She grimaced. “Sorry. I think the altitude’s getting to me. I should really have gotten myself some caffeine first.” She put the helmet on and waved him off. “Thanks again, my fair prince.”

It wasn’t often he found himself baffled but he was baffled now, in a big way.

“Cinderella?” she asked. “You know, her prince had her slipper and you had my helmet— Never mind,” she said on a laugh when he just stared at her. “Probably I should’ve put far more practical things on my list than skiing.”

Before he could ask her what the hell she was talking about, she’d tightened the strap beneath her chin, put her hands back into the handholds at the top of her ski poles, and pushed off.

He watched her head straight for the lift, thinking two things. One, he really hoped she knew how to stop. And two, she was definitely a nut, but possibly the prettiest, most bewildering nut he’d ever met in his entire life.

Bailey got situated on the lift and told herself not to look back, there was no reason to look back.

So of course she looked back.

Yep, he was still there. Tall, dark, and sexy ski patrol guy, and he stood on his skis like they were an extension of his own body. He was watching her as well, or so she assumed since his dark lenses were aimed her way.

She sucked in a breath. Goodness, the rugged badass mountains had nothing on the rugged badass man standing in the sunlight like a ski god. She waved at him.

He didn’t wave back.

Huh. Was he always a Cranky Pants, or did she just have a special talent in bringing it out? While she was wondering that, he planted his poles and executed a lithe jump that had his skis facing the other way now, and then he pushed off, skiing away with an effortless, easy motion that she knew she could never in a million years of lessons hope to replicate. Damn. Mr. Cranky Pants was pretty hot.

Volcanic hot.

But as Bailey had discovered the hard way, the hot ones weren’t the keepers. For the most part, they’d never been disappointed or hurt by love or life, and as a woman who’d faced it all at one time or another, she had no patience for the weak, shallow, or clueless.

And actually, no patience for this line of thinking. She had other problems. She’d told herself it wasn’t defeat that she hadn’t skied down under her own steam. The lift would take her to the midpoint on the mountain and she could still ski down from there.

Assuming she’d read the map correctly this time.