Moonlight Over Manhattan(95)
This wasn’t how she’d thought it would be. She’d gone on dates, hoping to find love, and had never expected to find it when she wasn’t looking. And yet that was what had happened. She’d fallen in love with him piece by piece, heartbeat by heartbeat. With each glance, each touch, each conversation, she’d slid deeper. She wasn’t sure if she felt ecstatic or terrified.
But she knew what his reaction would be.
He’d back off. Withdraw. Protect himself, and believe he was protecting her.
He’d end the relationship.
And she wasn’t ready for that. That, she thought, was a challenge too far.
So she said nothing. Simply lay in the dark with her secret, thinking of all those times she’d thought about falling in love and wondering why she’d ever thought it would be simple.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE WEEK FLEW PAST, in the way time always seemed to whenever something good was happening.
To Ethan’s surprise, and hers, Harriet turned out to be a natural skier.
Tyler commented that the yoga and Pilates had probably helped her balance and strengthened her core muscles, but Ethan thought it had more to do with the new determination she showed in everything she did.
In the relatively short time he’d known her, he’d seen a change in her. A big change.
She had a confidence now that had been lacking in the woman he’d first met in the emergency room. The woman who had stammered and fled from his apartment had been replaced by a woman who didn’t seem much inclined to flee from anything.
Now, instead of having to force herself to meet her daily challenge, she seemed to embrace it. Bring it on. It was as if all those days of doing the thing she found most hard had taught her that her limits didn’t lie where she’d originally thought. She’d stepped outside the walls she’d built for herself and discovered a whole new world.
He’d seen it that morning when Tyler had suggested she take the chair lift up the mountain and tackle a run that would have been beyond the scope of most beginners.
There had been a brief moment when she’d thought about it and then she’d nodded and stomped her way toward the lift in her rigid boots, carrying her skis.
He’d seen the concentration on her face, the frustration when she’d fallen in an inelegant heap, and the determination with which she’d scrambled upright again. It was as if that ski run had been in some way representative of the way she intended to live her life.
Watching her made him wonder when he’d last pushed himself out of his comfort zone.
Marriage, probably.
In a serious relationship that had demanded things of him, he’d been seriously out of his comfort zone.
When he’d come here with Alison, she’d insisted that he stay by her side in case she fell. It had taken a matter of hours for her to decide skiing was an expensive form of suicide, and after that she’d resented the time he spent skiing.
I don’t even get to see you when we’re on vacation.
Harriet actively encouraged him to leave her and ski with Tyler.
“It will be less embarrassing for me if you’re not standing there watching.” She let him haul her to her feet again after yet another fall. “I plan to go up and down this run until I can do it without falling.”
In the end she persuaded him to go and he and Tyler had one of the best days skiing either of them could remember. They skied Devil’s Gully, which, Ethan reflected, probably wasn’t the most sensible thing he’d ever done in his life given that most of the year his fitness was honed on machines. Pounding on a treadmill and hefting weights wasn’t the same as hurling yourself off a cliff and hurtling down a slope so steep it made your thighs scream and your gut churn. For the seven minutes of hair-raising descent, he’d definitely been out of his comfort zone.
He reached the bottom of the run in the same condition he’d started it, and counted himself lucky.
“You’re out of condition.” Tyler grinned at him. “City life is making you soft.”
Halfway through the week the rest of his family arrived. First his parents, who had booked a lodge to themselves, and then his sister, who drove up from New York with her husband and Karen, who seemed to have almost fully recovered from her ordeal.
Much to Harriet’s delight, Madi was with them.
The dog greeted Ethan with an enthusiasm he knew he didn’t deserve.
Maybe Harriet wasn’t the only one who had changed, he thought as he dropped to his haunches to play with the dog. He’d changed too.
His mother cooked and they ate in the cabin. Several times over dinner he caught his sister watching him, and knew she had questions that no doubt she wouldn’t hold back from asking.
The problem was, he didn’t have answers.
His decision to invite Harriet to join him on this trip had been an impulsive one. As it turned out, it had also been a good one. She charmed everyone with her kind, quiet nature and she especially charmed the dogs. They followed her around the resort as if she were the Pied Piper.
The grilling he’d been expecting came as he and his sister washed up.
“So—” Debra thrust a dripping plate into his hands. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
“Nothing.” He dried the plate and placed it back in the rack. “If you’re planning an interrogation, don’t waste your breath.”