She put her skis out in front of her, legs stiff, throat tight, and stood, but her legs were shaking, and one tip crossed over the other as she tried to get off.
I’m not ready!
Emme was pushed off, and with each inch she moved, the tips of her skis seemed to get more entangled, as if a magnetic force was driving them together.
‘I can’t!’ she bellowed into the howling breeze. A man smoking a cigarette waited for her to fall in a heap. She was conscious of the next chair swinging round, and how she needed to get out of the way fast.
‘Miss!’ the instructor who had helped her at the café shouted as she lay supine, as if she didn’t know they were about to land on top of her.
‘Move!’ yelled a woman in his group.
The man operating the chairlift extended a ski pole for Emme to grab onto and practically dragged her out of the way just in time for the instructor and his charges to glide off, one of them tutting as they went.
‘All OK?’ the chairlift operator asked, his accent sounding Italian.
‘No,’ Emme said, letting him pull her up to her feet. She had no clue how her skis had stayed on.
‘I hate this,’ she muttered, to herself more than anything. She brushed the snow off her jacket, which really wasn’t warm or waterproof enough for this high altitude. ‘But thank you.’
‘Prego,’ he said, as he took another drag of the cigarette that seemed to balance on his full lips.
‘Zita Café?’ Emme asked, in a strange accent that sounded slightly Italian yet slightly German. The man pointed his ski pole to a building concealed by his hut. It was a small café with chairs on a sun deck and a Swiss flag billowing in the breeze.
Then she saw Cedric and the kids, larking around on their skis outside the café.
Thank god.
Cedric was throwing mini snowballs for them to hit with their poles like baseball bats. He seemed much warmer, much more fun with just the kids, which was a relief to Emme. She stopped and smiled, they looked happy. Maybe he was just better with kids than adults, and that’s why Lexy liked him. Still, she was over twenty minutes late, so she used her poles to get across the flat and slushy end-of-day snow to retrieve them.
‘Emme!’ they said in unison, buoyed by a fun first ski session.
Emme smiled and waved.
‘Hey!’ she said, turning to Cedric, who seemed less flaky than he had earlier. ‘I’m so sorry I’m–’
Cedric stood taller and prouder. Perhaps all instructors thrived on the mountain. He removed his goggles and put them on his helmet, and Emme realised his ski suit was different– now black instead of blue– as she felt the blow to her stomach.
‘Oh. It’s you.’
Her face dropped. Her heart raced.
‘What are you doing here? Where’s Cedric?’
It was Tristan Du Kok standing in front of her, his dazzling smile lit even brighter by the reflection of the snow. His nose was tanned with a subtle smattering of dark-brown freckles from the sunshine. She looked at the children with concern. ‘You were meant to be here at three fifteen,’ Tristan replied.
‘Cedric was sick!’ chimed the children.
‘I saw sweetcorn in it and everything!’ gloated Harry.
Bella scowled at her brother.
Emme was completely flustered, even looking at Tristan Du Kok stirred a passion and a rage in her. She tried to measure her face.
‘Why didn’t he call me?’
‘Because he was 3,500 metres up a mountain and he said you were down in the village. I was up here.’
‘But you’re not an instructor– are you?’
