Warm Winter Love (5 page)

She traced the pattern of the melted drop down the window pane. Yes, that was it. She was just caught up with the attention… she was just being swept away because it was so new… and because Sam was so different from anyone she had ever met before. She would make a strong effort not to be with him too much today. She’d meet other people and then everything would be safe. Sam would become just another skier who was at Cedar Crest for the last snows of the season. He would be someone she had kissed in a moment of exuberance. It really didn’t mean a thing. He was probably used to kissing women all around the world. Those kisses probably didn’t mean a thing to him. She was just another woman to him, someone he would forget as soon as he got on a jet and left for another trip. And most certainly he was someone she would forget as soon as she saw Jason again.

She inhaled a deep breath, satisfied with her elongated and convoluted explanation. She would be okay now. It was funny how a little flattery could go such a long way when you were away from home. Maybe that was why people took vacations, so they could be someone else for a little while. Here at the Crest she was a woman without ties to the students or the school or even to Jason. There, she had said it again and she stumbled on the thought. Ties to Jason! Her rationalization wouldn’t hold up. She knew that Sam wasn’t just another person met on a mountaintop. She was attracted to him—too much so—and she wasn’t prepared to do anything about it.

She picked up her scarf. “Katie Jarvis,” she said aloud, “you’re making much too much out of a three-day meeting with a stranger. Be glad that this is the last cold spell until next year. You’ll have come to your senses by then.”

Next year. Next year. The words repeated themselves in her mind. By next year she and Jason would most certainly be married. She swallowed hard when she thought of the word
married.
It was such an absolute word, such a final word. Maybe that wasn’t the right attitude for her. That’s one other thing she’d have to work on, her lack of enthusiasm. Jason had said that it was merely because she was the kind who never got excited about anything. Well, maybe he was right.

She looked down at the people lined up at the base of the mountain and she smiled when she spotted a bright red cap like the one Sam had worn the day before. She watched as its bearer walked toward the Crest and when he got close enough for recognition her smile vanished because it wasn’t Sam—it was just someone who looked like him. No, on closer glance, he didn’t look like him at all.

She wondered if Sam was thinking about her, whether he had spent a sleepless night reviewing what had happened. No, he probably was used to flirting and to having women care about him. She turned around and stared at the luggage next to her bed. If she had any sense she would pack her clothes and go back to Maryland this morning. It was safer there. Safer? What did she mean by
safer
? Was she afraid of Sam? Or of herself? She was really mixed up. Two days with an attractive man, a man who made her laugh, and see what was quickly happening! She was already acting differently, already beginning to think ridiculous thoughts. Oh, Katie! you’ve got four more days. Enjoy them. That was certainly what Irene would say to her. “Forget about Jason for once. Go out and have some fun.”

She smiled. Okay, that’s what she would do—she’d go out and have some fun. After all, she was a perfectly sensible and sane schoolteacher on a vacation. She would never change who she was. But still, maybe she should call Jason, just to let him know she was all right and that she was thinking of him. Not just texting. Call. Just hearing his voice would bring her back to her senses. She would talk to Jason—now!

She let the phone ring five times before the answering machine picked up and told her to leave a message. She looked at her watch. He was either sleeping late or out working with some of his students. Baseball season would be around soon and she knew he wanted to get a jump on practice time. She put her cell phone into her jacket pocket and zipped it. She would call him again later this evening. Before she had dinner with Sam.

She picked up her skis. This confusion was surely only something in her mind. Sam wasn’t any threat to her or Jason. There was too much history with her and Jason. Sam was an unknown quantity and she had always stuck to the known.

“Give it up, Katie,” she said aloud. “Everything’s going to be okay.” Glancing at the picture of Jason on the dresser, she smiled. “After this week, my dear, you’ll be right back where you were with Jason.” She tapped the picture gently and then went downstairs and out of the Crest to the base of the mountain.

“Hi. I wondered where you had gotten to.” Sam looked up at the sky. “And I thought you were an early bird.” He smiled the marvellous smile that made her want to smile too and she set her skis on the ground. With that smile, who could be afraid of him? And who could believe him? That grin was too easy on his face, too quick, too dazzling. She sighed. His smile was too honest! And too heartbreaking now. But she would escape the charm. She had to!

“Sorry,” she said. “I had to make a phone call.” She tugged at her boots, not wanting to look at him, not wanting to look deep into his eyes which seemed to dare her to look deeper into his heart.

“Now? With all this waiting for you?” He waved his hand indicating the mountain and the line of people waiting for the T-bar. “Now you have to call someone? Katie, you really are strange.” He bent down to adjust his straps. “You don’t call people in the morning when all this is here just for you and when you know your ski days are numbered and especially when you know the frost won’t be on the pumpkin much longer.” He pulled the boot bindings tighter. “Call at night, in the middle of the night.” He looked up at her and laughed. “You’re on a vacation. Don’t call at all. Pretend there are no phones.”

She felt as though her heart was beating much too loudly and much too quickly. Sam was just saying innocent words and teasing her but it was the way he said the words. What was happening to her? She never felt this way before. Maybe if Jason would tease her sometimes, maybe if he joked with her or laughed with her or made up funny stories. Katie shook her head. No, Jason wasn’t the type.

“Hey, Miss Katie, how come you’re shaking your head?”

She jerked her head slightly. She had been daydreaming again. Funny, that was happening a lot these past three days.

“Never mind, Sam. I was just thinking about something.”

He put his hand on her arm. “Forget about it, whatever it is. Come on, the mountain’s calling us.”

It was! Magic Mountain was shimmering in the bright sunshine!
Okay, here I come
, she said to herself as she moved forward slowly. There, Sam had already forgotten about yesterday. Now that it was bright sunshine, they were once again only two people on a late-winter vacation. Back to the fun!

On the snowy slopes she could be anyone she wanted to be. A jet-setter. An Olympic star. Or an engaged schoolteacher from a small town in Maryland. On the slopes she was free to be herself. It was as though this was where she belonged forever. She had always felt this way, ever since she was a young child and her father had put the small skis on her feet and helped guide her down a little hill near their home.
“Look, Daddy,”
she had cried out as she moved the short distance.
“I’m free.”
Those were the words she had used even then, and suddenly the grown-up Katie paused and looked down Magic Mountain. Funny that she should think of her father and of that almost-forgotten time. It was so long ago—long before he had started traveling, long before her parents’ divorce. She shook her head. It was such a long time ago.

“You’re doing it again, Katie-Katie.” Sam was standing beside her. “Daydreaming again.” He pushed off. “Come on, follow me!” he yelled, and she could hear his echo resounding through the pine trees flanking the runs.

He was right—her mind was a million miles away. She looked at him as he took off down the slopes. What was it about him that made her think of her parents and of the beautiful times the three of them had spent together? She started down the run, liking the feeling of the cold air stinging her cheeks and the muffled sound of the skis racing through the packed snow. It was a comforting sound from her childhood—when she had been free of adult discussions of divorce and separation and tears and goodbyes.

“Good run, Katie.” Sam was waiting for her at the bottom. “This is what everyone needs—a holiday.” He flipped his sunglasses up and she could see his brown eyes gleam just before he turned and faced the sun and squinted. Even when he wrinkled his eyes like that, he looked like he was always going to have fun.

“Hey,” he said, turning to watch her once more. “What say we do this again? And again?”

“And again?” she asked. “I already know you, Sam Hubbard. You’re not going to stop even for lunch. Come on.” She shrugged and adjusted her gloves. “Why waste the morning?”

“Oh, Katie,” she heard him say from behind her, “I’m so glad I met you.” She stared straight ahead, pretending that the words were never spoken. She was glad that she was in front of him and he couldn’t see the bewildered look on her face. He was doing it again, making her feel all sorts of emotions she had never felt before. She had to avoid that. She reached for the T-bar and held it tightly, as though by doing so she could squeeze away all the now-familiar strange feelings that were stirring within her.

~

The sun was beginning to set behind the trees and the temperature was dropping rapidly. By the time they had been outside for six hours, Katie was exhausted and numb. They had had a quick bowl of soup as a lunch break and a chance to get warm, but aside from those thirty minutes they had spent the rest of the time on the slopes, enjoying the sport and each other.

“This has to be the very last one, Sam. I’m tired and I’m cold and…”

“And you’re calling it a day. Okay, spoil sport, I’ll give in too.” He paused for a moment and looked at the few skiers left. “I like it when it gets like this. All the novices have given up. In fact, almost everyone has given it up. It’s practically deserted.”

She nodded. This was her time too, when she could call the mountain her own and could pretend she was the only one in the world. Only now there were two of them. Sam and Katie. Katie and Sam. Try as she might, she still couldn’t put the memory of his kisses aside. Sam and Katie. Katie and Sam. Somehow it all seemed so natural.

The wind whipped around her, shaking her back to the present, interrupting her reverie and flinging snow against her face. She shivered from both the sudden wet cold on her face and her warm thoughts.

Sam saw her and understood only half the reason. “Hey, you really are cold, aren’t you?” he said, and she didn’t correct him. “Come on, this is the last one for us today.” He picked up his poles. “What say we race to the Crest?”

“No way, Sam.” She laughed. “You’d have the advantage. I’m so cold that my toes won’t respond. Try me in the morning. That’s when I’m at my best.”

He looked at her and his eyes softened. “I haven’t seen you at anything but your best these past couple of days.”

She caught her breath. Oh, Sam! she thought. What’s happening to me? To us? She ducked her head once more and prepared to push off. She would call Jason as soon as she got to her room.

Chapter Five

The waiter placed their dinners in front of them and Katie watched as Sam began to unfoil the baked potato, again getting burned from the steam, exactly as had happened for the past two evenings. She watched him blow on his finger and she smiled as she heard his “Darn it.”

He looked at his hand. “I’ve done that every night, haven’t I?’’

“Uh-huh!”

“You’d think I would have learned.” He glanced at her and smiled. “You’re the reason—I’m dazzled by you.”

“Excuses, excuses.” She smiled. This was their third dinner together and she realized that she was beginning to count the days left for them to be together. Four more days and then it was back to school and to Maryland and to Jason. Yes, she’d go back to Jason and… and that would be it. All this time with Sam would be a lovely memory—nothing but a lovely memory—and when she spoke the words in her mind she felt her eyes mist slightly. She shut them and when she opened them again the haze was gone, but now she felt the small knot in the pit of her stomach as she repeated to herself that this would all be only a lovely memory.

She reached for the butter and started putting it on her potato. Looking at Sam, she wondered what he was thinking. Did he feel anything for her besides friendship? As he spooned globs of sour cream onto his potato, he saw her watching him and he smiled.

“Can’t help it. I know all about cholesterol and all that stuff but I love it. Anyhow, this is my vacation. I swear I never eat like this on the road. I never have time. I’m too busy hopping on airplanes.”

There, he had said it again—“on the road.” There was something about those words that reminded her of all the times she had been alone and lonely while growing up. All those times her father had been away from home. She watched as Sam spread the sour cream across the top of the steaming potato, oblivious to her thoughts. Jason wouldn’t travel much—schoolteachers were never shifted around that fast—and when he did go away, it would only be for a class trip or a vacation and she would probably be with him. She’d never be lonely with Jason.