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Yeah, and why was that? Because she couldn’t tell a lie worth a damn.
“So, let’s start with your skis. You got them on, but it’ll help if you know how to click in and out of them quickly.”
She gave him a quick lesson on doing just that. Once they were back on, she had him face the bottom of the hill, but with the fronts of his skis pointed toward each other.
“I’m sure Robert showed you, but once you start out, you’re going to want to stay like this. Think of it like a wedge of pizza, only made with skis instead of food. If you keep your skis completely parallel to each other, you’ll pick up too much speed, as you found out yesterday. So wedge them just a bit until you get the feel of your angle and speed.” She pulled her goggles down over her eyes. “Let’s do a practice run. I’ll go first and you follow me down, trying to imitate my movements.”
He muttered something that she couldn’t quite catch before she used her poles to push off. A hard swish behind her said that he’d done the same thing. She concentrated on going as slowly as possible, not an easy task when you were used to zipping down difficult slopes at top speed. Her father had had big plans for her after she’d won several competitions, plans she’d thwarted when she’d decided to become a doctor. What father in his right mind was disappointed when his child decided to become something other than a professional athlete?
Hers.
Then again, he’d disappointed her as well.
She’d changed courses right after her parents had divorced, and, yes, maybe it had been partly to get back at him. But she loved being a doctor, even more than she loved the slopes and the snow. Jack had talked about surfing. The ocean didn’t appeal to her at all. She was a mountain girl through and through. She didn’t think she even owned a bikini other than the underwear kind.
Jack came up beside her, showing a pretty good sense of balance. And every time she changed the angle of her wedge, he imitated her. Out of nowhere came the thought that it might be worth a trip to the ocean just to see him up on a surf board, that streaky hair of his catching rays of sunlight.
He hit a mogul and wavered for a second or two, the tips of his skis wiggling back and forth, but he caught himself. His speed increased fractionally and Mira let off her brake and matched him. “Good job!”
His face was a mask of concentration, so she wasn’t even sure whether he’d heard her or not. At that moment someone passed them on the left at a much quicker pace—which wasn’t all that difficult, considering she and Jack were creeping along.
Two more people went by.
Mira was concentrating so much on the man beside her that she almost missed the screams from the pair of teens who’d just passed them. They’d gotten too close, and the left ski of the girl closest to them had overlapped the other girl’s. Both were struggling to remain upright.
“Move away from each other!” Her training kicked in, knowing if they didn’t get their skis apart one or both of them would fall.
They either didn’t hear her or were too panicked to do what she said, because they were still tangled. Then one of the girls shoved the other one, maybe to try to push off her and get away. Instead of working, the girl who’d been shoved careened sideways, taking her friend with her. They fell down hard, landing in a heap in the middle of the slope. The girl who’d pushed the other one sat up laughing, but her giggles soon faded when she saw the other teenager lay still in the snow.
Every muscle in Mira’s body went on high alert as she drew closer and saw the girl’s right arm sticking out at an odd angle.
The uninjured teen must have seen it as well, because she suddenly leaned back and gave out an unearthly shriek.
CHAPTER THREE (#u28c7e899-b033-59f1-bfb5-0ffea1fc94a2)
“YOU GO DOWN the hill,” Mira said. “I need to stay here.”
“I can help.”
“Just do as I say.” Her tone was a little more impatient this time.
He didn’t care. “No can do. I’m a doctor.”
Mira gave him a sharp look. “Yeah, well, so am I. I’m the concierge doctor for the lodge.”
His heart stalled for a second, and he stared, fumbling a bit as he tried to remain upright. “I thought you were a ski instructor.”
“Pizza it, Jack, if you want to stop.”
He forced his mind back to what she was saying, using his skis to form a barricade and coming to a halt beside the still-screaming girl.
“What’s your specialty?” She nudged him aside so she could get to their patients, sinking to her knees in the snow to look at the unconscious teen. She laid a hand on the panicked girl’s shoulder, and like magic she quieted.
He was still struggling to process the fact that he was up on the slopes with a doctor, of all things. “I’m in sports medicine.”
Mira’s eyes widened when he mentioned the name of the team.
“The Hawks? Are you kidding me?” She gave him another quick glance. “What are you doing skiing, then? Isn’t this your busiest time of year?”
No way was he going to tell her he’d been sent off to recuperate. Especially not knowing what he did now. “I’m taking a short break.”
Speaking of breaks, they might have a bad one on their hands here. The teen hadn’t seemed to fall hard enough to do any real damage, at least it hadn’t looked that way, but the human body was a strange animal.
“Let me check her arm.” Carefully unzipping the girl’s jacket enough that he could slide his hand down the limb, he found the fracture immediately. Although the bone wasn’t protruding from her skin—a good thing—it was pressed right against it. A little more force and it would have come through. The edge felt jagged, though, so it could still break through, if they weren’t careful.
The girl was also out cold.
Mira spoke softly to the uninjured girl, while Jack focused on the friend.
“She’s still breathing,” he said. “Can you get her vitals, while I check her head?” He clicked his boots out of his skis, just like Mira had shown him, and then slid around until he was kneeling beside her shoulder.
Mira nodded, pressing her fingers against the girl’s right wrist, while Jack carefully undid the strap to her helmet. He checked it for cracks before running his fingers over her hair, looking for obvious signs of trauma. Her white beanie cap, which had probably been pulled down to hide the unfashionable headgear, lay a short distance away, knocked off by the impact. He couldn’t feel any bumps, but he knew that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Peeling apart her eyelids one at a time and wishing he had his medical kit, he peered at them to judge pupil size. Equal, and they reacted to light in a way that appeared normal.
Two guys who were evidently with the ski patrol slid to a halt beside them, asking Mira what she had.
“Broken arm at least.” She glanced at Jack.
“No contusions on her head that I can see, but I want to stabilize her neck and back just in case.”
Her friend stifled a sob. “Is she going to be okay? I wasn’t trying to knock her down. I was trying to get my ski loose before I fell. Instead, I made us both fall.”
Mira reached over and squeezed her hand, giving the two men a warning look when one of them started to say something. “Of course you didn’t. Where are your parents?”
“At—at the lodge. They said we could come ski, but that we had to stick to the easy slopes.”
Smart parents.
“And you did what they asked,” Mira said. “What’s your name?”
“Sandy. And that’s Marilyn.”
“Okay, Sandy, if you’ll go with Hans and help him locate your parents, we’ll take care of your friend.” Mira stood and helped the girl to her feet, waiting until she’d stopped swaying before saying anything. “Does anything hurt?”
“No. I’m okay.”
“Do you feel well enough to ski to the bottom?”
“I—I think so.”
The man she’d called Hans patted the terrified girl on the shoulder and gave her an encouraging nod. Then they slowly made their way down the slope, while the other guy went in search of a stretcher and called in the accident, telling the instructors and employees at the top to hold everyone right where they were.
Jack glanced at her. “At least they were wearing helmets. Let’s hope she’s out because of the pain and not anything else.”
“My da … er … the lodge requires all minors to use helmets on the slopes. Her pulse is steady. If we’re lucky, she just fainted.” She reached her fingers out and smoothed back her hair. “The EMS guys are pretty familiar with the routine up here, they should have something to stabilize her arm.”
“I’m beginning to think surfing is a hell of a lot safer.”
One curved brow went up. “I can think of a few things that make me think differently. At least you can’t drown on a ski slope.”
Maybe not, but when her brown eyes met his, looking all soft and warm as she kept her hand protectively on the injured girl’s head, he thought it was possible to drown in something other than the ocean.
He shook away the thought.
She’s a doctor, Jack. Not someone you want to play around with.
He was glad when a pair of emergency service guys came clomping down the hill, heavy-duty boots making easy work out of the packed snow.
After a quick rundown of her vitals and injuries and explaining what they’d seen, one of the paramedics asked where the girl’s parents were.
“We sent her friend and a member of the ski patrol to find them.”
In short order, the pair had immobilized the teen’s injured arm and done their own assessment of her injuries, coming to the same conclusions as he and Mira had. Then they stabilized her neck and removed her skis before loading her onto a blue stretcher with a metal pull bar attached to it. The girl started to come to, moaning as her eyes fluttered open.
Mira leaned close and whispered to her.
The sight made a pang go through his chest. If he and Paula had had any kids, is that how she would’ve looked as she comforted them?
Not the time, Jack.
He cleared his throat. “They’re going to pull her down the hill?”
“That’s the safest way. It’s hard to keep your balance on the snow, if you haven’t noticed.” The right side of her mouth curved slightly, as if she was fighting a smile.
“Oh, I noticed all right.” In fact, he was having a little trouble keeping his balance right now, and it had nothing to do with skiing. He felt like the wind had been knocked from his lungs the second he’d realized she was a doctor. He was still struggling to catch his breath fifteen minutes later.
She stood and went over to retrieve the girl’s hat and skis. “I’ll bring these down with me,” she told the men. “Hopefully they’ve located her folks. I want to be on hand if something changes.”
“Sure thing, Mira.” One of the medical workers threw her a quick smile.
It seemed everyone knew her around these parts.
The paramedics started down the hill, leaving them to follow.
“Do you want to walk down or ski?”
“At the rate I go, it’s probably faster to walk.” He took the girl’s skis from her and lumped them together with his, tucking them under his arm with his poles.
Together, they trudged down the bunny slope, staying a few yards behind the rescue team. His mind couldn’t help wandering back to her instructions on how to maneuver with his skis and how her words had yielded much better results than the lessons her ex—the professional—had given him.
Wanting to show off for the pretty doctor, Jack?
Self-preservation was more like it. Something he should probably remember. Because the fact that she was a doctor was all the more reason he should avoid her for the rest of his stay. If his coach were here, he’d be calling for a time-out and hauling Jack’s ass off the playing field.
And the man would be right. Injured players should remain on the sidelines until they had time to heal.
Yeah? Well, he’d had four damn years. How much longer would it take?
Some players never recovered. Maybe he was one of them. He could just throw in the towel right now.
His body gave a quick tug of irritation, one that grew when Mira glanced back at him with a smile. “Keeping up okay?”
Oh, he could keep up just fine. He balled his hands into fists when his mind immediately headed into more dangerous territory. Of Mira saying those words under very different circumstances.
Sidelines, Jack, remember?
Thankfully, they reached the bottom of the slope, and he had other things to occupy his mind, like the small crowd that had gathered near the door of the lodge, and the woman in a pink parka rushing forward to meet the EMS guys as they headed for the pick-up site where their truck was probably parked. Forced to stop, the guys lifted the stretcher just as he and Mira arrived.
Habit made him start toward the group to brief the girl’s parents, but Mira beat him to it, smoothly maneuvering right into the center of the gathering. Besides, he wasn’t here with his football team. This was her gig, not his.
He could see her gesturing as she explained the situation, but he couldn’t hear the words. Whatever she said, it seemed to have the right effect. People started to move away until all that was left were a man and a woman who looked like they were in their early fifties—Marilyn’s parent’s probably—standing near the stretcher. Jack debated slipping through the glass doors of the lodge and escaping while he could, while Mira’s attention was fixed on something else.
Coward’s way out. He’d decided four years ago that he wasn’t going that route ever again. He’d lost his head in a bottle for a while after his wife’s death. Once he’d picked himself up off the bathroom floor after a particularly bad hangover, he’d decided to live a life Paula would be proud of rather than throwing it away in a booze-filled haze. He obviously wasn’t there yet—this temporary exile and the sleep aids were proof of that.
What he needed was something to take his mind off himself for a few hours.
His eyes slid back to Mira, whose glossy hair showed beneath her cap as she leaned over the stretcher to talk to the injured girl once more.
Nope. No matter how tempting that might be, it wasn’t smart. He needed something light and easy. Something other than skiing with pretty women.
Large black letters from a flyer taped to the door of the lodge caught his attention:
Not a Ski Fan?
Ha, you could say that. He continued reading.
Check out Silver Pass’s other exciting offerings.
The bullet points proceeded to list things like evening sleigh rides, trips down the mountains on inner tubes, gondola lifts that boasted spectacular views, and even snowmobile rentals.
The snowmobiles sounded interesting. Maybe even a little bit like jet skis.
He pulled out his smartphone to store the number in his address book.
“The gondola ride is a lot of fun. And there’s only room for two in each car.”
A sultry voice came from just over his left shoulder. Not Mira’s, since she was still over by the stretcher.
He turned around and found a brunette with darkly penciled brows that matched the carefully modulated tones of her voice. Overdone. Whispering of desperation. And when the woman smiled, nothing happened to the skin around her eyes.
