Chapter Fifteen
Enrique was completely taken aback by her outburst and the fact that she hopped on the ski lift without him. If she had headed in the opposite direction, he would have thought she was quitting. He took the lift right behind her, and throughout the ride back to the top of the mountain, she massaged the back of her neck and rubbed her temples with her fingers.
Patience, Leigh , she muttered to herself. You can do this. He’s just a man . She remembered Curtis’s words from yesterday. He’s like a chocolate-covered cherry. But it didn’t seem like that to her. Chocolate was never this hard. His outer shell reminded her of a coconut—hard, rough, and tough to crack. The water was usually sweet, but she bet he was bone dry inside and extra chewy.
They climbed off the lifts back-to-back, and she approached the first slope again. “We’re going to do this again,” she said curtly, gazing sternly at him. His eyes shifted to her from where they had been taking in the mountains around them. “Stay with me so I can guide you away from the dangerous areas of the slope and point out what to look for as far as ice patches and rough spots. You might not recognize them since you’re inexperienced – ”
“You’re making it sound like I’m a toddler who needs to hold a hand everywhere I go!”
“No, I’m making it sound like you are a beginner skier, which you are. Might I remind you we have been at this less than five hours? It’s okay not to know everything. That’s the whole point of hiring an instructor !” she shouted, narrowing her eyes and counting to five in her head. “That being said, you’ll do well if you listen to my safety tips. To avoid another crash like earlier, you’ll need to crisscross the mountain to maintain a safe speed and turn in before you get too close to the edge. From this slope on, things only get harder and involve more potential danger. Let’s be safe so you don’t get injured. You were blessed the first time, but that might not be true again.”
On the first trip down the slope, Enrique followed behind Leigh, watching as she pointed out dangerous areas and mimicking her as she demonstrated when to wedge wide and when to close it to increase speed. At one point, she even showed him how to turn left, right, and move forward and backward based on where he applied his weight on the ski. But, after a while the slow and steady pace she set bored him and he wanted more.
He still felt a rush of fear at the top of the slope with the initial descent, but it was nothing like it had been. He wasn’t certain that his fear of heights and falling was cured but it was definitely abating. Now, though, he needed a challenge and started trying some of the moves he had seen on YouTube the night before.
Leighann realized he wasn’t giving up on the more advanced skills, so she explained how the shortstop worked and the dangers of applying this technique in certain places on the slope, like too close to the edge where you could overcompensate and tip right over the edge or on ice sheets where your skis may not edge properly and your feet could go right out from under you.
Leigh hoped that practicing shortstops would keep him happy for a little while and allow him to practice the other basic skills, but she was dreaming. Enrique announced on the fourth trip down that he was finished with this slope and wasn’t doing the wedge anymore. She showed him how to carve the slope and do parallel turns so he could maintain his speed instead of racing down the slope and short-stopping at the bottom as he had started doing. That worked for this slope, but it was dangerous on the steeper ones when the speed he would pick up was closer to seventy miles an hour.
They went back up the lift, and Enrique promised to follow her down the second hardest blue slope, the one he had wrecked on the first time. He followed her, watching her as she carved the slope, going back and forth to control her momentum. Everything went well. They had so much speed at the bottom it carried them right back to the lift, and within three minutes, he was riding back to the top of the mountain. This time, he led the way, and instead of carving, he tried christie turns, which were faster and allowed for greater speed both in the turn and the descent. He managed to stay up but had several close calls.
She sped past him on the final approach to the bottom and skied right to the bench with their gear. She kicked off her skis, grabbed a sip of water, and collapsed on the ground. Keeping up with Enrique was exhausting.
“I’m tired,” she said when he slid to a stop beside her, looming over her prone body. “I need a rest.”
She curled the inside of her right elbow over her face and covered her eyes. Enrique was trouble with a capital T, and there was only so much a woman could take.
Enrique decided not to wait and went off to ski alone. He stuck to the slopes they had practiced together, a miracle that Leigh wasn’t awake to appreciate. He lost track of how many times he had traversed them and decided to take a break when they no longer posed a challenge for him. He started looking at the more difficult slopes but decided to wait for Leighann.
Kicking off his skis, he walked over to his bag and retrieved an energy drink, all the while congratulating himself for getting the hang of skiing so quickly. As he lifted the can to his mouth, his eyes drifted over Leighann’s sleeping form a few feet away.
She looked like an angel, her blonde hair gleaming like a golden halo in the sunlight, while her chest gently rose and fell with the rhythm of her breathing. Her arm still covered her eyes, and her pretty pink lips formed a perfect bow. She looked peaceful in her slumber, something that never came easily for him .
The snow crunched beneath him, and birds chirped in the trees as he sat next to her, arms stacked on top of his bent knees, gazing at her. She was stunning. He didn’t understand his attraction. He had spent hundreds of hours with gorgeous women and never felt a thing, but this woman, who was the embodiment of simple beauty and grace, demanded his full attention, which irked him to no end.
He wasn’t interested in romantic attachments, and even if she hadn’t been his best friend’s little sister, he didn’t do casual dating. It was a waste of time. Women, in general, were a waste of time, which was why he was fighting so hard to distance himself from this one. If he kept her mad at him and didn’t spend too much time in proximity listening to her sultry, seductive voice, he would make it through this experience with no strings attached.
Irritation rushed to the surface at the injustice of Curtis being occupied and refusing to reschedule his commitments. It was logical and sound business practice, but Enrique knew all too well...sometimes he was not logical. He was selfish and self-centered most days. Why would this be any different? This whole experience would have been so different if it had been his male friend by his side and not a female stand-in. Leigh was a coddler, but Curtis was a person who explained the danger and then watched you sink or swim. When facing your biggest fear in life, you don’t want someone treating you like a baby. You want someone telling you to keep a stiff upper lip and push through .
“Leighann?” he called, wondering if she was truly asleep. She didn’t respond.
He looked away from her and glanced at the slopes ahead. He had barely rested for five minutes, and ideas were forming in his head again. “Are you asleep?”
There was no response again, and he cocked his head to the side as he overlooked the vastness of the snow-covered mountain around them. The clouds overhead gathered together, and he noticed a greyish undertone in the sky.
“I think it’s irresponsible for my instructor to be asleep.”
That made her turn and glare at him. She removed her hand from her face, and those cerulean eyes narrowed. “So, now you see me as your instructor?”
“I never said you weren’t my instructor.”
“I’m allowed to rest,” she stated as she sat up and brought her knees to her chest. She hadn’t realized how close they were sitting, and she felt a blush rise in her cheeks as she looked over at him sitting casually beside her.
“And I wasn’t sleeping.”
He glanced at her, raising a brow that screamed his disbelief, and she shook her head.
“I wasn’t,” she challenged, “I was resting my eyes and my brain. You could wear out a saint.”
“Whatever you say,” he allowed as he leaned back on his hands and eyed the blue-black diamond slope he had been aching to try all day. “Listen, regardless of what you think, I have been making great progress today. It looks like a storm is blowing in, and I know you are going to demand we leave, so I want to try the blue-black diamond before we head in.”
Leighann said nothing. He was right about his runs. She had been watching him while she rested, and he got better. The fall from earlier was the only one he had experienced that day. He was like a cat who always managed to stay on his feet, no matter how unlikely the scenario. He was one of those people who barely had to work at something new, and it became easy for them. That was a quality Leigh had never experienced, and it may have made her a little jealous.
Leighann rubbed her brow as she looked up at the sky. The weather was turning gloomy with the clouds darkening quickly, but they still had a good amount of time to spare to pack up and leave.
“No, it’s best we call it a day and resume tomorrow. There are still a couple of harder blues for you to try before we start adding black levels into the mix,” she explained. Overconfidence had killed more than one person in this sport. Wasn’t it just like the arrogant jerk to think that just because he had made a handful of successful trips down a blue slope, he could handle a black diamond.
“I’m not ready to pack it in for today. I want to give that harder slope a try first.”
Leigh could hear the resolve in his voice and knew that if she didn’t agree to go with him, he would head to the slope and do it alone .
“Fine, on one condition,” she proposed, turning to him, hands on her hips.
Facing her, arms crossed over his chest in an uncompromising position, he replied, “I’m listening.”
“When we get to the top, I pick the slope. That one is way too hard for your current level of experience. You will listen attentively when I go over the dangers to look for on the map, and you will follow me down so I can point out the tricky areas or show you how to maneuver the terrain safely. Agreed?”
Enrique stuck out his hand, “Agreed. If you agree that I follow the first time and you follow the second.”
“Ugh, fine. Two trips down, and then we head in for the day.” Leigh shook his hand, and they prepared to head back up the mountain.
The slope she chose was labeled a blue diamond, but skiers had complained for years that it wasn’t that difficult. She hoped this would stroke his ego enough to make him happy while ending the day on a positive and triumphant note.
As she expected, he did well. This path was less groomed, and he had to deal with bumpy icy patches, enough to increase the adrenaline coursing through his veins but not enough to significantly increase the danger.
As they approached the bottom for the last time, Enrique in the lead, he raised his poles over his head and shouted, “I am the champion!” like a little kid who had just won a foot race against his friends .
He didn’t protest when she declared it was time they packed up, for which she was eternally grateful. They parted ways when they returned to the lodge, agreeing to meet the next day at nine since it would take the resort staff longer to groom the slopes after a storm. It had been a long day, and she was ready for a relaxing soak in her brother’s hot tub. Enrique might be fun to look at, but he was exhausting to work with. This was the reason she avoided romance; men were annoying distractions and not worth the effort.