Nobody's Business (Nobody Romances) (7 page)

Surely he would have recognized her. But the only people
he'd worked with today were Kerri-Sue ...

And the Coyote.

His stomach pitched as realization swirled his insides.

"Yes, Brooklyn Raine. Yes, here." Ace cocked his head,
peered at him through narrowed eyes. "Are you okay?"

Doug swallowed hard. "You mean the coyote Kerri-Sue
claimed was a nice, friendly innkeeper named Lyn was Brooklyn Raine?"

Of course she was. Crazy as it might sound, the idea actually made sense when he considered the big picture.

"Coyote?" Ace sat up and slid his feet to the floor. "What
coyote? What happened on the slopes today?"

Briefly, Doug explained about his run-in with the mystery
skier named Lyn, leaving out, of course, that she'd shoved him
back to the ground. His ego couldn't take another blow today.

Ace grinned. "Yep. That definitely would have been Brooklyn. She's the driving force behind the whole Ski-Hab program, though only the insiders know it."

"Which explains why Kerri-Sue took direction from her,"
Doug concluded. "But what I don't understand is why KerriSue denied knowing who Brooklyn was in the first place."

Ace's face blanked. "Huh?"

"Remember? This morning? When you went into your diatribe about snowboarders getting no respect?"

"Oh, right." Ace took a long sip of beer, swallowed. "They're
all like that around here. The town makes sure no one knows
who Lyn is ... or, technically, I guess, was. You ask anybody
in this whole state, they've never heard of Brooklyn Raine.
Lyn Hill, on the other hand, is the sweet little lady who runs
Snowed Inn, a quaint bed-and-breakfast on the outskirts of
town. Which reminds me. I probably should have warned you.
Lyn has no clue about how you came to be injured or what you
used to do before . . ." He gestured to Doug's right shoulder.
"You know."

"Before I lost my arm." Doug stared out the window at the
lavender twilight sky and the dark mountains carved with silver slopes. Up behind a copse of trees, the headlights of a SnoCat gleamed, the machine packing down powder for tomorrow's
skiers.

Brooklyn Raine was Lyn Hill. Inn proprietor and driving
force behind Ski-Hab. The Spidey-sense that had tingled all
day intensified to an electric jolt.

"Tell me about Brooklyn Raine or Lyn Hill, or whatever
she calls herself these days. Why does everyone protect her?
And how did she get involved in Ski-Hab?"

"The reason everyone around here protects her is because
Lyn wants to permanently put her celebrity behind her. She
hasn't been in the spotlight in years. She despises the press
and won't talk to any reporters."

The thought erupted from Doug's lips before his brain fully
considered it. "I bet she'd talk to me."

Ace leaned forward, slamming his empty beer bottle on the
coffee table. "Dude. Are you listening to me? If Lyn finds out
you're a reporter, she'll not only refuse to talk to you, she'll
bounce you out of Ski-Hab so fast, your butt will look like raw
burger meat."

He brushed off the threat easily. The man who'd finagled
interviews with imprisoned boxers, 'roid-raging wrestlers, and
quarterbacks who'd just lost the Super Bowl would never be
intimidated by an innkeeper. Even an innkeeper who'd dared
to knock him to the ground.

"Okay." Doug kept his tone deceptively banal. "But if Brooklyn doesn't know about my trip to Iraq, how does she think I
was injured?"

Ace shook his head. "I don't think she has any idea. Richie
Armstrong, the acting director, said he would keep the deets
as simple as possible. You're a civilian. You were wounded in
an accident, and you were referred here by me."

He digested this information carefully, allowed his brain to
play with different scenarios. Oh yeah. He could definitely
parlay this situation into a public-interest piece. "Who knows
the truth about how I came to be here?"

"You, me, and Richie Armstrong."

"That's it?" Doug pressed. "No one else?"

Ace's brow furrowed. "Like who?"

"Like Kerri-Sue?"

"Nope." Ace paused, rubbed the scruff on his chin, and then
shook his head again, this time with more force. "No way. You
think she would have walked away from your run-in with Lyn
today if she knew? I'll bet Kerri-Sue did a little secret freak
when Lyn cornered you two. You have to understand. Lyn stays
in the background, like a shadow. She doesn't usually get involved for fear of recognition."

"So why'd she step in today with me?"

"Beats me" As if to emphasize his confusion, Ace shrugged
halfheartedly.

"All the more reason why I need to talk to her again," Doug
replied. "All day long, I've been thinking there's a great story
here. And you just helped me find it."

"Whoa." Ace held up a hand. "You said you weren't interested in doing a story here because it had already been done."

"The story of Ski-Hab was already done." For the first time
in months, Doug felt excitement tingle through his veins. No
way would he give up this euphoria. Right arm or no right arm, he was a reporter. And in Brooklyn Raine, he sensed the
story that could reignite his career.

"There hasn't been any information about Brooklyn Raine
in nearly ten years," he said aloud, while his brain continued
to play with the whys and wherefores. "Where she's been,
what she's done, and her involvement in the Ski-Hab program. People would love to know this stuff. Throw in the
stories of the soldiers she's helped, and it's a gold mine of human interest."

His comeback article. He might even include his own journey-a little behind-the-scenes with an actual participant of
Ski-Hab. His editor would salivate when he found out.

"You're forgetting one thing," Ace said solemnly. "You're
retired."

"Maybe I am." Doug drummed his fingers against his empty
beer bottle. "Then again, maybe I'm not."

"I told you, man. If Lyn finds out you're a reporter-"

"Yeah, I know. But she has no idea how I was injured, right?
So I could be anyone: a farmer injured in a combine accident,
the victim of a shark attack, or maybe I'm suffering from some
bizarre flesh-eating disease."

Ace frowned. "In other words, you're gonna lie to her."

"You lied to her."

"A, no I didn't," Ace retorted. "What Richie chose to tell her
about you is between the two of them. In the lodge this afternoon, she asked how I knew you. I told her you helped me out
of that jam at JFK. That was it. She didn't ask for anything
more, and I didn't elaborate."

Doug snorted. "Semantics. You didn't lie, per se. You just
omitted most of the truth."

"And B," Ace continued, pointedly ignoring Doug's comment, "I haven't established a reputation as a journalist with
pristine ethics, like someone else in this room."

"Come off it, Ace. Because of my `pristine ethics,' I'm not
gonna do a hatchet job on the poor woman. I promise. She'll
be extremely happy with the publicity she gets. I'll write her up
as the Mother Theresa of the ski world. I won't even mention
how she shoved me to the ground to prove a point."

"Wow." Sarcasm dripped like acid from the single word.
"You really don't get it. To Lyn, no publicity is good publicity.
She's got a real phobia about being recognized."

"Gimme a break. She practically grew up in the spotlight. She
and Cheviot got engaged at Disney World, for God's sake, complete with a starring role in the Electric Parade. Now all of a
sudden, she wants anonymity?"

"It's not `all of a sudden.' She's been hiding from the world
ever since her husband died."

"Too bad. The price of fame and fortune is having to live in
the spotlight, whether you want to or not."

Ace shook his head. "Leave me out of this, dude. You wanna
sell your soul for a story-"

"No." Sell his soul? Hardly. He was trying to regain his
passion. Why couldn't Ace see that? "You don't get it."

"You got that right. And what's more, I don't want to. I
don't want any part of this."

"Ace ..." Doug inhaled deeply. "I need this story. For the
first time in months, I'm jonesing to write. I'm even willing to
use this"-he hefted his prosthetic arm-"if I have to. Or I'll
check out that voice-activated software my orthopedist has been
touting. This story could completely renew my life!"

"Yeah," Ace said blandly as he rose from the couch. "And
destroy someone else's life in the process. Sorry, Doug. But
I'm outta here."

Seconds later, the door to Doug's condo opened, then closed
again on Ace's exit.

After a fabulous dinner of pot roast with red-skinned potatoes and fingerling carrots, Lyn sat with Jeff and April in the
parlor. Pine infused the air from the fresh boughs decorating
the fireplace mantel. On the sideboard, assorted-flavored brandies and liqueurs replaced the hot cider from the afternoon.
Vivaldi's "Winter," a perennial favorite, played softly in the
background through wall-mounted speakers.

The kids-exhausted, well-fed, and completely recovered
from the afternoon's excitement-had shuffled off to bed a few
minutes before.

Although Jeff and April included Lyn in their conversations, from anecdotes about the kids to wedding plans, she
barely listened. Her mind remained fixed on the civilian from
this afternoon, Mr. Sawyer.

When he'd risen the second time, after she'd pushed him,
rage pulsated off him in waves hotter than the fire blazing in
the hearth here. But then he'd paused and somehow pulled
himself together. Good thing. Based on his size, if he'd given
in to his first reaction, she'd probably be in the hospital right
now. And she'd definitely deserve it.

Why had she pushed him, anyway? To do so was not only
counterproductive but cruel as well. Ski-Hab's goal was to
build its students up, not to knock them down. She should know.
She wrote the mission statement when they'd incorporated the
program.

A flush of shame warmed her cheeks. Since Ski-Hab's inception, she'd reviewed the students from that particular peak on the Snow Wonder trail hundreds of times. And in all those
years, she'd seen dozens of participants falter when they fell.

None had ever compelled her to any drastic action. Until
Mr. Sawyer.

Poor Kerri-Sue, no doubt sensing something seriously wrong
with Lyn's mental capacities, had immediately jumped to her
charge's defense-which was absolutely the right reaction.
And honestly, Mr. Sawyer had done nothing to deserve Lyn's
heartless interference.

No. The one villain in today's event was Lyn herself. The idea
stuck in her chest like an ice pick that stabbed her heart. Worse,
a deep, knotting fear tied up her insides and nearly paralyzed
her.

After Marc's death, she'd kept her emotions wrapped in a
numbing cocoon. Now, all of a sudden, feelings she'd long ago
suffocated had revived. She considered her envy of April's
happiness, the attraction she'd sensed blooming between
Becky and Ace Riordan, and, of course, her overreaction to
Mr. Sawyer.

So the green monster had popped up when she saw how
happy April was with Jeff and how obviously Jeff adored April.
Of course Lyn would feel a pang of jealousy-the sharp reminder of what she and Marc had shared all too briefly.

And the episode with Ace and Becky? Merely a protective
aunt guarding her niece's innocent heart from a possible tragedy, her saner self proclaimed.

But she had no easy explanation for what had happened today on Snow Wonder. Perhaps she should go back to that trail
tomorrow, find Mr. Sawyer, and offer him an apology.

"You think Summer will go for it, Lyn?" April's question
broke through her musings.

She shook herself back into the conversation. "Huh?"

"Help me plan the wedding," April replied with a blinding
smile directed toward Jeff.

Had she missed something?

"You're going to ask Summer to help you?" When had the
devil donned his ice skates? As long as she'd known them, for more than thirty years now, Summer and April had never gotten along.

"Well ... yeah. You remember her wedding, don't you?"
Once again, April swerved to face Jeff. "Everything perfect.
Perfect spring day with the perfect blue sky, perfect gown,
perfect bridesmaids' dresses. When she and Brad stepped out
of the little stone church, a dozen white doves were released to
take flight in a perfect arc. At the same time, white rose petals
floated down from the top of the church. All in perfect precision."

Talk about a one-eighty. At the actual event, April had called
this perfect precision, "Summer's Splendiferous Spousal Spectacular."

And not in a good way.

"So wait," Lyn said. "You want Summer to give you the same
kind of thing? Rose petals and doves?"

"God, no" April shivered as if in the throes of some bizarre
seizure, eyes bugged out and tongue lolling. "Could you just
see me swathed in a thousand yards of white tulle while a
cadre of birds flew around my face? I'd look like Cinderella on
crack."