terror, the fear thawed. Exhilaration revved in her chest.

  This was actually kind of fun. She put on a little speed. It caught her up with Erik. She flashed him a smile of her own as she passed him up—one she fleetingly hoped might have an ounce of dazzle.

  But then her eyes caught it—a mass of fur in the trees just ahead.

  “Bear!” she shouted, swerving to the right, the left, wild and terrified. Off in the trees lumbered a dark, furry mass at least as big as a Volkswagen. She screamed. Her ski hit the base of a mogul and she plowed into the mound of snow, knees first. Ouch. Then an added ouch—Erik plowed into her. They lay in a heap on the packed snow.

  “Whoa. What happened? You were skiing like a pro, and then kaboom.”

  “Bear,” she whispered, pointing toward the woods flanking the run, at which point she realized how stupid it was to stop skiing upon seeing a dangerous wild animal. She whipped off her goggles to look closer, struggled to sit up, but stayed ducking behind the mogul. Maybe that would deflect her scent from wafting toward his hungry stomach. “There’s a grizzly over there. Shhh!”

  Erik lifted his goggles too and squinted at where she pointed. Keeping her eyes trained on the bloodthirsty predator as it prowled, she tugged off her glove and wiped her face with her hand. It was drenched with the melted snow spray. Her lips were so cold they moved slowly. She scrunched up her nose and let it unscrunch—also a slow reaction. She’d never get away from a bear if her muscles were going to work this slowly.

  “Do you see it?” This had better not be like the abominable snowman or a Sasquatch story where one skier could see it but no one else could.

  Erik patted her leg. “It’s a bear, all right.” He didn’t look too worried. In fact, he kind of chuckled. What was he, the bear whisperer? Could he tame any ursine beast? If so, he’d better spend some time re-reading the tragic tale of the Crocodile Hunter or of that Las Vegas guy who got mauled by his own tiger. Wild animals were just that—wild. Unpredictable. Lisette bit her lip in fear. They needed to get out of here.

  “What are we going to do? That grizzly could maul us.” For real. Not like Erik’s misstatement I want to mall you. This could result in carrion on the slopes. She grabbed his knee to steady herself. He looked up, surprised, but then patted her hand.

  “That’s not a grizzly bear. It’s just a black bear.”

  “But it’s brown.”

  “Black bears can be brown.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” He pressed his hand against hers, and the pressure steadied her. She tore her eyes away from the bear and looked at Erik. He was gazing at her, like she was something to be admired. No man had looked at her in that way in months—it felt both comforting and discomforting at once. She’d almost forgotten…

  “I’ll protect you, Lisette.” He helped her to her feet, and they left the bear and skied the remaining quarter mile to the bottom of the hill, where they set their skis up against the lodge and found a place to sit in the open air. Only then did she let out her held breath.

  He brought her a cup of hot cocoa. It had marshmallows floating in it—the good, tiny crunchy kind. “So, you never told me,” he said.

  What hadn’t she told him? Not the one about what her mother wanted for her. She couldn’t answer that yet. She shook her head, and he persisted.

  “You never told me why you like emeralds and not diamonds.”

  Oh, that. “I do like diamonds.” Except when she had to shop for them with a man who was giving them to another woman.

  “You just like emeralds more. You said so. And sapphires.”

  Yeah. She’d said that.

  “Why?” he asked.

  She’d never expressed it aloud, but she’d been mulling (not malling, or mauling) it for a while. “Emeralds, in particular, are a more honest stone.”

  “Honest?”

  “Yeah. I mean, because of how they are found in nature, they’re valued for what they are, as they are. Everyone expects them to have flaws. The flaws tell the story of where the stone came from. An inclusion like a streak of cobalt shows it was mined in Colombia, and so forth.” She sipped her drink, and the heat from it burned the tip of her lip. She set it down and kept talking because Erik was still listening.

  “Diamonds end up under the microscope, with gemologists itching for a flaw so they can discount the value of the stone. And they’re only pricey because supply is controlled by cartels.” Crazy DeBeers. She’d done a whole research project on their business tactics during grad school. But she wouldn’t go into that. “Emeralds, on the other hand, are valuable because they’re both beautiful and rare, flaws and all.”

  She blew on the top of the mug, and a puff of steam wafted toward Erik. He was nodding as though processing her words, while warming his hands around his cocoa mug.

  “Flaws and all,” he said at last, lifting his eyes to meet hers. “Lisette? I—”

  “Yes?” Her eyes searched his, and her blood sped up a notch in her veins.

  Earnestness softened every feature in his face, and the air crackled between them. She bated her breath. Maybe, could he? No. He couldn’t. No man could see through the crust of her disguise to the beauty beneath. She didn’t even dare hope. Or did she? Oh, speak, man.

  He opened his mouth then clapped it shut, like he’d changed his mind about what to say. After a second, he recovered with, “And what about sapphires?”

  The air blew out of her lungs, and she had to take a second to collect herself. She shrugged at last. “Blue’s my favorite color.”

  “Gotcha.” He chuckled and took a gulp of his drink, like the topic was over. But it wasn’t for Lisette. She ached to know what he’d intended to say, but it would be stupid to press him. If there was anything she’d learned in her past (failed) relationships, it was that she should never press a man for information. It never worked.

  “Erik? You were going to say something a second ago.”

  “Me? Oh. Yeah. Well, I was.” He didn’t sound like he was going to tell her. And she shouldn’t have asked. He might be telling her he’d propo
sed to the raven-haired Diva. Never mind. Don’t answer. Don’t.

  And then he spoke. “It’s just—you look really nice today. Have I told you that?”

  The words took her off guard. She shouldn’t let him say them—no matter how drenching to her parched soul.

  “Erik. This is a professional relationship.” Her scolding came out much more tepid than this cocoa, and she took another gulp of her drink to refortify. Her eyelashes batted involuntarily.

  “Colleagues can compliment each other in an office setting. Why not on the ski slopes?” A grin tugged at the side of his mouth, almost roguish. “Besides, the fresh air and sunshine bring such good color to your skin. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it.”

  He’d be remiss. Good use of an idiom. Wait a minute. Her skin? A good color?

  “I just remembered.” She surged to her feet, bobbling the table and spilling a bit of her hot chocolate onto her white ski pants. “Shoot. I just. Um. I have to—” She had to get out of here and reapply her ugly makeup, or he was going to see through her disguise. She had to go now. Her heart raced. Did she even bring her kit with her? It’d been so early this morning when they left…

  Moments later in the restroom of the lodge, Lisette surveyed the damage. Or more correctly, the repair. Shoot. Shooty shoot shoot. It was gone. All of her daily application of sallow color and bad shading and age lines. Gone. The wart, the little tuft of glue-on lashes she usually stuck between her eyes to make a monobrow, missing. She looked (gasp!) like herself.

  In a panic, she dug through her purse and found a bit of foundation in the bottom. And there was a brown eyeliner pencil. It’d have to do. She shoved off her wig and left it in the sink while she worked as fast as she could with the faulty tools she had.

  But there was no replacement for the wart. And not even a Band-Aid to cover the spot. Dang. It. Nor was there a monobrow fix. She’d have to make do with what she had.

  Oh, man. She’d be more careful next time, never leave home without a better supply of makeup. This was ridiculous. The shading near the sides of her nose looked more like dirt smudges. Great. But at least it would set up the illusion.

  Things could go so sideways from here.

  “I’m glad you decided one big run down the slopes was enough. I don’t think my heart could’ve taken another bear sighting.” Nerves made her fill the air between them in the car as they wound toward the town-proper of Aspen. “I mean, when you see one bear, there’s bound to be a hundred others.”

  “I think that’s cockroaches.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  He was right. She was such a dork. He was so gorgeous it threw off all her thought processes. He looked even better today than he had the day she first saw him and declared him a Norse god. Man. She’d better get herself together, she thought as she watched his fine form pump gas at the station. Even all windblown and messy from his ski hat, his brown curls made her shiver. She had to look away, study the gas station, think about the beef jerky and prepackaged firewood that sat in the window.

  “It’s such a gorgeous day.” Erik tapped his hands on the steering wheel along to the song on the radio when they started off again. “Now that the sun came out, the complexion of the whole landscape has changed.” He shot her a look. “Unblemished, you know?” He rubbed his chin, pointing to a spot on its left side.

  He was emphasizing weird words. A lot. It wasn’t like him. Complexion. Changed. Unblemished. The chin rub. Oh! The wart. He knew it was gone. She shot a glance at herself in the side-view mirror. None of her emergency makeup had worked. She just looked like herself. Her face burned red with shame. And worse, he was chiding her about it.

  Or was he? After that comment, he turned his eyes back to the road and didn’t say anything more about it. But that twinkle—she’d definitely seen a twinkle in his eye. Blast.

  They stopped for dinner at a mountain cabin café and ate hot roast beef sandwiches that tasted like heaven.

  “These are the best. It’s part of the reason I decided I had to build the Gunnarson Dynamics facility near here. I wanted to eat these for lunch every day.”

  “They’re incredible. Can we get some to go?” she said through a mouthful of tender meat and delicious home baked bread.

  “You’re a woman after my own heart.” He ordered an extra for each of them, which carved him another warm spot inside her. A man who didn’t mind getting a second helping of excellent food to go was a man she could hang out with for a long time.

  After lunch, they headed farther down the mountain, until they hit an overlook. Erik pulled over, parking his car on a dirt patch at the side of the road. He got out and came around to get Lisette’s door.

  “Why are we stopping?”

  “So you can see the facility. It’s best viewed from a distance.”

  She looked across the canyon. Holy. Smokes.

  “Uh, what is that?” An enormous mansion, French country style, with a blue roof and a hundred windows, each with blue shutters and Juliet balconies, graced the mountainside. There was a pillared entrance and a huge, wooden door she could see even from this distance. Landscaping already surrounded it, mature trees and manicured gardens of her most baroque daydreams. The place looked like a cross between the Vanderbilt mansion in North Carolina and King Louis IV’s Versailles.

  Lisette was having a moment. Her stomach trembled, and not from the cold.

  “There it is. Gunnarson Dynamics.” Erik gave a shy shrug as he waved toward the mansion and grounds. Lisette’s breath caught in her throat, and she bit her lip. Despite its ornate splendor, it blended perfectly into the mountainside, like Neuschwanstein, or one of those Swiss restaurants atop the Eiger in the Alps.

  “Oh, my,” she coughed in a whisper. “That’s the ‘facility?’” In the last bits of daylight a fountain sparkled, one large enough to see from here, a distance of a couple of miles. Lisette’s insides flipped with each splash of water. “It’s, uh—” She couldn’t say what it was. Not aloud. Because like in great literature, if anything ever made a woman fall head over heels for a man, it was getting a glimpse of his fine, fifty-two thousand square-foot estate.

  That, and when he went for a swim in a pond on that estate.

  “You aren’t saying anything. Don’t you like it?” Erik inched closer to her. His cinnamon breath steamed in the chilly air.

  “I, uh—” Lisette could no more speak than fly off into the clouds of her own power. Geez. She was in so much trouble. “It’s quite, uh—”

  He inched even closer and bent over with his face next to hers, cheek to cheek. He pointed to the west side of the structure. “See the way the sunset’s glow hits the stucco there? Almost makes it look like—”

  “Sherbet.”

  Sherbet. She just said his facility looked like sherbet. Heavenward eye roll. But it did. Delicious, cool, and irresistible.

  Lisette leaned against him. After all, the wind was bracing out here. He blocked the wind, made a shelter for her with those broad shoulders. This moment could go on and on, and she’d never tire of it.

  “Sherbet. Okay.” He nodded, his smooth shave from this morning having grown out and his cheek scraping gently against hers. “I can see that. Sherbet is nice.”

  Yes, it was. So nice. She closed her eyes and savored his nearness.

  When Erik pulled back at last, Lisette felt colder than she’d felt all day, even on the ski slope. He opened the passenger side door for her, and she got in, missing him already.

  Erik fired up the car. “I’d like to take you over to look at the progress of the interior, but I just got a text from the foreman, and they’ve had to shut down early for the day. I’ll have to give the final inspection when I come back from Florence.”

  Disappointment flooded her. She’d love to see inside. And even though it might be all about function—offices and cubicles and charmless—it might not. It might be even better than the outside.

  Someday. Maybe?

  “I take it you like
it? I hoped it would meet with approval to American eyes, not look too European.” He shifted the car into gear, and they shot off down into the canyon curves again with a spew of gravel. “The interior is really nice. My mother flew in and gave it a bit of her flair.”

  “The stormy one?” They headed back over the canyons toward Boulder. This day was on the wane. Sad.

  He chuckled. “Stormy isn’t a word I’d use to describe her.” They took the icy roads at a flurried pace but gripped every turn.

  “But I thought you said your mother and sister were stormy-something. Didn’t you?” They’d be lower soon, out of the frosty altitudes, and she could breathe again. Over her shoulder she watched for another glimpse of the facility, but a bank of heavy clouds rolled in, and it got dark all of a sudden.

  “Well, I guess ‘stormy petrels’ might have sounded like that at first. I forget you’re not someone raised near the sea.”

  “I’ve lived in a lot of places, but not for long near the sea. Mostly an inland girl.” A fast-forward movie of her childhood shot past her eyes. Tokyo, Oslo, Beijing, Hong Kong, Lyon, Marseilles, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Nagoya, other places. Always moving, always changing.

  “The sea is a calming thing. And a dangerous thing.” Erik sounded far away.

  Suddenly, the car hit black ice, and both of them snapped instantly to the present. With the sunset, the road must have done a quick freeze, a constant peril in Colorado winters. Even this car’s excellent handling was no match for Mother Nature’s sneakiest trick.

  “We’re sliding sideways!”

  Erik swore in Icelandic. “I got it. Hang on.” But they were already traveling too fast, and the side of the narrow road met the wheels in no time.

  At the roadside gravel, the tires got a quick grip, gaining purchase on the friction. They’d be fine.

  Lisette exhaled.

  But then they came back onto the road again, still in a bend, at a place slicker than before. Even though they’d slowed considerably, the front wheels skidded sideways, and the rear wheels couldn’t control the swerve. Erik’s foot had come off both gas and brake, but his hands gripped the wheel, turning into the skid, then when it slid another direction, into the next one. The guy knew his ice driving skills.