Chance Encounter

yet another mock evacuation. Again and again her gaze was drawn to Chance as he directed the crew. Everyone, including her, looked like drowned rats.

Not Chance.

Darn him, but he looked good. He wore rain gear like the rest of them, but his hat didn’t make him look silly. It only emphasized his piercing dark eyes. There was a lock of wet hair dangling over his forehead, and his earring glittered. The five o’clock shadow on his face looked rough, exciting, and she wondered what it would feel like rubbing against her skin.

Locked in the fantasy, she imagined him going back to his cabin and stripping off his wet things until he was naked. He’d look really good naked, she thought on a sigh.

Then he looked over his shoulder, right at her, as if he’d heard her thoughts. An annoying little tingle went through her and she looked away first. But two seconds later she was looking at him again. Like a moth to the killer flame, she moved closer. “Maybe we should give them a break,” she said, nodding to the tired staff.

“Them? Or you?”

She lifted her chin, wondering why he always stirred so much emotion within her. “It’s one thing to risk injury because of an emergency, but there’s no emergency at the moment.”

“Oh, I don’t know…” He shot her an innocent look. “I had to buy a new summer wardrobe and-”

She turned her back on his wide grin. “You know what I meant.”

“I know,” he said, his mouth so close to her ear she shivered. His eyes darkened at that little involuntary gesture. “But if there ever comes a time when we have to evacuate an entire lift of terrified skiers or snow- boarders, any employee under my command needs to know what they’re doing-blindfolded-bad weather or not.”

“Your command?” But when she turned to face him, he’d already moved away.

“Break,” he called.

The staff scattered at his welcome decree, every last one of them, including Brian. Ally went to leave as well, grateful not to have to admit she needed a breather too, if only to escape his all too consuming presence.

“Where are you going?”

She looked over at Chance, then wished she hadn’t. He’d moved close again. He didn’t seem bothered in the least by how wet he was. In fact, despite the water running off of his tall, muscled form, he seemed perfectly relaxed and in his element. A drop ran down his temple. Across his jaw. He’d removed his hat, and when he looked at her, when their gazes were locked, he sucked a raindrop off his lower lip.

Heat suffused her. Her skin felt too tight. Her tummy fluttered. It was irrational, it was stupid, but she wanted to run a finger over that wet jaw, wanted to lean close and lick a drop off his skin herself. She wanted to touch him, taste him. “You…called for break. Everyone left.”

“Yes, because everyone else knows how to get off a lift.”

“I just got off one.”

“No. You were evacuated. As in physically removed.”

“Oh.” She eyed the lift. It looked so easy now that the thing was stopped. “Well, how difficult could it be?”

He laughed at her of course, he always laughed at her. He walked over to the control booth and turned the lift back on. The chairs started to move. Unclipping his radio from his belt, he brought it up to his mouth and told Jo they’d be right back, that he wanted Tim on radio for back up.

“Get on,” he said to Ally, gesturing with the radio still in his hand. “This is a beginner run, we can walk back down from the top.”

“We?”

“Yeah.” His body brushed hers when he walked past her. “We.”

Her stomach tightened again, and not from fear this time.

THEY GOT ON TOGETHER, though Ally did her best not to touch him. Chance did his best to make sure she had to, so that by the time they were settled, they were shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip and thigh to thigh. Everywhere they touched, he burned for more, and it really got his temper going. “Tired?” he asked, wanting to hear that she was, that she couldn’t wait to high-tail it home any second.

Nice guy that he was, he’d drive her back to the airport.

“Of course not.” Her knuckles were white from the grip she had on the steel chair. Her pupils were huge. She was clearly doing everything in her power to pretend she wasn’t high above the ground. Moving. “I thought you were a wild, risk-taker kind of guy,” she said, looking resolutely ahead. “Why would you call Tim for backup when you can handle anything?”

“Because getting on a lift without anyone knowing would be stupid, especially if something went wrong.”

She swallowed hard. “Wrong?”

“Yeah.” He looked at her profile. So proud. So pretty. So petrified. “For instance, you could freak out on me.”

“I’m trying to keep my freaking to a minimum, thanks.” She continued to cling to the side of the chair, and he realized that some sick part of him wanted her to cling to him.

“I talked to Lucy this morning,” Ally said shakily, then glanced at him. “She said she knew how much she was putting on you, and that she was very grateful.”

Well, damn. Add guilt to his current list of sins. Topping that list was lusting after city girl here.

The lift jerked and Ally quickly closed her eyes. “She said you’ve always been there for her.”

“And vice versa.”

She opened one eye, and when the lift remained smooth, then the other. “How did you get started here?”

“I was tired of wandering from place to place. Lucy hired me for ski patrol.”

“You were…just wandering the globe?”

“Yep.”

“You don’t have family?”

Damn, now she pitied him, the last emotion he required in a woman. “My parents traveled a lot back then. I ended up in Wyoming looking for trouble.” Tina had just died and he’d spent some lost months drinking and risking his life away. Lucy had given him what he’d never known he was missing, what he never would have allowed anyone to give him if he had known-stability.

He’d soaked it up.

Within two years he’d been running the ski patrol. Two more and he’d been in charge of the entire resort, second only to Lucy as general manger. In his opinion, he had the best job in the world, with a nice chunk of downtime every autumn, which he used to roam far and wide, just to get it out of his system.

Africa, South America, India, everywhere and anywhere he chose.

But he always came back, always.

The lift dipped a little, and Ally drew a shaky breath. “You were good with Brian today,” she said quickly. “Even though you’re not exactly a compassionate, sensitive caretaker.”

“I’m not his caretaker. He just works here.”

“I suppose he paid for those new boots he’s wearing, the ones that have Sierra Peak Resort plastered on the sides?”

Chance watched her grip the chair with her fists when it jerked again. He watched her bite her lip, watched her breasts jiggle, her thighs press close together. He stared into her big, gray eyes and felt his body tighten. Specifically, his lower body. “So he needed new boots.”

“So you care in spite of-” She broke off when he put one arm along the back of the chair, the other across the front of her on her arm grip, effectively trapping her within his embrace. If he’d thought her eyes big before, they nearly popped out of her head now. “What are you doing?”

“In spite of what?” he inquired softly.

“In spite of the fact-” She looked down at the ground, then paled again. “That I should just keep my thoughts to myself.”

“Oh no, you don’t.” He brought her chin around, which meant he had to touch her. Big mistake, but that didn’t stop him. Her skin was as smooth as silk.

She licked her lips, and gave away her inner most thoughts by darting a quick glance at his mouth before lifting her gaze to his. “I was just going to say…there’s a lot of similarities between Brian and yourself. It’s in the