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make a mogul out of you? Or do you think you can get up on
your own?"
    A mogul? The skier's version of a speed bump? Forget wolf.
This woman was pure coyote. So why didn't any of the instructors chase her out of here? Set some kind of trap for her?
    Well, if no one else would engage in this battle, he'd have to
take care of it himself. But first, he wanted to get up-to face
her on an even keel. Once again, he flipped to his left side, set
his skis across the incline, and slammed his pole into the
ground to support himself. He struggled, but managed to rise
with a little more ease than he had on his first attempt.
    His gaze hot enough to melt all the snow within five square
miles, he faced his adversary. She was fiber-petite, a full foot
or more shorter than his own six-foot-three-inch frame. And he
outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds. Her face, from
the bridge of the nose up, was hidden behind a black helmet
and pink tinted goggles.
    She grinned-blinding, sweet, joyous-and words flew
around his head like birds around the Cheshire cat.
    "Congratulations, Mr. Sawyer. You've conquered the highest
peak you'll have to face-Mount Self-Pity. Now, go join your
comrades. Good luck to you."

    Picking up her poles, she pushed off on the schuss-schussschuss of skis on flat terrain.
    Surprise left him slackjawed. He stood alone, watching the
woman glide toward the lodge area. When she reached the outdoor deck, she stepped out of her skis, locked them on a rack,
and climbed the stairs.
    "Doug?" Kerri-Sue's voice came from beside him. Somehow, she'd slipped close while he'd been distracted. "You ready
for another run?"
    His focus, however, still remained glued to the place where
the mystery skier had disappeared. "Who was that?"
    Kerri-Sue turned toward the lodge, then back to Doug with
a careless shrug. "Lyn? She's just one of the locals. Owns a
bed-and-breakfast in town."
    He arched a brow. "And you take direction from the local
innkeeper?"
    "Huh?" Her expression blanked.
    "The minute she showed up and said something, you scattered. Why?"
    She laughed. "Come on." With a wave of her ski pole, she
indicated the lift where a dozen people milled about. "The
rest of the team is waiting."
    After fifteen years as a reporter, Doug knew a brush-off
when he heard one. Once again, a tingle rippled through him,
his sixth sense suspecting a deeper, more interesting story.
And once again, he squelched the instinct to press for details.
Those adrenaline-crazed days of chasing down leads-racing
from airport to airport, standing in feverish crowds where the
frenzy grew contagious-were long gone. Armless reporters
need not apply.
    He shook off the self-pity. In that respect, the Coyote was
absolutely right. If he had any intention of regaining a shadow
of the man he'd been before Iraq, he needed to stop feeling sorry
for himself. His gaze studied the group near the lift.
    Among the students sharing Doug's class was a female
lance corporal who'd lost both hands thanks to third-degree
burns from an IED. Her fiance had told her he didn't care if
she couldn't carry a bouquet at their wedding. He planned to marry her, not her hands. But that wasn't good enough for a
woman who'd climbed so high in the United States Marine
Corps before the age of twenty-three. With eight months until
her big day, she'd enrolled in Ski-Hab to master every skill
that came naturally to any two-handed woman, from holding
a bouquet to cooking a five-course meal to cradling an infant.

    A nineteen-year-old had lost his right arm thanks to a lucky
shot that penetrated his body armor. Nineteen. Cripes. When
Doug was nineteen, the biggest tragedy facing him had been
whether he'd pass his English Lit class. After Ski-Hab, this kid
planned to attend law school. His dream was to become an attorney specializing in rights for the disabled.
    If his classmates, despite their youth and the horrors they'd
seen, could overcome their