Instant Attraction

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.

Chapter 4

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.

She bet he never had to remind himself to live balls out.

Now that she was okay, his eyes were filling with a general mischief, wicked bad-boy glint, but she also sensed a hint of something much deeper inside him, something…haunting, and though she had no idea what it was exactly, it was that that drew her in.

“So why the panic attack?”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “It’s just a residual thing I’m dealing with.”

“A residual thing. Such as…?”

“Really? You want to talk? Because last night you paid me not to-”

“I want to know what scared you.”

Ah. So he still didn’t want to chat, not really, but was asking out of concern. Probably wondering if his brother had hired a crazy woman.

She picked up the phone message pad and turned on her computer, watching as Safari automatically loaded