Snow Angel (15 page)

Every year, she re-conquered her fear. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

While it did get lonely spending so much time on the tamer slopes by herself, it was either that or not ski at all, and she wouldn’t let that be an option.

And sometimes, she thought, scanning the smiling ski instructor in his red-and-black ski pants and jacket, sometimes the lessons gave her a little gift, too. Like a morning spent with a totally hot guy on the slopes.

Melinda smiled to herself. Perfect! He’d be a welcome distraction from her love-life woes and the ski lifts all rolled into one.

As the rest of the class gathered around, slipping and sliding a bit while trying to control their skis, the instructor performed a couple of quick warm-up moves, getting ready to lead the class.

What she could see of his face—a strong jaw line, carved cheekbones, and a ready smile—looked more than promising. It was impossible to see his eyes through his goggles, and his forehead was covered by his ski cap, but his hair was a shaggy golden-blond. The ends brushed the collar of his jacket. He was nowhere near as tall as her cousins or Jacob, maybe five-ten-or-eleven like Eddie, and it was hard to tell much about his physique through the ski garb, other than that he was fit. He struck her as more obviously muscle bound, as though he had the body of a weightlifter or a boxer.

“Okay, everyone. Welcome to the beginner’s class,” he began.

She detected a slight accent in his voice. Scandinavian, maybe? He pushed his goggles back on his head, revealing pale green eyes with thick, short blond eyelashes. Cute, Melinda decided. Definitely cute.

“My name’s Dane Olsen, and I’ll be your instructor today. Why don’t you introduce yourselves, tell us where you’re from, and also if you’ve had any experience on skis before.”

They went around in a loose circle while Dane checked them off on his clipboard. There was a newly-wed couple from Kansas, who were on their honeymoon, and a brother and sister in their early teens from Arizona, plus their grandfather, who had to be fast approaching his seventies. None of them had skied before.

Melinda smiled a greeting when it was her turn and opened her mouth to speak, but Dane spoke first.

“You must be Melinda,” he said, putting a checkmark beside another entry on his list.

He swept his gaze over her and smiled, showing small, white teeth with crooked incisors. Adorable. When his green eyes met hers, Melinda smiled back.

He said, “No way you’re a first-timer.”

“I like a refresher now and then,” she said with a shrug.

“Wait, Melinda Honeywell, right?” Dane said, consulting his clipboard again. “Don’t I have you this afternoon, too?”

“You’re teaching the intermediate class?”

Now his smile widened even further. “A glutton for punishment, I see,” he said with a wink. “I’ll make sure you get a good workout.”

The look in his eyes had pleasant heat crawling up her cheeks, but thankfully he returned his attention to the rest of the class before anyone noticed, and they began the lesson.

“You guys are in luck today with all this fresh powder,” Dane told them. “Great conditions.”

For the first hour, they went over the basics again and again, from safety rules, to using their poles, to the herringbone step for walking up a hill on skis without sliding backward. Once the class had mostly mastered staying on their feet while moving forward, and the critical skill of stopping when desired instead of by accident, Dane got them going on the rope-tow.

It felt good to be on skis again, even at this slow pace. Melinda enjoyed taking her time with the maneuvers, testing out her still-sore ankle and finding it steady, reveling in the gorgeous day. She pulled a tube of lip balm out of her pocket and smoothed it over her lips to keep them moist, smiling to herself when she caught Dane watching.

The teenagers took to it right away and were soon racing each other down the beginner slope, their grandfather on their heels, all three giggling maniacally. The honeymooners had considerably more trouble, but didn’t seem to care in the least. Melinda suspected the wife was putting on a bit of a damsel-in-distress show for her new husband, who played the rescuing hero with equal flair.

“Keep your knees over your toes, Cheryl,” Dane called to the wife, “not so far forward.”

Cheryl waved an acknowledgement and continued on her way with her hubby in hot pursuit. That left Dane with a little extra time for Melinda, and he took advantage of it, teasing and flirting with her all over the slope. He came on a little strong a few times, but after everything that had happened with Mitch, it soothed her damaged heart to know a hot ski instructor found her attractive.

She wasn’t full of false modesty. She’d gone through an extended fugly stage when she was younger, but she knew she was pretty now, and she gave her thanks and the credit for her looks where it was due—to God, good fortune, and her parents’ combined DNA. Mitch’s leaving her had had nothing to do with her, and everything to do with his own screwed up psyche.

Who else would willingly go back to someone as unstable as Christina?

Melinda had plenty of confidence in herself and her accomplishments. She wanted a man who would appreciate who she was as a person, not just how she looked.

Still… She had to admit, as Dane flashed past her with another wolfish smile, it was nice to get a little ego-boosting validation.

Dane swooshed to a stop at the bottom of the hill, spraying an arc of snow, and blew his whistle to catch everyone’s attention.

“Okay, guys,” he said, “great job. You’ve done really well with the basics and the rope-tow. We’ve got about twenty more minutes, so it’s time to try the regular lifts and get off the bunny slope. You ready?”

Everyone nodded, the honeymooners a bit nervously, and Melinda concentrated on deep-breathing to settle the skittish jump in her pulse.

It’s like riding a bike
, she reminded herself.
You’ve done it a million times. No big deal.

Taking another deep breath, she pushed off and followed the rest of the class to the lift line. Dane stood at the front of their group, giving instructions and having them watch other skiers approach and get onto the swinging seats.

Melinda barely heard him. She knew how to do it, of course, but that didn’t stop the buzzing in her ears.

The lift seated three per bench. They were going to go up in pairs the first time to make it easier to disembark at the top without getting tangled in each other’s skis.

Dane got the teens going, letting them know there’d be help at the top for getting off the lift and instructing them to wait before heading down the hill.

Next were the honeymooners, who needed two tries, then whooped like lottery winners when they managed to take their seat. Dane paired Melinda with the kids’ grandfather, who got it in one, then followed them up on his own bench.

Melinda kept her left hand in a vise-grip on the handle and stared straight ahead, above the trees, making sure to keep her eyes from the earth falling away below her skis. Her pulse beat a hard staccato in her ears, and her breaths got shorter and shorter.

She needed a distraction.

Refocusing her attention on the next bench with the honeymooners helped. They were making out like mad, not paying the least attention to the lift, the heights, the view, or the approaching top of the line where they’d need to get off.

She’d planned to make out with Mitch plenty on this trip, and to have a few hot-and-heavy kissing sessions to take her mind off riding the lifts, as the honeymooners were doing.

Oh, well. The best laid plans.

More disturbing was the vision of making out with Jacob that intruded on her thoughts, replacing Mitch’s face. Heat spiraled through her veins in crazy loops.

That was… interesting.

And sort of crazily thrilling.

And, oh God, it had to stop.

Luckily, after the first few minutes of riding, the grandfather, whose name was Barney, proved to be a chatty bench mate. His cheerful conversation helped distract her enough that by the time they reached the top, her breathing had almost returned to normal, even if her hands remained tightly clenched.

The honeymooners, predictably, fell in a heap trying to get off the lift. They bounced back up, mile-wide grins on their faces, and eyes for only each other. Hand in hand, they shuffle-stepped awkwardly out of the way in time for Melinda and Barney to disembark.

Dane sped off the lift, saluting the pretty female operator monitoring everyone’s progress off the seats, but the girl cut her eyes sideways, ignoring him. Dane continued on as if he hadn’t noticed and gathered the class in a circle again, out of the way of the lift.

“Okay, we’re going to take the slope slowly the first time,” he said. “You guys follow me, and stay in a loose vee formation as best you can. We’re going to traverse the hill in wide, level lines to keep our speed down. If you get going too fast, remember your snowplow—make a pizza-slice shape with your skis and dig in a bit, and you’ll slow right down. Try not to cross your skis. When it’s time to turn, push out with your downhill ski to carve, and shift your weight like this.”

He gave a few quick demonstrations to make sure they all remembered, then they were off.

The new hill was considerably longer than the bunny slope. They started off well enough, though everyone but Dane and Melinda fell at least once on the way down.

She concentrated on perfecting her form, making sure her ankle held solid on the turns, and staying out of the way of the other skiers, who avoided the class and their slow speeds as much as possible.

There were plenty of calls of, “Skier’s right!” and “Skier’s left!” as they flashed past the class, and some called out encouragement or hailed Dane.

Although the top of the run was high up the mountain, the grade was mild and didn’t bother Melinda the way the lifts did. Something about being on her own two feet—or  skis—made a difference, especially with no steep drop-offs or cliffs to worry about, so she was able to enjoy the exercise and the day.

The tremors caused by riding the lift had vanished as soon as she left the bench. They’d come back for the next ride, of course, though each round would get easier. Pride kept her chin lifted. What mattered was that she controlled her phobia. Day after day, year after year, she didn’t let it stop her. Someday, maybe the lifts wouldn’t bother her at all anymore. Until then, she’d keep fighting the fear and keep doing what she loved.

“Looking good, Miss Honeywell,” Dane called, looking her up and down with an obvious approval that had nothing to do with her athletic skills.

Melinda smiled her thanks, though she didn’t take the flattery to heart. Ski instructors were notoriously flirty.

When they reached the bottom, Melinda grinned at the exhilarated faces of her fellow classmates. They’d made it, and everyone was pumped up and ready to do it again.

She’d been skiing for too many years to remember what it had felt like the first time she’d made it down a real run, but it didn’t matter. She shared their delight in the accomplishment, if for different reasons, and now that the annual first-lift hurdle was behind her, she was ready to tackle the slopes, too.

The intermediate class later that afternoon would be more about working on her skill level, not worrying about the lifts.

She glanced at Dane, who had waved them back into their class circle. It wouldn’t be a hardship to spend another couple hours in his company, either. He caught her eye, and she smiled.

“Awesome!” Dane said. “Really great job, everyone. Before I turn you loose on the slopes, I’d like to thank you on behalf of myself and the lodge for taking my class.” He pulled a handful of paper slips from his breast pocket and passed them around. “Here’s a coupon for ten-percent off your next purchase in any of the resort restaurants. Now let’s go up together one more time, then when you reach the bottom, you’re free to go enjoy the rest of your day. Have fun, and remember to stay safe.”

The newlyweds got on the lift first this time—two tries, again—then the teens rode up with their grandfather, leaving Melinda to ride with Dane.

After they took their seat, Dane transferred his poles to his outside hand and laid his left arm across the back of the chair around Melinda’s shoulders. She held on tight to the bar on her side and tried to ignore the way he kicked his legs back and forth, making the seat swing more than she liked.

“So, Melinda Honeywell,” he said, big smile in place, blindingly-white teeth flashing in the sun. “California, right? What part?”

“Southern. The high desert.” She bit her lip. Did he really have to move around so much?

“The high desert. Where’s that, like Palm Springs?”

“No, Palm Springs is low desert. The high desert is north, up the Cajon Pass. If you’ve ever driven from here through Vegas and on toward LA, you’ve gone right through it. What about you?”

“Denmark,” he said, puffing out his chest.

“Dane from Denmark?” she said, chuckling a bit through her teeth and squeezing her fingers ever tighter around the handle as he continued to swing his legs.

He grinned. “Yeah, my parents lacked imagination. Are you okay?”