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weren’t for a damn woman.
    Sal had to give her credit. For an amateur, she’d done a damn good job of covering her tracks. The thing was, the woman was up against a pro.
    Which, of course, meant that she had no freaking chance.
    Oh, yeah, he thought, as he gulped down a bottle of foul-tasting Pepto-Bismol, one more thing… he also hated flying. His court-appointed anger-management therapist accused him of being a control freak.
    Which, okay, so maybe he was. Especially now that he’d stopped drinking and didn’t have booze to soften and numb the hard edges.
    But what the hell was wrong with that ?
    If his ancestors had been laid-back, que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be, type individuals, the Roman Empire would’ve stopped at, well … Rome.
    Even discounting that God couldn’t have intended for people to defy gravity, Sal hated that he wasn’t the one in the cockpit. He might not know how to fly a plane, but how did he know the pilot really did, either? With all the airline cutbacks these days, hell, they were probably hiring guys right off the street. And not just guys.
    Christ on a crutch, he’d nearly shit a brick when he’d walked onto the plane this morning and discovered he’d be handing over control of his life to a friggin’ female.
    That’s when he should’ve folded his hand. But, reminding himself he was on a mission, he’d strapped himself into the seat of the flying tin can, which, a chatty elderly woma n behind him informed her seat- mate, was colloquially referred to as the Vomit Comet.
    His own seatmate had been a Russian bear of a guy who was definitely taking up more than his share of space. The good news was that he proved no more interested in conversation than Sal himself was, choosing instead to spend the flight muttering curses when he wasn’t taking hits from a silver flask he’d managed to sneak onto the plane in a red, white, and blue backpack.
    As the turboprop jet bucked and dove over the Rockies, causing hi m to nearly lose the Egg McMuffi n he’d wolfed down at Las Vegas’ McCarran Airport, Sal discovered the flight was appropriately named.
    By the time he’d managed to make it down the metal steps to the snow-dusted ground on rubbery legs, he’d seriously considered hitting his knees and kissing the tarmac.
    It was all the damn woman’s fault. If it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t be going through all this freaking shit.
    As he marched to the SUV parked outside the Red Wolf ski lodge, head hammering and stomach still churning as if he were coming off a two-week bender, Sal decided that if he could get the job done tonight, he could be on the first plane out of here in the morning. Back to the warmth and civilization of Vegas. Where he belonged.
     

 
     
    5
     
     
    I t had only taken ten minutes, after all. And he’d fallen asleep right after he’d come. Erin thought about waking him, then decided that perhaps it would be better—easier—if he just woke up on his own and left the apartment while she was out at the lake. That way she could avoid any uncomfortable after-sex conversation until she had time to sort out her feelings about him. And about what they’d shared earlier.
    As she drove past the bank—with its temperature sign announcing a minus ten degrees—and packed snow crunching beneath the tires of her six-month-old Subaru Legacy, Erin admitted that he probably wouldn’t be the only one to call her crazy for coming out tonight.
    She heard the distant whine of a snowmobile, glanced in the mirror, and viewed a black sled speeding across the snow, the driver probably practicing the trails for this week’s Ride the Continental Divide sled race.
    See, she wasn’t the only one taking advantage of this still, moonlit night.
    Before she’d escaped to Wyoming, skating had been a chore, a duty to be endured. It had, over the past months, become a joy again.
    No. Not a joy. Something larger. Something almost… religious. Like a benediction.
    Liking the