"He's Finn," he answered. "We're Finn and Dane. My mother had a thing for Scandinavia."
Poor Finn.
For almost fifteen years, Dane had known Finn would die. When Dane was a teenager, his brother sat him down and explained it. "It killed mom, and it will eventually kill me, too. But maybe not you, Danger man, you just keep skiing fast, and maybe you'll outrun it."
He and Finn were ten years apart. His brother had been twenty-five at the time he received his diagnosis. Poor Finn had started showing symptoms a good decade earlier than most people with the disease. Now Finn was not quite forty, and Dane was about to turn thirty.
And eventually, the symptoms would come for him, too.
No matter what his brother said, Dane was sure of it. He had spent the last fifteen years trying to accept it. And this was Dane's true secret. The fact that his brother was sick could slip out, sitting next to a silky-haired girl in a dark car … that didn't matter-not really. But nothing could shake that other truth from his lips. If anyone ever found out about the genetic time bomb that awaited him, Dane would lose his place on the ski team, his endorsements. Everything.
"It can't be easy," Willow said, her voice low. "Watching somebody die."
He lifted his arms behind his head, grabbing the headrest with both hands. "We all go someday, right?" How many times had Dane said that aloud-a million? And always with the unfortunate knowledge that while there are many ways to die, he'd seen one of the ugliest. First his mother, and now Finn.
"I guess so," she said softly.
"Including your chickens?"
She laughed. "Don't say that. They'll probably be fine. I'm just mad at myself for driving out through the storm. I've tried to become a country girl, but it just never quite stuck."
"So you're not from around here either, like you accused me of a little while ago … ."
She laughed again, and it was a musical sound. He decided he wanted to hear that laugh a few more times before the plow truck showed up. "No, before we moved here, I lived in Manhattan for seven years. I went to NYU, and then did most of a doctorate."
"So … then you decided to move to the sticks and raise chickens?"
"Ugh. Do I have to tell this part?"
"No," he said quickly. "Not if it's painful."
"It's just painfully stupid," she sighed. "I followed a guy here two years ago. He was very interested in the back-to-the-land movement. Unfortunately he was also very interested in a twenty-one-year-old folk singer. So now I own a hundred-year-old farmhouse on fifteen acres, which I cannot sell. I can't get a decent job, and I can't finish my graduate degree. I'm kind of stuck, and there's nobody to blame."
"Except for the asshole."
"Except for him. But if I'd been smarter, it wouldn't have happened. Now he's in California. He's gotten smarter, too, I think. She has a trust fund."
"Christ," he said. "I'm sorry."
"Me too."
A silence fell between them. "Excuse me for a minute, I'm going to check the tailpipe," he said. He opened the door, which brought the dome light on again, and he got another look at Willow's face. This time she smiled at him, and her big hazel eyes shone. God, she was pretty. In a perfect world he could run his fingers through that hair, taste those perfect lips. Hell, if he was going to dream big, in a perfect world he could go home to something like that every night.
But not this world. Never in this one. He shut the door.
The wind whipped his face as Dane walked to the back of the car. For a moment, he couldn't see at all. The gust pushed on his chest so fiercely that he put a hand out, his fingers finding the Jeep's frame. He followed it around to the back, where his taillights revealed that snow was drifting everywhere, accumulating in spite of the wind block he'd tried to make with the skis. He kicked as much snow away from the rear of the Jeep as he could. But it was falling incredibly fast. So much for the comfort of the heater.
Two
Willow was only alone for a couple of minutes, but they weren't fun ones. When he'd opened the door, the sound of the storm had been fierce. What had she done, getting stuck out here? It was just another stupid error to add to her lengthy list.
She felt much better when his door opened again, and Dane's hearty smile reappeared. With the dome light on, she could see how blue his eyes were, and the extraordinary length of his lashes. And that curly hair was delicious.
"Okay," he said, hopping back into the car and shutting the door. "Don't panic."
"Why?" Willow didn't like the sound of that.
"I've never seen accumulation like this in New England."
"Where have you seen it?" She made the question sound flip, to cover up her fear.
"Tahoe once. And Zermatt." He turned the heat up to full blast for a minute, rewarming the car. Then he turned the key, causing the Jeep's engine to fall silent. He flipped off the headlights, and they were plunged into complete darkness.
"What are you, a meteorologist?"
"Only during ski season," he said.
She took a deep breath. Were they going to freeze? "What is your day job?"
"I'm an alpine skier."
"That's a job?"
He chuckled. "It is if you don't mind going eighty miles an hour."
She swiveled her head toward him. "Seriously? You race?" No wonder he'd had numerous pairs of skis in his car, but no backseats.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Well that's fun." And, truth be told, sexy.
"It is, except when it isn't."
"And when is that?"
"When I lose. Or crash. Usually those things happen at the same time."
She laughed. "What, you never just lose?"
"I'm famous for blowing up. Go big or go home, as the saying goes."
"Wait … Dane. What's your last name?"
"Hollister."
"No way! Danger Hollister. That's you? The … Olympian?"
"It is. Silly name and all."
"Did your mother really name you Danger?"
"No. I changed it to Danger from plain old Dane when I joined the circuit."
"Why?" she laughed.
"Because I was twenty-one … seemed like a good idea at the time."
"What does it say on your driver's license?"
He fumbled in the dark for something in a pocket. Then he pressed the dome light with his hand and leaned toward her. "Feast your eyes on this."
She belly laughed. DANGER HOLLISTER was spelled out. She looked up at him, and his blue eyes flashed with humor. Willow relaxed a little then. She was stuck in a Jeep with no heat, in a blizzard. But sitting next to him, it was almost fun.
He shut the light off again. "That plow is taking its sweet time."
"They usually do a pretty good job on this road," she said. "The ski hill is the only reason why. The rich people have to be able to get to their vacation condos." Then she realized her mistake. "I'll take my foot out of my mouth now."
"Nah, I think you called it pretty well," he said. "But those rich people keep me in business. Ski races don't bring in money for the little mountains. But we need the little mountains to keep the sport alive."
"What are you doing here in Hamilton?" she asked him.
"Training solo for a while," he said, "between races. It puts me here on and off until spring."
Willow rubbed her hands on her arms. With the car's engine off, it was getting cold. She reached for the hood of her jacket, but it wasn't to be found. Willow had unzipped it last week and left it in the mudroom of her house. "Of course."
"What's that?"
"Nothing," she sighed. "Just marveling at my own stupidity again. I do that on the half hour."
"Are you cold?" he asked. "Wait … " He reached around between their seats. "Can't reach it … " He swiveled his big frame to lean back between the seats, finally emerging with something bulky. She heard a plastic click, and then a wad of what felt like a comforter unfolded between them.
"You keep a sleeping bag in your car?" she asked.
"For emergencies," he said. "I drive around in a lot of bad weather. But usually I pull it out for crashing on other people's hotel-room floors." She heard the sound of a zipper. "Here," he said. "Hold this corner."
She met his hands in the dark and took the corner of the comforter. He pulled the zipper all the way around. "There," he said, pushing his end under the steering wheel. Then he reached below his chair to slide the driver's seat backward. "We might as well wait in comfort."