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Camille turned her face into the pillow and sobbed, for she knew that very few women could ignore a man like Zachary Prescott. Hadn’t she been unable to resist him in Utah?
She sighed. As much as she hated the memories and tried to secure them in a dim recess of her mind, they pushed themselves to the forefront, where she was forced to face them. She relaxed her conscious control and surrendered to the sweet pain of memory. She remembered Utah… remembered Snow Bird… remembered Zack…
The ski trip had been a surprise graduation present from her mother. Camille had felt guilty knowing how much money it must have cost and was reluctant to accept it from her widowed and financially struggling mother, but all the arrangements had been made and Martha insisted. Besides, two of Camille’s friends were going, too. The girls’ parents had met secretly and planned this winter fling for them since the coeds were graduating at the end of the fall term.
Kathy Grayson and Jan Murphy were two of Camille’s sorority sisters and they had spent hours together in their dormitory rooms dreaming of adventures such as this trip was expected to be. Kathy and Jan were going as experienced skiers, and were more interested in the prospects of meeting eligible young men than the conditions of the slopes. Camille had never skied, and was both excited and anxious about learning how.
Snow Bird resort, an hour’s drive from Salt Lake City, was everything they could have anticipated. The three young women checked into their rooms at the lodge with high spirits, calling back and forth between the connecting rooms about the man they had seen on the elevator, their plans for dinner, and most importantly, what they would wear.
Kathy and Jan met two men from California that first night at dinner. Camille was more cautious about forming any kind of attachment with a stranger. She had many male friends at college and had had a few romances, some heartbreaking, some nice, but she had never been able to fall in and out of love with the careless regularity that most of her friends did.
She concentrated on her skiing the first two days, taking lessons on the elementary slopes and feeling like a clumsy oaf while Kathy and Jan raced down the mountains with their two agile Californians.
Every muscle in her body ached in angry protest of her abuse of it, and there were few spots on her hips and thighs where ugly purple bruises weren’t evident. Was she made for this kind of sport? Everyone else seemed to love it. She must be a freak.
She winced as she sat down at a table in the lodge dining room for dinner. It was the evening of the second day. Kathy and Jan had gone into Salt Lake City with their young men for dinner, and though they had pleaded with her to come along, she begged off. She didn’t wish to be a fifth wheel, and wanted only to eat quickly and then go to her room and soak in a hot tub until some of the soreness was eased from her battered body.
She hadn’t expected anyone to speak to her and jumped when she heard Zack’s voice behind her ask if she were alone and if she would like some company for dinner. Turning to look at the source of such an interesting voice, she was immediately arrested by the brightness of his blue eyes. His smile was soft and easy, his clothes impeccable; he was gorgeous. Had he made a mistake? Was this man—a man several years older than she—asking her to share dinner with him?
She stammered some inane reply and he took a seat across from her. The next several minutes she was never able to recall. She was so shaken by him and his commanding presence that later she hoped she had conversed with at least a modicum of intelligence. Soon, however, his amicable manner became contagious and they were chatting companionably about movies, books, and skiing.
His accent was obviously Southern, and when she asked him what he did as his occupation, he laughed and told her he was a farmer. She had thought he was joking and laughed with him and they went on to another subject. He graciously invited her to dance, but she refused, admitting that she was too sore for anything more physically stimulating than eating her dinner. When they were done, they talked over cups of cappuccino in front of the giant fireplace at one end of the dining room, and then he escorted her to her door.
“Will you be on the slopes tomorrow?”
“I think I’ll be in better shape by then. I hope so,” she laughed, flexing a muscle.
His smile and manner were so engaging that she laughed again in sheer joy. “Thank you for sharing your table with me tonight, Camille. I’ll probably see you tomorrow on the mountain.” He took her hand briefly in his, then turned and walked with casual ease down the hall toward the elevator.
Camille was unaccountably and irritatingly nervous the next morning and wore her most attractive ski suit. She chided herself for behaving like a teen-ager with a wild crush on the captain of the football team, but at breakfast, despite her resolve not to, she searched the room for his face.
It wasn’t until almost noon when she first saw him. He flew past her with lightning speed and then deftly plowed himself to a stop and waited for her to catch up. She hated for him to witness her less than expert maneuvers.
“Good morning,” he called cheerfully. His hair was shining in the bright sunlight, windblown and casual. His physique was disturbingly revealed in the tight ski pants, and his eyes were mirrors of the sapphire Utah sky.
For the rest of the day he was never far away from her. She would turn, unexpectedly catch him watching her, and return his smile. When he came by her table and spoke to her at lunch, Kathy and Jan nearly choked on their Reuben sandwiches.
“Is he a movie star? My God, he’s beautiful. Camille, what happened last night? Have you been holding out on us? Tell us all the details.”
Camille was embarrassed by their overzealous interest, and even more embarrassed by the fact that there was really nothing to tell. He had been polite and that was all there was to it.
She ate dinner with the depressed twosome, whose gentleman friends had left for home that afternoon. When dinner was over and the small dance band began to play, Zack presented himself and asked Camille to dance. She stepped into his arms, trying to ignore the raised eyebrows of her two friends and hoping desperately that Zack hadn’t noticed their curious stares.
He held her against him with more assurance than any man ever had. She felt powerless in his strong arms and it was a heady, intoxicating feeling. He danced gracefully, as he did everything else, and Camille surrendered to his able lead. Once he moved his chin in her dark hair and she thought he murmured something, but she may have been mistaken. When he released her and led her back to the table, she covered her disappointment with a tremulous smile.
He strolled over to her after breakfast the next morning and greeted Kathy and Jan with a heart-melting smile.
“I see a notice on the bulletin board announcing a hayride tonight. Would you like to go, Camille?”
“Yes.” She smiled back. “That sounds like fun.” She sounded so composed, but her heart was in her throat.
“Good. I’ll pick you up at your room a few minutes before nine.”
They waved to each other throughout the day when they chanced to meet on the slopes. He wasn’t at dinner in the lodge, but Camille finished quickly and went to her room to dress for the hayride. She wore a pair of tight jeans she considered flattering to her figure and stuffed the legs into her knee-high boots. A soft, yellow angora sweater topped them. In this feminine mood, she refused to wear the insulated underwear she had been wearing under her ski clothes and hoped she would be warm enough.
She watched Zack covertly as they rode down the elevator after he called for her. He, too, was dressed in jeans. Well-worn cowboy boots peeked out from the frayed hems of his pants’ legs. Under a shearling coat, he had on a white cable knit sweater. The fingers that pushed the buttons on the elevator panel were long and strong. The back of his hand was tanned and sprinkled with light blond hair.
Before they went out into the cold air to climb aboard the horse-drawn wagon, he pulled her toward him and with confident fingers drew the edges of her rabbit fur parka together, lined up the bottom o
