With her huge glacier-blue eyes, she stared at me like she’s seeing a ghost. Her lips are open just a hair, and in the bright sunlight I can see a thin white scar on her jaw. I let my eyes wander down her petite frame and have to keep from laughing when I see her jeans, wet to the knees. As she still hasn’t uttered a word, I wave my hand in front of her face. “Hello? You okay?”
She quickly blinks a few times before batting my hand away as if it were an annoying fly. The corners of my mouth twitch again.
“Stop. I’m looking for someone.”
“Up ’til now without all that much success, am I right?”
She casts me an angry glance, then turns away to continue staring casually into the distance.
I take a breath. “You know, I’d really love to leave you standing here to get whacked by a skier, but unfortunately that would fall within my realm of responsibility. So…” I make a sweeping gesture with my arms toward the side slope. “Would you care to continue your search over there?”
“This is…” She stops midsentence before closing her eyes, then she looks up at the sky. Slowly, she turns back to me. “Your responsibility?”
“Yeah. Responsibility. You familiar with the word? I can put it in other terms if you’d like.” I nonchalantly tilt my head. “Morals. Sense of duty. Conscience. Accountability. Obliga—”
“I’m not dumb!”
“Oh. That’s good. Who are you then?”
“What?”
“Your name.” I grin. “You got one, don’t you? I’m Knox, by the way.”
“I know. You don’t need to know my name.”
Odd. The crabbier she gets, the more interesting I find her.
She takes a deep breath, as if she had to arm herself for something, then says, “If you’re responsible for all this, then maybe you can help me.”
I laugh, plant my snowboard into the ground, and lean my arm on it. “You want my help without telling me your name?” I put on a theatrically skeptical face. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to trust strangers?”
She gasps for air as if I’d offended her and takes two steps back. She looks at me for a moment, her blue eyes so big I feel as if I could disappear inside them.
“Of course,” she counters coolly. “They did. There’s just one problem.”
“And what would that be?”
She doesn’t bat an eye. “It’s not strangers who are the problem. But those you think you know.”
I don’t often lose the power of speech. In fact, I’m usually pretty articulate. Quick. I always know what to say. But right now, I have no idea. Right now, I’m simply standing in front of her, staring into her eyes and wondering who on earth this girl is.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she adds, taking off in the opposite direction. “You’re stealing time I don’t have.”
“Wait.” I rub a hand across my face before following her. “Hey, wait up.” I grab her arm to get her to stop. Wrong move. With a power I wouldn’t have expected her delicate body to possess, she tears her arm away only to punch me in the chest a second later. In spite of myself, I stagger a few steps back.
“Don’t touch me!” she hisses.
I raise my hands in a conciliatory way. “I’m sorry. Really. I just wanted…” With a sigh, I let them sink back down. “Tell me how I can help.”
“You can help by leaving me alone.” She stomps off, her head barely missing a snowboard a tourist had draped under their arm.
“Come on.” This time I’m smarter. Instead of grabbing her, I take a pair of large steps, circle her, and put myself in front of her. “Don’t be so stubborn. You want something; I can probably help. If you don’t have any time, continuing to skulk about the slopes without any plan isn’t the most effective path.”
For a moment, she just stares at me angrily. But I am far too busy with watching how the light makes the blue of her eyes shine to let it bother me.
Eventually, she shifts her weight from one leg to the other and seems to get that I’m right. “Good. Someone told me that the up-and-comers need an endurance trainer.”
“And?”
