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She’d stopped and had her weight braced on her poles Bent over a little bit, she was huffing and puffing, out of breath They were at well over eight thousand feet and altitude could be a bitch It affected everyone differently, but breathlessness was the h an uncoht came to him that maybe it wasn’t the altitude at all When he’d lifted her before, she’d been light, alth and stamina to ski, and he was nearly positive she didn’t have either He put a hand on her shoulder

She whirled to face hier, and pulled out an earbud with an apologetic s to otten so the "

"Huh?"

"You know, Cinderella," she said "The prince had her slipper and you had my helmet… Never mind," she said with a pat to his arnore s onin the Rockies"

And then before he could ask her what the hell she was talking about now, she’d tightened the strap beneath her chin, put her hands back into the handholds at the top of her ski poles, and pushed off

He watched her head for the lift that would carry her back to safety, thinking two things One, he really hoped she kne to stop And two, she was definitely a nut, but possibly the prettiest,nut he’d ever met in his entire life

Chapter 2

Bailey Moore considered it a hen she got herself situated on the lift without breaking another binding, falling on her face, ora fool of herself Especially since her concentration had been shot thanks to the mountain hottie she’d just skied away from

Don’t you dare look back, she told herself firle one…

She totally looked back

And there he was on his skis like they were an extension of his own body, as if the rugged badassher as well, or so she assumed since his dark lenses were aimed her way She waved at him

He didn’t wave back but the very corners of his mouth turned up Then he planted his poles, executed a lithe jump to turn his skis in the other direction, and skied off with an effortless motion that Bailey knew she could never in a million years of lessons hope to replicate It ell, incredibly sexy

But as Bailey also knew, the sexy ones weren’t the keepers For the most part, they’d never been disappointed or hurt by love or life, and as a woman who’d faced it all at one time or another, she had no patience for the weak, shallow, or clueless

And actually, she had no patience for this line of thinking at all She had other things to concentrate on Laughing a little at herself, she turned her head to take in the top of the peak as the lift carried her away from it It had been the top, the very tippy top, and the stunning view suddenly lad for herlike it Most anywhere you stood in Colorado, you were surrounded byalpine peaks that you had to tip your head back to see and that always seemed to frame the entire world

Not on Devil’s Face For the first ti below her--the world--was at her feet And as someone who until very recently had never been in control of her own destiny, it staggered her