My Kind of Wonderful(3)

She smiled. “Stubborn? Annoying?”

“Set to go,” he said.

She laughed and he smiled. “I’ll help you back to the lift,” he said.

“Oh, I’m good now, thanks to you.” Rising, she nudged her ski into place so that she could secure her boot into it. She struggled with that for a minute, unable to snap her ski in, the effort causing her arms to tremble a little bit.

Hud started forward but she stopped him with a raised hand and he checked himself.

Ski number two took her longer because she had a balance problem. He lasted until she started to fall over and then all bets were off. Again he moved toward her but at the last second she managed to catch herself on her pole. When she finally clicked that second ski in, she lifted her head and flashed him a triumphant smile, like she’d just climbed a mountain.

“Got it!” she said, beaming, swiping at her brow like maybe she was sweating now. “See? I’m good.”

“You were right about the stubborn,” he said. “But not the annoying.”

“Well, you haven’t given me enough time.” And with another flashing smile, she pushed off on her poles.

In the wrong direction.

Hud caught her by the back of her jacket. Even with all those layers, she was surprisingly light. Light enough that he could easily spin her around and face her in the right direction, which was a hundred and eighty degrees from where she’d started.

She laughed and damn, she really did have a great laugh, one that invited a man right in to laugh along with her. “Right,” she said, patting him on the chest. “Thanks. Now I’m good.”

At his hip, his radio was buzzing. His guys were checking in, getting ready for their high-and low-angle rope rescue drills. Hud was supposed to run the exercise, but he wanted to make sure the woman got safely on the lift first.

“Sounds like you have to go,” she said.

“I do.” But when he didn’t move, her brows went up. “You’re cute,” she said. “But you do know that even an intelligent person can screw up reading a map, right? That despite whatever it looks like, I really don’t need a keeper.”

Wait a minute. Did she just call him cute? He’d never once in his life been called cute.

Taking in his expression she laughed, like he was funny. “It was a compliment,” she said.

Not in his book. His radio crackled again. Dispatch this time, making sure he’d located the “troubled” skier. “I’ve got her,” he confirmed, eyes narrowed in on the skier in question. “It’s handled.”

The dispatcher went on to fill him in on two other incidents. Hud told her how to deal with them both and then replaced the radio on his hip.

“Okay,” his wayward skier said. “I stand corrected. You’re not cute. You’re kinda badass with all that bossy ’tude. Happy now?”

Happy? More like dizzy. “Let’s just get you to the lift,” he said. Calm. Authoritative. The same tone that people usually listened and responded to.

Usually…

“I’m good now,” she said, and with a wave pushed off on her poles, thankfully heading directly toward the ski lift.

Not surprisingly, she wasn’t all that steady. This was because she kept her knees locked instead of bending them, incorrectly putting her weight on the backs of her skis. Whoever had given her those lessons at Breckenridge should be fired.

But she hadn’t asked him for tips. And he no longer worked at the ski school.

She’d be fun to teach, though. The thought came unbidden and he shrugged it off. All he cared about was that she was on the right path now, leaving him free to take Devil’s Face hard and fast the way he’d wanted.

Except… Her helmet lay in the snow at his feet, forgotten. He had no idea how anyone could forget the eye-popping cherry-red thing against the white snow, but she had.

And so had he, when he rarely forgot anything. It was those pretty eyes, that sweet yet mischievous laugh, both distracting as hell. “Hey,” he called after her. “Your helmet.”

But she must have put her earbuds back in because she didn’t stop or turn back.

Hud scooped up the helmet and, giving Devil’s Face one last longing look, headed toward the lift as well, catching up with her halfway there.

She’d stopped and had her weight braced on her poles. Bent over a little bit, she was huffing and puffing, out of breath. They were at well over eight thousand feet and altitude could be a bitch. It affected everyone differently, but breathlessness was the most common side effect.

Although an uncomfortable and worrisome thought came to him that maybe it wasn’t the altitude at all. When he’d lifted her before, she’d been light, almost… frail. People didn’t realize it took a lot of strength and stamina to ski, and he was nearly positive she didn’t have either. He put a hand on her shoulder.

She whirled to face him, saw the helmet dangling off his finger, and pulled out an earbud with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I think the altitude’s getting to me. I really should’ve gotten some caffeine down me before facing the mountain.” She slid on the helmet. “Thanks, Prince Charming.”

“Huh?”

“You know, Cinderella,” she said. “The prince had her slipper and you had my helmet… Never mind,” she said with a pat to his arm when he just stared at her. “Ignore me. Probably I should’ve put far more practical things on my list than skiing in the Rockies.”