For Her Eyes Only (17 page)

“Right. Let’s get this over with.” Vicky glared up at him, as though it was all his fault.

He cocked an eyebrow. For some perverse reason he wanted to get into her personal space and drag out the moment. He slowly bent his knees, wrapped his arms about her thighs and lifted her.

Holy crap
. She was no Tinkerbell. His muscles bunched as he lifted her higher.
It must be the boots.
God
,
I
hope it’s the boots.
He moved his hands, trying to find a better hold. Two globes of toned flesh filled his palms, and Vicky squeaked above him. He had her hot little ass in his hands.

“Sorry,” he muttered, and realized his face was pressed into the soft mound of her—

“Er, that’s okay.” He felt Vicky’s hand flutter on his shoulder.

“Okay.” Yeah, it was better than okay. It was heaven.

She twisted in his arms, stretching. He could only assume she was reaching for the envelope. She was all supple and soft in his arms. He wasn’t looking. He didn’t intend to move from his position.

“Just a little...further,” Vicky breathed.

Ryan lifted her higher, just a little.
Oh
,
God
,
that’s even better
.

“A little closer,” Vicky squeaked. “Lean a little to your left.”

He did what she asked. Hell, he’d do anything she asked, at that moment.

His ski shifted in the snow. His eyes widened.
Uh-oh
. He tried to lock his knee.
No
,
no.
Vicky leaned, and the shift in weight was enough to make his ski start to slide.

“Uh, Vic,” he said in warning.

“Got it!”

His ski slid out from under them, and her triumphant cry changed into a surprised squeal as they both came crashing down in the snow.

Ryan tried to take the brunt of the fall. He twisted to the side at the same time he heard a metallic snap, and felt a tug on his sleeve as Vicky toppled down on top of him. There was a cloud of snow as they rolled, and Ryan felt something tug at his arm until the fabric finally gave. He came to a stop, on top of Vicky.

He looked down at her, all flushed and breathless and sexy, eyes wide, and realized he couldn’t have planned this outcome better. And then he realized she wasn’t even looking at him.

“Oh, my God.” Her words were low, shocked as she stared at a point to the left of them.

Reluctantly he followed her gaze and he stiffened when he saw what she saw.

Chapter Twenty-One

Metal jaws lay half-buried in the ground, a strip of Ryan’s blue jacket clenched in the slightly rusted teeth.

Ryan’s blood chilled. Missed by
that
much. He rolled off Vicky and sat up.

“What is it?” her voice was low.

“It’s a bear trap.” He’d recognized it instantly. The man he’d called father had used them often enough. He rose to his feet, careful of where he slid his skis and helped Vicky to her feet. She noticed his ripped sleeve.

“Ryan, your arm! Are you hurt?” She carefully touched his arm.

“Nah, I’m fine.” He tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let go.

“Let me see.”

“I’m fine, Vic. It just grazed the outer shell of my jacket.”

Ignoring his comments, she stepped closer and didn’t let go of his arm until she’d checked for herself. She nodded. “Okay, there’s no blood.” She patted the arm where the tear was, and Ryan let her, enjoying the gesture.

She looked over his shoulder. “A bear trap? Aren’t they illegal?”

“Pretty much.”

“Oh, my God,” she whipped her head around. “Are there bears here?”

Ryan shrugged. “Don’t know. Probably not.” He gazed up at the branch where the envelope had been tacked. The trap was close to being directly under it.

She frowned. “So, why is there a bear trap?” Her eyes rounded and she carefully nudged at the snow at her feet. “Do you think there are more?”

“I hope not.”

“But what if there are?”

He frowned. “I don’t think we’ll be finding any more.”

Vicky’s hands rested on her hips. “I can’t believe we’ve found one! This is a ski trail, for goodness’ sake. Who would put a bear trap out here?”

“I don’t think they were hunting bears, somehow.”

Her jaw dropped as she looked from the trap to the branch where the envelope had rested. “Oh, my God. We could have been seriously hurt.”

He shrugged. “But we weren’t.” He leaned over and carefully dusted the snow off the rest of the trap and sighed. “Yeah, this one is pretty nasty.” The muscles in his jaw tightened. He or Vicky could have been seriously hurt. Being this high up the mountain, by the time any rescue party had reached them, they could have bled out.

He disabled the trap and lifted it. It was a heavy bastard. Definitely for a bear. It was too heavy duty for coyote or fox. “Let’s get it off the ground. That way, nothing else will get hurt by it. We’ll tell Meagan James about it when we get back to the resort.” He smiled reassuringly. “It’s probably an old hunter’s trap left behind by accident.” He said, in an effort to calm Vicky. He turned to look at her. Her green eyes were dark with worry, her lips tight. She shook her head.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Treat me like a kid, or as if you expect me to faint from fear at any moment. You and I both know the trap was placed under the envelope, probably to get whoever would step up to it. Stop trying to hide this kind of stuff from me. I can handle it, despite your reservations. Stop trying to protect me.”

Okay, so she wasn’t stupid. “Sorry. I’ll stop sugarcoating it. But protecting you? Well, that’s not going to stop.”

She rolled her eyes and stomped carefully back to her skis. “Yeah, I get it. I’m the buddy who can’t look after herself, your best friend’s little sis, the gal next door, your damned Moneypenny. Let’s get going.”

Ryan frowned. Huh? Where had that come from? “We’re not neighbors. And you’re not my best friend’s little sister.” No,
she
was his best friend.

She pulled her goggles on. “Just...let’s go.” She snapped her boots into her skis and started off again.

Ryan gazed at her ass as she shifted her weight from one leg to other as she skied effortlessly down the trail. No. The things he was thinking of with those legs, that body—not good buddy thoughts.

* * *

Vicky focused on the edges of the trail for any sign of disturbance in the snow.
A
friggin’ bear trap
. That sucker had looked mean and nasty when Ryan had finally dug it out from the concealing cover of snow. She was pretty sure that the resort personnel wouldn’t have placed it there. And a hunter? She tried to rationalize as many possibilities to try to explain the trap’s presence, but kept coming back to one thing: whoever had planted it there had wanted the couple getting the envelopes to get hurt, possibly dead. So, with that logic, someone had wanted either her or Ryan, or both, incapacitated.

It didn’t make sense though. She couldn’t see how their covers could have been blown, so who would want Peter and Cassandra Winthrop dead? Or at least, badly injured?

“What does it say?” Ryan’s deep voice interrupted her thoughts. He’d caught up to her.

“Pardon?”

“What does the note in the envelope say?”

She skied to a halt. “Oops. I forgot to look.” Narrowly escaping the bear trap claws had totally distracted her from what they were doing, funnily enough. She tugged the envelope out of her jacket pocket and fumbled with it for a moment before exclaiming with frustration. She pulled off one glove—
damn
,
it’s cold
—and hurriedly tore at the back flap of the envelope.

She pulled the note from within and held it up for both of them to read, her hand trembling with the cold.

I
can run with foxes.
I
can make horses flee
,
but the Road Runner won’t run with me
.

Ryan frowned. “What?”

Vicky scanned the note again. “Road Runner? I can only think of the cartoon.”

“We have to look for Wile E. Coyote?”

Ryan’s remark sparked a little blip on her mental radar. “Let me look at that map,” she said to him. He’d clipped it to one of his many jacket zippers, and he raised it for her to look at.

She scanned it. “Come on, where is it,” she muttered to herself.

“If you want to tell me what you’re looking for, I might be able to help,” Ryan offered dryly.

She trailed her index finger along the map. “There! Coyote Run. It’s the name of one of the trails. I think we should go there.” She lifted her gaze to Ryan’s. His gray eyes were watching her, gorgeous and a little...doubtful.

“Are you sure?” he asked, and her gaze drifted down to his lips. He had very kissable looking lips. Actually, his lips were thoroughly kissable, she could attest to that. She wanted to kiss him again. Vicky blinked.
Uh-oh
. The fingers on one hand were slowly freezing and she was ogling Ryan. Again.
Follow the conversation
,
damn it
.

“Uh, no, but it’s worth a try, isn’t it? Or do you have a better idea?”

Ryan shrugged and he let go of the map. “Sounds fine. Let’s go.” He pushed off as she donned her glove, and she watched him ski. Long-legged, broad-shouldered, he skied with an athleticism and finesse that was both graceful and sexy.

The moment by the tree reared up in her mind. He’d felt so strong, so sure, so damn hot sexy when he’d lifted her up. She wasn’t prepared for her reaction, especially not when he’d pressed his face against her.

Heat blazed in her cheeks. She’d liked it. She’d wanted to press him closer. Every time she’d shifted and strained to reach the envelope, his hold on her butt had tightened. Normally she would have died of mortification if a guy had grabbed hold of her butt. She wasn’t tall and svelte, and her hips, belly, and butt were what her father jokingly called her “soft center.” No matter how much she ran, or how many sit-ups and lunges she did, she still couldn’t quite get the taut and tight bikini body she’d always worked out for.

Yet, with Ryan’s hands on her butt, holding her up, she hadn’t felt self-conscious. She’d felt...hot and horny.

And when they’d fallen, for a brief moment she’d wanted to wrestle in the snow with Ryan, get all tangled and touchy—until she’d noticed that bear trap, that is.

“Damn bear trap,” she muttered as she clasped her stocks and pushed off in an effort to catch up with Ryan.

“What was that?” Ryan asked, turning to look at her briefly over his shoulder before focusing on the trail, the gorgeous hunk who now paid her no sexual attention whatsoever.

“Er, nothing.” She couldn’t tell him she was disgruntled that an attempt on their lives had stopped an intimate encounter she’d hoped would unfold. She’d sound like an idiot. A sex-starved idiot.

“Oh, I thought you said something.”

“It was nothing.” It was so frustrating. He seemed casual, relaxed, although the way his eyes never rested, kept scanning the forest, told her that he was still very much alert.
He
obviously wasn’t fantasizing about rolling around in the snow.

“Damn bear trap.”

“Huh?”

“Why don’t you want kids?” She said the first thing that popped into her head in an effort to distract him.

“What?” His head whipped round and he gaped at her. Okay, so that worked.

“You said at the top that you don’t want kids. Is that just you undercover, or do you seriously not want kids?”

“Er, no, I don’t want kids. My lifestyle wouldn’t suit a family.”

“Would you consider changing your lifestyle, if kids came along? I mean, with the right woman, obviously.” The right woman who isn’t me. Obviously, damn it. Otherwise last year’s Christmas party would have ended differently.

“No kids.”

His remark was succinct, final. Vicky frowned. She wanted kids. Not right now, of course. God, no. But eventually.

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because I don’t want kids, damn it.”

“Why not?”

Ryan halted in a puff of snow, his lips tight. “Because I don’t think I’m a paternal kind of guy, okay? Let’s just leave it at that.”

Like hell. “Why do you think that? You’re fine with my nephews.”

He sighed as he pushed off again. “Only because I have to.”

Vicky’s jaw dropped. Because he
had
to? Was spending time with her family a chore for him? “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ryan growled in frustration. “I spend time with your nephews because they come with you. I don’t normally hang out with kids.”

“You hung out with Noah at the Challenger Youth Center last month,” she pointed out.

“Only because I was helping him with some work on the center, not because I want to hang out with kids, damn it,” he snapped.

Jessica had told Vicky how impressed she’d been with Ryan’s patience with the kids, with the rapport he’d built with some of them, especially the younger boys. “You seemed to do all right.”

“If I’d wanted to do some mindless sharing, I would have skied down the mountain with Neil or Gavin. Let’s just drop it, okay?”

Vicky shrugged. “I think you’d make a great father.” She did. He had a patience that seemed boundless, and listened, really listened, when her nephews spoke with him, as though he was actually interested in what they had to say.

Ryan pivoted on his skis in a puff of snow, forcing her to slide to a stop. “If you think that, then you don’t know the first damn thing about me, Vic,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’d make a lousy father, and no matter how much a woman pushes for it, she’ll get no kids from me. Ever.”

He pushed off, sliding through the snow and picking up speed with a ferocious athleticism that left her stunned.

Okay.
So maybe his patience isn’t so boundless.
She trailed after him, wondering how a topic that had started as a mere distraction had become so personal—and why his remarks, spoken so bitterly, with such raw pain, had ended up wounding her.

It didn’t take a psychotherapist to realize that he had deep wounds from his childhood. What had happened?

* * *

Ryan halted at the signpost. Coyote Run straight down, or The Roller Coaster to his left. He knew The Roller Coaster was a double black diamond run, while Coyote Run was an intermediate run.
So it should be a quick run down to the next checkpoint.
God, he couldn’t wait for this to be over. Trust Vicky to cloud a fun ski hunt with unpleasant rip-the-flesh-off-my-soul kind of talk.

Their relationship would be so much better if they could just ignore it. He cast his eyes back up the trail. She’d hung back, given him some space. She should be here any minute. He couldn’t blame her distance. He’d been quite...blunt.

He slid a ski in the groove of his own trail.
Damn
. He knew she’d just been making conversation, but in true Vicky style, she’d found a chink in his armor and kept digging at it.
A
good father
. He snorted. If she knew what he’d done—and what he hadn’t done—she wouldn’t think that. Hell, she’d be running in the opposite direction.

Just like his old man had tried to.

His lips turned down as memories rose, of his mother pushing him into a closet whenever his father came home drunk. Of listening in the dark, tears running down his cheeks at the sound of slaps and screams and overturned furniture. Of his mother’s bruised and battered face. Of that last time...

He straightened and glared at the panorama that lay before him. The storm clouds were rolling in the distance with an unhurried inevitability.
Christ
. He was on top of the world, in a beautiful stretch of alpine country, and he was wasting time and energy on a dark and twisted memory lane. He blamed Vicky for reopening old wounds better forgotten.

The swish of skis on snow heralded Vicky’s arrival, and he scowled at her. Her expression was hesitant, wary, as she stopped by his side. “So this is it, huh?” she said into the silence. He wasn’t sure if she was talking about their strained situation, or the trail.
Go with the trail.
He nodded but remained silent.

She looked at the signpost, then at each direction of the trails. “Can I see the map for a moment, please?”

“There’s Coyote Run,” he said, pointing to the trail.

She nodded, but a slight frown not completely hidden by her goggles showed a hesitancy to accept the fact. “I know, but I just want to check something.”

He sighed roughly as he pulled the ski map up for her to look at. She stared at it for a moment.