Hold Me. Susan Mallery

      She turned to get something out of her backpack. As she moved, her ponytail swung toward him. Dark red hair curled slightly at the ends, begging to be touched. He knew the strands would be soft. For a second he allowed himself the fantasy of her pulling out the band holding her hair in place and shaking her head. Like in one of those cheesy perfume commercials. Maybe she would crook her finger at him.

      Unlikely, he thought, holding in a grin at the image. Destiny didn’t strike him as the sultry type. He would guess she was more practical than seductive. Again, not a problem for him.

      She set more papers on the desk and scanned the top sheet. “You’re going to be hiring a second-in-command?”

      He forced his attention back to the job at hand. “Yes. I have interviews lined up for the next few weeks. There will also be a couple of paid staffers.” She made a couple of notes as he spoke. “The volunteer force is impressive. Mostly firefighters and cops, along with a few locals who—”

      She turned to him. “Sam Ridge.”

      “You know him?”

      “What? No. I saw him today. At the bakery. He and another guy came in as I left. The one said Sam. I’ve been trying to figure out who he is.” She leaned toward him. “He’s a former NFL kicker. There are a lot of former pro athletes in this town. You, the football guys and some cyclist, too... There was an article about him on the Fool’s Gold website. You’re in good company. Is that why you wanted to move here?”

      “Not exactly.”

      Her mouth curved up in a smile. “Let me guess. It has something to do with Mayor Marsha.”

      “As a matter of fact, it does. She came to see me in New Zealand after my crash and offered me the job.”

      He hadn’t cared about the job, he thought grimly, remembering the helplessness he’d felt trapped in a hospital bed, not sure if he would ever walk again. He’d cared about his sister and what she was going through. People said love was a big deal. He’d never thought that. Love didn’t get the job done. When Shelby had been dodging their father’s fists, Kipling’s love hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to save her.

      Then Mayor Marsha had shown up and offered a miracle. He didn’t know how the old lady had known what was happening, but she had. As promised, she’d protected Shelby and in return, he’d moved to Fool’s Gold.

      He knew he’d gotten the best end of the deal. Shelby was safe, and he had a place to start over. A place where he was simply Kipling Gilmore. Not world famous G-Force. Which probably sounded good enough to most people. He was healed, and he could settle down. What few realized was after years of being a god, sometimes it was hard to settle.

      “That’s a long way to go to hire someone,” Destiny said.

      “I’m worth it.”

      Destiny laughed. “Okay, I’ll pretend to agree with you. Was she on vacation?”

      “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I never much thought about it. I was pretty banged up and out of it. There were things to deal with.”

      He still remembered Mayor Marsha standing beside his hospital bed and telling him she could take care of his sister. He hadn’t believed her, but she’d come through. His old man had been thrown in jail, Shelby had been safe and when he’d healed enough, he’d shown up to take the offered job.

      “And?” Destiny prompted.

      “She made an irresistible offer,” he said, not wanting to share the truth with anyone. More to protect Shelby than himself. “And here I am.”

      “You’re uniquely qualified for the job. You know your way around mountains.”

      “Less on foot than on skis.”

      “Does that bother you?”

      He thought about what it had been like to fly down the snow. To go faster than anyone. He thought about the feel of the wind, the sounds, the fact that for those few seconds, it was only him and the impossible odds against winning.

      “Sometimes,” he admitted.

      “Giving up the dream?” she asked.

      He nodded. “It was going to happen eventually, but I wanted it on my terms.”

      “But what you did was dangerous. You could have hurt yourself.”

      He looked into her green eyes. “I did hurt myself.”

      “I mean it could have been worse. Was it worth it?”

      He didn’t have to consider his answer. He knew what it was like to defy gravity. He’d been the best. “Absolutely.”

      “I’ll never understand that. Why would you deliberately take that kind of risk?”

      “For the reward.”

      Her nose wrinkled. “A trophy and some arm candy?”

      “The thrill of winning. Doing what hadn’t been done before.”

      “So you break a record. Someone else will break yours. The glory is fleeting.”

      “The mountain is forever and when I skied, I was part of it.”

      * * *

      AS KIPLING SPOKE, he seemed to be looking past her, to something she couldn’t see. Destiny couldn’t understand what he was talking about. Not the meaning behind the words, anyway. Why would someone willingly put themselves in harm’s way? Of course she’d often asked her parents why they were willing to risk their marriage and family for a few nights of passion, and they hadn’t been able to explain that, either.

      She supposed her inability to understand was more about her than them. She wasn’t looking for the thrill in any form, while it seemed that nearly everyone else sought it no matter the cost. But although she could usually dismiss her parents’ choices with a shrug, she found herself wanting to know more about Kipling’s. To understand what had driven him to take the risks.

      “So you’re part of the mountain?” she asked. “A part of something larger than yourself?”

      He gave her one of his easy smiles. “Something like that.”

      “That one I get,” she told him. “When I’m alone in nature, there’s a peace. A connection. But you can feel that sitting still.”

      “You can,” he corrected. “I do it with speed.”

      Her gaze locked with his. In that moment, the world seemed to shrink just a little bit. Or maybe go out of focus was more accurate. She could hear the beating of her heart and knew that she was breathing, but all that seemed separate from the act of looking into his dark blue eyes.

      They were sitting closer than she’d realized. Close enough that she was both uncomfortable and a little bit jumpy. Leaning forward seemed the most logical thing to do, although she couldn’t for the life of her say why. Lean forward and then what?

      Rather than give in, she drew back slightly and searched for a neutral topic. “I met your sister this morning.”

      “You went with the breakfast of champions, then?”

      “I bought Danish for my sister.”

      One brow rose. “Now you’re lying.”

      “Fine. I bought them for myself, but I left most of them with her.” She shuffled the papers in front of her. “It’s nice that Shelby could move to Fool’s Gold, too. Have you always been close?”

      “Mostly. I traveled a lot, and that made it harder, but we’ve stayed in touch. You know how it goes.”

      “Not really,” she said before she could stop herself. “My parents had me nine months after they got married. They split up when I was five. While they were apart, my dad married someone else and had a baby with her. My mom got pregnant