Something to Prove. Cathryn Parry
saying and concentrating on her actions. Her essence.
She smelled amazing, like pine trees and winter. And…cooking? Rosemary, yeah, that was the herb he was catching. But that couldn’t be right. Her presence brought to mind good food and companionship. A hearty meal in the company of true friends. Wine and humor.
He glanced at her mouth and watched her lips move as she spoke. He could easily kiss that mouth. She had the clearest porcelain skin he’d ever seen, and long, dark hair like Snow White. He imagined running his hands through it, feeling it drag across his chest. Every cell, every nerve in his body was straining toward her, and that wasn’t good.
He pushed back his chair and jammed on his ball cap again. Pulled the visor down low. Crossed his arms against her.
That was better. She stiffened, the Miss Airhead persona falling away. For a split second her gaze narrowed. She was a helluva lot sharper than she wanted him to see.
“Brody, what do you think about Amanda’s question?” Harrison grinned madly and dug him in the arm. What do you know, he was completely snowed by Amanda’s phony routine.
“What do I think about what?” Brody said.
“Amanda has been asking about your record. Remember what we talked about?” Harrison coughed into his hand. Pull out the cards with the phony quotes, he was hinting. But Brody shook his head because he had already tossed the cards out.
Instead he pinned his gaze on the reporter, which was a bad idea because his heart had already softened toward her. Trust her, his intuition said.
His intuition had failed him before.
“You said you’re no relation to MacArthur Jensen?” he asked.
On the table, the voice recorder flashed its red light. She followed his glance and then looked back at him.
“Yes,” she said calmly, “I have no relationship with that Jensen.”
“What about Jeannie Jensen? Aren’t you here for the wedding?”
“The wedding…” Amanda licked her lips. Beside him, Harrison inhaled sharply. Brody could relate. She was stunning. So stunning, he literally ached.
She gave a small smile and stared full at him. Her eyes were the most amazing hazel-green. Playful, and yet as somber as he’d seen.
She smiled again, sadly this time. “I have to admit, Jeannie and I go way back. We went to boarding school together. We were assigned to the same dorm room, probably because of our last names. We had a hard…”
She faltered, and there it was, that accent. Her As were distinctive, from the north country. It came out when she was caught off guard, when she wasn’t concentrating on fooling him.
“You’re from northern New England, aren’t you?” he asked.
She looked up, genuine pleasure in her eyes for the first time. “You’re talking to me, I like that.”
“Where did you grow up?”
Her gaze never left his. “New Hampshire.”
His pulse picked up. Few people knew it, but he’d lived there as a kid for a while. It was where he’d first tried skiing, where he’d first found his escape. “Where in New Hampshire?”
She nibbled the inside of her lip, as if debating whether to tell him. “Deanfield,” she finally said. “It’s a really beautiful place in the mountains.”
He stared at her. She’d grown up right down the road from him. What had she looked like as a child?
Haunting. With inquisitive eyes that saw through a person, and luminous skin. The two of them created some kind of magnetic vacuum that sucked all the air from the room. Under the table, her bare legs crossed and uncrossed. He could practically feel her heat.
In the old days, if Harrison hadn’t been present, Brody knew exactly what he’d have done next. He would have already been across the table, settling her into his lap, kissing her…
He shook off the vision. This wasn’t what he needed in his life anymore. He’d been through hell these past few years, and as a result, he’d changed every concept of what was meaningful and real to him. Meeting a woman and hooking up with her before he knew anything about her was the last thing he could afford to do.
But, he noticed, despite her former reticence toward him, she was leaning forward, not fighting the connection. Obviously she felt the pull, too.
He doubted she was lying to him, at least not about that. No, she seemed to have dropped her mask altogether and was being herself.
The way she really was.
The way he was glad she was.
CHAPTER TWO
AMANDA FELT A HUMMING INSIDE her and willed herself to stop looking at Brody’s mouth.
Instead, she gazed out the window at the mountainside punctuated with tall pines. And skiers. But none of them were solid and haunting, with lips that were flat on the bottom and bow-shaped on top. The kind she could feel herself kissing…
What was she doing? Fantasizing about an interview subject was wrong, and completely unlike her. She needed to get a grip.
“So…” Shifting in her seat, she aimed the voice recorder at him. Time to get to work. “I understand you have an amazing record, Brody, ten years and fifty World Cup podiums. You’re the most accomplished skier from North America in quite a while. You’ve won everything there is to win. Nobody is even close to your record. I’d like to know why you’ve come back after being gone from the circuit for two years, and what you hope to accomplish this season.”
He eyed her. He eyed the recorder.
Please, Brody. Talk to me.
“I’m here to win my next race,” he said.
Good, that was good. She nodded. Please keep talking.
“I’m here to win it my way.”
“What does that mean?” she asked softly. “I really would like to know.”
His agent grew nervous, fidgeting with his pockets. “Brody means he feels privileged to be back, and he’s looking forward to having a great season.”
Brody met her gaze and held it. Her insides heated. She felt that invisible line again, tugging her to him.
No. She couldn’t give in. Obviously, something was going on, something he and his agent were hiding. She wasn’t an investigative reporter for nothing. She had intuition. Gold-plated hunches, the editors called them in the newsroom of her first reporting job, back when she’d been still in high school.
She leaned forward on her elbows. “Brody,” she said, purposely ignoring the agent’s coughing fit on the other side of the table, “what makes you different from the other competitors in the circuit? In the way you ski, I mean? What makes caravans of people follow you from race to race just to catch a glimpse of you in action?”
As if you don’t get it, Amanda. It’s called world-class sex appeal, and you can’t buy that in Walmart.
“Have you ever been on skis?” he asked intently, his smile slowly forming again, his hands inches from hers.
She held her breath, not wanting to go there. But his eyes were insistent. And if she wanted to get her story, she needed to keep him talking. “Yes,” she admitted, “but not since I was little.”
“Do you remember how it felt?” His voice was low. “To go fast? To feel the wind in your hair? To feel like nothing could stop you and you were part of heaven and earth?”
Her gaze felt tied to his. She couldn’t help swallowing, because those visual cues—the intensity of his facial expression, his strong athlete’s neck,