Shooting for the Stars (5 page)

Or rather, it would have been, except that an up-and-coming Japanese boarder stopped beside Hank and offered his hand, which Hank shook. Then the kid actually
bowed
to Hank and walked away.

“What the fuck?” Stella asked.

“He’s just friendly,” Bear said. “So where’s your next competition?”

“Switzerland. And then Italy and British Columbia. The last event of the season is in Austria. But if I run out of money, I’m not going to make it to that one.”

Bear sighed. Then he took a slug of his Jack and Coke.

“Hey!” Stella teased, pointing at his glass. “I thought I got to pick the drinks?” Bear seemed a little tired, actually. She’d need to pour a few more drinks down him so they could celebrate her victory properly.

“You can choose ‘em, buddy.” He gave her a small smile. “Anything you want.”

Anything you want
. Not hardly. And why was Bear such a pushover all of a sudden? Bear was a bossy guy, especially to her. You’d think that someone who crushed your rebellious fun would stop being so freaking attractive to her, right? You’d think. But you’d be wrong. Even after her embarrassing and ill-fated attempt to seduce Bear went awry, she’d loved him like it was her job.

But she wasn’t going to get depressed about that. Not tonight. There was a cocktail menu on the bar in front of her, and she flicked it open, looking for inspiration. “They make a Manhattan with muddled cherries and orange rind. That sounds good.”

“Sounds a little too fruity,” Bear complained. “How many of them do I have to drink to get muddled?”

“Hush, or I’ll order you the one with mango schnapps.”

“That is just plain wrong.”

Stella giggled. She was just teasing him, anyway. There was a nice dirty martini on the menu that she knew he’d enjoy. “Hey, did you see this hotel room that Hank left me?”

He shook his head.

“You
have
to see it. It’s nuts. There’s a fireplace and a hot tub.”

He chuckled. “It’s too bad for Hank that Bitchy Barbie wasn’t in town last night.” Bear gave her a sly grin. Hank’s girlfriend was the only topic on which Bear and Stella always agreed.

Stella stirred her margarita with a straw. “Bear, do you think Hank is going to marry Bitchy Barbie?” she asked. This idea had been rattling around in her brain since the last time she saw Hank and his girlfriend—whose real name was Alexis—together.

“No,” Bear said firmly.

“How can you be sure?”

“Because Hank isn’t stupid. That’s not the kind of woman you want in your life forever.”

“It’s been a year,” Stella said quietly.

Bear shrugged. “He’s too busy right now to focus on forever. They both are, honestly.” Alexis was a champion ski racer, also trying to have the season of a lifetime. The fact that she had the kind of sponsorship deals that Stella wanted had always made her hate the woman even more. “But after the dust settles in February, and they spend some more time together, Hank will wake up.”

“I sure hope you’re right. The idea of Alexis at every Thanksgiving dinner from now until eternity really hacks me off. And I’d like to be Auntie Stella one day. What if my nieces and nephews had her bitchy voice?” She gave a mock shudder.

Bear smiled over the rim of his cocktail glass, and the sight of it gave her a little kick to the heart. “Aw,” he said.

“What?”

“
Auntie Stella
. That’s sweet.”

Something in his voice made her throat feel tight. “Do you like kids, Bear?” The question just slipped out before she could think better of it.

“Sure. Who doesn’t?”

Stella picked up her drink and took a gulp. What an idiot she was, asking that. It’s not like she needed even more proof that they weren’t meant to be together. Even if Bear did return her feelings, the whole issue of children would probably be a deal breaker.

Cart before horse, much?

But it had suddenly occurred to her that they were getting to that point in life when these questions mattered. Someday Bear would meet The One, and have his own brood. He’d bring his cute family around during the holidays, and she’d have to smile and pretend not to be jealous.

Stella couldn’t have children. Usually she didn’t worry too much about it, though. Raising a family was incompatible with the daredevil lifestyle, anyway.
 

It was for the best, right?

Two lanky youths wearing beanies and baggy jackets approached the bar. The boys’ look screamed “snowboarder!” at the top of its lungs. “Hey, Bear!” one of them called out. His accent was Canadian. “We heard about… you know…” The kid cleared his throat, offering Bear a fist bump. “We’re not drinkin’ here, because it’s so fuckin’ pricey.”

“Yah,” the other one agreed.

“But if you need to get drunk or somethin’, we’re just at the Powder Keg. About a block that way.”

“Thanks, man,” Bear said. ‘But I’m good here.”

“Keep it real.” The youngster nodded to Bear, and then he and his friends walked away.

Stella put her glass down on the bar with a thunk. “Bear, you have to level with me. Why is everyone acting like you’ve only got three weeks to live?”

“Three weeks?” He gave a bitter chuckle. “It’s more like ten weeks.”

A cold prickle crawled down Stella’s neck. “That isn’t the least bit funny,” she whispered. “Talk to me.”

Four

A
W
, H
ELL
. T
HE
LOOK
on Stella’s face right now was pure fear. Not only did it cut him, but it was entirely unnecessary. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s nothing, really. Just tour drama. I don’t want to be a buzz kill tonight, buddy.”

He really did not want to see the look of pity that would cross her face when she heard the news. Bear hated pity more than anything. The year after his mother ran off, he got that look from everyone. Teachers gave him that face at school. When his father’s business struggled, he saw pity reflected in the expressions of the women at church who passed their sons’ clothing down to him.

The last face he wanted to see pity on was Stella’s.

“You
have
to tell me what’s wrong,” Stella demanded. “It’s only fair.”

“Fair,” he muttered. What the hell did that word even mean? By any measure he’d had a good run on the pro circuit. The fact that it was over pissed him off so badly. He was greedy for more. There just wasn’t any other way to look at it.

“Bear!”

He pushed his glass away. “I got cut from the tour. That’s what Lacy wanted to tell me when we walked in.” He braced himself.

Stella froze, her hand an inch from her glass. “
What?
That can’t be.”

“Sure it can, buddy. He gave me until late February. But I might not stick around that long.” That last bit had just popped out of his mouth. But why not leave early? Who wants to hang around after he’s been fired?

Before he knew what hit him, Bear’s arms were full of Stella Lazarus.

“None of this makes any sense, Bear.” She wrapped her arms around as much of him as she could manage. And when she pulled back a bit to look into his eyes, what he saw there wasn’t pity. It was something much more fiery than that. “Lacy is just plain
insane!
You have a million fans.”

Bear felt the tension in his chest ease by just a fraction. “My fans are getting older, I think. Their acne has cleared up, and they don’t need their moms to drop them off at the snow park anymore.”

Stella stepped back, but kept her hands firmly parked on his shoulders. “Don’t you
dare
call yourself old,” Stella argued. “Twenty-nine isn’t old unless you’re an unmarried Jane Austen character.”

“I don’t win tour events, buddy,” he whispered. “I never won very many, and I haven’t come close in a year.”

Her eyes glittered with fury. “It’s not just a contest, though! It’s a
spectacle
. And you give good air, Bear. You really do. Lots of guys don’t win very often. Lots of guys don’t win
ever
.”

“And
those
guys become car salesmen after a couple of seasons.” He pushed a shiny tendril of hair out of her face. It felt satiny between his fingers. “I got ten years out of it. Somehow I fooled myself into thinking that I’d get even more.”

Stella gave her head a fierce shake. “This is
not
over. I think we should call Hank. Maybe he could—”

Bear had to cut her off by holding up a hand. “Don’t even finish that sentence. How do you think I lasted as long as I did?” His whole life he’d depended on the Lazarus family in one way or another. God, it was difficult to acknowledge that. But it was true. “It’s no accident that Lacy gave me this news the minute Hank left town. Do
not
call him. Because it won’t help and it will only embarrass me.”

He hadn’t wanted to say that aloud.
Ever
. But there it was.

Stella studied him at very close range. She was standing so near that he could catch the fruity scent of her shampoo. “Okay,” she whispered. She reached for her drink and drained it. “You should become a coach, maybe. Or a back-country guide. That could be amazing.”

“I’ll figure something out,” Bear said. But that was just bravado. He had no fucking clue what he was going to do.

“I need to order some more drinks now.” Stella waved down the bartender. “The only thing to do is get really ripped.”

Bear smiled in spite of his misery. She was so fucking cute when she got fired up. Maybe he could survive this evening, after all. “Sure. But you need to eat something,” he insisted.

She tossed her hair. “Okay,
Dad
. I’ll order some appetizers, too.”

His grin grew in size. That was Stella, always throwing sass at him. And right now, he needed that.

The surfer-dude bartender ambled over, his yellow hair flopping in his eyes. Stella leaned over the bar in her eagerness to talk to him. “We definitely need some nachos,” Stella said, pointing at the menu. “And are those artichokes good? Let’s have the beet salad and… the onion flower. Also, a
pitcher
of margaritas. Can you make that happen? I’ll be your new best friend.” She gave him a winning smile.

Bear just watched her negotiate with the young bartender, working her Stella magic, getting what she wanted on sheer grit and personality.

It would be hours until he realized one important thing. The look of pity he’d been so worried about? Stella never gave him one.

The food came, and both he and Stella pulled out their wallets. “Let me get it,” she said.

“No,” he bit out. “Your brother beat you to it.”

“Ah,” Stella said, settling onto her bar stool again. “Still asking you to babysit me after all these years.”

Bear grunted so he wouldn’t have to agree or disagree. Stella had always hated the fact that he’d tried to look after her when Hank had moved away. “Don’t let her do anything stupid, if you can help it,” Hank had said on his last night in Vermont, a dozen years ago.

“Sure, man. I’ll look out for her,” Bear had promised. He should have stopped to appreciate, though, what an impossible task he’d just signed up for. At fifteen, Stella had been a wild little thing. A true Lazarus, just like her big brother. The first month after Hank had left, Bear had caught Stella doing shots of whiskey under the football bleachers with the boys of the senior class. Not only had she snarled at him while he dragged her drunk little body back to his truck, she’d thrown up on Bear’s boots on the way home.

Winters had been easier because Stella spent all her time at the ski hill trying to become a world-class snowboarder like her brother. During high school, Bear worked as a lifty at the ski mountain and then as a snowboarding instructor. That bought him a free season pass and an easy way to keep track of Stella.

But summers had been trickier. Once, a bunch of kids had driven to Quechee Falls to jump off the rocks. It hadn’t been enough for Stella to jump off a bunch of fifteen-foot rock ledges. Someone dared her to inch out onto the support beams underneath the covered bridge and jump from there. If she’d fallen off before reaching the open water, she would have landed on head-cracking granite. “Don’t do that,” he’d warned. But she hadn’t been listening. So Bear had threatened to take a picture and show it to her parents.

Stella hadn’t jumped. But she didn’t speak to him for a week, either.

She’d always hated it when he’d waded into her business. But she always forgave him eventually. The only time he’d worried that he’d really ruined their friendship was the time she’d kissed him. Bear tried not to think about that night too often. It had taken superhuman willpower to push her away. He’d wanted to wrap his arms around her and never let go.

Don’t let her do anything stupid
, Hank had instructed. And kissing Bear was pretty dumb. So he’d put distance between them. “You shouldn’t do that,” he’d told her. Stella was the brightest, shiniest thing in all of Vermont. And Bear was not. It just wouldn’t be right.

God, there was just no end to the parade of depressing things to think about tonight.

Luckily, Duku rejoined their party, filling up any lapses in conversation with his usual smack talk and bullshit. He pulled up a barstool and ordered a Scotch. “Tell us about your win, Stella. Who did you thrash, anyway?”

Bear rested an elbow on the bar and watched Stella’s animated face as she spun the tale. He knew he didn’t have a right to feel so devastated tonight. Fate had been very good to him over the years. If his career had run its course, that was nobody’s fault but his. And the fact that he didn’t have a Plan B? That was on him, too.

Tonight, he would lick his wounds and raise a glass to Stella. After all she and her brother had done for him over the years, it was really the least he could do.

He sat back, admiring her soft brown eyes, and the way she lifted her chin whenever Duku made her laugh.

Five

S
TELLA
ORDERED
A
SECOND
pitcher of margaritas, though she’d already had enough to drink. Now that the tequila had begun to kick in, she began to feel sad and unsettled.

Duku was lively enough, but there was no papering over the fact that Bear was hurting. It was nice of him to say he didn’t want to spoil her celebration. But if he was devastated, then so was she. Not that she could admit that out loud. Bear wouldn’t like it.