Carol Marinelli - The Best Of The Year - Medical Romance

The time she’d spent in front of the mirror this morning had been strictly about personal grooming. She’d do that for anyone. No need to send people scurrying for the nearest exit with her morning rat’s nest and dark under-eye circles. And her lips were chapped from the cold, so of course she’d had to put on something to soothe and protect them. The fact that it had a little dab of shine was just a coincidence.

He smiled. “I guess it’s a good thing I showed up, then.”

“Absolutely.” Luckily, Robert was off this morning, so one of the other instructors was working with a small group of newbies. She could have sent Jack to the class, since her professed reason for meeting him was because her ex might do or say something she would end up feeling badly about. But since she’d told Ellory he was man number five...

Really, who would know she didn’t meet him?

Ellory, for one.

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 surfboard, 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

“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.