Just Perfect (3 page)

“That’s the one.” He nodded. “I saw it at East Village Books and had to laugh. No offense to your friend, but nobody has a perfect life.”

“I couldn’t agree more, but that book is what started the whole thing. We all bought copies of it at Jane’s book signing in Austin to be supportive of an old friend. But then we discovered that she’d used us as negative examples of women who let fear stand in the way of pursuing their dreams. Can you believe that?” Her pulse picked up again. “The bitch!”

“Excuse me?” Alec choked back a laugh at hearing profanity from someone who looked so refined.

“How dare she use us as examples in her book!”

“So what’d she say about you? That you let your fear of heights interfere with your dream of becoming an Olympic skier?”

“No.” She gave a dignified snort, as if what she was about to say was ludicrous. “She said I was so afraid of parental disapproval that I put pleasing my father ahead of my own happiness.”

“Is that true?”

“No, it’s not true.” Indignation sparkled in her eyes. “But what if it is? What is wrong with wanting to earn my father’s approval? He happens to be a brilliant cardiologist. I respect his opinion, so of course I want to make him proud. That’s not fear, and it doesn’t mean I put my own happiness aside for him.”

“How did all this turn into your ski challenge?”

“Oh.” That reined her in some. “Well. It’s a little complicated to get into while we’re dangling a million miles above the ground.”

“Don’t think about that. Tell me about the challenge.”

“Basically, we agreed that Jane was wrong about the big fears holding us back, but that we did have some smaller fears that were stopping us from doing things we wanted to do. So we came up with a separate challenge for each of us. Whoever hasn’t met hers at the end of one year has to take the other two out for a really nice lunch and put up with ribbing for the rest of her life. Since my challenge is to go skiing, I thought as long as I’m going to do it, I’d really like to make my brother eat my powder in front of my dad. Just once in my life, I want to hear my father admit Robbie isn’t perfect at everything. That there is this one thing, at least, that I can do better.” Her gaze grew pleading. “Can you help me?”

“I guess we’re about to find out, since… we’re here.”

“We are?” Christine turned forward to see the top of the lift right ahead. Before she had time to protest, Alec raised the safety bar.

Her whole body sang with relief as they hopped off the chair and skied down a gentle slope to an open area at the top of the run. She turned to take in the view.

The wide blue sky domed the Rocky Mountains while snow dusted the tall pine trees lining the slopes. Skiers and snowboarders swished down the mountain beneath the never-ending line of lift chairs. Wow. She looked at how high those chairs hung in the air—and felt triumphant.

“I did it!” A rush of gratitude made her want to throw her arms around Alec Hunter. Checking the impulse, she smiled instead. “Would it be entirely inappropriate if I kissed you?”

He chuckled. “Wouldn’t bother me.”

She let out an exuberant laugh. “Teach me what I need to know and maybe I just will.”

Alec really wished she hadn’t made that joke about kissing him, because now he couldn’t get the thought out of his head. They moved away from the crowded lift area so he could give her some basic instruction, but his brain had trouble focusing on skiing. That was a new phenomenon, since skiing was normally what he ate, drank, and slept.

He went through his safety-first speech by rote, then turned his attention to her equipment. “Okay, what you want to keep in mind is that your new skis are going to be very different from the ones you would have used fourteen years ago.”

“Yes, the salesman mentioned that.” Her face was a study in concentration, letting him know she had no trouble focusing. “Something about the shorter length and wider width taking less effort to make turns.”

“Exactly. You won’t need nearly as much body action. The motion is more of a shifting of weight, like this.” He demonstrated while facing her. She copied his movements—which drew his gaze to her body. Even with her bundled in bulky skiwear, he could easily imagine the figure beneath: all long and lean and naked. That led to imagining how all her body parts would line up with all his body parts as he closed his mouth over hers for a slow, deep, soul-searing kiss that started with both parties standing and ended with them lying flat on their backs, sweaty, panting, and totally sated.

Okay, normal guy reaction to a good-looking woman, he assured himself, but he really needed to get his mind off kissing her. “That’s good.” He nodded. “Only use less lip.” She stopped moving and stared at him. “Less
lip
?” “What?” He stared back at those clear blue eyes of hers, pleasantly dazed—until his Freudian slip hit him. “I meant
hip
. Use less hip.”

She gave him a dubious look that made him laugh at himself. Okay, so now she knew where his brain was, which was pretty dang amusing in an awkward sort of way.

“Tell ya what,” he said, pushing against his poles to turn his back downhill. “Why don’t we ski this first section nice and easy so you can get used to your skis, then run through some exercises?”

“You’re going to ski backwards?”

“Sure. This way I can watch you better.”

“Okay.” She rolled her eyes as if he were a bit off in the head, then lowered the goggles from her helmet.

He watched her wobble through the first few turns. “You’re sitting back too far. Get your shins against your boot fronts.”

“I know, I know,” she snapped, but her irritation seemed directed more at herself than at him.

“Shoulders front,” he said and nodded in approval when she quickly corrected the fault in her form. After that, she fell into a smooth rhythm that had his brows arching.

Okay, so the woman did know how to ski, especially if her form hadn’t suffered any more than this in a fourteen-year absence from the slopes.

“Let’s kick it up a bit.” He flipped around to face downhill and picked up their pace. He watched her carve a few turns with growing sureness. “We’re coming up on some steeper terrain,” he called out to her. “I want you to concentrate on keeping your weight forward. Don’t back off.”

She nodded and scowled at the slope, her expression so serious he wanted to laugh. Hadn’t anyone told this woman that skiing was supposed to be fun? Before he could tell her as much, they topped a crest and she shot forward with a fearlessness that surprised him. Human instinct made a lot of skiers hold back, which, ironically, was the exact thing that made them lose control. After the way she’d flipped out on the lift, he’d expected her to be tentative on the slopes.

Nope. She went for it all out, bending at the knees to absorb the impact of the groomed snow against her skis.

He barreled after her, then slowed to match his pace to hers. As they skied nearly in tandem, he indulged himself watching her. Hot damn, if she could ski like this on day one, he’d have her skiing like a demon in no time.

She glanced over at him and the serious expression vanished as she smiled.

Something inside him clicked into place, an instant connection as he saw his own excitement in her eyes. He knew she felt the same thrill he did every time he skied—that elation that made him want to shout, “This is so cool!”

He loved every moment of flying down a mountainside: the bright sun flashing off the snow, the beauty of the trees passing in a blur, the crisp air hitting his cheeks.

He smiled back at her—

And she went down. Hard. Her body cartwheeling down the slope.

His heart lurched as he skidded to a stop as fast as he could, which still took him well beyond her. Turning, he found her facedown in the snow, arms sprawled, ski gear scattered both uphill and down. Fear kicked in when she didn’t move. “Christine! Are you all right?”

To his surprise, she lifted her head and laughed like a loon. Her goggles were missing and snow clung to her cheeks and hair. “I’m great!”

He stared at her, amazed by the transformation that came over her face when she laughed so freely. He’d thought her beautiful before, in an aloof sort of way, but now, with her sprawled on the ground like a rag doll, she looked… happy. Which was even better than beautiful in his book. The only thing he liked more than really great legs was a really great laugh.

She worked her way to her hands and knees. “I can’t believe it’s been so long since I did this.”

“What? Take a tumble?”

“No, ski.” She sat back on her boots and shook like his dog, Buddy, after a bath. “This is so fun!”

“And people call me crazy,” he muttered to himself, then glanced at the trail of equipment she’d created. “That’s quite a yard sale!”

She looked about and laughed even harder. “See anything you wanna buy?”

“How much you want for that pole?”

“It’s yours free, if you can find its mate.”

“Hang on—” Fighting gravity, he sidestepped uphill in an effort to get closer as she crawled about to gather her gear.

Watching her, the thought popped into his head that he should ask her out. In fact, he wondered why the idea hadn’t occurred to him the second he laid eyes on her. Okay, so maybe Bruce frowned on his instructors hitting on students, but Alec wasn’t a regular instructor.

So here they were, attractive woman, friendly guy. No reason in the world he couldn’t ask her to join him and the gang at St. Bernard’s after their lesson.

He was still working his way toward her, warming to his idea, when a herd of teenagers on snowboards popped over a hill and headed straight toward her. “Look out!”

She let out a string of cuss words while he frantically waved his arms. The snowboarders swerved to miss them and flew by ten times faster than the ski patrol would tolerate. When they’d passed, he looked back to where Christine had huddled down with her arms wrapped about her head. “What was that you just said?”

“Nothing,” she called back in exaggerated innocence.

“Something about duck, duck, duck, or sit?”

“Yeah.” She finally had both her skis. “That was it. I was telling you to duck.”

“You sure that wasn’t ‘fuck, fuck, fuck, oh shit!’?”

Planting a pole, she struggled to a standing position, then turned to face him. Above him on the hill, she easily stared down her nose at him with supreme haughtiness. “Do I look like a woman who would use the F word?”

“No.” He smiled up at her. “You look like a princess… who would use the F word.”

“Ha!” She tossed her long hair back and clicked into her skis. After a bit of searching, she located her second pole and gave him a really great view of legs and backside as she retrieved it.

Yep, he decided, no reason in the world not to ask her out.

When she had everything in order, she glided down to him, her cheeks flushed, her breathing shallow from exertion. “Okay, I’m ready to continue.”

“I have a better idea. Why don’t we take a little break? Let you catch your breath.”

“No… I’m fine,” she panted.

He smiled at her show of toughness. “So maybe I need to catch my breath.”

“Yeah, right.” She smirked at him and the urge to kiss her returned stronger than ever. The gorgeous rich babe he could resist, but not this woman who laughed when she fell and cussed like a sailor.