Nobody's Business (Nobody Romances) (4 page)

"Come on," Lyn murmured to the teenagers. "Let's get our
gear and hit the snow."

No one played the guilt card better than Violet Sawyer.
Mere days after Ace's visit-or the "gang shanghai," as he liked
to call that afternoon-Doug strapped on, for the first time, the
prosthetic arm the hospital had created for him.

According to his doctor, the latex and metal contraption
was state of the art. But it still looked like what it was: a robotic arm. He might as well start wearing an eye patch and a
parrot on his shoulder. At least one day a year he'd look like
everyone else-on Halloween.

And how in God's name could he type with this ... this ...
claw?

But his physical therapist didn't expect him to simply type.
No, the torture king wouldn't rest until Doug could feel the
difference between the ace of hearts and the jack of clubs with
his fake fingers.

Which wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

Although nerves in his upper chest were rewired to control
the apparatus, the simplest actions, like raising his hand, took
focus and time he'd never needed before that miserable day in
Iraq. Tasks he'd done since toddlerhood-tying his shoes, buttoning his shirt, writing his name-had to be relearned in excruciating therapy sessions.

And now, he was about to attempt downhill skiing. With the
torture king's blessing, of course.

Mount Elsie, a small ski resort in the middle of Vermont's
Green Mountains, catered to local residents, families with
small children, and maimed veterans who sought a shot at regaining independence after losing a limb or two. Or three.
Or four.

"All set, Doug?"

From his seat on the bench at the bottom of the bunny hill's
J-bar, Doug glanced up at his ski instructor, then turned a furious gaze toward Ace. "Is this a joke?"

Kerri-Sue Parker looked exactly the way Doug would expect a Kerri-Sue Parker to look. Perky, blond, blue-eyed, no
older than twenty-five, tops. Jeez, he probably owned clothes
older than this kid.

Despite her youth, or maybe because of it, she flashed him
a blinding smile. "You've got a problem with me, Doug?"

"Yeah," Ace replied with an amused snort. "You're not
Brooklyn Raine."

"Who?" Her expression blanked.

Good God, was she younger than he thought? How could
anyone even remotely linked to the skiing industry not know
the name Brooklyn Raine? Not that there was any truth to Ace's
comment. The kid had harped on Doug's teenage crush since
the night he'd first learned about it.

"Brooklyn Raine was a slalom skier from the eighties and
nineties," Ace told Kerri-Sue with an exaggerated sneer. "You
know. The old days. When snowboarding was reserved for the
far side of the mountain."

When Ace pointed past the tree line, Kerri-Sue's gaze naturally followed. "Oh. Right." She gave him a thumbs-up. "Got it
now."

Thwap! Thwap! Ace bounced on his purple and green board,
a subtle hint he was bored and eager to hit whatever challenging slope he could find far from the beginner's area.

"You may not believe this, Doug," he said between bounces,
"but you got the best instructor in the program. Kerri-Sue gets
results from the troops the other guys can't."

Flashing another dazzling smile, Kerri-Sue shrugged. "It's
a gift."

The dawn of understanding illuminated Doug's brain. Of
course Kerri-Sue got results. No red-blooded American male would risk disappointing this beautiful snow angel. Except
him.

"I want someone else." The meanest, ugliest bulldog on the
instructional team. Someone who wouldn't giggle every time
he lost his balance and fell on his face.

"Too bad." Kerri-Sue knocked bits of errant snow from her
bindings by tapping her pole against her ski. The slow precision in the motion made him think she wished she was pounding his head. "You're stuck with me today. Don't make me
knock you on your butt in front of all these Marines."

He took a look around, at the wounded men and women, all
struggling to adapt to a new normal. How in God's name had
he arrived here? A year ago, he'd had a successful career, a
modicum of celebrity in New York journalistic circles, and two
working, matching arms. Now he was just another freak in
this snow circus.

"You're all in the same boat, Doug," Kerri-Sue added, as if
she'd read his thoughts. "We tend to group our students by category. So everyone here this week is a two-tracker with upper
torso issues."

"Two-tracker?"

"Yeah," Ace replied from his left. "That means you'll use two
skis." He grinned, no doubt proud to show what he'd learned
while serving his public penance here.

Kerri-Sue shooed Ace toward the main chairlifts. "Go play,
Ace. Doug and I will be fine without you."

Ace turned toward the larger part of the mountain, then
back to Doug. "You're sure?"

"Go," Doug replied. One know-it-all youth watching his
every move would be all his cracked pride could take during
this debacle.

Lucky for him, the kid needed no further prodding. With a
whoop of delight, he picked up his board and raced to the
main lift line.

Kerri-Sue sighed dramatically. "Alone, at last." She stepped
into her skis with a click-click. "Basically, we handle five different types of skiers here: two-trackers like you; three-trackers are one-leg amputees who use one ski but two outriggers. An
outrigger's that long-handled thing-kinda looks like a pole
with the front piece of a ski tacked on."

Doug nodded. He'd seen them before in competition use at
the Special Olympics and Disabled Sports games.

"Four-trackers use two skis and two outriggers. Then there's
the sit-trackers who work a sit-ski. And visually impaired skiers use a guide. We've got one guy, Max, suffers from some rare
vision disorder-he gets, like, tunnel vision and can't see what's
on either side of him. He skis with his dog."

Deep inside his brain, a dormant instinct sparked. His reporter's senses tingled, like Spiderman's. But he shoved the
sensation away. His reporting days were over; he couldn't type
and no way he'd be seen on television with The Claw. "Yeah,
right."

"No joke. He's got a human guide for racing and stuff, but
just for toodling around the easy slopes, he uses his Labrador
retriever. The dog's a two-tracker, by the way."

A smile twitched his lips, and Kerri-Sue beamed brighter
than sunshine on fresh snow. "Now that's more like it. You're
actually a good-looking guy when you're not growling at me."

"I'm old enough to be your father." Or, at least, an uncle.

She gave him the critical once-over. "You think so? You're ...
what? Thirty-five?"

He shrugged. Thirty-five in years, but ninety in experience.
And feeling older every minute ...

"How old do you think I am?"

A dangerous question. And he had no intention of stepping
closer to that ledge. Not with a woman who could push him
off a cliff and get away with it.

"Come on," Kerri-Sue pressed. "You started this. Finish it. "

He'd lowball her to be on the safe side. "Twenty-one."

She laughed. "Now you're just making fun of me. Come on,
be honest. I can take it. How old do you really think I am?"

"No more than twenty-six."

"Which would make you too young to be my father. The fact
is, though, I'll be forty this coming August." She must have
seen his eyes widen because she nodded like a bobblehead doll. "Really. Good Swedish genes. Great Swedish genes, actually."

Okay, so maybe he didn't have clothes older than her.

But maybe she only told him she was almost forty to make
him feel better somehow. Some kind of pity-lie for the cripple.

His doubts must have shown on his face because she leaned
closer, eyes crinkled with mirth. "Wanna see my driver's license?"

Embarrassment crept up his nape, and he quickly looked
away, focusing on the J-bar lift as it revolved from the bottom
to the top of the slope.

"I can go back to the locker room and get my wallet," she
persisted.

Leveling a steely gaze her way, he replied, "I'll take your
word for it."

"Good. Then slap on your helmet and let's get started." She
picked up the helmet and shoved it at Doug's chest.

Instinctively, he reached with his right arm, but, of course,
nothing happened. He'd left his prosthesis in his slopeside condo.
Still not one hundred percent comfortable with the motion of the
fake arm, he preferred to relearn skiing without it.

"Here." With a maternal sigh, Kerri-Sue slipped the helmet
over Doug's head, then slid the goggles into place over his face.
She bent close to study his field of vision. "Can you see okay?"

He had to swallow hard to keep his pride from screaming that
he could do these tasks himself. Because, the truth of the matter
was, he couldn't. Too frustrated to speak, he settled for a nod.

Apparently that was enough acknowledgment for Kerri-Sue.
With gentle fingers, she clipped the strap under his chin.

Once again, he gulped back his resentment. Good God,
how many more insults would his ego have to suffer? How on
earth could he ever be whole again? Bitterness bubbled like
bile in his gut. He couldn't. The best he could hope for was a
half-existence. He'd either be stuck fumbling with that phony
artifice that masqueraded as a human arm or playing helpless
victim so others could tie his shoes for him.

No. No way. He'd fight this battle. No way did he intend to
spend the rest of his life with a hired coddler. Or his mother.

Kerri-Sue smiled, her cheeks rosy from the cold. "Come
on, Doug. Let's hit the slopes!"

After leaving Becky and Michael under the watchful eyes of
the kitchen staff amid steaming cups of cocoa and squares of
brownies, Lyn took one of her last runs of the day. At the top
of the Snow Blind trail's final hill, she stopped to watch the
new Ski-Hab recruits on the bunny slope, Snow Wonder.

One by one, with their instructors alongside them for guidance, the class of two-trackers eased their way down the
graduated hill in the classic S pattern. Nice. Slow. Steady form.

The good thing about Marines: they knew how to take orders.

On an inhale of crisp mountain air, she swooped closer to
the beginner's area. Years of skiing this mountain had made
her all too familiar with the instructors. These days, she could
recognize any staff member based on his or her unique motions on the slopes.

Curiosity riveted her to the student working with Kerri-Sue.
The slender, beauty-queen blond, usually the most popular and
successful of the instructors, struggled with a hulking, onearmed giant of a man.

As he attempted the winding slalom downhill, his center of
gravity tilted, and he faltered on the skis. Splat! He landed hard
on his right side-the side without an arm. Rather than flipping to his left and regaining his stance, he began the wiggle
routine, which Lyn usually associated with children and weaker
amputees.

At first, Kerri-Sue stood back and watched, patiently waiting
for him to realize his mistake and correct his approach. But as
he continued to flounder while she no doubt stiffened in her
boots, she finally broke protocol and bent to wrap an arm around
him.

Oh, for heaven's sake. The bigger they were, the more they
acted like babies. This one was no exception. Time for her to
intervene.

One strong push with her poles set her in motion, and she
quickly gathered enough speed to cross the flat section that separated her trail from the bunny slope. Kerri-Sue must have
heard her approach, because her head jerked up toward the
crest of the hill. Seconds later, the instructor dropped her hold
on the student and stood upright, hands at her sides.

Lyn came to a hard stop, spraying snow on the man's black
ski pants. "Back off, Kerri-Sue," she said, planting her poles
deep enough into the ground to keep them upright. "I've got
this one." She turned to the man whose face was hidden behind
a helmet and snow goggles. "What's your name, soldier?" she
barked with the force of a drill sergeant.

"Umm ... Lyn ..." Kerri-Sue leaned toward her.

Lyn waved her off, never turning her gaze from the man on
the frozen ground.

"No, Lyn, really," Kerri-Sue continued in a hurried hush.
"You need to know-"

"I'm talking to the soldier now, Kerri-Sue. Go wait for us at
the lift, please."

"I'm not a soldier," the man ground out through gritted
teeth.

Huh? Lyn started. "You're not?" Confusion smeared across
her brain like petroleum jelly, and she turned to Kerri-Sue for
clarity.

Kerri-Sue's cheeks reddened with embarrassment, but her
eyes blazed outrage. "Doug is our first civilian in the program.
He was referred to us by Ace Riordan. Remember?" She edged
the last word with frozen iron.

Oops.

Vaguely. Lyn recalled the program's director, Richie Armstrong, telling her about a prospective recruit-a civilianwho'd been injured in some kind of accident. When Richie
had confided the guy was a friend of Ace's, Lyn had hesitated
to agree. No one had bothered to tell her the civilian had been
accepted, without her approval.