Just Perfect (2 page)

“Thanks,” Christine told the ticket booth worker and headed across the plaza to meet her instructor, her stomach somersaulting the whole way. Maybe she should cancel today’s lesson and get a different instructor. But, no, she was here. He was here. And she wanted very much to get past the first trip up the mountain. Surely after that, it would get easier.
Please God, let it get easier
.

Her instructor stood in profile: tall and lanky with short golden hair that had been streaked lighter by the sun.

The waitress started to move away, but he grabbed her hand and placed his free hand over his heart. She shook her head even while smiling into his eyes. He dropped to one knee, holding her hand in both of his, pleading in earnest.

“Oh, all right!” The waitress relented as Christine drew close enough to hear. “But this is the last time.”

“You’re all heart, Lacy,” he insisted. “And I’ll pay you back tomorrow. I swear.”

“You’ll take a week to remember and you know it.” The waitress laughed as she moved away.

“Alec Hunter?” Christine tipped her head to see his face.

Still down on one knee, he shifted toward her, revealing a boyishly handsome face with the bluest eyes she’d ever seen—brighter-than-the-sky blue— accented by long lashes a few shades darker than his hair. He didn’t look crazy. He looked like a choir boy. A very mischievous choir boy, she amended as his eyes twinkled up at her. “That would be me.”

“Oh good.” She hoped. “I’m Christine Ashton.”

“Hey, you made it.” A grin flashed across his face as he stood, showing off sparkling white, perfectly straight teeth. Goodness, this guy could make a killing doing toothpaste commercials. “I was about to give up on you.”

“Sorry.” She blinked at his height. Being five ten, she was eye level with most men, but he topped her by several inches. “I had an emergency phone call.”

“Ah.” His inflection dismissed the word “emergency” completely.

Not that it was any of his business, but the call had been from the hospital back in Austin, where she’d recently finished her residency, with a question about a repeat patient. She couldn’t very well tell them to please ask Mrs. Henderson to postpone any more myocardial infarctions until after her ski lesson.

Pushing the wry thought aside, she studied the man before her, judging him to be younger than her own age of thirty-three. Cute, but young. “I hope it won’t offend you if I ask, but you are a qualified instructor, right?”

He flashed another killer grin. “If you’re looking for someone to teach you how to ski, really ski, I’m your man.”

Since that was indeed what she wanted, she refrained from questioning him further.

“Okay, Alec.” Lacy returned. “Here you go.”

Alec took the large to-go bag Lacy handed over. When the weight of it hit his hands, he knew he’d caught her in a generous mood. Good thing, since he was down to one power bar in his pocket and had forgotten his wallet. Again. “Thanks, darling. I owe you.”

“Yes, you do. The receipt’s inside. I expect a serious tip.”

“Have I ever stiffed you?” He tried out a wounded-puppy look, which she ignored with a snort and flounced off. Unfazed, he turned to the woman Bruce had begged him to instruct. “You ready?”

An odd look of apprehension passed over her face as she glanced toward the chairlift. Then she straightened her shoulders. “As I’ll ever be.”

“Great. Where are your skis?”

“I left them in a rack near the lift.”

“Me too.” He headed across the plaza with her falling in step beside him, their boots clunking on the paving stones.

When they reached the racks to retrieve their gear, he couldn’t help but raise a brow. Whoever this Christine Ashton was, she had money, no doubt about that. If the ice-blue-and-white skiwear with the distinctive Spyder logo splashed everywhere hadn’t tipped him off, her gear would have. Everything from her helmet to her skis was all brand spanking new and probably cost more than three months of rent on his apartment. Bruce had sworn up and down she was an intermediate skier looking to improve her skill, but her gear gave him doubts. Seasoned skiers rarely had all new equipment at once.

Darn it, he thought as he clicked into his well-used Salomon Hots. He’d actually been looking forward to this, once he’d resigned himself to playing ski instructor. The way he’d finally figured it, a week of private lessons with a decent student meant he’d get in some non-work-related ski time while burning up some of those vacation and sick days the county manager was hounding him to take. Cool deal—if it was true.

If not, his buddy Bruce was going to owe him big-time for this.

His doubts grew as he watched her struggle with the bindings on her skis. There should be a law against people buying top-notch equipment they didn’t know how to use just because they could afford it.

Although, even if she turned out to be a total novice, at least she offered some serious compensation in the eye-candy department. His brows rose when she bent to adjust her boots and her pants tightened about her long, slender thighs. Legs had always been his weakness. The rest of her wasn’t bad either— even if she had a little too much of that ice-princess polish for his taste—but man, those legs promised to have his libido whimpering before the day was over. He felt the first pitiful whine coming on as she bent even farther forward. Her straight fall of white-blond hair slid over one shoulder in a slow, sexy glide. “You, um, need help with that?”

“No, I got it,” she insisted, and finally managed to step into the bindings.

“Great.” He cleared his throat. “Let’s get in line.”

She skied to the lift line with enough ease to reassure him that she had at least been on skis before. The line was fairly long, so he took off his gloves and opened the bag to see what Lacy had packed: ham-and-cheese sandwich, sour cream-and-onion potato chips, a can of cola to feed his sugar and caffeine addiction, and… He tilted the bag to see all the way to the bottom. Yes! A giant chocolate-chunk cookie. “I
love
that woman.”

“I take it that was your girlfriend.”

“Who, Lacy?” He scowled at the idea. “Heck no. She’s engaged to one of the guys. Here, hold these, will ya?” He handed his poles to her, then pulled out the sandwich and went to work appeasing his overactive metabolism. He’d long since given up hope that it would slow down someday. Small wonder, though, with his daily exertion level.

By the time they’d reached the lift house, he’d inhaled the entire sack lunch. He pocketed the receipt as a reminder to pay Lacy back, and shot the bag and empty soda can into the trash.

“Thanks,” he said as he took the poles back, which was when he noticed his student was breathing a little too fast and had gone from pampered-princess pale to about-to-faint pale. “Hey, you didn’t just arrive today, did you?”

“No, yesterday.” She breathed in and out. “Why do you ask?”

“You look like you’re having a little trouble with the altitude.”

“I’m fine.”

“You know, one of the dumbest mistakes people make every year is to step off a plane, hop on a ski lift, and faint at the top of a mountain. If we need to postpone your first lesson—”

“I told you, I’m fine.” A hint of snootiness chilled her words. “I know how to handle the altitude.”

Yeah, famous last words of lowlanders everywhere
. Before he could question her further, they were at the front of the line and the lift ops were waving them into position. Well, at least if she fainted, he had the training to deal with it.

The next chair came up behind them, scooped them off the ground, and carried them upward. He was just leaning back, settling in for a nice ride up the mountain on a clear, sunny day when he realized the woman beside him was clutching the armrest and chanting under her breath.

“Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod.”

“Hey.” He frowned at her. “You okay?”

“Actually, no, I’m not.” She turned to him with frantic eyes. “I’ve changed my mind. I really don’t want to do this. Get me off this thing!”

“There is no getting off once you’re on.”

“Then put the safety bar down! As in right now!”

“Okay, okay. Don’t panic.” He lowered the bar, which was a real nuisance with the foot rest banging on their skis, but one he’d gladly put up with if it calmed down the crazy woman. He looked over at her stark-white face. “Don’t you dare pass out on me. Not up here.”

“Did you have to say ‘up here’?” Gripping the hand bar in front of them, she looked down, then snapped her eyes skyward with a groan. “Why am I doing this?”

“Good question. I thought you said you’d skied before.”

“I have. But I gave it up because I hate riding on these stupid things. How can anyone stand this? I swear to God, I’m going to kill Maddy and Amy for making me do this!”

“Who?”

“My best friends.
Ex
best friends as of this exact moment.”

“Look, it’s okay.” He reached over and massaged her shoulder. “You’re not going to fall.”

“I’m not worried about falling.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m worried about jumping!”

“Jumping?” He frowned at her. “Why on earth would you even think about jumping? We’re at least fifty feet off the ground. You’d never survive.”

“I know!”

“Well, then, don’t do it!”

“I’m trying not to!”

“Why would you even want to?” His own panic level increased as he imagined the result.

“It’s a common compulsion brought on by anxiety,” she said. “The same compulsion that makes people think about driving off bridges, or straight into an oncoming eighteen-wheeler.”

Holy Jesus, was she serious? “Remind me never to ride in a car with you.”

“I don’t get it on the highway. Just on ski lifts.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know!”

“All right, okay.” He massaged her shoulder harder. “Try not to think about it.”

The lift stopped, jarring the chair and making it swing. She let out a squeak, and her eyes squeezed shut. “Please don’t let me jump. Please don’t let me jump.”

“Hey, hey, hey, let’s do this.” His heart hammering, he took hold of her nearest wrist. “Let go of the bar—”

“
Not on your life
!” She glared at him with murderous intent.

“Come on, trust me. Let go of the bar and move your hand to the back of the seat.” He guided it for her. “There, like that, so you’re facing me.” He shifted his upper body to face her as well, trying to bang their skis together as little as possible. “Now look at me. Right here.” He pointed to his eyes with two fingers. “You just keep your eyes locked on mine while we breathe. In… out… in… out…” Slowly her breathing steadied, but her grip remained tight on the seat back and safety rail. “Better?”

She nodded and continued to breathe. A gust of wind blew a spray of snow off the tops of the nearby pine trees, reminding him just how high they were off the ground.

“So tell me about your friends. Mandy and… ?”

“Maddy and Amy.” She inhaled. “We have… a challenge going. We each have one year to conquer a fear that’s been keeping us from doing something we’ve always wanted to do.”

“And conquering your fear of the chairlift so you can ski is your challenge?”

“Not just so I can ski. So I can outski my big brother on the black runs. That’s where you come in.”

He lifted a brow. “How long has it been since you skied?”

“Fourteen years.”

“How good is your brother?”

“Don’t ask.”

“That good, huh?”

“Yes, dang it! And I hate it.” Color returned to her cheeks. “He beats me at everything. skiing is the only thing I think I might be able to best him at. I know it sounds childish, but this means a lot to me. And I only have one week to get in shape before the rest of my family arrives for Christmas.”

“The rest of your family?” he prompted to keep her talking.

“My parents, my brother and his wife and their two little boys. They spend every Christmas at my parents’ condo in Central Village. Since I don’t want them to know how much the chairlift frightens me, I haven’t had Christmas with the family in years.”

“Really?” He cocked a brow. “Me either. Although I’m sure for entirely different reasons. See, I’ve always thought family get-togethers are overrated. Especially during the holidays when everyone’s even crazier than normal.”

“Yes, but do you know how hard my brother, Robbie, would laugh if he knew why I never come for Christmas?”

The lift started moving again with a clanging of cables and a jolt of motion. She slammed her eyes closed.

“No, don’t do that. Look at me.” He waited for her to open her eyes. “Good. Just breathe and keep your eyes right here on mine.” Man, she had great-looking eyes. A pale silver with only a hint of blue. The rest of her face was… classy. No other word for it. None of that “she wasn’t classically beautiful, but there was something about her…” This woman
was
classically beautiful in every way, including the slender nose, high cheekbones, and the smooth line of her jaw. And then there was all that pale blond hair falling nearly to her waist, begging for a man’s fingers to run through it.

His body stirred at the thought.

“So, um”—he cleared his throat—“tell me more about this challenge. Why did you and your friends come up with it?”

“Hmm?” She seemed to have lost the thread of their conversation while staring back into his eyes.

“The challenge.” He moved the hand he had resting on the back of the bench to her wrist and worked his bare fingers under the cuff of her jacket to monitor her pulse. It was racing like a scared rabbit. If she passed out, would he be able to stop her from falling? “Tell me how it came about.”

“Oh…” She relaxed a bit while he massaged her wrist. “The three of us were suitemates at UT. Actually, there were four of us back then. Three of us remained really close. Maddy, Amy, and me. The fourth was Jane Redding.”

“From the morning show?” He raised a brow.

“Yes. Jane moved off to New York and became a hotshot news anchor, then went into motivational speaking.”

“Didn’t she write some book?”

“A self-help book for women titled
How to Have a Perfect Life
.”