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They did. And then they did it again. And again. Who knew a quiet exorcism could be so much fun?
“Forget skiing, can we just ride this chairlift thing around and around?” There was something incredibly uplifting—no pun intended—about slowly gaining elevation in the cold sunny blue of a perfect winter day. This really had been an exorcism. Cara wasn’t sure when she’d felt so free. Possibly never.
“This ride does afford a lovely view, doesn’t it?” Matteo asked, eyes impossibly green under the bright blue sky.
“Yes,” she agreed, “though I think everything in Eldovia has a lovely view. But this is more than the view. There’s something about moving through the trees and smelling the air—in addition to always looking stunning, Eldovia smells good. How do you guys do that?”
She’d been kidding, but he took her question seriously. “You know, when you first got here, I was determined to show you Eldovia, to make you reallyseeit.”
“That’s why you tried to get me to go to that village, why you took me to the portrait gallery.”
“Yes. I should have known that Eldovia’s charms cannot be forced.” He tilted his head and looked into the distance, as if he were contemplating a mystery. “I should have known that Eldovia didn’t need my help in that regard.”
At the top of the hill, Cara began to lose her nerve. Not because of the symbolism of skiing but because of theactual skiing. This was the smallest of the hills that required the chairlift, so it was still classified as easy, but it looked a lot steeper from this vantage point than it had from the bottom. “Yikes. How do you do this?”
“You just... go.”
“Is that the technical term?”
He smirked. “It is.”
She tamped down the flutter in her stomach. “I’ll try.”
“Cara,” he said with a note of urgency in his tone. When she looked at him he was wearing an extremely serious expression. “There is no try.”
She cracked up. “All right, Master Yoda. If go we must, go we shall.”
They went. She concentrated on incorporating everything she’d learned. Matteo paced himself and stayed by her side, and why was that so hot? Before she knew it, they were at the bottom.
A spike of pure triumph rose in her chest. “I did it!” she exclaimed, which she realized was the same thing she’d said after her first run on the baby hill. But she had!
“You did indeed!” He seemed as excited as she was.
The next time they went, she was able to focus a bit more on the actual experience, the sensation of zipping along the packed snow, the sharp cold of the air in her nostrils. When they got to the bottom, she said, “I think I like skiing!” A few more runs solidified that stance.
On their fifth trip up the hill, the chairlift shuddered to a halt when they were halfway up.
“This happens when someone has trouble getting on or off,” Matteo explained. “Or, actually, when the lift itself malfunctions, which does happen at this hill. This really is the workaday local ski hill.”
“Well, no complaints here. Even though I’ve sort of got the hang of skiing, this chairlift ride is still my... favorite part.” She’d trailed off because something appeared to be wrong with Matteo. He looked severely distressed, in contrast to the way he’d been the rest of the day—happy and smiling and joking. “Is everything all right?”
“I must speak with you.” He shifted as much as possible on the bench so he was partially facing her.
She did the same. “All right.” Her heart kicked up. She wassuddenly afraid that something terrible had happened with respect to Morneau. Maybe theydidneed to tell the king about Brad before tomorrow morning.
“Cara, I have come to admire you a great deal. I greatly... esteem you.”
“You greatly esteem me?” She blinked. This was not where she thought they’d been headed, but okay. She supposed she esteemed him, too, now that she knew him better. “Wow, and here I thought you didn’t like me.” She was kidding, of course. They had long since dispensed with the idea that they didn’t like each other. She was trying to lighten the mood.
It didn’t work. He continued earnestly. “I do like you. In fact, that’s what I’m trying to say. I have endeavored to resist, but I find myself in the uncomfortable position of liking you very much.” He huffed an annoyed sounding breath. “This is extremely inconvenient.”
“What is?” She was confused.
“My feelings for you!” he said, like it should have been obvious. “My regard.”
Okay, now she was getting annoyed. “Your regard for me isinconvenient?” And here she would have thought the whole point of a fling, or, as he called it, a time-limited affair, was that it wasconvenient. It was about taking advantage of a situation that was right in front of you.
“Yes, life was much easier when I could think of you straightforwardly as the agent of Eldovia’s destruction. But now that there aren’t going to be any layoffs, you’re so much easier to like.” He shot her a sheepish smile.
