Nodding, she held his gaze. “It’s you,” she said softly. “You make me feel that way.”
He started to say something, a joke maybe, but closed his mouth. “I’m glad,” he said. “Means I’m doing my first responder job.”
She had a feeling it was more than that, but didn’t argue. Turning back, she looked out at contours of the resort. Tucked into the middle distance, off a shoulder of trees that guarded a little pocket of slope, she noticed a small wooden structure.
“What’s that cabin down there?” she asked, pointing with her pole.
Cameron turned, peered, and smiled. “That, my friend, is the Powder Keg.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s an ancient DV shack the resort used to use to stash extra tools and old signage, and for patrols to rest or ride out storms,” he told her. “They moved to a more modern outpost, and the patrol has adopted it as a, uh, social center. I don’t spend too much time there anymore, but the younger patrollers party there. When I go, it’s to make sure no one’s started a fire or broken a law.”
“The Powder Keg? Cute name.”
“Folklore has it that someone tapped a keg after a record snow dump in 2011 and the name stuck. It has a vibe, though.”
“Can I see it?”
He glanced at her, a sparkle in his blue eyes. “Only if you follow the wipeout and whiteout rules.”
“What are they?”
“First timers have to tell their biggest, baddest wipeout story.”
“You already know mine,” she said without hesitation. “And the whiteout rule?”
“You have to carve your name in the whiteout wall if you get snowed in.”
She sucked in a breath. “Will we?”
He laughed and eyed the sky again. “If the snow picks up, we’ll haul out. But…” He shifted his weight, considering the slopes. “Not gonna lie, getting there is a touch tougher than Homeward Bound. Not black diamond tough, but not as easy as we’ve skied all day. One short lift, then down a blue that gets steep in the middle. I’ll be with you the whole way. Unless you’d rather not.”
She didn’t let herself think too hard. “Let’s do it,” she said, the wind catching the words. “I want to see this famous Powder Keg.”
“More like infamous, but, yeah, let’s go.”
They slid off Homeward Bound where it widened and crossed a connector that fed into the lift maze for a short, steady chair. Next to each other on the lift, they shared a look through their goggles, their eyes crinkling in conspiratorial smiles.
As they rode, she felt a jitter or two, but let it pass. In a minute, they slid off the lift and headed right toward a drop-in marked as intermediate.
The first pitch looked steeper than she liked, but Cameron pulled up beside her and planted both poles.
“We’ll do it in little bits,” he said, his easy tone like a balm.
She took a breath and pointed her skis. “Let’s go.”
The first turn happened because she made it happen, not because panic twisted her legs in the right direction. The second came the same way, her whole body feeling like it was in charge.
By her third turn, she let the mountain do some of the work. When she checked to a stop by a towering pine tree that probably covered a deep well, she waited for low-key panic to kick in.
It didn’t.
“Okay?” Cameron asked, matching her stop with ridiculous grace.
“Sookay,” she assured him.
The middle of the run was a little hairy, making her thighs sing with the effort, but then it all flattened as the cabin came into full view, nestled in a wind-carved notch like a secret place.
