Free Fall Read online

  Sara put her hand on his jaw and smiled up at him as if he was her entire world.

  Lily sighed. It was cute. Beautiful, even. But not the world she’d chosen for herself. “Why is everyone up so early?”

  “I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.” Sara patted her belly. “I came in to get my stuff done.”

  “And I drove her in.” Matt smiled into Sara’s eyes.

  “Oh, goody.” This from Gwyneth. “No more kissing on the desks.”

  Lily rolled her eyes, but her mind was still on what Gwyneth had said about risking herself. She looked at Sara and Matt, so wildly in love, and wondered if she was this gone over someone, would she still want to go on the crazy rescues? And if the worst happened, and she died…would she go with no regrets?

  She loved her life, and would have sworn she gave it her all, without holding back.

  But she did hold back.

  She held back where maybe she shouldn’t—in matters of the heart—and for the first time, she asked herself what she was missing by doing so.

  Gwyneth kicked Matt’s feet off Carrie’s desk, then nudged Lily past the lovebirds and into her office.

  Lily went straight to her desk and the piles there, determined to sidetrack Gwyneth from the line of questioning they were headed for. Logan. “Do you want to go over the summer brochures? The pictures came back, they’re not bad at all. Oh, and the ads for the statewide campaign are due today, and I haven’t even had time to look at them…. Wait. Where are they?” She flipped through the piles, no longer trying for a distraction since she’d found a real one. “They’re here somewhere, they have to be.”

  “You need to organize.”

  “Don’t start.” She shifted piles aside and kept searching. Damn it. She knew exactly which pile she’d put the advertising material in, but it was gone. Damn, she didn’t need yet another problem, another reason for Gwyneth to assume she couldn’t handle things. First it had been the out-of-bounds signs, then the bakery order, then the party—it was as if someone was specifically out to cause trouble for her.

  She looked at Gwyneth, who was standing in front of her desk with the pinched look to her face that said she was gearing up for another lecture, and knew that she couldn’t share her sudden suspicion with her sister—Gwyneth would think she was being ridiculous, passing her own incompetence off on some mysterious prankster. So she started riffling through the papers again. “We need to make a final decision on this stuff, and then decide where to place them. And now that the cafeteria is doing so well, I want to put in separate ads for that in all the Tahoe-area dailies and magazines, as well.”

  “So you’re sleeping with another skier.”

  Lily’s hands went still. “We’re talking about the missing ad file.”

  Gwyneth came close and put her hands over Lily’s. “I’m worried about you falling for some ski bum who sees you as his meal ticket to old age.”

  “Logan is the furthest thing from a ski bum I’ve ever seen.” She pointedly resumed searching for the missing ads. She didn’t want to even think about falling for Logan, let alone discuss the possibility out loud—and especially not with either one of her sisters, who could be guaranteed not to understand.

  Gwyneth didn’t say anything and Lily tried not to look at her, but finally the silence became too heavy and she lifted her head.

  “You didn’t make a joke or scoff it off,” Gwyneth said quietly.

  “Scoff what off?”

  “The possibility of you falling for him.”

  “It’s only been a few days.”

  “So say it. Look me in the eyes and say you aren’t falling for him.”

  Damn. Lily looked her right in the eyes, opened her mouth and…nothing came out.

  “Good God.” Looking shaken, Gwyneth perched a hip on the desk. “Maybe you’d better tell me about him. All about him.”

  “I’ve got to find that file. If we don’t, we miss our placement date. As our accountant, you can’t possibly approve of that.”

  “For once, I am not interested in money. Start talking, Lily.”

  LOGAN WOKE UP ALONE AND BIT back his disappointment. Apparently fun time was over for Lily, which was fine. After all, in a few days he’d be back in his world, far away from here, living his life, doing what he did best.

  And like Lily, he’d be far too busy to lie in bed all morning, no matter how tempting.

  He got up, showered, then headed outside. The weather was clear, the previous day’s storm long forgotten and he skied for several hours before stopping at the lodge for something hot to drink. He was sitting on the outside deck, which overlooked the terrain park, where the boarders did their tricks, when a shadow fell over him.

  Squinting into the bright sunshine, he looked up into a pair of whiskey-colored eyes. Lily smiled and gestured to the spot next to him. “Taken?”

  “It is now.” He scooted over for her.

  She wore boarder pants and a soft white hoodie sweater with the Bay Moon Resort logo on the arm. It zipped to just between her breasts, with two fluffy tassels hanging down. He wondered if she was wearing one of her sexy camisoles beneath, and if her panties matched. “Why did you run off this morning?”

  “I didn’t.” She met his steady gaze and blew out a breath. “Exactly.”

  He flicked a tassel. “Then what, exactly?”

  “I had work.”

  “Did you get it done?”

  “That’s a matter of opinion, but I’ve got a few hours.” She looked at him. “To be with you.”

  Unable to help himself, he touched her jaw and the scratch there from yesterday’s rescue. “Then why aren’t we still in my bed wrapped around each other, me buried deep inside you, with you panting my name in that sexy little whisper you have?”

  She let out a soft, little laugh as the pulse at the base of her throat took off. “Maybe I had something else in mind.”

  “Like what?”

  She lifted a challenging brow. “Scared?”

  “Should I be?”

  “I can’t imagine what I could dish out that would scare you,” she said.

  “Imagine again, then,” he said. “Because everything about you scares me, especially after watching you hang off that cliff yesterday.”

  Her smile faded.

  “No, never mind.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. We both know I’d have done the same thing in a heartbeat, and have more times than I can count. It just seems that when it comes to you, my reasoning seems to fly right out the window.”

  “Because you care.”

  “Hell, yeah, I care.” He touched her jaw again, his own tight. “More than what makes sense.”

  She said nothing but covered his hand with her own and held it to her, staring at him for a long moment. Finally, she stood. “Come on.”

  “Where to?”

  She drew him to his feet. “Does it matter?”

  He looked down at her and felt his heart tug hard. “Not really.”

  “Then it’s a surprise.”

  LILY DROVE. “IT’S NOT FAR.” She took the narrow, windy mountain road around the back of the lodge. It led into the thick of the woods, where the towering pines blocked out the sun and shrank their world to the inside of her car.

  “Where are we?” he asked, enjoying the ride.

  “Still on our property, actually.” She turned onto another road, which had been plowed only one lane wide, with fifteen-foot-high snow berms on either side.

  Logan held on as the road twisted and turned, wondering what they were going to do if they met another car coming in the opposite direction. But thankfully they didn’t.

  “Here we are.” She pulled up to a tiny log cabin with smoke coming out of the chimney and what sounded like an entire pack of dogs barking and howling nearby. “Bring your jacket and gloves.” She got out of the car, cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, “Mary!” and the unseen dogs redoubled their effort. He raised his eyebrows. There wasn’t much chance a