to walk away from.”
“Just like you walk away from everything else in life whenever it doesn’t come easily to you,” he said. “At some point, gorgeous, you’re going to have to stop running scared.”
“Screw you, Carter.”
* * *
LINDSEY WAS HUMILIATED, angry and hurt. She strode out of the restaurant and away from Carter and all the people who’d witnessed their argument. God knew no one was going to refer to her as the Ice Queen after that outburst.
She was shaking and felt as though she might be sick, so she sat on one of the chairs dotted along the hallway. She put her head in her hands and felt as if she wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come.
There were a lot of times when she had cried. The day they’d told her she’d need surgery. The day she’d gone back and found out she’d need a second surgery and a long recovery period. But this was the first time a man had made her feel this way. She wondered if she’d started the fight and pushed him away because it was easier to be alone than to figure out how to be with him.
In one preemptive strike she’d made sure she didn’t have to worry about him or who he was with when he was away from her. She’d pretty much made sure she’d never have to see him or talk to him again.
It was difficult for her to clear away the anger. But once she did, she knew that if she hadn’t been trying to save face with Elizabeth and called him a distraction, none of this would have happened.
She also knew that it had needed to happen. There wasn’t any path for the two of them. She knew that now.
She was flawed...but that wasn’t why she’d started the fight with him. She should have just been comfortable enough to tell him how she felt. That she was riddled with uncertainty, but admitting that she didn’t know what she was doing still wasn’t easy for her.
Especially with Carter.
She heard footsteps, and looked up to see one of the families from her ski lessons.
“Morning, Miss Lindsey,” Jeremy said.
Oh, crapola. Had they witnessed her fight with Carter? She forced a smile, grateful to have an excuse to slip behind her iron wall once again. “Morning, Jeremy. Mr. and Mrs. Smith. How are you today? Looking forward to our lesson?”
“I’m good. We are going for a toboggan ride this morning,” the boy said.
“Jeremy loves your lessons,” Mrs. Smith said. “I know you probably get asked this all the time, but can he take a picture with you?”
“Sure,” Lindsey said.
Jeremy came over to her, and she wrapped her arm around his little shoulders and leaned in and smiled. The same fake smile she’d used for years after defeats at world-champion events. And it seemed to fool them as they smiled and waved goodbye.
She sat back in the chair and realized that if she could find away to slip back into that persona as her normal, everyday self, she’d be fine.
Yeah, right.
“So, um, maybe you were right about not talking in the restaurant,” Carter said from where he stood across the hallway.
She’d been too caught up in Jeremy and his family to notice that he’d arrived. She hated that she’d said those mean things, but she knew under her anger there was a kernel of truth. For him as well, she thought.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I’m not,” he retorted, flashing that familiar smirk. “I put ‘big embarrassing fight with Lindsey’ on my resolutions list.”
She shook her head. “Glad I could help. I’m good at that.”
“Just like I like being a distraction,” he said, coming over to sit next to her. “That hurt.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not something I would have said to you.”
He lifted a dark brow. “Then why did you say it to Elizabeth? She’s my friend, too.”
She knew that. She’d said it because... Those reasons didn’t matter to her right now. “I don’t know. I just felt it was one more thing in my life that I had no control over and I hated it.” She took a breath, let it out. “It’s hard to deal with the way I feel for you. I know we hashed things out last night, but this morning it feels even more messed up than ever. I like sex with you. That part feels safe and okay, but the emotions and how tied you are to my skiing... I don’t like it.”
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
“You could maybe not always seem like everything works out for you. You act like nothing that happens between us fazes you,” she said.
“Of course it does,” he admitted. “I’m always running and trying to catch you, Linds, and you are always just out of my reach.”
She didn’t believe that for a minute. He had been there when she needed him, seen her at her worst, and always seemed so with it and cool. As if he was rolling on through life just as he had planned.
“It doesn’t seem that way,” she told him quietly. “I wish you had some flaws like me.”
“I have more flaws than you, gorgeous,” he said. “Everyone knows that.”
“You still have your career. You seem great at everything you try—even skiing—and I have to admit I was sort of hoping you wouldn’t be.”
“What can I say? I’ve always been good on the snow. You know...” Carter shrugged. “‘The cold never bothered me anyway.’” He sang the line from the Disney movie with a smile. “That’s why I’ve always been drawn to you.”
He was playing again. Trying to lighten the mood...to distract her from her very real fears. She knew that was why she’d started the fight today. He wasn’t just a distraction to her anymore. He hadn’t been for a while, and she was afraid to admit to herself how much she needed Carter. She was serious—too serious about her life and about having him in it. Her biggest fear was that to him she was a temporary stopover. And once he moved on, she’d be left alone again.
* * *
HE FELT THAT he was losing again. Last night he’d dodged the bullet and hadn’t had to bare his soul, and now it felt as if he might have shortchanged himself by not doing that. But her doubts were spurring on his, and he no longer felt as confident as he had when he’d woken this morning in her bed.
Alone in her bed.
Maybe that had been some sort of sign that he was too blind to see. He stretched his arm along the back of the seat and released a ragged breath. He wanted to hold her. To pull her into his arms, kiss her until she was aching for more and somehow fix everything that was broken between them. But he was afraid that he couldn’t.
That maybe there was no way for things to be fixed between them.
“Singing isn’t your strong suit,” she said at last in that
