Jill Shalvis - Instant Attraction

“Okay, so the lodge.” Annie pointed to a wide hallway off to the right of the living room. “You’ve seen it all by now. The wing of eight guest rooms, the crew that comes in from Wishful to clean…they’ll probably come by your desk for a check today. Pay them or they won’t come back.” Annie pointed to the opposite hallway off to the left, where there was a movie room, the dining room, and a huge kitchen. “Sometimes I hire additional help from town, like today. They’ll want to be paid as well.”

“Got it.”

Annie pointed to the portion of the living room done up like an old western bar, where if there were overnight guests, it could get really hopping. “And whoever comes in to bartend tonight will want to be paid as well. Okay, gotta go.”

“Wait. Month end?”

“I have no idea, but if Stone does it, it can’t be that hard. Oh, and you’re not on our bank account yet, so he probably left you a few checks signed.”

“He left signed checks?” she asked, a little horrified.

Annie patted her hand. “Honey, this ain’t LA.”

“But someone could steal a check and wipe out your account.”

“Girl, you’re in the mountains now. If anyone came in here and tried to steal a check, someone would just shoot him.” She shook her head and laughed at the idea.

Katie didn’t, because holy crap, she didn’t actually think Annie was kidding. Her next words proved it.

“The shotgun’s in the closet upstairs, if you need it.”

“Ohmigod.”

“Just remember, Stone loves to read reports and stuff, so make sure to print everything out as you go-”

She broke off as a tall, lanky man in well-worn jeans and a tool belt walked into the room. It was Nick Alder, Wilder Adventures’s heli-pilot and mechanic. He was good-looking in a “been a ski bum for twenty years” sort of way. He had a mop of brown curls exploding on his head and matching brown eyes to go with the tanned face and easygoing stride, which came to an abrupt halt at the sight of Annie.

“Nick,” she said in a chilly voice that had Katie taking another look at the two of them. In the week she’d been here, she’d not seen them together before. The tension level was…interesting.

“Annie.” Nick, normally approachable and laid-back, looked extremely uncomfortable as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “I thought you’d be…”

“Out of your hair?” The chef’s mouth curved, but her eyes were flashing…hurt? “No such luck. Stone needs you. Uh…” She took a quick glance at Katie, then turned back to Nick. “Something came up.”

“I already know,” Nick said.

“You know?” This clearly pissed her off.

Katie thought about warning poor Nick that there was a loaded shotgun just upstairs, but Annie spoke first. “You might have told me, Nick.”

He opened his mouth, then shut it again. “You told me not to tell you anything. You told me not to talk to you, remember?”

The sound Annie made spoke volumes on how she felt about that.

“Look, I’m sorry.”

“Yes, you are,” she agreed. “You’re one sorry son-of-a-”

“If this is about the divorce papers-”

“It’s not. Or it wouldn’t be, if you’d just sign them!”

Nick rocked back on his heels and said nothing to that.

Katie tried to disappear into the floorboards.

And Annie just shook her head. “Oh, forget it. You’ll have to sign them eventually.” She turned to Katie. “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you any more time right now.”

In other words, go away. Message received. Leaving the two of them at their stalemate, Katie went up the stairs and into an open reception area. Her desk was huge and gorgeous, made from an old oak door tipped on its side. It was piled high with paperwork, and also held a computer and the usual office supplies.

Katie was a numbers girl. Before her accident, she’d been content working at an accounting firm. In that world, things needed to add up in order to make sense. Things fell in line and had a purpose.

But no longer. After the accident, life hadn’t balanced, no matter how hard she’d tried to get it to do so.

She pulled off her jacket, and as she did every morning, she looked at the wall. It was covered with awards for various world-class winter events: Winter X Games, Burton European Open, Olympics, and many more. There were shelves, too, filled with trophies, some stacked three thick.

All of them for one person-Cameron Wilder.

How she’d not placed that until now, she had no idea. The phone on her desk rang, and still staring in amazement at the wall that now made sense, she picked it up. “Wilder Adventures.”

“Katie, it’s Stone. I need you to grab the set of keys in your top right drawer, go out to the equipment garage, climb into the Sno-Cat, and start it. One of our neighbors is coming to borrow it, and it takes forever to warm that sucker up.”

“Okay.” She pulled out the keys and looked out the window at the garage. “One question. What’s a Sno-Cat?”

That got her a laugh. “It’s the big orange machine right inside the garage door that looks like a giant’s Tonka toy. Climb into it, put the key in the ignition, push in the choke, and turn the key while pumping the gas twice. Leave the garage door open so you don’t die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Sam’ll bring the Cat back later and drop the keys off with you.”

Okay…Katie pulled her jacket back on, ran down the steps and outside, sucking in a breath as the cold slapped her in the face. So different from the hot, sticky, non-winter of Los Angeles, for which she was eternally grateful.

She made her way on the trail around the lodge, the snow crunching beneath her feet, the breath soughing in and out of her lungs because apparently a week was not long enough to adjust to the high altitude. Luckily for her, the keys were labeled. At the equipment garage side door she eyed the huge sign that read KNOCK FIRST, and then did, hoping someone would be here to help her out.

No one answered, so she let herself in and flipped on the light.

A huge, orange machine stared at her, indeed looking like some giant’s Tonka toy.

She stared back, feeling some of her courage dissolve. Feeling other things dissolve, too, like oh, the bones in her legs as a flash came to her, one that usually hit only in the deep dark of the night. The Sno-Cat wasn’t anything like the crane that had been required to rescue her when the Santa Monica bridge collapsed, but apparently it was close enough.

It’d been a simmering hot day. The asphalt had been steaming by 8:45 A.M. She’d been late for work and knew her boss would be peeved, so she’d gotten on the bridge and sped up, only to be cut off by a semitruck. Stymied, she’d been stuck behind him, which in hindsight had saved her life, because when the bridge had collapsed, the truck had fallen into the void and she’d slid off the side instead of sinking. She’d flipped too many times to count, rolled down the embankment, coming to a horrific halt upside down, caught on a tree as her car burst into flames…

Sweating and shaking now, she blinked the Sno-Cat back into focus. “No.” Hell no. Not having a nightmare in the middle of the damn day. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said out loud. Her doctor had taught her that trick, speaking out loud to snap her out of it. “You’re fine.”

Proving it, she lifted her chin and eyed the beast. “I’m doing this.” She climbed up and pulled herself in, landing on the big driver’s seat. Stomach quivering, still sweating, she wiped her brow and looked out the windshield. She was high up, sure, but she wasn’t upside down in her little car. There was no danger here. Repeating that to herself, she put the key in and turned it, already wincing-

But nothing happened.

“The choke.” She repeated Stone’s words back to herself, “Push the choke in.” She searched for and found the thing, then pushed it in and turned the ignition over while pumping the gas twice.

The Sno-Cat roared to life, the engine rumbling and shuddering and vibrating beneath her, around her. With that came a burst of heat from the vents, a blast that blew her hair back and burned her eyes, and with a shocked cry, she cringed, stomach revolting, violently, and without warning. Not rational and knowing it, but unable to care or stop herself, she flung her body out of the Sno-Cat, landing hard on her knees. Crawling out of the equipment garage and into the snow, the blessedly cold snow, she gulped for air, managing by the grace of God not to lose her breakfast.

“Goldilocks?”

Dammit. Not him, not now. She fisted her hands in the snow, letting it sink into skin, cold and wet, reminding her where she was.

The Sierras, taking that baby step on the way to the rest of her life.

Risking.

Adventures.

All of it, everything she’d never given herself pre-bridge collapse.

“Katie.” Cam crouched at her side putting his hand on her back. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Yes.” Please go away.

Instead, she felt his hand skim over her spine, as cool and soothing as the snow beneath her. “Are you sick?”

“I’m okay.”

“You’re green is what you are.”

“I just need a moment.” She pushed to her feet and headed back to the lodge, figuring he’d take the hint and leave her alone. After all, he seemed to like being alone.

But she could hear his boots crunching in the snow behind her. “I’m fine,” she told him over her shoulder. “Really.” To prove it, she sped up, and then what the hell, ran, wishing she could outrun her demons as easily. Inside the lodge, she raced up the stairs, and then at the top, ran out of gas, sagging against the accolades-laden wall.

Whew, this altitude was killing her.

That, or it was the panic attack, which sucked. While she concentrated on getting air into her overtaxed lungs, she tipped her head back and read Cam’s plaques for the hell of it. Slope-style champion. Overall champion. Gold medalist. Half-pipe champion. Winter X Games champion…It went on and on.

It was amazing to her, the guy who’d appeared at her bedside last night, the same guy who’d been at turns irritating, surprisingly kind, then irritating again, seemed to have won just about every single winter event there was over the past twelve years.

There was nothing for this entire year, though, which struck her as odd.

Since thinking about Cam was infinitely more appealing than facing the fact she’d just had a doozy of a panic attack, was still having if her near-hyperventilating breathing was any indication, she kept at it. She had to wonder why, after the incredible career outlined in front of her, had he suddenly stopped placing in events. Had he retired? “I could get behind retiring,” she muttered, “if I wasn’t so fond of eating.”

“Do you always talk to yourself on the job?”

As she turned to face the champion himself, her damn glasses, clearly not aware of the panic attack in progress, fogged.

Okay, so apparently he was always going to appear when she was somehow embarrassing herself or out of her element. She turned to face him. With her glasses fogged, she could see only the outline of him, the tall, dark, and attitude-ridden Cameron Wilder. He was encroaching in her space, so she put her hand out to hold him off, setting it against his chest. He was solid, so unexpectedly, thoroughly solid, with the heat of that strength radiating through his sweatshirt, that she ended up holding on instead, fisting her fingers into the soft material just below the Burton blazed across his chest.

“What happened back there?” he asked quietly, calmly, and as the cool snow had, his voice soothed her frazzled nerves. He brought his hands up, running them down her arms once in reassurance.

“Oh, nothing. Just a little panic attack.” Okay, a major one. “No worries, it passed.”

“Okay.” She could feel him looking at her very carefully, he of the sun-kissed unruly brown hair, razor-sharp green eyes, and scruffy face. He removed her fogged glasses, cleaning them on the hem of his sweatshirt while she squinted and focused the best she could, surprised to find what she’d said was true-her panic attack had passed.

“Why do they fog?” he asked, which wasn’t the question she’d expected.

But then again, nothing about him was expected. “Um…they do that sometimes.” Apparently, if a hot guy got too close, which almost never happened.

He set her glasses back on her nose. She could have told him not to bother, that if he kept doing stuff like breathing, they were probably going to keep fogging, which was odd, because this close up she could see that he wasn’t classically handsome. Nope, his nose was slightly crooked, and then there was the scar bisecting his left eyebrow. He had fine lines fanning out from his eyes, reflecting he’d lived his life, a real life out here in the mountains, and also apparently all over the planet with a board strapped to his feet, which fascinated her.