The Magic Circle by Katherine Neville (13 inch ebook reader .TXT) 📗

skiing?” Then I pulled myself together. After all, this could hardly be a coincidence. Which meant it might be dangerous. So I took off again down the slope.

“I might ask you the same question, Mademoiselle Behn,” he called out behind me as he double-timed to catch up. “I do have an extremely important project. But you seem to be what is holding things up.”

Glancing over, I thought how beautiful his mouth was, and those cheekbones …

We pulled our eyes away from each other just in time, only seconds before we would have hit a mogul. We split up around the bump, and when we swept together again Dr. Hauser was laughing. We floated on down the hill, side by side in perfect rhythm. Suddenly, with a strength and agility that took me by surprise, he planted his poles as we ran, lifted both skis in midair, and hopped over a fallen tree in the path. It didn’t seem to faze him; he was still moving like flowing water over the sea of billowing moguls.

It was simple to explain how he’d recognized me on sight. After all, as the Pod had said, he’d reviewed my files, so he’d seen not only my vital statistics but my security photos as well. Still that didn’t explain what he was doing here on this mountain, one hundred miles from town. As if tracking these thoughts, he skidded to a halt where the trails forked, throwing up a spray of snow, and turned to me.

“I’ve already followed you across two states and up this mountain. That’s quite enough for one morning. What if we go to the ski lodge just downhill from here, the upper Schloss, where I can buy you a nice hot lunch. Then perhaps we can talk, get to know one another a bit. Unless,” he added, “you’ve already brought a lunch for yourself in your backpack there?”

“No, I’d love to join you,” I said, I hoped not too hastily. “And I’m very sorry. I didn’t know it was you following me.”

“I accept all apologies,” he said with a bow. “But that trick in the mist was quite something. When you vanished I tried roads in three directions until at last I understood what you’d done. Tell me, how does a young woman like you learn to—as I believe you Americans say—‘lose a tail’ with such competence?”

“I guess that’s why I went into the security field,” I told him. “I’ve always had an interest in things that are hidden: in the idea of pursuit and discovery and capture.”

“So have I,” said Professor Dr. Wolfgang K. Hauser with an enigmatic smile.

By the time we’d finished lunch at the bird’s-nest restaurant and warming house at midmountain, Dr. Hauser was calling me Ariel and insisting I call him Wolfgang. He’d shown me how to make swing chairs of our parkas by stretching them over our skis and poles, which we planted in the snow. We hung there in the sun just beyond the deck, dipping crusty dark bread in our oyster stew and drinking fruity Glühwein spiced with cloves and dusted with cinnamon.

Wolfgang had given me plenty of ski tips as he’d followed me down to the restaurant. He was an incredible skier, even better than Olivier. I’d skied mountains all over the world since childhood, and I knew a master when I saw one. There were very few who had that combination of strength and fluid grace that made everything they did on the mountain seem effortless.

Now, as we reluctantly started collecting our things to go down the mountain, my new colleague turned to me with a bemused look. “I wonder: what should I collect from you in repayment for giving you all those free skiing lessons this morning?”

“You shouldn’t charge anything,” I told him, tying my parka around the waist of my jumpsuit. “Everyone knows it’s in the very nature of the Austrian to give ski instruction, it’s as natural as breathing. You don’t charge for what comes naturally.”

He laughed, a little uncomfortably I thought.

“But I have to ask you a serious question,” he said. “You know, I actually did recognize you from your photos—it was really from your eyes alone—when you came into the building yesterday, although you were all bundled up and looking like a polar bear.” Wow, those had been my thoughts exactly. “I wanted to speak with you then, but I felt somewhat awkward doing so in front of others.”

He took my backpack from my hands as I was about to pull it on, and he set it on the ground; then he put his hands on my shoulders. I felt the heat moving from his fingers into my flesh. This was the first man I’d ever met, or even dreamed about, who could make me limp just by looking at me—and now he was touching me. But I was rendered totally speechless by what came next.

“Ariel, you know we’ll soon be working together closely on a critical assignment. Under the circumstances, I realize that what I’m about to say to you is probably inadvisable—but I really can’t help it. I must tell you that it’s going to be very, very hard for me to maintain a professional relationship with you—the kind of relationship that is needed for us to carry out this project. I assure you I didn’t plan what’s happened. Indeed, this sort of thing has never happened to me before …” He trailed off, as if expecting me to speak. When I held my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop, he added, “I don’t know how to say this exactly, but, Ariel, I’m extremely attracted to you. I am very … very attracted to you.”

To me? Holy shit. I was in deep water and I knew it. I could have drowned in the depths of those turquoise eyes as he stood there looking so intense. This guy was dangerous in more ways than one—and I had plenty of danger in my life already