LITMIR.BIZ

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a smile.

      “Oh, I noticed all right.” In fact, he was having a little trouble keeping his balance right now, and it had nothing to do with skiing. He felt like the wind had been knocked from his lungs the second he’d realized she was a doctor. He was still struggling to catch his breath fifteen minutes later.

      She stood and went over to retrieve the girl’s hat and skis. “I’ll bring these down with me,” she told the men. “Hopefully they’ve located her folks. I want to be on hand if something changes.”

      “Sure thing, Mira.” One of the medical workers threw her a quick smile.

      It seemed everyone knew her around these parts.

      The paramedics started down the hill, leaving them to follow.

      “Do you want to walk down or ski?”

      “At the rate I go, it’s probably faster to walk.” He took the girl’s skis from her and lumped them together with his, tucking them under his arm with his poles.

      Together, they trudged down the bunny slope, staying a few yards behind the rescue team. His mind couldn’t help wandering back to her instructions on how to maneuver with his skis and how her words had yielded much better results than the lessons her ex—the professional—had given him.

       Wanting to show off for the pretty doctor, Jack?

      Self-preservation was more like it. Something he should probably remember. Because the fact that she was a doctor was all the more reason he should avoid her for the rest of his stay. If his coach were here, he’d be calling for a time-out and hauling Jack’s ass off the playing field.

      And the man would be right. Injured players should remain on the sidelines until they had time to heal.

      Yeah? Well, he’d had four damn years. How much longer would it take?

      Some players never recovered. Maybe he was one of them. He could just throw in the towel right now.

      His body gave a quick tug of irritation, one that grew when Mira glanced back at him with a smile. “Keeping up okay?”

      Oh, he could keep up just fine. He balled his hands into fists when his mind immediately headed into more dangerous territory. Of Mira saying those words under very different circumstances.

       Sidelines, Jack, remember?

      Thankfully, they reached the bottom of the slope, and he had other things to occupy his mind, like the small crowd that had gathered near the door of the lodge, and the woman in a pink parka rushing forward to meet the EMS guys as they headed for the pick-up site where their truck was probably parked. Forced to stop, the guys lifted the stretcher just as he and Mira arrived.

      Habit made him start toward the group to brief the girl’s parents, but Mira beat him to it, smoothly maneuvering right into the center of the gathering. Besides, he wasn’t here with his football team. This was her gig, not his.

      He could see her gesturing as she explained the situation, but he couldn’t hear the words. Whatever she said, it seemed to have the right effect. People started to move away until all that was left were a man and a woman who looked like they were in their early fifties—Marilyn’s parent’s probably—standing near the stretcher. Jack debated slipping through the glass doors of the lodge and escaping while he could, while Mira’s attention was fixed on something else.

      Coward’s way out. He’d decided four years ago that he wasn’t going that route ever again. He’d lost his head in a bottle for a while after his wife’s death. Once he’d picked himself up off the bathroom floor after a particularly bad hangover, he’d decided to live a life Paula would be proud of rather than throwing it away in a booze-filled haze. He obviously wasn’t there yet—this temporary exile and the sleep aids were proof of that.

      What he needed was something to take his mind off himself for a few hours.

      His eyes slid back to Mira, whose glossy hair showed beneath her cap as she leaned over the stretcher to talk to the injured girl once more.

      Nope. No matter how tempting that might be, it wasn’t smart. He needed something light and easy. Something other than skiing with pretty women.

      Large black letters from a flyer taped to the door of the lodge caught his attention:

       Not a Ski Fan?

      Ha, you could say that. He continued reading.

      Check out Silver Pass’s other exciting offerings.

      The bullet points proceeded to list things like evening sleigh rides, trips down the mountains on inner tubes, gondola lifts that boasted spectacular views, and even snowmobile rentals.

      The snowmobiles sounded interesting. Maybe even a little bit like jet skis.

      He pulled out his smartphone to store the number in his address book.

      “The gondola ride is a lot of fun. And there’s only room for two in each car.”

      A sultry voice came from just over his left shoulder. Not Mira’s, since she was still over by the stretcher.

      He turned around and found a brunette with darkly penciled brows that matched the carefully modulated tones of her voice. Overdone. Whispering of desperation. And when the woman smiled, nothing happened to the skin around her eyes.

      Botox.

      He’d thought of Mira as a professional snow bunny when he’d first met her, but her sparkling eyes and sunny disposition had dashed his suspicions away. This woman, however …

      Swallowing, he nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.”

      She took a step closer, her jacket pulling tight across her breasts. “Did I overhear someone say that you’re a doctor?”

      Oh, Lord. Not what he wanted to deal with right now.

      Why was it that a quick fling with Mira appealed to him, despite its dangers, while the thought of spending the night with this woman just left him cold? He didn’t want to hurt her feelings—if they hadn’t already been paralyzed by the overzealous needle of her surgeon.

      “I am. Just here for a couple of days’ R&R.” Okay, a couple of days was on the verge of being a lie, since he still had three weeks left of his vacation.

      “That’s enough time to squeeze in a fun activity or two, isn’t it? It’ll be a tight fit, but it would be well worth the effort.”

      She said the words with a completely straight face, but she had to know how they sounded.

      Hell. He was surprised she wasn’t listed on that flier as one of the lodge’s alternate activities, along with her name, phone number, and measurements. And that she promised a tight fit.

      “Well—”

      Mira suddenly appeared beside them, looking from one to the other. “I wondered where you went.” She glanced at the advertisement and then the phone in his hand. “Planning something fun?”

      “Thinking about it. Did Marilyn get off okay?”

      “She’s on her way to the hospital right now.”

      The brunette quirked a brow. Wow, maybe there wasn’t as much happy juice in her face as he’d thought. “Girlfriend?” she asked, her voice not quite as sultry as it had been.

      He wanted to say yes, just to get rid of her without having to be rude. Would Mira kill him? He could always explain later.

      “She’s—”

      “Definitely a girlfriend. And you are?” Mira wrapped her hands around his right bicep, giving it a quick squeeze as if to say she knew he was in a tight spot.

      Squeeze. Tight spot. Well the woman might not have done anything for him with those words, but Mira’s touch was definitely doing something to his gut. It clenched,

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