New Year's Wish. Robyn GradyЧитать онлайн книгу.
can’t you explain?” he asked, pinning her with his penetrating blue-gray gaze.
“Last night, until the moment you arrived at my table, I was looking at my future and trying to figure out what my next move would be.” She sighed. “Last year at this time I was gearing up for a gold medal and setting my future, you know?”
“I do know. But things changed.”
“They did, and I ended up here in the bosom of some good friends and in the valley where I first learned to ski and started my world-champion path. I thought this was the place to press the reset button, but it didn’t work out that way. I couldn’t handle the slopes... I mean, not even the kiddie ones at first. Even now they still scare me.”
She tried to stop talking, but the words were just flowing out of her as though they wouldn’t be stopped. She’d needed to share this with someone, and Carter, as unlikely as it seemed, was the one person she was finally able to do it with.
“So the reset didn’t work,” he said, tracing the rim of his mug with his finger.
An image of him doing that exact same thing to her nipple popped into her head and made her squirm in her chair. Dammit. She never thought of sex this way. But Carter had changed her.
“No, it didn’t. I have seen a therapist and he suggested it was because reset means I can go back to where I was and that maybe somewhere in my brain is the thought that I don’t want to go back there.”
He nodded. “My therapist has often said that, for me, I have to keep moving forward. Once I master a skill, I need to find a new one.”
“That’s interesting... Does he have a theory why?” Maybe there was a clue in Carter’s problems that could lead her to a solution of her own.
“He does, but it’s very personal.” There was a glimpse of the real man. The one he kept hidden behind a curtain of sexy charm and outrageous dares.
“Sorry,” she said quietly. “Didn’t mean to pry.”
“I brought it up. Just throwing it out as an option.” Resting an elbow on the table, he turned to face her. “I want to help you get back on the slopes. It will be a way for me to make up for any part of your crash.”
“I told you that wasn’t your fault.”
“I know, but I need to do this. Plus, and if you repeat this to anyone I’ll deny it, but when you ski it’s like magic. I love watching you on the slopes, and I’d hate to never see you ski again.”
“Why would you deny that?” she asked, touched more than she wanted to be.
“Because I’m a bad-boy snowboarder and I’ve got a reputation to preserve,” he said with a wink.
“Well, far be it from me to ruin that for you,” she quipped. But deep down inside the freedom she’d felt last night was starting to fade. It made her wistful and wonder how she was going to achieve what had seemed so possible last night. How could she change her life?
“You won’t,” he said slyly. “So let’s see... How’s the knee? Have you taken any runs?”
Lindsey shook her head. She thought of how she sometimes brought her skis here and sat as though she’d just taken a run, even though she clearly hadn’t.
Who the heck was she trying to fool?
“My knee is fine. No runs. I mean, I’m teaching the classes, so I am on the bunny slopes with my kids, but that’s not really skiing.”
“Not for you,” he said.
“No, not for me. But why do you care? I mean, really. Not that BS about feeling guilty about my crash—the real story.”
He leaned in close and shrugged. “Maybe I sense that’s the only way you’ll let me see you again.”
He was right, but she wasn’t about to admit it to him. “We’re on a committee together, Carter. We will have to see each other again.”
He took a sip of his hot chocolate. “I expected better—more from you than this.”
She held the same high expectation for herself. “I’m sorry. I think the combo of too much to drink, a very sexy encounter and confusion left over from last night are making this morning difficult.”
“You think too much,” he said softly. “I’ve had more mornings-after than you. Take it from me, you have to just shake it off.”
She didn’t want to shake it off. A part of her wanted to be the woman she’d been last night. That bold, self-assured, confident woman she’d been with Carter, the woman who’d believed in herself. Surely that hadn’t just been the champagne talking. The seeds of that woman had to be inside her.
She just had to figure out how to sow them.
Carter was offering her something by saying he wanted to see her ski again. He’d always been that devilish rogue who could needle her into doing things she’d otherwise pass on.
“Were you serious about helping me ski again?”
“Yes. Thinking of taking me up on it?” he asked, leaning back and giving her a cocky smile. “I knew you would. Women can’t resist me.”
That was part of her problem. She didn’t want to be one of the masses that had been in Carter’s life. She wanted to be important and special. And she couldn’t. Not right now, because she hardly knew herself anymore.
* * *
CARTER REALIZED THAT Lindsey saw him as a bit of fun. And after all the women he’d played around with over the years, a part of him got that it was payback. But another part, the bit where he’d actually thought she was different than all the lovers he’d been with before, bristled. She was looking at him as if he were a stranger. The kind of man that she didn’t know or trust.
“What do you say, gorgeous? Want to give it a shot?”
“I do. I’m just not sure that I should be committing to doing anything more with you because you’re a bad influence.”
He looked at her, amused despite himself by her adorably earnest expression. “How do you figure?”
“Kissing dares. Sex twice in one night... Skiing again.”
He noted that she’d started with the light stuff and ended with what was really worrying her. “I’m not going to push you down the slope, Linds. I just want a chance to help you remember what you loved so much about the sport.”
She cocked her head to one side, her blond ponytail swinging behind her head, and he remembered the feel of her silky-smooth hair against his body. His blood heated, and he realized that he was working so hard to find a reason to stay in her good graces because he wanted her back in his bed.
He hadn’t been finished with her when she’d walked away, and now he had to do whatever was necessary to get her back.
“What do you know about my love of the sport?”
“Only that if I fell and couldn’t snowboard for six months, I’d be devastated. And though I’m retiring from amateur competition, I know I still want to be on the board. I can’t define myself without it.”
She gave him a hard stare. “I hate that you actually get me.”
He laughed, but inside a part of him was hurt by that. “Why?”
“You’re not a serious person. You think dares and games are the way to get what you want—”
“It’s worked for me in the past, hasn’t it?”
“You have a point.” She sighed. “Maybe this is what I need. So what do you recommend?”
“You have to get to the root of your fear.”
“How do you know that?”