The day went downhill, and Charlie had never been so glad to see a day over.

  The following week continued to be overshadowed with a horrendous tension, though the Japanese were excellent skiers and guests. They were courteous, and followed instructions without reminding, argument or complaint. They were often unintentionally hilarious. When Charlie first introduced them to the helicopter, the interpreter had listened to her solemnly, and then summed up her speech by pointing at the blades, slicing his throat with his hand, and proclaiming an emphatic, 'Chop-ee, chop-ee!'

  It had been a sign of the week to come that she hadn't laughed. Her laughter had been left somewhere among the silence of snow-bent trees. She had glanced at Gallagher. He was not laughing either.

  One kiss. One broken rule. Never again, she vowed. Never! And she prayed that, when the memory faded for both of them, things would return to normal. Normal? There had yet to be normal for them. What she wanted was so little—an ordinary, friendly, courteous working relationship. But now—now she had seen desire set his eyes on fire. Would normal ever be enough again? Perhaps it was safer, if not exactly comfortable, the way things were.

  'Charlie.'

  They were done for the day. The well-satisfied Japanese clients would be returning home tomorrow. New groups would be coming in. She had missed the sound of her name on his lips.

  'They've asked if they could have one more sleigh-ride. Because both Rob and Cherry are going to be busy tonight, I had just planned a movie. I hate to send them home disappointed, but I can't manage it myself, either.'

  His words were stiff, and she knew it had taken a great deal of effort for him to ask her for help. But still, he had unbent enough to ask. She saw in that the potential to start again. The potential for 'normal'. Her heart sank.

  'I'm sorry, Gallagher, I just can't. Not tonight.'

  His eyes cooled. The potential of the moment, of a healing evening of lightness and laughter, was gone.

  She longed to tell him. Tell him that she had planned to take Kenny to the movie all week, and each night she had come home feeling so tired and tense, she had begged off. There was only one cinema in Revelstoke, and Kenny had informed her irritably that tonight was the last night for the show he wanted to see. She had promised. Not just said 'maybe', but promised. Kenny knew the difference between a 'we'll see' and a promise. So did she. She would have loved to soften the hard, unyielding line of Gallagher's face with an explanation, but it was an explanation that needed time. Trust. Compassion. He was already turning his broad back to her.

  She could do nothing more than watch him walk away.

  Kenny was in one of his more difficult moods when she got home.

  'I want to go and see the movie now,' he demanded for the tenth time as they ate the delicious dinner Tanya and Kenny had prepared together.

  'Oh, Kenny! I told you no. It's far too early.'

  'I want good seats,' he told her sulkily, and then revealed the true source of his bad temper. 'You got to go on a sleigh-ride this week. You got to be in the helicopter. I didn't get to do nothing. You never do fun things with me.'

  Hit where it hurts, Kenny, she thought wearily. Push the old guilt-button. 'We'll have fun tonight,' she soothed.

  'Only if we get good seats,' Kenny came back stubbornly.

  Kenny's mood did not improve as they walked the few blocks to the cinema. He was belligerent and difficult.

  'I'm cold. Why didn't we drive?'

  'For heaven's sake, Kenny! You would have been just as cold in the car—colder.'

  'I want a big popcorn,' Kenny said in the queue outside the cinema. 'And some liquorice. And a large Coke. Two Cokes --'

  'A popcorn, and one small pop,' she said firmly. As if he wasn't wired enough, without giving him sugary treats.

  She stopped cold as they walked through the door. Across the crowded lobby stood Gallagher, looking like a mountain surrounded by chattering Japanese. She had thought that he would be able to manage the sleigh-ride, somehow.

  He spotted her. His eyes narrowed to sapphire slits.

  'I don't care what you want,' she interrupted Kenny, taking his arm firmly and moving towards Gallagher. The moment of truth had arrived—or might have arrived, except that Kenny impatiently shook free of her grip and made a beeline for the confectionery stall.

  The Japanese were beaming recognition and waving greetings at her. She hesitated, and then, with a reluctant look at Kenny's back, went over to say a quick hello.

  'I see now why you couldn't possibly have given me a hand tonight,' Gallagher said. His voice was smooth and pleasant. The sarcasm of his message was intended only for her.

  Her chin went up. 'I made a promise,' she stated with cold lack of apology. 'It's not as if you gave me three days' notice that you would need help.'

  Looking at him, she suddenly knew that now was the time. See if he could meet Kenny and still smile that cold, cynical smile. Then he might at least understand the full extent of her responsibility. He might be less inclined to see her limitations as a personal insult. Suddenly, she did not dread this moment. She wanted it.

  'When he's finished buying popcorn, I'd like you to meet --' She broke off when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a movement in the queue. She turned to see that Kenny had grown impatient and was barging his way to the front. Once there, he loudly demanded popcorn, two Cokes, liquorice, a chocolate bar and --

  'Excuse me,' she said hastily. Damn Kenny! He didn't even have any money.

  She reached him, took one look at his mutinous face, and sighed. She was aware that he was fully intending to make a scene if he was denied so much as a jujube. Perhaps he would manage to be pleasant to Gallagher if she placated him now. She paid for the monstrous amount of junk piled in front of him. But when she turned back to the lobby Gallagher and his clients had disappeared into the cinema.

  The Roxy was a wonderful old cinema that had been painstakingly restored. Thankfully the seats Kenny coveted—semi-box seats, set off from the others by a low, rounded wall—were still available. Charlie herded Kenny into one, luxuriating in the relative privacy and leg-room. She glanced around, pinpointing Gallagher's location, so that she could find him easily after the show and introduce him to Kenny.

  The lights came down, and the movie proved to be every bit as dreadful as Charlie had feared it would be. It was billed as a spy thriller, but it seemed to feature half-naked women romping about the screen. Kenny began to react to the junk food just as she had suspected he would, and he began to squirm, thump his feet, and finally bounce up and down in his chair despite her hissed warnings. Her head was beginning to hurt, and Kenny began to comment loudly on the show.

  She whacked him warningly on the arm, but the comments continued, and the scenes being played out in front of them continued to sizzle. Finally, when Kenny crowed something particularly vulgar, she dismissed her plan to meet Gallagher afterwards, seized Kenny by the arm, yanked him to his feet, and hauled him out of the cinema, out of the front doors, and headed him towards home.

  He was surprisingly complacent. 'I'm sorry,' he told her contritely as he came into her room to say goodnight to her. 'I was very bad.'

  'Very,' she agreed, but she went from being ready to kill him, to being charmed by him. As always.

  Gallagher sat looking at the two empty seats, seething. He had been absolutely stunned to see Charlie with a man. Somehow it had never occurred to him that she might have a boyfriend. It made him furious that she had allowed that kiss of a week ago to ever take place. How dared she engage in that kind of activity if she was committed elsewhere? OK, it had been spontaneous. But she had seen it coming. Her golden eyes had been half-closed and sensuous, her tongue had been tickling the edge of her lips. She could have stopped it. Not only hadn't she stopped it, but she had given every bit as good as she got.

  And that damned kiss still lingered on his lips and in his mind. She had tasted pure and fresh, like a snowflake melting on the tip of his tongue. Every time he looked at her he yearned to taste those lips again. Even when he wasn't looking at her, he saw her. The wide, intelligent eyes. The tangled mane of her hair. Yes, the soft, tantalising bow of her lips. He had known she meant trouble. Known it from the first time he had laid eyes on her. And hired her anyway, fool that he was.

  Hired her despite the fact that she had given him hell at that first interview for his inadvertent admission that men found younger women attractive. And then tonight she had waltzed in on the arm of a man who, though Gallagher had only seen him briefly, didn't appear to be a day over twenty. And women accused men of applying double standards. Ha!

  His eyes had drifted to them once or twice during the show. He had seen her leaning over and whispering to him, seen her give him a playful smack on the shoulder. And they had got up during a very graphic sex scene and left. He couldn't prevent himself from thinking the very ugly thought that they couldn't wait to get home.

  Gallagher sighed, wondering why the hell he cared. She had an alluring physical presence—one that, unfortunately, he was always aware of. A masculine weakness, nothing more.

  The problem was that you didn't just have an affair with a woman like that, and get her out of your system. A woman like that would take energy—mental, physical, emotional. A woman like that would take everything. She would never be satisfied with leftovers—with less than a man's full presence. Challenging, yes, but draining, too, and that was if you were lucky enough to survive the sharp edges.

  No, Charlie James was not his kind of woman. He liked women who were softer. Less assertive. Who didn't keep him on his toes, like a boxer waiting for a punch. Who didn't make him think about every word before he said it.

  Suddenly, and unhappily, he wasn't certain if he liked what that said about him.

  Gallagher's face was unreadable and remote the next morning when they saw each other. Charlie refused to let that stop her.

  'Did' you enjoy your evening?' she asked tentatively.

  'No!' he snapped.

  'I had to leave early,' she pressed on. 'Otherwise I would have liked you to meet Kenny. He's --'

  'Look, lady,' Gallagher cut her off, 'I don't give a damn about your personal life. You've made it perfectly clear that all you want to do is fly the helicopter. That's fine by me. More than fine. That's just great.'

  Charlie stared at him, feeling a horrible, tell-tale sting behind her lashes. She had planned this moment so carefully—wanted so badly for him to know this guarded part of herself, of her life.

  She had almost trusted him. Well, he did not deserve her trust. And he certainly did not deserve her tears.

  'Which group is going up first?' she asked tightly, turning her attention quickly away from the stone-like cast of his face. Damn him for ever revealing he had a different side from this.

  And damn her, for foolishly entertaining the notion that the side seen more infrequently might be the more real one.

  CHAPTER SIX

  'Do you mind?' Gallagher snapped, when his shoulder brushed Charlie's as he was loading skis.

  Charlie felt her temper sizzle. It was her first morning back at work after two weeks off. She had hoped that two weeks would mellow them both. Give them a chance to step back and get things in perspective. Give them a chance to recover from the tension, the physical strain those last two weeks of working together had put on them. It had been exhausting—wearing the frigid mask of uncaring, parrying indifference with indifference. Fighting back the desire to point out a windborne eagle to him, or the way the light had hit a certain outcropping. Fighting back simple sharing words about sky, snow, sunshine.

  She had hoped that the two weeks' respite would give him a chance to figure out why he was always going for her throat. Figure out why he was so completely unreasonable towards her. Now, it was obvious he had not used the time constructively. She, however, had.

  She had swept him from her mind completely. Well, almost completely. It was true that, in her unguarded moments, her mind occasionally drifted. To sapphire eyes. To a lone figure conquering a windswept mountain. To the way his jacket moulded over the broad swell of his shoulders, the way his ski-pants hugged the muscular line of his leg.

  Occasionally, in an unguarded moment, she had found herself trying to peer inside him. Trying to decipher his coldness, his moodiness. Despite the people who surrounded him, the relentless activity of his life, there was a basic aloofness about him that made her see a man lonely and alone. See a man who guarded his vulnerability with chilling vigilance.

  Occasionally, in an unguarded moment, she felt an aching and odd tenderness for that man. An aching desire to break through his barriers, to soar into the brilliance of that soul she had seen bared.

  Just occasional, unguarded moments of craziness. Of pure insanity. Moments that she crushed as ruthlessly as she would crush fat, slimy bugs, as soon as she realised that she had let herself slip again.

  Yes, she had used her two weeks constructively. Or so she had thought. Until she had seen him, and her heart had leapt in her throat, and she had felt the colour unfurling in her cheeks like bright red flags.

  And then he had crushed her leaping heart as ruthlessly as if it were the fat, slimy bug. With a look of schooled indifference, with a harsh thread running through his every word to her.

  She faced him now, speaking under her breath so that the group of skiers wouldn't hear her.

  'Look, buddy, if you have a problem, kindly get it out in the open.'

  'I'm not your buddy, and I don't have a problem,' he returned coldly. 'Do you?'

  'Me?' she squeaked. 'I most definitely do not!'

  'Fine, then. Get to work.'

  As if she had been dallying while he worked himself into a sweat! She wanted to grab the ski-pole from his hand and hit him over the head with it—again, and again, and again. She wanted to tell him that, since he was so godlike that he didn't like to be touched by mere mortals, he would have no trouble flying the helicopter by himself. Then she wanted to turn on her heel, walk away and never come back. Hurt him, as he was hurting her, even if from his perspective the only hurt would be the mad scramble to find a new pilot. Reactions of passion, she realised, astonished. No, her two weeks off had not been so terribly constructive, after all.

  She bit her lip, and turned with a strained smile to the skier holding out his equipment to her.

  'You two married?' he asked with a grin.

  'Never!' she said emphatically.

  'Great! How about dinner with me tonight, doll?'

  She almost repeated her emphatic 'never'. She almost told him to fly the helicopter. 'Doll'! Instead she held her smile, wondering what had ever compelled her to take a job that required diplomacy.

  'I'm afraid that's impossible. I have a family.'

  Sort of a family, she added to herself—certainly enough of one to want to discourage idiots like this.

  'Really? How old are your kids?'

  'There's only one. He's about twelve.' OK, she was stretching it, and it disagreed with her scrupulously honest nature. But she couldn't very well back out now. She grabbed his skis and motioned for him to move by.

  'Your kid's twelve?' Gallagher asked, his normal remoteness displaced by his incredulous tone.

  Now what had she started? 'On his good days,' she mumbled evasively. She would not accept this invitation to reveal more about herself, thank you very much, even if she did not like to be misleading. Gallagher had made it perfectly clear that he did not want to hear any of the details of her personal life once before. Trusting him with titbits from her life would be like trusting a shark with a shrimp!

  'You were sixteen when you had your kid?'

  His tone was soft, strangely caring. She looked at him, to see that his eyes had softened, too. How she had wanted a moment like this between them! So that they could begin mending fences. And it might have been, if the look that softened his eyes had been anything but pity.

  But Charlie abhorred pity, and she had been on the receiving end of it a great deal because of Kenny. If she told him the truth right now, she suspected that the look that so wounded her pride and dignity would deepen. That was not what she wanted from Gallagher. She did not know what she did want from him, but it wasn't that.

  'What's Cherry doing here?' Charlie asked, glad for the distraction provided by the minibus arriving. 'Her group isn't scheduled to go for another forty-five minutes.'

  Cherry approached them hurriedly. She flashed Charlie a 'welcome back' smile, that didn't hide the anxiety in her eyes. 'We've got a hot one,' she explained briefly, before turning to Gallagher.

  Gallagher already seemed to know exactly what the problem was. His eyes were narrowed dangerously on a handsome young man outfitted in very expensive gear. Charlie followed his gaze. The man's expression was scowling and sulky, and clearly spelled trouble.

  'He says he won't go with me,' Cherry said in a rushed undertone. 'He said my group was too slow for him yesterday. I can't handle him anyway, Gallagher. He just won't listen to me.'

  'Hell,' Gallagher breathed. 'He's barely intermediate as it is.' He sighed. 'You're right, though. He'd better be some place where I can keep my eye on him.'

  The man in question approached cockily. 'I should have been put with the experts in the first place,' he informed Gallagher. 'What kind of Mickey Mouse operation is this?'

  'It's been looked after, Mr Damon,' Gallagher said, with admirable restraint.

  Damon looked disappointed. Charlie suspected that he was looking for trouble, and having difficulty finding it. He noticed her, and leered.

  'And who's the sweet thing?'

  Gallagher's eyes had been dangerous before. Now the light in them could only be described as killing. An interesting reaction, Charlie thought, her squashed heart reviving a bit.