before: with Maman, Johanna and Carla when they had waved goodbye to him, the day he’d started boarding school. They’d been left alone with a husband and father who drank and gambled too much and took out his anger on his family, without their big brother to protect them.
He cursed himself in silence, then said, ‘Rachel, I—’
She put up a hand. ‘I’ve heard enough apologies lately to last me a while. Now are you going to cure me of one of my less rational fears or not, Dr Bollinger? You said something about not letting me go, I believe?’
Her eyes were twinkling now. Even though he knew it was a thin blanket covering the pain beneath, it was taking them from dangerous waters to the safer ebb-tide. So he smiled back. ‘So I did, Mademoiselle Chase,’ he acknowledged with mock gravity, bowing his head, sweeping a hand around them to their very private night-ski-run he’d arranged. ‘But not until you have at least appreciated all the trouble I went to for you. All this beauty surrounds us, and so far you’ve only looked at the snowboard.’
As he spoke, he pulled out a clean tissue—when skiing, he always kept a packet on hand—gently wiped her eyes and the goggles hanging around her neck.
‘Would you like to wipe my nose as well, Papa Bear?’ she retorted with a loud, theatrical sniff, and he laughed. He laughed because it was cute; laughed because no woman had sniffed with him before unless it was in rage or for effect, using tears to get her way. No matter how badly he ached to take this a step further, Rachel wanted nothing from him but a skiing lesson. Despite the disappointment, it was a liberating feeling: no expectation, no neediness, just two sort-of-friends having a night-snowboarding session.
With gravity, he put the tissue to her nose and with laughing eyes she made a loud raspberry sound with her mouth, pretending to blow. They both laughed.
‘Oh …’
Looking at her—what was it about her that made it so hard to look away?—he saw she was looking into the night. There was wonder in those big eyes as she took in the scattered cloud in the star-filled night, the poles with the burning bags lighting up the night, the soft-dancing snowflakes and the white-laden fir trees along the slope. And, though it was all she said, she’d made all the trouble to surprise her more than worthwhile.
‘You’re welcome,’ he said, resisting the urge to touch that cold, snowy cheek or to bend and kiss those bitten pink lips, half-open as she drank in the night.
Had his voice sounded as hoarse as it felt to him? Did she know how much he longed to just taste her mouth once, to move his hands over her skin and see those beautiful eyes come alive for him?
Stop it. The last thing she needs right now is to start something I’ve never wanted to finish. I’m her emotional umbrella, nothing more. In a few weeks she’ll be moving on.
For the first time, a woman would be walking away from him and he would have no choice but to let her. So, struggling to ignore the stupid physical ache to touch that was part and parcel of being a man, he swirled his snowboard around, facing down the slope with her body fitting into his, sweet and snug. He ached again and again. It felt as if the ache would never end.
Rachel; this is for Rachel. She deserves to know there’s one man she can turn to without his demands, without regrets. He had to be a better man than he’d ever been. For Rachel.
‘Trust me?’ he asked softly.
After the briefest of hesitations, and a tiny wobble, she whispered, ‘I’m trying to.’
‘I won’t hurt you, Rachel.’ Why did the light, teasing tone he’d employed to such effect in the past suddenly sound like a solemn vow? ‘I won’t let you fall.’
Her expression turned sad for a moment, even as she kept hanging onto him for the balance that seemed so elusive for her. ‘There are some falls nobody can control, some hurts that can’t be prevented.’ Then she grinned again. ‘But if I end up in hospital in traction you are so dead, Bollinger.’
Relieved she’d jumped back on the light, playful path, he winked at her. ‘Ah, but you’d have to catch me first. Rather hard to manage from that position.’
And before she could retort in kind he moved the lower half of his body so they began sliding down the baby slope together on private, non-resort land far from the fun, romantic night-skiing he’d established years ago for his regular clients. He held her so that when she wobbled he could steady her; he moved them in as close to perfect sync as he could, slowly enough so that she wouldn’t feel loss of control.
And when she was moving on her own, with her inexpressibly kissable mouth stretched in a wide smile of discovered poise and the simple joy of living, he had to move. He had no choice, really. It was move or kiss her, because if there was ever a kissing moment it was this one.
So he pulled away far enough to hold her hand. ‘It’s time to see what you’re capable of.’ After a few panicked wobbles, he said encouragingly, ‘You’re a natural at this. You’re a snow queen. You can do this, Rachel. I know you can.’
Her astonishment, so clear even behind her goggles, and obvious in her open mouth, almost made him lose balance. ‘I—Thank you. Nobody ever …’ She gulped, gulped again. ‘Nobody,’ she whispered, and shook her head.
Nobody ever said that to me before.
And, instead of the wrong parts hurting, now it was his heart that ached for her—ached for the sweet, real ‘doc with empathy’ who seemed so overcome by a few words of faith. And he wished he hadn’t used words he’d said before to a hundred female guests.
‘It’s true,’ he said just loud enough for her to hear. ‘Rachel, look at where you are. You are doing it.’
She looked down at her twisting body, at the tiny slope she was conquering. ‘Oh,’ she whispered, and her whole face grew alight with radiance. ‘Armand, I’m doing it. I’m skiing.’
It wasn’t the moment to correct her, or even to say that snowboarding was thought to be the harder discipline. He smiled. He smiled because he couldn’t help it. His life had been dark and complicated for eighteen years and yet this woman, who was on the run from her life—a woman who’d suffered probably far more than he’d ever know—filled him with light and made him feel heartfelt bliss in this simple achievement. ‘Yes, you are.’
‘I feel like Lois Lane,’ she said as they passed his ‘start’ line, making small S-slides down the slope. ‘You know that scene when Superman let her fly just by holding her hand?’
‘Yes,’ he said, resisting the impulse to break the moment by asking if that made him Superman. She’d certainly made him feel that way.
‘I feel like I’m flying, Armand.’ She held onto his gloved hand as if she was about to drop off a cliff, not even realising she was all but doing everything she needed to on her own. ‘You make me feel as if I can do anything.’ She glanced at him; he knew because he couldn’t keep his eyes from her muffled form. He felt as if he was imbibing her sparkling happiness, clear as new wine, just by being with her. ‘Thank you, Armand, thank you.’ Her voice was choked.
He didn’t say it was nothing, because it wasn’t, not to her. ‘It’s my privilege to be here with you, Rachel.’
‘Darn, my goggles are fogging up again,’
