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pausing at a heavy oaken door. “We’re in there,” she said, pushing it open.
    The room on the other side dwarfed the guest room. A bed the size of a small country dominated the center. A thick, furry comforter lay atop it, and pale, wooden nightstands sat on either side. The whole room was pure rustic, practically a showroom for a vacation magazine.
    “ Madre de dios ,” Rafa said, looking at the bed.
    “It’s bigger than I remember.” Emily set her bag on the dresser. “Do you want to break-in your skis before Paul and Christa get here?”
    Rafa looked from her to the bed. “How long do we have?”
    Emily’s heart rate accelerated as a sly smile crept across his face. She licked her lips. “A few hours. Christa said Paul had to meet a client at 3:00.” She wasn’t sure if he was implying that they should break in the bed before hitting the slopes, but the tingling warmth she felt between her legs made her think it was a fine idea, indeed. She glanced at his leg, wondering how it would hold up out on the mountain.
    As soon as she look downward, his smile collapsed into worry. “Perhaps we should check the bindings,” he said.
    Emily tried not to let her disappointment show. There was no sense in getting ahead of herself. They had the whole weekend, and they couldn’t spend all of it in bed. She wasn’t even sure if that’s what he’d had in mind. It was a romantic cabin, but maybe he just wanted to do some skiing before he broke her heart.
    “Okay.” She made herself smile, refusing to be a downer.
    Rafa pulled his ski clothes from his bag and tossed them on the bed. He started stripping down to change without even looking her direction. Emily let herself watch for a few seconds, admiring the fine way his shoulders tapered to his waist. Scars covered his right side, a patchwork of pink and white. A bigger, uglier scar ran down the left side of his back, a jagged white ribbon on his olive skin.
    “Can you talk about how you got the big scar?” she asked.
    “On the left side?” Rafa slid on his shirt and turned, buttoning his pants. “Training accident on the bomb range.”
    “Oh.” She’d been expecting something more glamorous. Or maybe something more classified.
    He shrugged. “We trained hard. Accidents happened. I was lucky that my pack took most of the impact.”
    “Sounds like you’ve had bad luck with bombs.”
    He pursed his lips. “You could say that.”
    Emily felt silly as soon as the words left her mouth, but his reaction only heightened her embarrassment. It was supposed to be a relaxing, fun getaway, and she was starting it off by jamming her foot into her mouth and reminding her boyfriend of the attack that had nearly taken his life.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
    “Not your fault. Come, you need to teach me how to ski.”
    Emily grabbed her jacket and followed Rafa out to the front of the house. “Christa said the lift was checked out a few weeks ago, so we should be good. It runs most of the way up the peak, but we can stop somewhere closer for you.”
    “That might be wise.”
    In the front yard, Emily helped him get his bindings attached. The actual ski boot on his left foot was easy enough, but the blade was a little trickier. The toe of the blade fit snugly into the boot, but the curve had to be secured back onto the ski. In the store it had seemed easy, but with cold fingers and slick equipment, it took more work.
    “If you fall and have trouble getting back on your feet, try unhooking the left boot first,” she said. She handed him his one lonely ski pole. “And don’t hesitate to tell me if you have trouble or there’s too much pressure on your knee. This is supposed to be fun, not painful.”
    “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” He waited for her to snap into her skis, then pushed himself out into the yard.
    Rafael on skis looked an awful lot like a duck on ice. He couldn’t quite steer with his one pole, and his right ski kept