Something to Prove

No, with any luck, Brody would forget she was a reporter and would instead consider the twenty minutes as coffee with a friendly person he could chat with.

Taking a short, careful swig from her ever-present water bottle, she considered the major flaw in her plan. Her father, per usual. Under no circumstances could she let Brody discover she was MacArthur Jensen’s daughter. Jeannie had implied that would send Brody fleeing faster than the roadrunner on skis. Amanda had no problem with that aspect of his personality. Anyone who distrusted her father was wise in her book.

She shook off the last of her nerves and strode down the corridor, the air cool against her bare legs because she was wearing one of Jeannie’s pre-injury outfits—a short, trendy skirt and a pair of her formerly favorite heels. Despite Jeannie’s admonition “to be herself,” whatever that was, Amanda was a celebrity profiler today, so she’d better act like one. Which gave her two choices for an approach strategy, as far as she could see.

Plan A was to keep the celebrity-reporter persona she’d prepared for. Disarm the recalcitrant skier with a nonthreatening approach. Plan B was her regular, hard-hitting interviewing style. Grill ’em and stick ’em and then serve up the painful truths.

Depending on how Brody reacted, she would adopt one tactic or the other. There was more than one way to open up a closemouthed celebrity.

Please, just give me one decent quote…

She stood outside the conference room and wished there was a window she could see through, but since there wasn’t, she pasted what she hoped was a vacant smile on her face and swung open the door like someone who meant business. Plan A and plan B, in combination. Once she met Brody, she would choose her final course.

Immediately, she needed to shield her eyes from the blinding afternoon sun slanting through the window. For a moment, she couldn’t see.

“Um, are you Amanda? From Paradigm magazine?”

She blinked to see a short man in a rumpled suit standing behind a conference table, his hand extended. He must be Harrison Rice, the agent. And next to him…

Amanda swallowed. Like a warrior prepared for battle, she thought.

Jeannie had showed her a photo of Brody Jones, downloaded from her phone’s internet connection. In it, he was dressed in a black helmet and tight racer’s uniform, his body bent so he was impossibly close to the slope, his powerful thighs straining while his biceps bulged, gripping a ski pole as he surged past a giant slalom gate.

Amanda hadn’t been able to see his face, but she’d seen his power and his sex appeal. She’d understood his charisma.

And now here he was in the flesh. Six feet one, two hundred pounds—she could recite his stats in her head. He was built. Hard. Powerful. And recklessly daring.

But he wasn’t behaving recklessly now. Like her, he wore body armor—in his case, a hat with a brim so low she couldn’t see his eyes clearly. Several days of stubble obscured his facial expression. He wore a tight black T-shirt that showed off his powerful neck, and over that, a team sweat jacket that read Italia—great. Did he know about her connection with her sister?

Stop that. You’re psyching yourself out before you’ve even started.

She gripped the agent’s fleshy paw, giving him both a friendly wink and a hardnosed MacArthur Jensen squeeze. “Hello there, I’m Amanda Jensen. I’m pleased to meet you, Harrison.”

She still hadn’t decided yet which plan to choose, A or B, and so was fluctuating wildly between them. While Harrison winced, clutching his hand, she switched her gaze to Brody. What should she say to him? How would he react?

Before she could decide, his chair slid leisurely back. As he moved, preparing to rise, his head slowly came up. The visor of the sponsor’s ball cap came off. And the most amazing pair of baby-blue eyes stared at her, sizing her up.

Amanda felt the shock zing up and down her anatomy. This guy had It. The physical key to setting her hormones on fire.

Because, oh, God, there was something about his eyes. They were probing eyes. Intelligent eyes.

Eyes that sucked her in.

He braced his hands on the table and fixed that quiet stare on her. He didn’t feel like a skier to her, not like any skier she’d ever known, anyway. Nothing Jeannie had told her could have prepared her for this. Without a trace of a smile on lips that were tense, yet still so full she could easily picture herself leaning over the table and kissing him, he said to her, “Amanda Jensen. Are you related to MacArthur Jensen?”

Oh, she was definitely going for plan A. Hard wouldn’t work with him. Best to play soft and dumb with this powerful, guarded man.

“Who’s MacArthur Jensen?” she asked.

SHE WAS LYING. BRODY KNEW IT, but what he really wanted to know was why she was bothering.

He shifted in his seat, purposely tuning out the words she was 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, the proud affiliation of his ski-team jacket—brought back the bad parts of skiing, the things she’d always hated and felt terrorized by, growing up. For too long, skiing had been about failure, humiliation and shame. And now, her sister’s broken, ruined body.

She swallowed again, but she could never get rid of the bad taste in her mouth; it always came back to haunt her. There was no solution, even though Brody Jones seemed to sense her discomfort.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.” But tears were threatening, so she blinked fast. She had one strong point in her life to fall back on—her job—and here, with this skier, she couldn’t even do that properly.

Exhaling, she lifted her chin. She needed to hold on to whatever shred of an interview she had left. “We all grow up, Brody. Life changes. Nobody can help that.”

“True.” His brow creased as he looked not at the voice recorder, but directly into her eyes. “But we can remember when life was simpler. At heart, I think people want to recapture that. Maybe that’s why they go to mountain races—to breathe in the air and soak up the sun and ring cowbells like they’re kids again. You could, too, if you wanted.”

She dropped back in her seat and stared at him.

He smiled, embarrassed this time. “Or not. It’s a theory, but you asked.”

He’s giving me amazing quotes, the reporter part of her brain said. Brody hadn’t said anything like this, not that she’d read, to any other reporter.

“You…stayed away from the circuit for two years,” she pressed on. “Even after you were healthy. You said you were finished, that you’d accomplished all you wanted to accomplish. What made you come back to the tour?”

“Time is up.” The agent stood. “Miss Jensen, it’s been a pleasure to meet you.”

But Amanda looked to Brody. Her hunch was right. His mask was back in place, as if he regretted opening up to her. Something was wrong, and he was hiding whatever it was.

“I’m not going to screw you over, Brody,” she murmured. How could she, after the kindness that he’d shown her?

He reached over and turned off her digital recorder. “You’re a journalist,” he said with an edge to his voice. “It’s what journalists do.”

“Some journalists maybe, but not me.” She pointed at him. “Let’s get something straight. You talk about the joy of youth. Well, I’ve known since I was a kid that I was a born writer, and that I loved doing it. I caught the enthusiasm for reporting early, and I never lost it. Believe me, I don’t compromise my journalistic integrity for anyone, including my employer.”

He smiled widely at her. “Then you’re the first of the breed I’ve met.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“We’ll see, won’t we? I gave you quotes. Let’s see what you do with them.”

“Cynical, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “I’ve had my words twisted by all the so-called nicest journalists. They write what they want to write, for whatever agenda they have. I’ve learned better than to try to control it.”

“Refusing to speak—is that the way to control it?”

He shook his head. “Even that doesn’t work. Stuff still gets made up.”

“Believe it or not, Brody, I take my job seriously. I might go undercover now and then, I might bust a person’s chops, but I never, ever mess around with quotes. Are you kidding me? That’s for hacks, and I don’t care how many awards they might have won, it’s still hack reporting. That’s like, like…” She was so mad she was stuttering.

“Cheating?” Brody asked.

That was it. Cheating. She nodded in excitement. “Exactly. You understand.”

“Yeah.” He smiled sadly. “Yeah, I understand.”

“Well, that’s good.” Harrison clapped from where he stood. “Time is definitely up.”

“Amanda Jensen.” Brody stood and moved around the table, then held the door for her. Her knees were suddenly weak and she wobbled on her too-high shoes. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

And then he leaned close and kissed her first on one cheek, and then the other. She felt the electricity from his kiss ricochet all over her body. By reflex, she reached up and touched his arm. It felt rock-solid.

He grinned at her sheepishly. “Sorry. When in Italy…”

Her cheeks flamed.

“Yes,” she breathed.

And then he reached up and tipped the brim of his hat to her.

Like a wayward cowboy, he was out of there. Taking all the air in the room with him.

BRODY SPLASHED COLD WATER on his face, the back of his neck, his forearms. He leaned over the sink, feeling wired, as if he’d just finished a challenging run and wanted to go back up the mountain and do it again.

Because he did want to do it again. He wanted to see more of Amanda Jensen, and outside the interview room.

He reached for the paper towels. Unfortunately that was off the table. Maybe someday they could get together, after he’d finished what he’d come to accomplish, but not now. He had so little free time as it was. Harrison was a pain about scheduling him.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Harrison muttered, his voice echoing off the tile in the empty men’s room. He’d already attempted to chew Brody out for being needlessly open with a reporter, but Brody had shut him down, reminding him there were times when going off-script was the best strategy. When he followed his intuition on the race course, good things happened. It was the reason for his wins, and nobody could deny that, especially his agent.

“Don’t worry about her. She isn’t going to screw us,” Brody said, but Harrison just grunted. Brody wadded the wet paper towels and turned, realizing that Harrison was preoccupied with reading text messages on his phone. He mopped perspiration from his forehead and cursed under his breath.

“What’s the matter?” Brody asked. “Xerxes yanking your chain?”

“No. Give me a minute,” Harrison said, furiously typing a text message.

“Not a problem.” He thought of Amanda again. Something about her niggled at him. What had upset her and tripped her up, enough to almost throw that one part of the interview?

“Why haven’t I heard of her before?” he muttered, though it was likely Harrison wasn’t listening. “News of a reporter like her would have gotten around on the circuit.”

“We could be in deep trouble here, in case you haven’t noticed.” Harrison snapped his phone shut and scowled at him.

His agent was always the jumpy type, but today he was excessively nervous. He’d been sticking to Brody in full-on babysitter mode, and Brody had taken enough. “Cut her some slack,” he said, more sharply than he’d intended.

“It isn’t her I’m worried about.” Harrison stalked to the far sink and soaped up his hands. “It’s you,” he said over the spray of water. “You don’t seem to grasp what’s at stake.”

“Are you talking about the note cards?”

“I’m saying I’m not sure we can pull this off anymore.”

Brody stilled. Everything in his life depended on them making this race a go. “What is it?” he asked in a low voice.

“You know you’re the center of my business, Brody. You always have been.”

He waited, his heartbeat slowing until it was a dull thudding in his chest.

“I met you when you were what…eighteen?” Harrison continued. “A local kid at a local race.”

Those days were a distant memory. Brody couldn’t go back there if he wanted to. He didn’t want to, but that was beside the point.

“You had it even then, raw talent compounded with charisma. Only a handful of athletes in any sport have those. But because you skied, the big boys were blind to it, agents bigger than me.”

“Why the trip down memory lane?” Brody asked sarcastically.

Harrison wasn’t laughing. “People mocked me when I signed you, did you know that? I was a small-time agent at a big agency, scrounging for crumbs. And you delivered, more than any American skier ever had. The sponsor deals rolled in. Companies signed you who hadn’t known what skiing was until you lit up their TV screens.”

“So what’s the problem?” Brody said, his voice hard. “Just spit it out and tell me.”

Harrison shook his head. “No, because I don’t think you get it. And I want to make sure you hear this from me—You crashed and burned, Brody. You. Everything ended because people don’t like losers or also-rans. They want to see successes.”

Brody felt the ice in his veins. He didn’t care about the successes. Not really. He didn’t even care about losing. That’s not what this comeback was about for him. And he couldn’t acknowledge the anger that Harrison so obviously wanted him to feel.

“You think I don’t know I allowed myself to be manipulated? You think I’m not serious about fixing what happened?” His voice shook. “Everything has changed about me. I’m not that guy anymore, Harrison.”

“You were talking about being a kid today.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I have as much to lose as you do, which is everything. Not just every deal we’ve made together, but your entire legacy, demolished.”

Brody felt a shudder go through him as if Harrison had sucker-punched him. His name and his integrity were the only reasons he’d come back. To fix the mistakes that he’d made. To make it right this time, in a way he could be proud of.

He walked to the paper towel dispenser, avoiding looking at his reflection in the mirror as he did. To change that feeling—wasn’t that the whole point of this exercise?

“Are you chewing me out because I talked with a reporter?” Brody stared at the wall in front of him, doing his best to hold on to the good he felt about Amanda, the good that Harrison was doing his best to stomp flat. “Are you complaining because I dared to trust somebody, just a little?”

“I’m saying you should trust me. Me, Brody.”

Yeah, he’d ignored Harrison during the interview and maybe that had been out of line. “Okay. I’m sorry about the index cards. I should have told you before I went in that I wouldn’t use them. The last thing I’m going to do this time around is be someone I’m not.”

Harrison took a long breath. “Understood. And I accept your apology, by the way.”

“Good. So tell me what your text message says before I rip that phone out of your pocket and read it for myself.”

Harrison took a step back. Yeah, you should be worried, Brody thought.

“We need to get you out of this hotel, now,” Harrison said.

“Why?”

“Because Jean-Claude texted me that MacArthur Jensen is on his way over.”

“What?” Brody felt his anger flare. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking. There’s a cocktail party scheduled in honor of his daughter’s wedding tomorrow. He’s got one damn daughter, and she has to get married here, of all places. Jean-Claude is following him in the rental car as we speak.”

“You have my equipment manager tracking MacArthur Jensen?” Brody shook his head. “Never mind, don’t tell me.” He paced to the wall and back. It had obviously been a mistake to believe the rumors that his former coach didn’t plan to attend his only daughter’s wedding.

MacArthur Jensen was their wild card. Neither Brody nor Harrison had any idea what he would do when they bumped into one another for the first time in two years. Every nightmare Brody had was related to the knowledge that his former coach could destroy him whenever he wanted.

The goal had been to have the race long over before they crossed paths again.

“Brody, you know I’ll do everything I can to buffer you from the outside pressure.” Harrison touched Brody’s arm, but Brody backed away. Harrison shook his head. “See, you need to trust me when I give you advice. If you don’t trust me, this isn’t going to work.”

“Then what do you suggest I do?”