she said, slouching back against the arm of the seat and looking over at him. “What are we going to do now?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I want to shrug this off and pretend that nothing happened, but we are both wounded by what we said. I’m sorry, too, by the way. Is there a way we can move forward from this?”
She tipped her head to the side, studying him. “Only if you are honest with me. You said that life isn’t as easy for you as it seems. Show me the real Carter.”
The real Carter. Did that man even exist? He had been pretending for so long that he almost thought that this guy was the real man. But he knew that he wasn’t. He knew from the way he’d been chasing after Lindsey, that each time she walked away from him he wanted something more.
“What’s real? I want you in my life,” he said.
“I know that. Why?”
How to put into words what he could barely understand as emotion. It was almost beyond him, and as he sat there in the quiet hallway he understood for the first time the real meaning of fear. He’d thought he’d experienced it before, but it paled compared with this. “You know how everyone in the world has an image of you?”
She nodded.
“Well, for me, I’ve always seen that beyond that you were this girl who wanted something more. You weren’t icy because you thought yourself above everybody.” He looked into her eyes. “You were cold because unless an endeavor improved your skiing, you didn’t bother with it. I liked that.”
“Why?”
He sighed. “You know how everyone thinks that nothing bothers me and I just keep rolling on?”
“Yes. That’s why I want to know what you feel,” she said.
“Well, I am the same as you. Underneath that, I do what I have to do to get back to the important stuff. I’ve always thought if we ever both dropped our guard, we’d have a lot in common and be a powerful pair. I’ve never told anyone, but I have dyslexia. It was hard for me to overcome.”
“But we can’t be,” she said sadly. “We’d both have to change to do that.”
“Change?”
“Yes, you can’t give up your persona and I can’t give up mine.” She sighed. “I realized that when I saw you yesterday in that hot tub.”
“That again? I thought we had settled it.”
“We did. I understand that you aren’t really interested in those other women, but that’s your persona. Nevertheless, I can’t be in a relationship with someone like that,” she told him.
“Careful, you’re starting to sound like I’m a distraction again,” he said. He had that sinking feeling in his gut that no matter what he said, Lindsey was slipping further and further away from him.
“You are one. You have been great for motivating me to get back on my skis, and I’m not going to pretend I’d be as close to contemplating the Super G again without you, but at the same time we just don’t fit together.”
“We fit together just fine when you stop worrying and just let us enjoy our time together.” He reached down and brushed his thumb over her lips, then clasped her chin in his palm. “What was it that spooked you this morning?”
She jerked away, as if his touch had singed her. “I’m not going to fight about this. I don’t want to say anything else that is mean to you.”
“Why not? Clearly you are okay with thinking them. So let’s be clear here,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “You are pushing me away for nothing other than your ego. Because you don’t want to be the woman who is confident enough in herself and in her man to be with me. Be with that public image of me.”
She nodded. “You’re right. I’m not. Ego isn’t my thing the way it is yours. I have tried to do this every way possible, but I keep coming back to the fact that you and I make no sense.”
Except in his heart. “Lindsey, please. I can give up my sponsorship if it will make you stay with me.”
She smiled at him, and his heart really almost broke. “No. That’s not what I want. My fears stem from my own insecurities. I thought that maybe I could change that, but I can see now I haven’t.”
“You are that way because you’ve never let yourself care about another man before. Are you going to deny it?”
“No, because it would be a lie,” she said stubbornly.
He thought it stemmed from his lack of a mother and how his father had never settled down. When Carter thought of forever— He didn’t think of forever. The future was always changing, and as much as he thought at this moment that he needed Lindsey by his side, he was afraid he might be wrong.
WATCHING CARTER WALK away was the hardest thing she’d done in a long time. She was tempted to go after him and bring him back to her. In the end she knew she needed more from him than he could give.
But Carter had given her back something she’d lost. That confidence she’d used to be able to rely on. She grabbed her skis and went to the top of the Wasatch Range. The most difficult run serviced by the resort and the one she’d be skiing in two weeks’ time for the charity event.
When she got to the top, she felt all of the crazy emotions that Carter inspired in her drop away. She stood at the top of the biggest run she’d dared to take since crashing out in Russia last year. Carter had made her realize a lot of things about herself, not the least of which was that she was no longer the woman she used to be.
But pieces of her still remained. She buckled her skis, pulled down her goggles and felt the breeze stir around her. The mountain was cold and very wintry today. Not the best day for a run, but she’d come up here, and nothing was going to stop her from taking it.
“Lindsey?”
She turned and saw that Carter was there. He’d followed her up the mountain. His hair was windblown, his shoulders broad as ever, and she had to turn away to keep from staring at him.
“What are you doing here? I thought we’d said all that we needed to.” She was secretly thrilled to see him.
“We have, but I promised you I’d see you back on the slopes, and last night we said we’d take this run together. Despite what you think about me, I’m a man of my word.”
She knew that. Maybe that was why she’d been pushing so hard for some sort of emotional commitment from him. She wanted some security in her life, and she had fallen in love with the one guy who was known for just drifting along.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. It’s a crap day, but I checked the mountain reports and there’s nothing too dangerous. Are you ready for it?”
She wrinkled her nose. She wanted
