The Right Mr. Wrong

After his shift he turned down Zephyr’s invitation to check out a new band at a local club, and headed to his cabin. After feeding Fafner and heating soup for himself, he logged onto the Internet and searched YouTube for “Skiing accident” and “Maddie Alexander.”

The film was in color, apparently part of the video from television coverage of the event, one of the final World Cup races before the Olympics, in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Maddie, wearing the skintight one-piece red, white and blue racing uniform of the U.S. team and a blue helmet painted with clouds, popped out of the gate and barreled down a steep slope that glinted blue with ice.

Though the sun was shining at the top of the slope, halfway down she momentarily disappeared from view in a cloud of blowing snow. She skidded around a sharp turn and fought for control, miraculously righting herself and tucking tightly to regain speed.

She was a blur as she soared down another straightaway and into the next right turn. The steel-on-ice screech of ski edges scraping the hardpack rasped from the speakers. Hagan gripped the edge of the desk, his whole body tensed, his own muscles tightening, his body bracing as she took yet another curve at breathtaking speed.

Then she hit a jump and soared through the air. Too high, he could tell, and he sucked in his breath along with the spectators on the video as she hit the ice hard, at the wrong angle. Arms and legs flying, she bounced, then rolled like a crumpled wad of paper hurtling down the slope, hitting, rising, hitting again.

Hagan groaned as she came to a stop, arms and legs at unnatural angles. She was still. Absolutely still. The screen went black, yet he continued to stare, fighting nausea.

If he had not known better, he would have thought the woman in the video was now dead. How had she survived such a fall, much less come back to ski again?

He took a deep breath and sat back in his chair. No wonder she had freaked out up there on Peel. The snow swirling around her, the steep pitch and narrow chute were not that different from conditions the day of her career-ending accident.

So why had she not let him call for a snowmobile to take her down? He did not have to search hard for the answer to that question. He knew a little about pride himself.

He thought back to part of the conversation they had had at the Eldo, when he had spouted that nonsense about facing fears. As if he knew much about that. He was much better at taking the other advice he had given her—that sometimes it was better to avoid the fear-inducing situation altogether.

He had built a life for himself based on that one principle, a life that, though lacking in a certain warmth, left him in control of events and emotions. He knew all about maintaining control.

But Maddie might be able to teach him a thing or two about courage.

MADDIE DID HER BEST to avoid Hagan for the next few days. She was mortified that she’d fallen apart in front of him, and had no desire to hear any more comments about her supposed Olympic skiing abilities.

Maybe if she’d freaked in front of another woman, or any other man on the patrol, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But Hagan was so infuriatingly perfect—a great skier and a skilled patroller with a reputation for always being cool in a crisis. The other patrollers looked up to him and of course, almost every woman he met drooled over him. She couldn’t deny she’d done a little drooling herself, though that particular weakness annoyed her greatly. She didn’t need Mr. Perfect reminding her of her own imperfections.

But Crested Butte was a small community, and she knew she’d run into him eventually. She told herself she’d keep things cool and cut him off at the knees if he even tried to bring up that day on the mountain. She succeeded in not seeing him for a week, but Friday night found her at the Eldo with Andrea, Scott and Lisa, Zephyr and Trish. She couldn’t stop watching the door and sure enough, a little after eight o’clock, Hagan and Max walked in.

Maddie turned away and pretended interest in Zephyr’s description of the new outfit he’d put together for his Free Skiing Championship debut. “What you wear says a lot about you,” he said seriously.

“So does your outfit say ‘this man is out of his mind?’” Trish said.

He grinned at her. “Crazy like a fox. I’ll dazzle everyone with my threads, then blow their minds when I show my stuff on the mountain.”

Trish rolled her eyes. “My mind is blown already, just contemplating it.”

“Hey, where’s Casey?” Trish asked as Max pulled out the chair beside her.

“She’s helping Heather with some wedding stuff,” Max said.

“Hers or Heather’s?” Trish asked. Maddie had learned Dr. Ben Romney and Heather Allison, Casey’s boss at the Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce, were due to wed in a few weeks.

Max shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I leave all that up to her. I told her to just tell me when and where to show up and I’ll be there, ready to say I do.” He reached for a cup and the pitcher of beer in the center of the table. “It would be fine with me if we went to the courthouse in Gunnison and got it over with.”

“A wedding should be more than a business transaction,” Andrea said. “It should be a romantic day to remember.”

“Women think like that,” Scott said. “Men don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

“Maybe if it was conducted like a business transaction, people would be more realistic about what to expect from a marriage,” Hagan said.

Scott laughed. “Like you’d know a lot about it, Casanova.”

Hagan’s face remained impassive. Maddie told herself she should quit looking at him, but she couldn’t seem to help it. The man was a puzzle. Just when she thought she’d figured him out, he came up with some comment like that one about marriage and sent her thoughts spinning in a new direction.

As if feeling her gaze on him, he turned and for a split second, their eyes met. She quickly ducked her head, but not before registering the sadness in his expression.

No. She must have imagined it. Hagan was the always-sure-of-himself playboy. Mr. Perfect. What did he have to be sad about?

“Excuse me for a minute.” She shoved back her chair and headed for the ladies’ room. She needed a few minutes to pull herself together. To rehearse all the comebacks she’d thought of if Hagan said anything to her about what had happened up there on Peel.

In the ladies’ room, she used the facilities, then lingered in front of the mirror, brushing her hair and touching up her lip gloss. Anything to delay going back out there. Not that she had anything to be afraid of. She was ready for anything Hagan had to say to her. As she’d discovered during her long period in rehab, anger could get her through all kinds of uncomfortable situations. Focus on the anger so that the hurt and shame didn’t have a chance to creep in.

At last she put away the gloss and brush, slung her purse over one shoulder, and shoved out the door.

Straight into a solid wall of unyielding male muscle. Hagan steadied her with his hands on her elbows. “I was hoping I would have the chance to talk to you,” he said.

She had to crane her neck to glare up at him, which spoiled the effect. It was tough to look fierce when you were scarcely five feet tall, especially when confronting a giant like Hagan. She tried to move out of his grasp, but he had a grip like iron. Short of hitting him with her purse and making a scene, she was stuck. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she said.

“We need to talk,” he said, his voice firm. “About what happened on Peel.”

Here it came. He was going to tell her she had no business being a patroller if she couldn’t ski the double blacks. He was going to question why she’d been chosen for the Olympics in the first place, maybe even accuse her of trading on her reputation and that infamous Sports Illustrated cover to get her job with the resort.

“I apologize for taking you up there,” he said. “I should have backed off when you told me the first time you did not want to go.”

She blinked, all the angry words she’d been rehearsing stuck in her throat. He was apologizing? Mr. Perfect was admitting he was wrong?

He released one arm, but kept hold of the other and guided her gently toward the door. “Let us go somewhere we can talk. Alone.”

Disarmed by his unexpected humility, she let him lead her out the door, down the stairs and across the street to a new bistro that had opened on Elk Avenue. “The coffee here is almost as good as Trish’s, and they have good desserts,” Hagan said as they sat at a table for two near the front.

Maddie nodded, still dazed. She swallowed and found her voice. “I can ski those runs,” she said. “I’ve done it before. It was just that morning, in those conditions…” Her voice faded and she looked away. She couldn’t explain exactly what had happened there at the top of Peel, except that for a moment she’d been back on the course at St. Moritz, and the memory of her fall had overwhelmed her.

Hagan said nothing else until their order of coffee and crème brûlée was in front of them. He stirred sugar into his cup and regarded her with a sympathetic look. “I watched the video of your accident on YouTube. I had not realized before how horrible it was.”

“YouTube?” She gave a weak laugh. “Figures it would end up there. Me and that guy from The Wide World of Sports who illustrated ‘the agony of defeat.’” She’d watched that show as a kid and winced every time they’d replayed the anonymous skier’s crash. Now she was the one making people wince.

“Zephyr said that day on Peel that maybe you were reliving what happened to you. Something like post-traumatic stress in soldiers.”

“Zephyr knows what happened?” Did everyone know? Were they all discussing her behind her back and she had no idea?

“He is the only one. I did not tell anyone else.” His voice was stern. “It was none of their business.”

She relaxed a little and nodded. “Yes, I guess that’s what happened. I looked down that run, all the swirling snow, and just…froze.” She shuddered, remembering. She had never been so terrified in her life, absolutely paralyzed by fear.

“Why not leave skiing altogether?” Hagan asked. “Or be a tourist? Why take a job that puts you out there every day?”

She’d asked herself that question often enough, and always came up with the same answer. “Skiing is what I do. I was given a talent and I screwed it up.” She swallowed hard. “I hoped being on patrol would help me figure out how to move past the fear—to get over it and go back to doing what I’m good at. And to…I guess I figured if I used my talent to help others, it would make up for that mistake.” She’d spent a lot of time lying in her hospital bed, alternately reliving the accident and bargaining with God, as if the right combination of penance and practice would bring her old life back.