work to me!”
“Okay, but you know what I mean,” Deena pressed her case. “You always said you enjoyed working front desk duties while you were in college.”
“It was a motel near the campus and I got to meet a lot of guys who came there to party.”
“Well, for your information, Aspen is going to be the site for this year’s Black Winter Sports Reunion. Starts at the end of the month. There’ll be brothers…and sisters from ski clubs all over the country here for the fun—ice skaters, snowboarders and skiers. I’m already booked solid for the entire ten days.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
Skylar’s arched brows slowly began to settle lower above her smoky black eyes as she mulled Deena’s comment. The Black Winter Sports Reunion was going to be in Aspen? While confined to her bed, she’d been flipping through cable channels one day and had come across last year’s reunion, filmed at Steamboat Springs, on Black Entertainment Showcase. She had been impressed with the crowd and knew what kind of people were about to descend on the area. Fine, well-toned brothers who were about something. Fashion conscious sisters who looked good on and off the slopes. Solid professionals who enjoyed the finer things of life. The change might be exactly what she needed in order to move on.
I’ve played it safe for so long. Why not take a risk on this? Might be just what I need to take my mind off my troubles and get Lewis out of my system. Plus, I can help Deena out and maybe have a little fun, too, she told herself, looking forward to being around people who knew nothing about her past or her wealth. “Okay, Deena. Only for you and Jerome. I’ll do it. On one condition.”
“Just name it.”
“Absolutely no one knows that I’m newly rich,” Skylar requested.
“You know, I think that’s a very good idea,” Deena agreed. “Attractive, single women with money can be magnets for shady men looking for meal tickets and scam artists on the hunt. They’ve been known to hang around places like Aspen. And you’ll fit in better with the staff if they think you’re simply my sister, in need of a job. Your secret will be safe with me,” Deena promised. “Now go pack your bags and get on a plane.”
“Pack what? I don’t exactly have the kind of clothes I’m gonna need up there.”
“No problem. You can go shopping when you get here. The salespeople in town are friendly and will be very happy to help you pick out everything you need.”
And I’m gonna need all the help I can get, Skylar thought, hoping this unexpected adventure would not turn into an absolute disaster.
Chapter 3
“Okay. Let’s try this again. Find your balance. Stand still and concentrate,” Mark Jorgen patiently instructed as he gently placed one gloved hand on Goldie Lamar’s left shoulder.
“I’m trying, really I am,” Goldie whined in exasperation. She sucked in a loud breath and lifted her chin. “This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”
“You’re doing fine. Stand tall in your boots until the pressure from the tongue of the boot feels equally distributed from shin to calf. Most of your weight should be felt between the heel and the arch of the foot.”
With a shrug, Goldie pulled back her shoulders, pressed her bright red lips together in a hard pucker and stared out across the snow-covered slope. “All right. All right. I think I feel it.”
“Good, now gently slide your right ski ahead of your left,” Mark told his student before letting go. He stepped back to watch Goldie try, for the fifth time, to push off the hill and head down the beginners’ slope, praying she would be successful. She was a terrible student with no sense of balance, but she was also the mega-wealthy daughter of one of Colorado’s finest jewelers and had paid quite a premium for the deluxe ski package. He had to make sure she got her money’s worth.
He had been working with Goldie for two days without much progress at all, and was beginning to wonder if she had signed up for lessons only to spend time alone with him. That was not unusual, especially among the women he recruited while hanging out at the Ridge Rover bar in Woody Creek, where he often went to mix and mingle with the locals and guests from nearby resorts. His “impromptu” appearances always generated lots of excitement, leading to talk about his Olympic career, his worldwide travels and his methods of training. By the end of the evening, if he was lucky, he might have five or six new students lined up for classes at Scenic Ridge.
Now, with a jerk, Goldie moved one leg forward, hesitated and then let out an ice-shattering scream. Swaying unsteadily, she toppled to the left, clutched Mark, and collapsed against him, pulling them both to the ground.
“I can’t do this, Mark!” Goldie loudly complained. “I’ll never learn to ski!” She snatched off her goggles and hurled them across the snow where they shattered against a shaggy pine tree. Next, she yanked off her red knit cap and pressed her head hard to Mark’s chest, slumping dramatically against him. “I guess I’m not cut out to be a skier,” she groaned.
“Don’t give up so easily,” Mark encouraged, starting to push her away.
Quickly, Goldie leaned back and smiled up at him, shaking out her hair to release a cascade of tangled platinum curls that framed a startling, beautiful face. Her alabaster skin was flushed pink from the cold and her eyes were a cool aquamarine, now narrowed to half-mast in mock-anger. “And I wanted so much to have a successful lesson today. Maybe this whole ski vacation idea was not so great, huh? Maybe I ought to go home before I break something.”
Mark shrugged, and then sat in the snow to calmly listen while Goldie continued to whine about her clumsiness, her disappointment in herself and the cold weather. He knew she was putting on an act, and that she was picking up the tab for three deluxe ski packages for herself, her sister and her mother-in-law, dropping a bundle of cash for their one-week stay at Scenic Ridge. There was no way he was going to encourage her to cancel her plans and leave. After all, he was more than a ski instructor at Scenic Ridge: he was part of the team, and as such, he had to make sure that each guest was a satisfied customer, which sometimes took some doing.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. We’ll get there. It takes time,” he reassured Goldie, taking in the scent of her perfume, which he recognized right away—Electric Orchid—two-hundred-fifty dollars an ounce. He also recognized a bored, rich, spoiled young woman eager for an affair with her ski instructor when he saw one. How many women like her had he dealt with over the years? Too damn many to count.
“Come on. Let’s try again,” Mark urged as he began to untangle himself from Goldie’s clutch, convinced that she was much more interested in holding on to him than her two ski poles, which lay scattered in the snow a few feet away.
“No. Not now,” Goldie decided, snuggling deeper into her instructor’s arms, as if settling in for a chat. She zeroed in on Mark, adopting an expression that told him she was not going anywhere, anytime soon. She grabbed hold of the front of his jacket and pushed her face even closer to his. “Can’t we just sit here and talk?”
Holding his breath, and desperate to mask his growing irritation, Mark eased her fingers off the zipper of his jacket. “No, I don’t think so. It’s getting late and I’m already way behind schedule.” Somehow, he managed to stand and then help Goldie to her feet. Luckily her skis were still intact. “Okay. Assume the same position
