Last Chance Llama Ranch (2 page)

But you didn't shrug off ten days in a medically induced coma. You didn't “walk off” a broken pelvis or torn ACL. You didn't “rub some dirt” on a shattered femur, collarbone, and elbow, or “tough out” a fractured jaw and eye socket.

No. You slunk off the stage and tried to figure out what the hell you were going to do with your life now that you were never again going to do the only thing you were ever truly good at.

And your body looked like Frankenstein's monster, to boot.

Merry's throat tightened, and her fingers curled into fists above the keyboard.
Don't smash
, she ordered the fists.
You need this laptop. You need the job at the other end of it.

Because while Merry might no longer be a sought-after athlete, she was still a very popular gal with a certain segment of the population—
debt collectors
. Every time her phone rang, a shiver ran down her spine, for as likely as not it would be some dead-voiced hard case demanding to know if she was the “M. Manning” who owed eighty grand on her VISA, the M. Manning whose car lease was six months in arrears and whose credit rating currently hovered somewhere just above zero.
Amazing how that happens when your coke-addled agent forgets to pay the premiums on your health insurance plan, and no insurer will touch you because your “pre-existing condition” involves twenty-seven broken bones,
Merry thought.

Obamacare hadn't come soon enough to salvage Merry's credit rating or her savings. And if she were being honest, having grown up the way she had, she'd never paid much attention to her finances before the accident had wiped her out. That negligence had left her scrambling now for whatever work she could find to stanch the hemorrhage in her wallet. Travel writing wasn't much, but then again, her résumé wasn't exactly bursting with highly marketable skills now that skiing was off the table. And she'd be damned if she'd take the only
other
way she knew out of her breathtaking debt pit.

I'd rather sell what's left of my spleen than go
that
route
, she thought, powering down the laptop and stuffing it in her satchel next to her passport and ticket home.

It had been Marcus who'd suggested the gig at
Pulse
—he might be a scoundrel, and more vain than even his supermodel status gave him any right to be, but her big brother knew her better than she knew herself sometimes. He knew she loved to travel (hell, they'd spent their childhoods roaming the halls of Four Seasons hotels in five continents), and he also knew she'd always had a secret passion for writing and literature, encouraging her even when their parents told her it was a waste of time, that her true value lay in her athletic prowess.

Writing is for asthmatic navel-gazers and university professors, Meredith
, she could still hear her mother saying.
Not winners like us.

Except Merry had lost. Spectacularly.

Pulse
had given her a second chance, and Merry had grabbed it, best she could. She'd spent the past year striving to live up to the magazine's expectations with the same drive and dedication she'd once devoted to her kamikaze training regimen.
Though with a whole lot less
sweat and, until today, fewer bruises
, she thought ruefully, rubbing one of Fatimah's little love taps.

Her mandate for the “Merry Way” dispatches was simple, as Joel had reminded her repeatedly. “Kid, you're there to have their dream vacations for them, tell them what's fun and what to avoid. Have a ball, make 'em wish they were hanging out with you, and move on when the story's played out. Don't get all deep or try to be the next Hemingway.”

Shallow was just fine with Merry, because she wasn't keen on blasting the hot mess that was her private life all over the Internet. Her readers expected to see the woman they'd come to know on the slopes—funny and fearless, and yes, a trifle self-deprecating. They liked to laugh with her—and yes, sometimes to laugh
at
her if their comments on her columns were anything to go by—but they weren't there to learn what made her tick. They enjoyed her misadventures; her
misgivings
were her own.

Speaking of which…
Maybe I should take another shower
, she thought. But the three she'd already taken since returning from today's sog-tastic adventure would surely suffice. Well, that and some prophylactic Tinactin. Anyway, she had a flight to catch. And a stud-muffin to snog, if she was lucky.

She was lucky.

Ish.

C
ontrary to every R-rated movie ever filmed, an airplane lavatory is not, in fact, a fantastic place to get laid. Particularly not for a woman of Merry Manning's altitude.

“Ow!”

“Shh!”

“Sorry, sorry…just, could you move your elbow a little…​yeah, like that…oooh, yeah…oh…wait, I'm stuck on the…”

Freezing water doused Merry's keister. “Yikes!” she yelped, and her lover slanted his mouth across hers—as much to shush her as seduce her, she suspected. But a little discretion was called for, given the dozen or so sleeping first-class passengers and the peripatetic flight attendants who might so easily overhear their tryst. Merry's heart was racing. Just now she couldn't care less about the suboptimal accommodations. Well, okay, she
cared
, but she wasn't going to let that stop her from reveling in this moment. Because at this moment, she had an Olympic-caliber lover smiling conspiratorially down at her, his long, lean frame pressed hard against her yearning body.

And against the lav's accordion door.

And the ceiling, with the smoke detector one really shouldn't disable.

And the sink, with its bolted-on foaming soap dispenser.

And perilously close to the flight attendant call button, which
really
would have been a bad idea.

There were, Merry reflected, certain places tall people simply shouldn't fuck.

And Johnny Black was
tall
.

Like,
really
tall.

That might not mean much to most women, but it was a helluva selling point for Merry. When you topped six feet three in your stocking feet (except who wore stockings anymore?) with shoulders like a linebacker, finding a guy who could make you feel even moderately dainty was a…well, a tall order. Johnny, at six seven, never seemed daunted by her stature, which all too often made men dismiss her out of hand. Even other athletes gave her a wide berth, examining her as if she were a mountain they were ill prepared to climb, but Johnny wasn't intimidated by mountains. Or much of anything—except persnickety sponsors.

“I could get kicked off the team for this,” he muttered, leaning in to suckle her earlobe. “Morals committee would
freak
if I got caught.”

So would your corporate backers
, Merry thought, desire cooling a degree. Johnny's squeaky-clean image as the snowboarder next door would be trashed if he were caught indulging in such tawdry shenanigans off the pipe. Especially when he was known to be dating America's favorite ice dancer, the sylphlike Melissa Christianson. Never mind that Merry happened to know Melissa was actually quite contentedly partnered with the reigning Norwegian record holder for women's speed skating. Reality wasn't what counted in the world of professional sports. Reputation was everything.

Is he worried about getting caught, or getting caught with a has-been like me?

The fact that he'd take this risk to be here with her—damaged, loser Merry—was both gratifying and a little bit galling. She and Johnny had had a flirtation going on for years before her accident, though it had never progressed beyond the occasional encounter at competitions and exposition games. They both knew they didn't have much in common beyond a love of defying gravity, of feeling the wind and the cold and the rush of pure speed—the triumph of knowing no one could catch you. Johnny loved the spotlight, the sponsorships, and the glory attached to being a world-class athlete. Merry just liked to
win
. While he sought attention, Merry had sought to outrace her own demons as much as anything else.

They were never going to sit around the fire discussing the latest Jonathan Franzen novel, or debating whether or not immigration reform was a good thing. But the sex was awesome, and wasn't that enough? It wasn't often she crossed paths with Johnny these days, and it was pure luck he'd been filming that spot for Turkish TV while she'd been in Istanbul. He'd be off to make his connecting flight to Aspen soon after they landed in Chicago. Which was fine with Merry. They'd never made a big deal of their hookups, staying under the radar so the media wouldn't make hay with something that didn't fit into a neat, all-American narrative.

And “under the radar” was cool with Merry. But since when had she become the girl you hid in the lav?

“You fucking the committee, or me?” she challenged, tossing her hair and nearly clocking herself on the paper towel dispenser in the process. Thankfully, Johnny didn't notice. He was too busy pressing her up against the sink with his lithe, ropy body.

“I love how you're always game for anything,” he groaned, licking her throat. “So fucking fearless…”

So my cunning plan is working
, Merry thought, letting his tongue do its mind-bendingly good thing against her neck. Maintaining the myth of “Merry Manning, all-around badass and intrepid adventurer” was a full-time job these days. Until the accident, it hadn't been a myth at all. Badass had been second nature—hell, the
only
nature Merry had. But now? She didn't know what—or who—she was, but it certainly wasn't
fearless
.

Johnny didn't need to know that.

She wrapped her fingers around his rock-hard ass and urged him on. “That's right, my boy. And don't you forget it.”

“Put your foot up on the seat, baby,” he panted. “Now, brace yourself…”

“Ohhhhhhhhh!”

Five minutes later, Merry's mile-high membership had been thoroughly renewed.

Seven minutes later, she was back at her seat toward the rear of the darkened airplane, fishing in the overhead bin for an Advil.

Johnny had given her a quizzical look when she'd slipped past him and out of the first-class cabin. She'd sent him off with a smile and a sneaky caress on that trained-to-the-hilt tush, not bothering to explain why she wouldn't be joining him for in-flight cocktails and warm nuts. “See ya at the gate, lov-ahhh,” she'd said with an exaggerated wink over her shoulder as she'd headed back to her seat in coach. She wasn't about to tell Johnny how broke she was. She'd been just like him not long ago, taking first-class accommodations for granted. The team would pay. The sponsors. Whoever handled logistics while you were busy racking up medals and glory.

What Merry had been racking up lately were medical bills.

So not sexy.

And speaking of unsexy…
Yikes, what a cramp
, she thought, rubbing her leg as she folded the physique of an Amazon into a space better suited to a Keebler elf. The ride home wasn't going to be a whole lot of fun. Merry massaged her left thigh harder as the pain set in. The muscle would be wound tight in knots, if history was any indicator.
Ugly
knots. She was just glad their impromptu acrobatics in the loo hadn't required any actual nudity—
that
might have turned even her hot-blooded snowboarder cold.

Eighteen months since her last surgery, and the scars still looked gnarly—red, deep, and jagged, like riverbeds carved along the course of her left leg. Switzerland's finest orthopedic and plastic surgeons had done their best—and their best had been good enough to patch together what was basically roadkill—but Merry would always bear the imprint of the accident that had stolen her Olympic dreams. Along with the shattered leg, torn ligaments, and the pins that had knit her pelvis, there'd been the broken collarbone and elbow too.

And then there'd been the facial injuries.

Though not as physically devastating as the rest, the fractured orbital socket, broken nose and teeth had been psychologically damaging in their own right. Waking up from the coma the doctors had induced, eight days after the accident, she'd demanded a mirror despite her doctors' efforts to dissuade her…and when they finally handed one over, Merry hadn't even recognized the swollen, black-and-green monster she saw in it as her reflection.

From then on there'd been the “Before Merry” and the “After Merry.” And “After Merry” was a stranger, a bizarro-world version of herself she could hardly bear to acknowledge. Months of painful rehab and several surgeries later, even Merry's mother, ever vigilant for flaws, swore you could barely tell anything had happened—to her face, at least—but Merry could still see the signs of the impact.

She still saw them now, on those occasions she cared to glance in a mirror. Even before the accident, she'd never been what one would call beautiful. While the rest of her family were striking, smooth-complected patricians who turned heads each time they entered a room, Merry had somehow come out like…well, like a cross between a Norman Rockwell painting and Pippi Longstocking. Freckled, with a wide, expressive mouth and wide-set eyes that were a guileless denim blue. Thick red hair that had lightened to a sun-streaked copper after years spent mostly outdoors. As a competitor, she'd never been the Lindsey Vonn type, flashing white teeth and lush lips in a Chapstick commercial, posing for photo shoots in teeny bikinis. No, her niche as a professional athlete had been the Valkyrie in twin strawberry blonde braids—a Valkyrie who saved herself from Brunhilde comparisons by cracking jokes at her own expense even as she shattered records on the slopes.

Now, she'd have given a great deal just to get back to her Brunhilde days, because after the accident…everything was just subtly
off
. There was that slight crookedness in what had once been a pert, ski-jump nose; the fine line that bisected her left brow, giving it a piratical lift; the front teeth that were impossibly perfect…and completely fake. You could feel the surgical screws that had pieced her cheekbone back together if you pressed your fingers closely to her skin. But Merry was as leery of letting anyone touch her face these days as she was of getting naked anywhere other than alone.

So yeah. A face from a fun-house mirror and a body that no longer effortlessly obeyed her commands. That was her reality now.

Merry rubbed her eyes, catching herself in a yawn despite her discomfort and less-than-cheery musings. The day—and its unaccustomed activities both carnal and career-related—had taken its toll. She pulled her jacket over her shoulder and snuggled as best she could into the scrap of fabric-covered foam and sadism that passed for a seat in coach. Her days of riding high were over, and she'd best resign herself to it.
Pulse
might send her to far-flung locations for her column, but they sure as hell weren't paying for first-class plane tickets to get her there.

Suck it up, Merry
.
You don't rate special treatment anymore.

She sucked it up and, for good measure, sucked
down
a nip of Absolut she'd snicked from the first-class galley.

When she woke a few hours later, pain shooting through every nerve ending (and twice through a few), she wondered if Johnny had waited for her like he'd promised.
Emerging from the Jetway, stiffness making her slight limp more pronounced, Merry looked around for her lover. Coffee and perhaps a few farewell kisses would not go amiss, she thought with a smile. But her smile died as a trio of buxom coeds standing around the waiting area squealed, “OMG, that's
him
!” and launched themselves at Johnny like charging rhinos in clingy tank tops. Their shrieks of “Johnny! Johnny!” were loud enough to be heard halfway back to Istanbul, and they already had pens out as they begged him to sign their boobs, pose for selfies, let them stroke the snowboard he'd been given special permission to carry on the plane. Their jumping and shouting attracted attention from all quarters, and soon Johnny was mobbed.

No one noticed Merry.

Her throat tightened. Once
she'd
garnered attention like that. Not the panting girls so much, but excited, eager fans who wanted nothing more than a moment with the girl who was going to bring home the gold. Back then, it had made her uncomfortable, self-conscious. But now…

Johnny's eyes met Merry's across the departure lounge.
Gotta go
, he mouthed, shrugging apologetically as he was carried away by the crowd.
Catch ya later.

Much later, if at all
,
Merry guessed. His star was rising, and hers had quite clearly set. She turned her back.
Get over yourself, woman
, she thought, closing her throat against any possibility of tears.
It's over, you're done, and that's the end of it.
She forced herself to move toward the taxi stands outside the terminal, briskly and without a backward glance.