Something to Prove. Cathryn Parry

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СКАЧАТЬ her poles.

       He was about to pass her so he could motion her to stop at the outcropping at the base of the hill, but when she saw what he’d brought her up here to see, she abruptly halted.

       A MAGNIFICENT WINTER SUNSET spread orange and gold rays across the valleys of the Alps. Amanda stood on the ledge, her breath puffing in front of her, and thought she’d never seen anything so beautiful.

       The scrape of skis against snow sounded behind her, and she knew without turning that it was Brody. She heard the clank of metal against plastic as he released his feet from his ski bindings, then the crunch of hard-packed snow as he stabbed the ends of the skis into the mountainside.

       He stalked toward her and stepped between the backs of her skis. “What was that all about?” His voice was rough against her ear.

       With a sigh she leaned back into his chest. “This is a beautiful sunset.”

       “Someone taught you,” he insisted. “You have textbook technique.”

       She nearly laughed. “You don’t know how ironic it is to hear you say that.”

       And then, because she owed him an explanation, she did the difficult thing and told him the truth. “Okay, I’m just…upset because my mom would have loved it up here. That’s all.”

       Brody’s cheek pressed against the side of her cap and his hands went to her waist. “Is she the one who taught you to ski?”

       Her heart was going to break wide open if she wasn’t careful.

       “Y-yes.” She bit the inside of her cheek and turned to him. “I told you, I’m a girl from the north country, and so was my…mom. Like you said, we all grow up learning to ski.” She faked a shrug.

       “How long ago did you lose her?” he asked quietly.

       She thought about deflecting him, but couldn’t. “Sh-she died two months ago.”

       He pulled her close and kissed her on the cheek. “Manda, I’m sorry.”

       “Why? It’s not your fault. I’ve been putting it out of my mind, but being in the mountains, it was bound to come back.” She blinked quickly, forcing herself past the rawness of her grief. “What about you?” she said with a phony smile. “Do you often come up here just to visit the sunset?” She kept it as light and teasing as she could, because she didn’t want him to know how badly losing her mom had hurt. The wound was still too fresh, too raw, so she simply did her best to pretend it didn’t exist.

       She laughed and rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll bet you bring a different woman with you up here every time you ski this resort, don’t you, Brody?”

       But he just looked at her as if he understood the emotion she’d been fighting and didn’t judge her for it. “I’ve been training on this mountain for over ten years, Manda, and this is the first time I’ve brought anyone here.”

       She might not have believed him if she hadn’t seen the flush creep into his cheeks. “Oh,” she murmured.

       “You coming from home and all, I thought you were the right person to finally see it with.”

       Her eyes felt moist and she realized it was because his motives were pure. He’d come up here not to make out with her on a chairlift, but because he liked her and wanted to spend time with her. She couldn’t remember the last time a guy had genuinely wanted to get to know her better, with no ulterior motives.

       Who was she kidding? It had never happened. Going to a ski-country boarding school and then college, she’d found most guys who pursued her only did so because they wanted a chance to meet her famous ski-coach father. But Brody already knew her father, and he didn’t want a thing to do with him. Brody was up here because of her.

       She pulled off her heavy ski glove and wiped at her eyes.

       “What’s wrong?” he asked.

       She just shook her head. Tomorrow in church with Jeannie would be one of the hardest mornings of her life, if she were honest with herself, but right now was perfect. “Nothing about this day is wrong,” she said softly. She held out her hand and he took it. “I like skiing with you.”

       But the sun was sinking, and soon it would be too dark to ski. She wasn’t ready to let him go just yet. She felt comforted by his presence, and she didn’t want him to leave. She certainly didn’t want to go back to Jeannie’s party.

       “Do you want to grab some dinner?” he asked, still holding her hand. “I can ask one of the guys on my team to pick up some sandwiches for us. If we take that trail—” he pointed with his chin toward the left fork “—there’s a place at the bottom where we can meet him. It’s a harder trail, but I know you’re capable.”

       She made a small laugh. “I’ll never get over how ironic that sounds.”

       “Will you stay?” With his free hand, he fumbled inside his jacket pocket for his phone.

       “Yes, Brody. I’ll stay.”

      CHAPTER FIVE

      AMANDA LOVED THE TINY, QUIRKY Leopardo Hotel. One of the guys who worked for Brody met them there with a grocery bag filled with sandwiches, a bottle of wine, real cutlery and glasses for a mini-picnic in the room Brody rented. As he set it on a table in front of the already-burning fire, Amanda smelled fresh salami, cheeses and yeasty bread fresh from the oven.

       “There’s a woman in the village we trust,” Brody explained, opening up his wallet and pulling out some cash. “She has a clean kitchen and makes great food the way we ask her to.”

       Amanda’s stomach growled. She unzipped Jeannie’s ski jacket and then stepped out of the rental boots the way Brody had done.

       “Sorry,” he said, turning from paying the young guy for the meal. “Amanda, this is Steve. He’s my ski tech. Steve, this is Amanda.”

       “Pleased to meet you.” Amanda held out her hand, but Brody’s ski tech ducked his head, his shaggy blond hair covering his eyes, and mumbled something she couldn’t catch. He was out the door before Amanda could say anything more.

       “Don’t mind him,” Brody said, “he’s shy.”

       There must have been a lot of that going around, because she was suddenly feeling it too. She bit her lip as he pulled out a bottle of wine from the bag and immediately started uncorking it. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

       He passed her a glass of red wine—Barolo, according to the label. “Do you want to toast?”

       She looked at the glass for a long time. The wine glittered in the firelight like rubies. “I really shouldn’t drink anything.” She could feel the flush in her face. What the heck, she might as well state the obvious. “Jeannie’s wedding is tomorrow morning, and then I’m flying home afterward.”

       She gazed at him so he’d know. “To New York City.”

       “I…YEAH.”

       Brody got the message, СКАЧАТЬ