SnowboundSecrets
Lynette Eason
One
DESPITE THE DARKNESSthat had fallen, the sky was on fire. Green ribbons shimmered above the jagged peaks, twisting and unfurling like celestial streamers in a dance. The auroras had been predicted to appear when the geomagnetic storm hit. And there they were.
Not five minutes later, a sharp crack sounded. The sound grew, building and becoming louder with each passing second, until the mountain shook beneath the weight of it.
Not thunder.
An avalanche.
Ice snapped and splintered with sharp cracks like rifle shots piercing the air. The snow poured down like a tidal wave, its force unstoppable, the sound of its approach deafening.
Terrifying.
Destroying everything in its path. Trees snapped like brittle bones. The impact with the resort was a crashing, shattering force that felt as if the mountain itself was coming apart.
Dr. Maya Sullivan gasped awake, ears ringing, heart thundering. “A dream,” she whispered. “Just a dream.”
The geomagnetic storm and the avalanche had been two days ago. She’d just arrived at the Silver Pines Ski Resort five hours before the horror began, checked in, found her cabin, and put herstuff away. She’d headed for the main lodge with her laptop, her stomach growling, demanding nourishment.
A mouthwatering chicken salad croissant captured her attention, and she wolfed down the first half without stopping to breathe. With her hunger pangs somewhat appeased, she turned her focus to the reason she was there and opened her laptop. Inheriting her grandfather’s ranch—the place where she’d spent her summers—had come as a surprise. The decision to turn it into a place of healing, hope, and peace, however, had been an easy one.
In the middle of emailing her friend Elena Thompson about helping get the ranch operational, the first faint sound reached her. The sounds grew by the second, and in horror, from her seat by the window, thanks to the full moon, she watched part of the mountain slide down in a rolling, rumbling, deadly rush, sweeping past her and dividing the mountain into two sections. Thankfully, ski patrol had recognized the signs and had been able to warn most of the night skiers to get off it before the slab separated and began its descent.
But not all had made it. And who knew how bad the other side of the mountain was, where a heli-skiing group had gone out earlier in the day? And to make matters even more complicated, radios and cell phones didn’t work. Even the SOS satellite feature on the newer phones was worthless, thanks to the geomagnetic storm. The resort’s repeater station had been taken out as well. They were well and truly cut off from the outside world.
But she couldn’t worry about that. All she could do is what she could do. Which was why Maya was sleeping in the chair at the bedside of a victim who hadn’t moved fast enough, and dreaming about the massive barrage.
Better than dreaming about Afghanistan.
Or Laura—the best friend she’d lost because Maya hadn’t been able to save her. All her efforts had been for naught.
But she could help these people.
She touched the cross at the base of her throat held there by thethin gold chain, then rose to her feet, ran her hands over her hair, and shoved aside the memory of the terror—both of the avalanche and the day Laura had been killed.
She focused on being grateful that no one had died this time. Hurt, yes, but still breathing. Violet, a young woman in her early twenties, had been sideswiped by the flow of the snow and slammed into a tree. Her arm had snapped just above the elbow. Maya had set it as best she could, but without proper tools, she was limited.
The lodge was still standing, but the entrance into the resort was completely packed with ice and snow. The entrance that was also the exit. One way in and one way out.
Neither was an option at the moment.
Since the urgent care clinic was right next to the entrance, it had been buried as well. It would take time to dig their way into it. If they could even do it.
Shortly after the avalanche, Maya had helped set up a temporary medical station behind the lodge, utilizing the large community room where visitors could enjoy a game of Ping-Pong, pool, or cards. Everything had been pulled out to make room for the patients. The maintenance crew worked tirelessly with a single Bobcat to clear a path to the urgent care clinic that held lifesaving drugs and other equipment they could really use.
But progress was slow, so until then ...
“You okay?” The voice belonged to forty-two-year-old Dr. Delilah Morgan, the ski resort physician. She was a delightful woman with the neatest and tightest cornrows Maya had ever seen. Her dark eyes, that Maya had a feeling normally gleamed with good humor, were shadowed with fatigue and worry.
“I’m all right,” Maya said. A trauma surgeon in her everyday world, she’d escaped to Silver Pines for solitude. To hibernate and plan the next steps in her life.
Only that plan was on hold.
Maya had stepped back into her doctor role to patch brokenbones, stitch gashes, and use the AED on a heart attack victim who had survived but definitely needed to be in a hospital.
