Love Proof (Laws of Attraction)

Seventeen

Joe pulled in to the Snowbird ski area and found a parking spot at the end of a long row. The ski area had already opened the week before, and Sarah could see figures up on the mountain zigzagging their way down.

She traded her sneakers for the boots, then stepped out of the car onto the cold ground. The air felt so dry it was almost powdery. It seeped between the threads of her clothes like fine dust, making her wish she wore at least one more, thicker layer.

“Here,” Joe said, reading her mind and taking off his coat.

“No, you should wear that.”

“Sarah, you don’t have to fight me on everything, you know.” He helped her into the roomy coat, which really did feel wonderful, she had to admit. It reached down to middle of her thighs, blocking out the wind. She rolled the sleeves up, then put her gloves back on.

“Hot chocolate?” Joe asked.

“Sounds good.” Now that they were somewhere else, somewhere unusual and new, Sarah found she could speak again. Any minute she would feel like herself again, and regain her footing with Joe. But right now she still felt like she was catching up.

They trudged up to the base area where there were rental shops and restaurants. Joe pointed to one with outside seating. “Will you be warm enough?” he asked.

“We’ll see,” Sarah answered. Joe left her at one of the picnic tables while he went inside to buy their drinks.

He returned with a cup of hot cocoa topped with an enormous mound of whipped cream.

“Oh,” Sarah said. “I don’t really do that anymore.”

With anyone else, she might have worried about hurting his feelings, but Sarah needed this, she realized. Needed to feel on top of her game again.

She carried her cup to the nearest trash can and scraped off the whipped cream. Then she sat back down across from Burke and sipped the nearly boiling drink.

He took a swallow of his and studied her. “I already guessed vegetarian,” he said. “From the tofu in your salad. But vegan?”

“Yep.” Usually Sarah let people think she was a vegetarian because vegan sounded so extreme. But she didn’t care what Joe thought about it.

“Can I ask why?” he said.

“I wanted to make some changes last year.”

Joe nodded. And cast a look from her face down to her body. “I noticed.”

“Noticed what?” she said.

“When you were in your underwear. Puking. You looked good.”

Sarah couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t usually get that compliment.”

“I’m surprised,” he said. “Because you deserve it.”

Sarah allowed herself a moment of staring into his eyes across the table. Then something in her couldn’t stand the charade anymore. Didn’t want to let another minute go by without saying something true for once.

“Burke, what is all this?” she asked quietly.

To his credit, he didn’t ask, “All what?” He didn’t try to stall or make Sarah uncomfortable by pretending he needed her to restate the question.

“My apology,” he said.

The answer sucked the wind from her lungs. Her lips parted and she forced herself to draw in a few small breaths. She was sure her eyes must have looked shocked and wary and afraid, because Burke reached across the table to cover her hand in his as if she needed the comfort.

She pulled both of her hands into her lap.

“What if I don’t want it?” she managed to choke out.

He never took his eyes off hers. “Then that’s your choice. I’m just doing what I think I should.”

Sarah bolted up from the table and took off across the snow. Her boots squeaked as they pressed footprints into the white. She’d been stupid to let him bring her up there, she realized. So far away from where she could simply take her key away from him and lock him out and not have to speak to him again. Not personally, anyway. They could meet across a deposition table any day, and she would learn how to stop letting it affect her.

The air was cold, and it was thin. They were thousands of feet higher than where they had been in the city, and Sarah began to feel the effects. She had barely eaten that morning, and even less the days before. And she was having a hard time breathing, both because of the altitude and because of Joe.

There was a mound of snow above her, close to one of the buildings. If she could make it that far she could rest. But her legs felt heavy, like she was trying to walk through pudding, and she felt a familiar blackness at the edges of her vision.

Not again.

She turned around to find Joe trailing her. He wasn’t so far away. He stood there looking like a lumberjack, not a lawyer, in his jeans and boots and sweater, slight stubble on his face, so handsome and masculine and concerned.

Sarah shook her head at him, even smiled weakly, acknowledging what she knew was about to happen.

Then her legs folded beneath her and she melted onto the snow.

***

She awoke feeling sweaty and feverish and foolish.

A woman bent over her, shining a small penlight into her eyes.

“Did she hit her head?”

“No,” Joe said, “I don’t think so.”

“Did she lose consciousness?”

“Yes,” he answered, “briefly.”

“It may just be dehydration,” the woman told him. “You said she’s been sick? Vomiting? She’s probably lost a lot of fluids in the last few days, and then coming up here . . . ”

Joe rubbed his hand down his face. “God, Sarah, I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head. She was such an idiot for storming off like that. She should have known her body wasn’t up for it. She hadn’t worked out in days, and she let her nutrition completely fall apart. She had been learning her physical limits all year long—and learning to push them—but this? This was just stupidity.

Sarah started to sit up and felt the room sway a bit. Joe steadied her, one hand on her back, another holding her arm.

“She should be fine,” the woman said. Sarah couldn’t tell if she was a nurse or a doctor. The woman wore heavy canvas pants, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a down vest. It was obviously a proper uniform for medical personnel up on the mountain, since Sarah looked around the clinic and saw several others dressed that way, but it didn’t give a patient much information.

“Can I take her home?” Joe asked.

“Let her have a few sips of water while she’s here and I’ll be back in a few minutes. But if she seems fine, then yes, you can take her.”

Joe reached for Sarah’s hand, and she let him. And as easy as it would have been for her to let him take the blame and feel guilty about what had happened, Sarah knew she couldn’t do that.

“I’m not a delicate flower,” she told him as soon as they were alone. “I’m actually very strong. You’re just catching me on a very bad week.”

“Sarah, I never should have . . . ”

But he let the rest of the sentence trail off, and Sarah understood why: never should have told her the truth? Never should have tried to apologize? Neither of those was right.

“You just took me by surprise,” Sarah said. “Classic mistake. I asked a witness a question without knowing the answer first.”

Joe clutched her hand harder, then leaned forward and gently pressed a kiss to her lips.

Too soft, Sarah thought somewhere in her animal brain, too soft when there was obviously a deeper kiss hidden behind it, and all she had to do was reach for him, pull him toward her by the back of the neck, angle her head, open her lips, feel his tongue and his teeth, block out reality for just a moment and take comfort in a feeling that she missed and remembered too well.

But he was careful, too careful, and that was right. I try to be right.

The kiss lasted only a moment, but its effects lingered on. Sarah’s stomach felt queasy. She had to close her eyes and bend her head forward while she pressed her finger against a spot between her brows. It helped her sometimes to get rid of headaches. Right now the only thing it accomplished was sparing her from having to look at Joe.

He handed her a bottle of water. Sarah took a few sips. She looked around the clinic at the people who obviously needed to be there—people in leg splints and arm splints, presumably doped up since they were sleeping instead of screaming.

“Let’s go,” she told Joe. She waved to the doctor or the nurse, whichever it was, across the room. “I’m fine,” she said. “We’re going home.” Then she let Joe put his arm around her as they walked toward the door.

The cold air hit her again, drying the sweat from her face. It felt good, bracing, alive.

“I know you won’t believe this,” she said, “but I’m still glad we came up here. This is better than being in my room all day. I felt like an invalid.”

Considering that she was slowly shuffling away from the medical clinic, she knew that probably didn’t make much sense.

Joe hadn’t said anything for a while. Sarah glanced to the side to gauge his condition.

“Burke. Stop. Look at me.”

She knew she was too cold to stand there for long, but what she needed to say couldn’t wait until they finally reached the car. He might have broken her heart once, but she wasn’t looking for revenge. At least not so much anymore. Regret? Yes. She’d love for him to feel regret, and lots of it, if she could help it. But she wanted him to suffer for legitimate reasons, not this one.

“You’ve been a saint this whole week,” she told him. “Nobody in my life except my parents would ever do what you’ve done for me. Thank you. I’ll never be able to thank you enough. But it’s for this, all right? This is separate. No matter what you did in the past, this was something good.”

“Sarah,” Joe growled. His eyes flashed with intensity. He grabbed her by both shoulders, and she could feel the tension in his hands radiating through her body and practically lifting her from the ground.

Then Joe seemed to stop himself from whatever he was going to say or do, and instead looked up at the sky and shook his head. He let go of her arms. Then he turned to the side again and curved his arm around her waist and steadied her toward the car.

What just happened? Sarah wondered. She could still feel the energy pulsing through his arm and his hand, electric against her back and her hip.

She moved closer to him, maybe only an inch or two, until her leg bumped against his as they walked. It was better for her balance, she told herself. This way he could hold her more closely and brace her.

When they reached the car, he opened her door and held her hand while she got inside. Then he knelt down and unlaced her boots. He removed one and closed his fingers over her toes, warming them in his hand.

“Joe, I told you, I’m fine—”

“Would you stop arguing with me for once, Henley, and just take it?” he snapped.

Sarah jerked back in surprise, but then let him do what he wanted. Which was to remove her other boot and warm the toes of that foot, too.

“Burke,” Sarah said on a laugh when he came around the car and got in on his side. “You have a really unusual way of getting people to let you help them.”

But Joe wasn’t smiling. “I’m not your enemy, Sarah. And I can take some of this, but not all of it. You need to decide how you want things to be. Until then I think we should keep our distance.”