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Thirty-Seven
DAKOTA
“Well shit,” I breathed, pulling my goggles onto my forehead for a better view. “This is a far cry from the beaches of Maui!”
I’d only seen Vale in movies and on television, but it was every bit as breathtaking and then some. It had taken less than two hours to drive here. After another hour of suiting up and strapping on ski boots, we were riding the express lift to the Wildwood summit and exiting beneath a dome of crystal blue sky.
“I love that we don’t have to teach you to ski,” said Merrick.
“Teach me?” I laughed into the brisk, beautiful mountain air. “You might not even be able tocatchme.”
I pointed my skis toward ‘Wild Card’ the nearest black diamond trail. The name seemed oddly fitting.
“First one down picks where we eat tonight,” I suggested, lowering my goggles again. “And I’m pretty damned starving.”
“You’re on,” said Jace. “Although I have to warn you—”
Everyone moved at once, shooting through the packed snow at the top of the trail and into the powder below. Jace was shredding right alongside me. I’d skied with him a few times before as teenagers, but only when my parents could guilt Tyler into dragging me along with them. He had the speed of longer skis and the advantage of being tall, but I could shift my hips better than he could and cut much sharper corners.
On the more narrow, moguled paths I passed him, but on the straightaways he bent his knees and really put his ass to the ground. Faster and faster we raced down the mountain, weaving through the crowds on the lower hills until he edged me out — only barely — right before the lift line.
“Not bad,” he said as I skied up, shaking a layer of snow and ice from his hair. “You still got it.”
Merrick was nowhere in sight — we’d burned him quickly at the top of the mountain. But just ahead of us, leaning casually on his ski poles, was Aurelius.
“Fuck,” Jace grunted. “Really?”
The gorgeous SEAL’s face was plastered with a perma-grin. Even his laughter had a sexy accent to it.
“You think you Americans could actually beat someone who learned to ski the Italian Alps when he was just four or five?”
“You’re an American yourself, you know,” Jace pointed out.
“And I think you got out ahead of the crowd,” I lamented playfully.
“Excuses, excuses.”
Merrick showed up next, intentionally snow-plowing us with a fresh wave of fine power.
“Sore loser,” Jace grunted.
Merrick stuck his tongue out at him. “So where are we eating?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” said Aurelius, cleaning snow from his ear. “But ask me again after eight or ten runs.”
The guys began ribbing each other as we melted into the line again. I admired them silently, watching them interact. Their good-natured banter came so effortlessly and naturally, it was obvious they’d spent incredible amounts of time together.
But it was thetypeof time, too, and I knew that by the very nature of their jobs. These men hadn’t just been friends or comrades, they’d had to rely on each other to stay alive. They’d saved each other from death at times. Put each other’s lives ahead of their own, creating an unbreakable bond that simply had no comparison.
All three of them had suffered through the gauntlet of combat, and come out the other side. As such, they valued honor. Humility. Sacrifice. They’d adopted these principles as their own personal mantras, which gave them common ground.
I’d seen men who were close before, but even in the case of family or brotherhood ego always got in the way. That wasn’t the case here, though. Each of these men were thrilled for the success of the others, and bent on helping maintain that success as a trio. They were more competitive than any men I’d ever seen, yet somehow, they were never jealous of each other.
I swallowed hard, focusing on that last part. It was the one main reason I’d come here. The only reason something this crazy could ever even beconsidered.
“Hey beautiful! You coming?”
Looking up, I realized I was holding up the line. Jace and Merrick were already getting on the lift. Aurelius held one gloved hand out to me. His sexy smile felt like a double-shot of Amaretto, warming my belly from within.
“I’ll let you pick the restaurant if you want,” he offered, as we slid into the next chair.
“You want pizza again,” I chuckled. “Don’t you?”
“No, no,” Aurelius grinned. “Not tonight. Tonight we’re taking you to the village. Someplace special.”
Glancing ahead to where the others sat in their own lift chair, he covered his mouth with one hand and leaned into me.
“I just didn’t want Jace to pick it,” he whispered conspiratorially. “He wouldn’t know good food if it slapped him in the face!”
