Page 118 of The Calendar of New Beginnings
“There’s smoke over on the bench,” she said, raising her hand against the sun. “A lot of it.”
He’d seen the bench on his previous visits. It was one of the flatter areas cut into the mountain to make room for new housing developments.
Chase followed her gaze, squinting against the bright light reflecting off the snow. What he saw was enough to make his insides roll over in his gut. “Fire.”
He knew that thick, black smoke. Had seen it before in the hometown she’d just mentioned. It had destroyed his family’s ranch when he was twelve—and everything they’dworked so hard to build. Worse, it had destroyed their pride. The loss of it all had driven his father to take his own life six months later when the insurance check arrived, not enough to help them start over.
His mother had never been the same.Hehad never been the same.
A sharp pang ricocheted through his chest and down his left arm, and he stumbled enough that he had to plant his ski poles to regain his balance.
“Are you all right?” Moira asked, walking sideways in the snow to reach him.
His gaze was focused on the smoke. “Someone’s house is on fire.”
Her hand touched his arm. “Let’s pray the fire department comes quickly.”
Another sharp pain rocked through his chest, but he bit his lip hard enough to keep from making a sound.
“Chase?” Moira asked, her eyes scanning his face. “Are you okay?”
He was sweating inside his blue ski suit, and his heart was pounding in hard, painful beats. “I’m fine. We should ski down and meet Evan. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Then he pushed off with his poles.
“Hey!” someone called in panic, and when he swung his head to the right, he saw a woman with a pink fleece cap gliding into his path. He turned his skis inward hard to avoid hitting her and felt the snow give underneath him. Losing control of his skis, he sailed off the path down a hill. The sharp descent increased his speed, but he was too off-balance to turn or stop. He was hurtling toward the wooden fence with the yellow caution tape on the side of the mountain, a marker designed to keep skiers from journeying intoan unskiable area. He made one last effort to use his poles to avert disaster, but his skis slid out from underneath him. All he saw was the fence.
He struck it hard.
Chapter Two
“Chase!” Moira shouted as he careened into the fence.
The sound of him thudding into—and then through—the wood slats made every hair on her body rise up. His skis flew off in opposite directions and then one of his poles vaulted through the air like a spear before sinking into the snow yards away like a punctuation mark.
“Oh my God!” she heard people saying around her.
Shaking off the shock, Moira dug her poles into the ground and skied toward him, crouching lower as she passed the broken part of the fence. It was a dangerous fifty-foot drop, and possibly a stupid move on her part, but she had to do something. Chase was down there, and she was a good skier. She took it slow, using steady mogul-like maneuvers down the hill. When she reached him, he was lying at an odd angle on his stomach.
“Chase!”
His head was turned to the side, and with his goggles on, she couldn’t see if his eyes were open. Scared to touch him should it hurt him, she gently placed her hand on his back.
“Chase! Are you okay?”
She scanned his body, and that was when she noticed his leg twisted under him, something that made the gorge rise in her throat.
“Get a medic!” she shouted to the skiers up the hill.
“Is Chase okay?” Evan shouted down toher.
“He’s hurt,” she yelled back.Badly.
“I’ll get help,” he called back.
She watched him ski off and then turned back to Chase. He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t so much as groaned. Fear drove an ice pick into her belly. Was he unconscious? A fall like this could certainly have caused it. Goodness, how she wished her brother were here. Andy was a doctor—he would know what to do.
“Help will be here soon, Chase,” she told him, deciding her best course was to take off her skis and sit beside him.
