Читать книгу: «The Trickster», страница 4
‘The kids all talking about the explosion?’ She put two coffees in front of them.
‘And some. Of course now they’re also talking about this blizzard. They figure they’ll get time off if it keeps up.’
‘Billy seems distracted right now Gerry. Have you noticed?’
Gerry cupped the mug in his hand. ‘Can’t say I have. Was he upset by Sam collapsing?’
‘I don’t know. I just detect something disturbing him. Probably nothing. I thought you might notice, but I forgot teachers just practise riot control these days.’
‘Up yours.’
Katie laughed and drank her coffee. Gerry took one sip and stood up.
‘Look I really have to go. Just came to leave these.’
‘The coffee that good, huh?’
He kissed her on the ear and made for the kitchen door, then paused when he looked through the glass panel. ‘Hey, I think you should loosen up with the disciplinarian dog-owner bit and let Bart in. He’s carrying more snow than a blue trail.’
Katie came to the door. ‘I tried this morning, thanks Doctor Doolittle. He won’t come in.’
Gerry stepped into the blizzard again.
‘That’s huskies for you, huh? Bye!’
Katie waved goodbye, and looked over at Bart. Gerry was right. The dog was outside his kennel, almost completely covered in snow.
‘Here Bart. Come in boy.’ She patted her thigh.
Bart looked at Katie and then resumed his vigil, staring towards Wolf Mountain as if it were made of prime sirloin.
‘Jeez, a dysfunctional dog. That’s all we need. Next stop the Oprah Winfrey Show.’
Katie brushed the snow from her hair and shut the kitchen door.
6
Frank Sinatra was giving it all he had in the chorus of ‘It Happened in Monterey’, when Ernie Legat’s horny hand stretched out to the cab’s stereo and cut the cassette. Ol’ Blue Eyes was God to Ernie, but he liked to hear what the engine was up to when he hit Wolf Pass. In weather like this, with a full forty-ton load of frozen seafood behind him, he would be lucky to see second gear. That would be on the way up. On the descent into Silver, he could probably do with a parachute.
The snow was coming at him in the headlights like a corny asteroid storm on Star Trek, hypnotizing him with flakes that became rods of relentless white motion as they streaked past the windshield, and despite the work of the snowploughs, the road wasn’t giving away many clues as to where it stopped being road and started being ditch.
Ernie coaxed the eighteen-wheeler into a first cautious gear change as the gradient started to introduce itself.
‘Come on, you bastard.’
Ernie reached his paw out again to turn up the heater, figuring getting more heat in the cab would take some of it out of the engine. The truck was doing its best.
In the back, two hundred lobsters, bound for plates on the east coast, slid backwards an inch on their plastic pallets as the Peterbilt started its journey up the one-in-fourteen pass.
The snow was getting thicker with every foot Ernie climbed, making him curse that last coffee he’d had at Mabel’s. No wonder he hadn’t seen another truck for twenty miles. The sneaky sons of bitches waving hello to him back in Lanark must have known how bad stuff was up here and either left hours earlier or cut loose for the night in the parking holes down on the Trans-Canada. Not a sniff of trouble on the CB.
Well shit on them. Ernie liked to get where he was going, and even though this was shaping up to be one of the worst winters he could remember, it would take more than a blizzard to knock the stuffing out of his schedule.
He was getting near the summit now, and the old tub hadn’t put a wheel wrong. Nice and slowly, that was how to take it. Ernie could feel the road flattening out, and even though all he could see in the dark and through the snow was about fifteen feet of white featureless ribbon, he’d worked this godforsaken road often enough in daylight to guess he was right underneath the peak of Wolf Mountain. That meant at least two miles of even cruising before it was hang on to your hat for the slide down into Silver.
The chorus of ‘It Happened in Monterey’ started to form itself into a hum on Ernie’s lips. It died just as quick as he saw the figure up ahead. Standing at the side of the road was a man in a long black coat with his ungloved hand out, casual as you like, thumbing a lift. Ernie figured it must be at least minus thirty-five out there, but this guy was just standing in the snow like he was hitching a ride from some pals in a beach buggy on Sunset Boulevard.
Ernie started to brake. It was real fortunate for the guy in the coat that the truck was on the flat. Braking in snow like this was jack-knife city, but this was an emergency.
What the hell was a guy in a coat doing up here near midnight in a snowstorm, at least ten miles from anything remotely resembling civilization?
The truck managed a standstill about twenty yards past the man and Ernie watched in the wing mirror as the figure walked, not ran, but walked, slowly up to the passenger door, his face lit only by the red side-lights.
The company didn’t allow hitchers, but this was life or death and the way Ernie saw it, he had no choice. He hadn’t seen another vehicle either way for at least two hours. How long had the man been standing here, casually waiting for his lift?
Ernie braced himself for a hospital job, wondering how many fingers the guy would still be able to call his own after a minimum of two hours without gloves. He was already planning the detour to Silver’s RCMP station when the cab door opened.
A rush of cold air entered every part of Ernie Legat as the man held open the door and looked up at his driver.
‘Jesus Christ buddy, get in and shut the fuckin’ door will ya!’
A pale, thin face held two ice-blue eyes that looked straight into Ernie’s soul. The man’s age was hard to place. A line-free face crowned with white hair, and skin that was almost translucent, belied a look in his eyes that seemed a great deal older.
The only illumination, from the single weak cab-light, was not doing much to help this guy’s bid to get a bit part in a beach movie, but despite his pallor the hitcher’s smile was disarmingly warm and charming. Not the smile of a man who has just cheated death.
Ernie motioned to the man with a hand that was already losing feeling in the tips of its fingers, and as the stranger looked calmly around the cab like a man buying a secondhand car, the cold was becoming more than he could bear.
‘Silver?’
‘Sure,’ he replied impatiently. ‘Get in.’
Huge flakes of snow whirled into the cab, settling on the dumb kidney-shaped plaid cushion on the dashboard that Amy Legat had sewn for her husband, for use when his behind got numb after ten hours of non-stop.
The man climbed carefully into the passenger seat, closed the door, folded his hands on his lap and looked straight ahead.
The cab was colder than Hell and Ernie’s breath was coming out in fast, thick clouds. Fast, because for some reason he was a little breathless after the excitement of finding the guy way up here. Thick, because the temperature had dropped to something that would freeze the balls off a polar bear.
He groped for the heater. It was already on full. The cab would heat up again once they got going. Once they got going. God, why was he driving at two miles an hour? Get this thing moving.
The truck shifted a gear and picked up speed, but Ernie was driving without seeing. All he could think of was the guy in his peripheral vision, lit only by the instrument panel now, sitting silently three feet away.
No explanation seemed like it was going to be offered, but Ernie was damned if he wasn’t going to be repaid for the rule-breaking ride with at least an interesting tale. ‘So what the hell you doin’ out there, fella?’ Ernie settled back into his brown bead seat cover to enjoy whatever the hitcher had to offer.
‘Just working my way towards Silver. Thanks for the ride. Looked for a while like I was going to have to walk.’ The man beamed across at his saviour, and before Ernie could demand an expansion, the man continued in his soothing pleasant voice. ‘Do you know Silver well, Ernie?’
Ernie shot a surprised glance at him. ‘How do you know my name?’
The man leant over and tapped Ernie’s company ID, a plastic card hanging from a chain that also supported a tiny cowbell with Austria painted on it, that his daughter brought back for him from a school trip fifteen years ago. Ernie’s photo glared out from the ID like a man in pain, and the real Ernie glared over at his passenger, his face matching his picture. ‘It’s right here. Unless that’s not you.’ The man seemed pleased with himself. ‘Silver?’ He reminded Ernie, who remained locked in his frown.
‘Oh I know it well enough. Right now it’s choked with folks slidin’ around on the hills with wooden sticks stuck to their feet like damned fools, but in the summer it goes right back to bein’ the no-shit-happens, assholes in RVs, railroad town it always was. You got business there?’
The man smiled and looked out of his window, his face turned away from Ernie. ‘Yeah. I’ve got some business to take care of there.’ He turned back, beaming that smile again. ‘Thought I might pick up some work.’
Ernie saw a chance. ‘Well you sure would be plenty suited to skiing work, fella, being able to stand out there in minus God knows what without so much as a chilblain. How come you ain’t frostbitten, with no gloves or nothin’? And if you don’t mind me pryin’, how’d you get up there? Didn’t see no car.’
The man picked up Amy’s cushion, turning it over in his soft white hands, examining it as though it were made of porcelain. ‘Got dropped off from another ride a few hours ago. Didn’t expect it to be so cold, so I dug a snow-hole. Just off the road back there.’ He looked across at Ernie, studying the driver’s face closely. ‘An old Indian skill I picked up years ago. Outside, forty below. Inside warm as toast. Don’t even need a coat once you’ve sealed the entrance. Heard the truck coming and I just strolled on out to borrow the ride.’
Ernie mulled it over. ‘So the Indians dug snow-holes? Good to know the useless drunken bums could do somethin’.’
‘That’s a truth and no mistake,’ replied the man with a new tenor to his voice.
Ernie looked across at the man in his truck and his gaze was returned with an unfaltering stare that even in the dim light of the cab Ernie could read as a warning.
He changed the subject.
‘What kind of trucker would let you out there? It’s only ten more miles to Silver, and the road ain’t exactly goin’ no place else.’
The man’s face creased into a smile. ‘Did I say it was a trucker? It certainly was not, Ernie. Like you say, no knight of the road would make such an uncharitable drop. It was a goon in a four-by-four pick-up, and I guess he just got tired of my company. Driver’s prerogative. Still, mustn’t grumble. I’m going to get there anyhow.’ He grinned. Hugely. ‘Thanks to you, Ernie.’
Ernie grunted like an old dog in response.
The truck was already well into its descent, nosing down the other side of the pass, and Ernie turned his attention to making sure his baby wasn’t going to end up a forty-ton chrome and steel toboggan, heading for Silver the short way, straight down the cliff.
The heater was being a bitch. They’d been in the cab with the doors shut now for at least ten minutes, and Ernie could still see his breath. If this carried on he’d have to stop in Silver when he let his passenger out, get the thing fixed himself, or stop over until he could find someone who could.
He shifted down a gear, as he felt a slight give under the front wheels.
‘Are there many Indians in Silver?’
Ernie didn’t enjoy the last exchange about Indians. He wished he’d never brought the subject up. ‘Yeah. One or two.’
‘Assiniboine, Kinchuinick or Blackfoot?’
‘Kinchuinick mostly, I think. Hey, I don’t know, buddy. Do I look like Professor of Native North American Studies at Princeton?’
The road, which hadn’t seen a snowplough for hours, was having one last go at slowing up Ernie Legat and his seafood, boasting a drift of at least three feet across the last serious bend before the run out to town. Ernie could see the lights of Silver just starting to poke through the blizzard, and decided to ram the sucker. Without touching the brakes, he slammed the eighteen-wheeler into the snow bank and hoped it was only this high for a few feet.
Somewhere in one of the back axles, a set of wheels complained enough to shove the rig alarmingly to the left, but the truck held on and ten feet later they were clear. Silver twinkled ahead. Ernie knew his was the last thing on wheels that would get through that for a while. The ploughs wouldn’t even look at this until the storm calmed down and nothing he could see was hinting at that. He would drop his passenger and head for the truck stop at Maidston Creek, five miles down the valley. It looked like he’d have to sit out this tempest for a day or two.
‘Well, that weren’t too tidy, but we made it okay. Where d’you want off?’
‘Town boundary’ll do fine.’
They crawled up to the edge of town and the hydraulic brakes started hissing and puffing as soon as Ernie caught sight of the aluminium sign that read through a thin sheath of snow Welcome to Silver. Ski a bit of history!
‘Sure this is it?’ asked Ernie as the truck stopped by the sign.
‘Yeah. This is where I need to be. Thanks Ernie.’
He put the cushion he had held for the last few miles on the seat beside him, opened the door and hopped out, still holding the clutch-handle.
‘And don’t drive too long that you need Amy’s cushion now, hear?’ He shut the door and moved off into the darkness.
Ernie smiled at that. He picked up the cushion to put it back on the dash. He dropped it quickly back onto the seat. It was frozen into a solid, kidney-shaped block of ice.
A blast of hot air from the heater hit Ernie in the face. Seemed it was working again in a big way, and the sudden rush of heat gave him goosebumps, then something approaching a flush.
Suddenly Ernie Legat’s heart started to beat a little too fast. How did that guy know Amy made that cushion? How did he even know her name? He hadn’t said anything about it at all. Couldn’t explain that one from an I.D. in the cab.
And there was something else, something at the very back of Ernie’s mind that had bothered him all the way down the pass, but he couldn’t get a handle on it. What the hell was it?
He threw the truck into gear and started to move off, grateful, though he couldn’t say why, that the stranger had been swallowed up by the dark and the blizzard.
It was three miles out of Silver that Ernie had it. Even though the cab had been colder than a whore’s heart, it was only Ernie’s breath that clouded. He didn’t like to think about that. So he didn’t.
It was twenty minutes after two in the morning that Staff Sergeant Craig McGee stood at the edge of the Trans-Canada highway, looking at the single set of truck tracks already filled with snow, and realized that his sergeant, Joe Reader, was in big trouble.
Joe had been due back around ten, after a routine call to Stoke, on the other side of Wolf Pass. The guys at the store in Stoke who’d called him said he’d left around nine, and since there was a radio in the pick-up, he’d have called for help if he’d gotten stuck in the snow.
Craig didn’t like this. Joe was a radio junkie. He’d call up his boss just to say he’d seen an elk in the road, and if he was out there in a drift, Craig would have had an irritating call every two minutes plotting the exact minute-by-minute progress of his entrapment. Of course the radio could be down, which meant that Joe had a cold night ahead, but the truck tracks were evidence that something had got through the pass in the last two hours. If that were so, why hadn’t Joe clambered from some trucker’s cab hours ago and shambled into the office with a sheepish grin? A trucker wasn’t going to ignore a stranded pick-up, especially not one with the RCMP logo painted on the doors and blue and red lights on its roof.
The blizzard was approaching nightmare force, and Craig McGee could hardly stand against the might of the wind and the stinging bullets of snow. He ran back to the Cherokee, sitting off-road with its engine still running, and climbed back into the driving seat. There was no way a chopper could fly in this and it would be crap in the dark anyway, even with the spots on. Nothing for it but to wait for dawn and hope that Joe’s wife Estelle didn’t go hysterical on him in the meantime.
Craig turned the patrol vehicle round and headed back into town.
The Indians called the gash in the rock that ran from the top of Wolf Pass down to the Silver Creek, Makwiochpeekin, the Wolf’s Tooth. Fifty feet from the bottom of the gully what was left of Joe Reader’s pick-up lay wedged in the fissure of rock like a broken filling in that tooth. Joe’s head was almost severed from its torso but a stubborn sinew kept it hanging there, banging against the bare metal of the cab where it dangled upside-down. The snow eddied round the remains of Sergeant Reader in tiny cyclones as the ragged, gaping holes in the vehicle allowed it access to the carnage.
Two crows perched on a tiny ledge on the cliff watched the meat hanging from its metal larder, swinging gently with the wind. Perhaps when they were sure it was safe, they would fly over there and explore.
But for now only the snow and the wind explored Joe and his vehicle, and from the look in his eyes, which were two frozen balls in his battered head, Joe Reader didn’t mind a bit.
7
When Katie Hunt’s phone rang, she jumped. She hoped it was Sam, and it was. Only two days back at work after his blackout and the ski company had sent him to Stoke for fencing in one of the worst blizzards she could remember. That seemed to Katie to be a slice of a raw deal, but the Hunt family had long since learned to lock away resentment at raw deals in a mental box marked Leave It.
Right now, she was just glad he was safe.
‘So where you going to spend the night, honey?’
Sam sounded tired. ‘Well it’s either the Stoke Hilton or I can bed down in the ticket office. I’m gonna go for the ticket office. Room service is quicker. Seems like I’m the only homeless one round here, so I get the place to myself. It sure beats the hell out of sleeping in the ski truck in a twelve-foot drift. You okay?’
‘Sure. You okay? No headaches?’
Katie heard Sam smile through his voice. ‘No. No headaches. No drooling down my chin like a lunatic. No writhing on the floor in a fit.’
Katie ignored his mockery of her concern. ‘When do you think you’ll make it home?’
‘If the blizzard lets up I guess the pass’ll be open by about noon tomorrow. You can wear my wool shirt if you get cold in bed without me.’
‘Sam?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I love you.’
‘I love you too, babe.’
Billy yelled from the other room, and Katie said her goodbyes and hung up. Some chat show host was smarming through his front of show stand-up, while Billy Hunt ignored him in favour of a hand-held computer game. He yelled again as Katie came into the L-shaped room that was the biggest living space in the house.
‘Nine thousand, Mom! I got nine thousand! Yeees!’
Katie stood behind her son, and ran one thoughtful hand through his straight black hair. ‘Bed, Billy boy. Now.’
‘You said I could wait up and see Dad,’ he replied without taking his eyes off the grey plastic block in his hand.
‘Dad’s stranded in the storm over at Stoke. He’s coming home tomorrow, so that means bed for you, right now.’
She leaned over and switched off Billy’s game.
‘Aw Mom!’
‘I said now, Billy. Your hockey kit’s at the foot of your bed. You forget to put it in your bag again tomorrow, then you’re on your own, kid. I’m not driving round to school with it.’ She turned to leave the room.
‘Mom?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Dad won’t be at home tonight at all?’
Suddenly he looked worried. Katie went back and joined him on the sofa.
‘It’s okay. Like I said: he’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘Can Bart sleep with me tonight?’
Katie tried to look hurt. ‘Oh, so Jess and I won’t do for company then? I keep forgetting, we’re just sappy girls.’
Billy put his hand in hers, and looked into her eyes with such concern she already regretted the joke. ‘You do fine. I just want Bart with me. It’s important.’
Katie squeezed his little hand. ‘Sure. If you can get him in. Good luck. You know what he’s been like.’
‘Great!’
‘Now go get ready for bed. I’ll be up in a minute.’
Her son bounced up and hopped on one foot to the door, singing as he went. His nine-year-old mind had already moved on to other matters. Likewise, Katie’s thirty-four-year-old mind had drifted back to her husband, worry and anxiety drilling into her. It was wrenched back to reality by the sound of Bart bounding up stairs with Billy, as the dog knocked over the frosted glass vase on the landing.
She smiled, and went to play at being stern.
When dawn came on January tenth it revealed the best snow conditions Silver Ski Company had seen for fifteen seasons. It also brought Estelle Reader the worst day of her life.
When they brought back what was left of Joe around one-thirty, Craig had been first at Estelle’s door, his face a grey mask of grief. Craig thought about the kind of suffering you see in the movies, where widows thank the policeman, squeeze his hand, and sit quietly in a chair absorbing the news. He thought about it as Estelle fell to her knees gurgling like a pig being bled, clutching at Craig’s jacket with fists like claws. She writhed on the floor and tore at the rug, saliva running from her mouth as she grunted and panted in the pain of her despair, until Craig hooked his hands under her armpits and lifted her onto a chair.
Life wasn’t like the movies. In fact life in Silver over the last week had been real bad.
Two ski patrollers killed in a freak explosion, and now Joe. He would, of course, have to tell Estelle that Joe’s death hadn’t been an accident, but not now. Time for that later, and time was going to bring her more pain. She would have to suffer the wait before they could lay Joe in the ground, while an autopsy was performed on the grisly remains.
From what they recovered in the gorge, there wasn’t much left to fit in a coffin, and after the forensics had been at him, Craig suspected a Safeway’s bag would probably be big enough to bury his ex-sergeant decently.
He waited with the moaning shell of Estelle Reader until her sister got there, then left and headed back to work.
Half a mile from the office, Craig McGee pulled off the highway into a back road, stopped the engine and cried like a baby. He would be all right in half an hour. Right now, he was broken up.
‘No kidding? Well if it’s a problem we can send a car to the airport to bring her luggage separately.’
Pasqual Weaver watched her own reflection in the office window as she spoke. An elegant, if angular, woman in her thirties looked back, the grey fleece zippered top with the Silver Ski Company logo embroidered on the left breast doing its best to undermine her executive status.
The hand unoccupied by the telephone played with the zipper at her neck.
‘Sure, we want her to be real comfortable. And can I say we’re already over the moon she’s even considering it.’
Eric entered the room and Pasqual mimed at him to sit down.
‘Okay James, you put those things to her and get back to us when you have an answer, but please tell her from us that we’re all huge fans and are really hoping she can make it. Okay, you too. Take care.’ She hung up, and gave the phone her middle finger. ‘Jesus. The fucking old bitch is acting like she’s still a star. Make my day, Eric. Tell me you’ve come to persuade me this celebrity ski week idea is a crock of shit.’
Eric Sindon had not come to say any such thing. ‘You’ve heard about the accident?’
Pasqual’s body changed shape. No longer lounging in her leather chair, it was now sitting forward like a cat watching its prey before striking.
‘Tell me.’
‘Craig’s side-kick. His truck went over the gorge on Wolf’s Pass last night.’
Pasqual sat back in her chair with relief. ‘Fuck. Don’t give me scares like that. I thought we’d had a fatality on the slopes. I think we can live with a cop in an auto accident.’
Eric looked at his boss with distaste. ‘It’s the third death in Silver in a week. I’m getting rumours that there’s more to it than just an automobile accident.’
Pasqual opened her top drawer and fished around until she found a packet of M&Ms.
‘Want one?’ She tossed the packet over the desk to Eric after filling her mouth with chocolate.
‘No. Look, I’m telling you this because I think it will have a negative effect on the resort. Skiers don’t get off on reading about death when they should be reading about snow reports.’
‘Eric, I think our visitors are big enough boys and girls to cope with the fact that sometimes people die in cars.’
‘What about Lenny and Jim?’
‘Accidents happen. They were patrollers for Christ’s sake.’
Eric looked at her and she knew that look. Pasqual stood up and turned her back to him, looking out of the window at the last of the die-hard skiers stepping out of their bindings beside the lodge after stealing the last run of the day.
‘What do you see out there, Eric?’
‘A lodge that needs a re-clad and a nursery area that needs two extra tows.’
She laughed, and threw another chocolate peanut into her mouth. ‘Well, maybe so, but I see the best fucking snow we’ve had in years, and a season that’s going to do business like a cold beer stall in Hell.’ She turned back to him. ‘Now what exactly are you worried about?’
‘Someone has to.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning you shouldn’t underestimate negative vibes in a fun resort, Pasqual.’
She sat down and smiled a wicked cat grin at him. ‘Are you telling me my job, Mr Sindon?’
Eric sighed. ‘Okay, forget it. Just thought it was worth mentioning.’
‘Thank you.’
Eric shoved some paper at her.
‘Here’s the shop stock-taking list, and there’s a guy outside looking for work. Do you want me to see him?’
‘Nope. I’ll see him. You fax more celebrities. Try and get something more famous than someone who voiced over an AT&T commercial. Remember the blackmail bit about the kids in wheelchairs. Lay it on as thick as you like. Where’s the guy?’
‘In the ski school.’
She emptied the last of the chocolates into her mouth, threw the packet in the waste bin and moved to the door. ‘Oh and Eric …’
Eric looked up expectantly.
‘No more drama-queen stuff unless a gondola full of customers spontaneously combusts. Right?’
Eric held her gaze without reply for a few more moments than was polite.
‘You’re the boss.’
‘Yes. I am. Aren’t I?’
She smiled and shut the door behind her. Eric looked at the door for a long time until the phone rang.
* * *
As Pasqual left the seclusion of her inner office, walking through the shop and past the ticket booths, she ran the gauntlet of questions and greetings from every member of staff in her path.
‘Oh Miss Weaver! Got a moment?’
‘Pasqual! Can you call the top station?’
‘Miss Weaver – any thoughts on this display?’
She loved it. She adored being pursued by a team of courtiers, anxious for her approval or instruction, and she treasured it all the more when the public saw her in the middle of it.
As she left the building and crossed the darkening nursery area to the ski school shed, she tossed her short brown bobbed hair, waved and shouted ‘Hi!’ to anyone who would respond.
The man was waiting inside. He greeted her with a smile.
‘Hi there. You’re the job hunter.’
‘Yeah. You must be Pasqual Weaver. Moses Sitconski. Pleased to meet you.’
He extended a lily-white hand, which she shook.
‘What kind of a name is that exactly?’
The man looked at her, neither offended or defensive. ‘My name.’
‘Well, Moses,’ she said, pronouncing the word as though it were a shared and intimate joke, ‘You’ve done your resort personnel homework. Now what kind of work are you after? We’re nearly half-way through the season, you know.’
‘Sure, I know. Looks like it’s going to be a great second half. Long time since I’ve seen snow conditions this good. I guess the powder in the back bowls is like spun sugar right now.’
He smiled, crinkling two ice-blue eyes in a face so pale Pasqual figured the guy had never been near a ski trail in his life. She was used to dealing with people with mahogany tans that stopped where their turtlenecks started, but the easy charm of this man was making up for the fact that he was obviously no ski bum. Nor was he dressed like anyone who wanted to be near snow. A long black wool coat hung over what Pasqual noted was a powerful frame. She wasn’t looking at a potential ski instructor, but maybe he’d be some use in the PR office.
‘You a skier, Moses?’
‘Sure. I can get down most things.’
‘So where have you worked before? And what as exactly?’
The man looked into her eyes very deeply indeed.
Pasqual was aware of an acute sexual stirring beginning around her nipples that shifted down over her belly to an area she didn’t have much time to explore these days. He was turning her on with those eyes, and she was ashamed. Why this encounter should have such an effect was a mystery, and made her squirm beneath her fleece with discomfort and irritation. After all, she was surrounded all day by pieces of meat on skis that she could have just by looking sideways at them. If she chose to, she could fuck any instructor on the resort, but sex was never high on Pasqual Weaver’s agenda. Right now, however, it was standing at the front door ringing the bell.
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