Tall, Dark And Daring

Garbed in the garish colors the snowboard crowd favored, the boy looked to be somewhere between eight and ten years old.

Mitch ruffled the boy’s hair. “Did your mother tell you I’m busy this week with business?”

Joey grinned. “That’s okay, I think I’ve got all the moves down.”

“Yeah, right. Stay out of trouble this week and I’ll take you to Whiteface next week when I have some time.”

“Really?” The boy’s cool facade vanished, and his voice was pitched a notch higher.

“Really. Now take yourself off so I can get some work done.” Mitch gave the kid a nudge and sent him cruising backward on his skates.

Tessa watched the exchange with interest, curious about the ties Mitch seemed to have to the community. He’d been more of a wanderer when she’d first met him.

“That’s Daniela’s son,” he explained. A smile played about his mouth. “You remember, the maid who was with me when I came into your room when you were, um…”

He touched her shoulder and skimmed his fingers down the length of her arm, a vivid reminder of the caress he’d given her earlier when only a blanket had separated her naked body from him.

Tessa straightened, prepared to curtail any flirting before it started. “He seems very nice.” She searched for a new conversational route before Mitch could look at her with that teasing light in his eyes again. “So where are you living now? At the hotel?”

He had dropped the subject of Tahoe and his accident so fast she hadn’t figured out where he called home at the moment.

“I got a good deal on a log cabin a mile up the road from the inn.”

“You bought it?”

“You sound surprised.”

She shrugged. “I can’t picture you settling down in one place.”

“I’m grounded for awhile.”

His grimace made it clear he found the idea of staying put as painful as the monstrous fall that stalled his former career two years ago.

“It’s been a long time since I read the article about your accident, Mitch.” She’d practically memorized it, actually. Yet she wanted to hear his version. “What happened?”

“Stupidity.”

She wouldn’t press. She watched a family of skaters clutch one another as they giggled and wobbled their way around the pond. The crisp scratch and skritch of the blades on ice reminded Tessa of the home-wrecking figure skater her husband ran off with. But sitting here under a snow-speckled velvet sky with Mitch, the thought didn’t rankle as much as it had in the past.

“I caught a lot of pop coming off the pipe,” Mitch finally explained.

She made the time-out sign with her hands. “I don’t know if I can interpret snowboard-ese anymore.”

“I had too much height over one of the banks at a Swiss meet.” He gestured with his hands, using his cocoa for the bank and his free hand for the snowboard. The snowboard hand sailed above the foam cup. “I should have limited my moves to something simple so I could have regained control, but I had been on fire all day.”

Tessa remembered all too well what Mitch was like when he was on fire. On the slopes, it had meant he owned the course.

In her bed, it had meant she’d be smiling for days.

“Let me guess. You used the height to do something outrageous and reckless.”

“I got spinning so fast.” He maneuvered the snowboard hand into a single snowboard finger and demonstrated it twirling around and around in the rising steam from the cup. “Observers say I spun well over a thousand degrees. Guys frequently spin nine hundreds or ten-twenties, but this was beyond that.”

Tessa cringed. How could he be proud of an accident that nearly killed him? “And you lost control?”

He frowned and stared at his pantomimed performance as if he didn’t know where to move the players next. “More like I lost concentration for a fraction of a second. I think I let myself enjoy the moment for an instant, and in that nanosecond, I miscalculated the landing.”

He allowed the finger snowboarder to fall over and careen downward past the cocoa cup to land in a heap on the wooden bench. “I didn’t just hit the pipe and fall, I flew butt over boot heels halfway down the mountain.” He shook his head as his gaze turned from the drama of his fingers and locked on her. “I lost control.”

The regret she discerned in his eyes almost made her want to throw her carefully constructed professional persona to the wind and reach out to him.

But she refused to dare anything more with this man.

She had another dare she planned to honor, and it involved thinking with her head instead of her heart.

“I’m sorry, Mitch.” Too late, she realized her voice conveyed all the emotions she had sought to suppress. The throaty whisper reverberated in the silence like the echo of a far-off church bell.

Embarrassed by her transparent feelings, she stared downward, only to spy his hand laying on the bench beside her thigh. Almost touching.

He yanked it back after a moment and drained his cocoa. “It was a good lesson,” Mitch declared, crinkling the cup and tossing it into a nearby trash can with a hook shot. “I’m more cautious now. I have a business of my own and employees to consider. I can’t afford to be reckless anymore.”

Tessa chose her words with care. “You’ve invested a lot of yourself into Mogul Ryders.” He might be creating some stability with his business. Yet she’d be willing to bet if given a snowboard or skis—or a meaningful relationship, for that matter—he’d be as impulsive as ever.

“It means everything to me, Tessa.” He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, eyeing the action on the ice like a benchwarmer eager to get in the game. “That’s why I’m so glad you’re going to help me get the new product line off the ground. You’ve got the expertise I need.”

“Westwood Marketing has a great team. They’ll make sure your line makes an impressive debut.” She knew her first pang of regret about leaving her firm next week. A part of her would have liked to supervise the implementation of her plans for Mitch’s company.

“Your firm has quite a reputation. But it’s you I trust.” He winked.

A warning buzzer went off in Tessa’s head. She had to make certain he understood that she wouldn’t be part of the package after Friday. “Of course, my contribution is complete once your plan is polished and approved.”

Mitch straightened. The music from inside MacRae’s stopped, and the dinner crowd applauded. “What do you mean?”

Silence surrounded them but for the scrape of blades on the ice and the far-off giggles of the skaters. The falling snow insulated them from the rest of the world.

“I’m leaving my firm. Setting up the marketing plan for Mogul Ryders is my last project.”

Mitch’s jaw flexed in silent testament to his vexation. “Why? They don’t pay you enough? Because I can hire you—”

“No.” She didn’t care to hear how much he needed her brains when he’d never had any need for her heart. “It’s not that. It’s the pace. I don’t want to spend all my free time in airports anymore.”

He clasped her shoulders in his hands. Logically, she knew his skin must be cold from their time outdoors. His touch sent heat waves through her anyhow.

“But this is big, Tessa. This is my whole life.”

He’d said much the same thing to her eight years ago when he asked her to trot the globe with him while he chased his dreams on the pro circuit. She hadn’t been able to make him happy then, either.

“I’m sorry, Mitch. I’ve already given my notice.”