“I never forgot it,” she said on a rasp. “I never forgot how black it was in the snow. How I couldn’t breathe. How I knew—at nine years old—that I was dying. It etched fear on me and this…this…” She grabbed a gloveful of snow and flicked it in the air. “This brings it all back. And these.” She tried to move the ski stuck in the snow. “The very air on this mountain makes it all come back to me.”
His whole face registered the pain. “I should have pushed harder for you to have some therapy.”
“No, no, Dad. I didn’t want it and as a kid, I didn’t realize it would linger. I just wanted to…not ski anymore. Then I was—Iam—fine.”
“I’m so sorry, Nic. I’m sorry you went through that.”
She sighed, watching the bunny slope in front of her, observing a cute interaction between parents and their toddler son, wobbling his way down the hill.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said.
“Taking you up the Empire lift was,” he replied. “Letting you ski ahead of me was. Acting like you were my protégé training for the Olympics? All on me.”
She swallowed, emotion tugging at her heart.
He scratched the back of his neck, adjusting his helmet. “I should never have let you go through those trees. It was too steep.”
She sat very still, the mountain and skiers around them disappearing as she let herself slide back to that day. Themoment her body went flying forward into all that loose, deep snow around the tree, sinking and sinking face first into ice-cold blackness, trapped and disoriented and deeper with every panicked move.
All she could taste was snow and all she could hear was the hammer of her heart, then a muffled voice. Desperately trying to move the skis that she hoped were still visible, her legs paralyzed by the snowpack that trapped her.
She opened her mouth to call for Dad, but that just filled it with suffocating, drowning snow.
“Don’t go there,” he said softly, reaching for her hand. “Don’t relive it, Nic.”
“Don’t you?”
He choked a bitter laugh. “Yeah. Of course I do.”
She searched his face, hating that her trauma haunted him, too. “But you saved me, Dad. You dug through that snow, you calmed me down, you cleared my lungs, you…” She realized she was crying as her voice cracked. “You saved me.”
“And now I dragged you up here to relive it all,” he said, his voice rich with self-derision.
“You’re trying to help,” she assured him. “You want me to love what you love. And the irony is that Idolove it, but…” She bit her lip, hating that she had to tell him the truth. “Dad, I can’t do this. It’s just not worth putting myself through the stress. I know we made a deal but?—”
A voice called from behind them. “Everybody okay over here?”
Nicole turned and saw a ski patrol officer sliding to a graceful stop. He pushed up his goggles and smiled, giving her a good look at a handsome face and eyes that matched the sky behind him.
She took in the sight of a man in his late twenties or so, dark blond tousled hair under his helmet, rugged stubble, and the official red jacket that looked out of place on the bunny hill.
Jack managed to get up, using his pole for leverage. “We’re all good here, just taking a break.”
Nicole did the same, forcing herself to get her skis straight, and not look like the bunny slope loser she was.
“Nothing’s hurt but my pride.” She pushed her goggles off and tried to smile. “It heals easily.”
His blue eyes glinted. “First day?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Essentially.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding, then looked at her dad. “Baptism by snow. I’m Cameron, by the way.”
Her father extended a gloved hand. “Jack. This is Nicole, my daughter. And thanks for checking on us, son.”
The other man leaned back on his skis, staring at her father. “Wait a second. I know that voice. Are you…Jack Kessler?”
“Guilty.”
