Four Nights to Forever (15 page)

But the end of the week was closing in on them, and when she got on the plane, their relationship would be over. They wouldn’t even be Facebook friends.

By the time they stopped for lunch, Doug was certain they had been on every lift—except that of the bunny hill—at least once.

They trudged in the cafeteria, and Cassie collapsed into one of the chairs, not even bothering to remove any of her gear first. “Even with our stop for hot chocolate, I feel like I’ve skied more this morning than I have in all the previous lessons combined.”

Doug took off his gloves and set them on the table, following them with his helmet and neck gator, before setting his jacket on the back of a chair. “Less lesson, more skiing.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve missed your melodious corrections on my every move,” she teased with a gentle laugh. She finally seemed to have mustered up the energy to remove her helmet, which teetered when she set it on top of his gloves. Her hair was a wet, sweaty, matted mess, with one large lock draped across her forehead, almost like an old man’s comb-over. Her face was drawn and exhausted, but her eyes were sparkling. She looked great.

“No, you haven’t. You’ve been repeating them to yourself. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“Right.” She scowled at him, her eyes playful. “I wish I had another snowball.”

“You can punish me later.”

“Just don’t call us for help,” said a voice hovering above the table.

“No, I want that call. If only to watch.”

Doug looked up into the faces of Bear and Garrett, who were standing by the table, smirking, in their red coats.

“We saw you skiing over off Got Religion. Nice. It’s important to get your money’s worth out of your lessons. Make Doug work for every penny.” Bear, with his hippie name and slight body, was more dangerous than Garrett. He’d had years of defending himself against anyone who wanted to make fun of his name. Garrett was just barely young enough for the oversized ego to be forgivable. And they both liked to think of themselves as men about town—or about the slopes.

“Thanks, boys. I am.” Judging by Cassie’s smirk, Doug was pretty sure she was belittling the ski patrolmen before they could continue their innuendo. Bear and Garrett didn’t catch on, though both looked a little uncertain at being called a “boy” by the woman Doug was sleeping with. Which is pretty much what they deserved.

She continued dangling them on a string by saying, “If you want to join us for lunch, I’ll tell you all about it.”

The patrolmen gaped. Doug could come to love a woman with the confidence to make a comment like that.

When they recovered their equilibrium, Bear and Garrett draped their coats over the two empty chairs at the table and went off in search of food.

“Let’s sit somewhere else,” Doug said. “I imagine the rest of lunch will be them insinuating—”

“Insinuating the truth,” she interrupted. “I’m a forty-year-old woman sleeping with my thirty-two-year-old ski instructor. I’m feeling pretty good about that.”

Yeah, but Doug didn’t feel pretty good about it. The sex with Cassie was pretty spectacular, but he’d never liked his private life bandied about in the locker room, and he certainly didn’t want it to happen
now
when he actually had a private life that interested him, along with everyone else. Understanding that his habit of hiding his secrets in the most hidden pockets of his ski jacket made people like Bear and Garrett
more
interested didn’t make their search any easier to swallow.

Not to mention that he wasn’t interested in being the ski instructor Cassie was banging. He had two kids and had moved his life past that role, if he’d even ever played it.

If his concerns were on his face, Cassie ignored them. “Plus, you have to work with these guys. And I only have to put up with it for maybe an hour, if we eat slow and linger. It’s not like I’m going to hang out with them any more before I go back to Massachusetts.”

And just like that, his secret wish crashed in a powdery puff of glory. A yard sale. The kind of crash where your hat, goggles, gloves, skis, and poles scattered about the slopes, and—if you were lucky—kind strangers would pick them up for you. If you weren’t lucky, an uphill hike was in your future.

Before he could respond, Bear and Garrett returned with their food and Doug was relegated to listening to Cassie laugh with them while he stewed on the fact that she was leaving in a couple of days. Maybe this, more than any number of bad memories, was why he didn’t sleep with his students. Casual sex just wasn’t his style. And now he was “that dude,” the one who wanted a relationship after a few hot nights. He didn’t know if that made him creepy or sincere or both.

Bear and Garrett fell prey to Cassie’s smile and tried to one-up each other with stories of daring rescues through the Bigtooth Chutes and dynamiting for avalanches. Doug was pretty sure they’d “borrowed” most of the tales from more experienced ski patrolmen, continually trying to one-up the previous story in a bid to impress her that was straight out of high school. If they saw her figure in all its glory, when it wasn’t covered in ski clothing, he’d be stuck with them tagging along on the mountain, as well, and have to hope some poor schmuck would fall and need assistance. He finished his food, piled his spoon and napkins in his bowl, pushed his tray back, and waited for the boys to finish preening.

*

Cassie waited until Doug had put down the footrest on the lift before asking what was wrong. He looked over the side of the chair at the skiers below as he answered, which was unnecessary—and cowardly—because his goggles would hide his eyes anyway.

“Bear and Garrett falling all over themselves to impress you,” he said, sounding surprised she had asked.

“Are you jealous? Because I’m sitting here on the lift with you, and it’s you who’s coming to my condo tonight. And I do like you, but we both know this is a fling and I’m leaving at the end of the week.”

Her words seemed to wound him as much as they hurt her, but she needed the reminder. Doug wasn’t a permanent part of her life. He
couldn’t
be a permanent part of her life. She had a home to go back to, even if it was an apartment full of boxes.

“I’m having a good time with you, is all.” His jaw was tight as he said the words.

Feelings she couldn’t share, and maybe wouldn’t ever be able to share, elbowed their way between them on the lift. Fear and sadness and want and tenderness, all jockeying for position in the small spaces of her heart. Could he feel them, too?

“I know you’ve got a life in Massachusetts and a daughter in school there and I’m a fling . . . but it would be nice if it had the possibility of more,” he said, his voice tentative. “And you’re the first woman I’ve felt that way about in a long time.”

“Thank you.” His words shrank the fear, but the sadness spread almost as fast as the tenderness, and there simply wasn’t enough room for all those feelings in her body. “I—This week has meant more to me than I can say.”

She swung her skis, swaying the chair and letting what she wanted to say coalesce in her mind. “I knew my divorce didn’t mean the end of any sex life or love life for me,” she started. Of course, the few dates and nights she’d spent with other men didn’t come close to being called a sex life or a love life. Doug had taught her that.

“I mean, I’m forty, not dead. But sometimes it felt like I would spend the rest of my life either waiting to be a grandmother or
being
a grandmother, and that there wouldn’t be much
me
left when I was finished. You’ve reminded me that I exist. Thank you for that. And for caring that I exist . . .”

They reached top of the lift and hopped off together. Cassie followed Doug down a long cat track until they got to a run she hadn’t skied before. He said he’d meet her in the middle of the run to watch her pole plants and form. Then he sailed off. She slipped her skis to the edge of the cat track and looked down the white expanse of the slope. Down to where he waited. For her.

Unfortunately, her fear reappeared, bigger and stronger than ever. She’d found something scarier than forgetting she existed and that was finding someone she could lose herself in.

‡

B
ack at her condo, Doug called dibs on the shower while she prepped dinner, this time a simple stir-fry with lots of veggies and some chicken. She still hadn’t opened Karen’s birthday present, which sat on the mantle staring at her. Karen, who had insisted on this vacation, but was now probably happy to be back with her husband and kids. Though she’d acted like spending an entire week away from her family wasn’t a big deal, they’d both known it was a lie.

Cassie had let her do it anyway. Maybe, she thought as she set the chopped carrots on a plate, she had opened herself up to selfish decisions, even before Doug.

She was getting out celery when her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and smiled. “Hello, Sam. How’s your break going?”

“Fine. Spring break isn’t the same without you here, but Dad’s trying. I wanted to call to say happy birthday. I’d sing for you, but without cake in front of me, it feels silly.”

Sam’s words made Cassie’s guilt about being away burn deeper, though it wasn’t like she’d be seeing a lot of Sam even if she were home. Sam would still be spending half the time with Tom, and she had friends from high school she’d want to see. If Cassie were back in Massachusetts, they’d still be on the phone with each other; they’d just be closer geographically. Cassie smacked the cutting board with the celery. There wouldn’t even be memories in Massachusetts for her to cling to because Cassie would be in her soulless new apartment.

“How’s the vacation? Is it okay without Karen around?”

“It’s good,” Cassie replied, trying to pitch her voice so she sounded casual. “I’d forgotten how much I liked skiing.”

“Are you okay being alone?” That her daughter was grown up and thoughtful enough to ask was one of the best birthday presents Cassie could have ever gotten, even if it was bittersweet. Sam would be graduating from college soon. She was an adult now, and they were learning how to be friends. Sam would still need her, and she would still need Sam, but it would be different. It already was different.

Still, whether they were growing into friends or not, Sam was her daughter, and Cassie had no idea how to answer this question truthfully.

Cassie must have paused long enough to give Sam some clue, because her daughter screeched, then said, “Oh my God! You’re not alone! I saw Karen at the mall and she mentioned a hot ski instructor. And you did it! Or him, rather.”

The celery she’d chopped was completely uneven. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Why not? You’re practicing safe sex, right?”

The knife slipped again. Chopping vegetables was a lost cause. “How can you ask me that?” Cassie said, affronted. Though, whether it was from the fact that Sam had been the one to ask her that question or that someone had asked her that question
at all
, she didn’t know.

“I read somewhere that Florida has a huge problem with STDs in retirement communities.” Sam said the words with such laissez-faire that Cassie almost forgot the pleasure she’d felt at her daughter’s maturity not thirty seconds ago.

“I’m not
that
old.”

“You’ve been with dad foreeever.”

Cassie’s wineglass was still half-full but she topped it off anyway. “I’m
really
not talking about this with you. Especially not anything about your father.”

“Well, I’m still happy for you. Dad’s my dad so I love him, but I don’t think he treated you very well. I hope this guy does.”

She smiled to herself. “He does.”

“I guess it’s too bad he’s in Utah. Hard to keep a long-distance relationship going.” Sam would know. She’d stayed in a relationship with her high school boyfriend for the first three years of college, even though they were at schools in different states.

“I’m not going to try a long-distance relationship with Doug.” She wasn’t twenty and long-distance relationships seemed like a young person’s game.

“But right now is good?”

“Right now is good,” Cassie reassured her daughter. “The mountains are breathtaking and life-affirming.” She knew why Doug had stayed working here so many years. Maybe even a small part of her was jealous. “He makes me laugh. He tells me that I’m beautiful and he helps me clean up in the kitchen after dinner.” He also encouraged her to be selfish and gave her as many orgasms as she gave him, but she wasn’t sharing that last bit of information with her daughter.