The Best Of The Year - Medical Romance. Carol Marinelli
parents.
“And you did what they asked,” Mira said. “What’s your name?”
“Sandy. And that’s Marilyn.”
“Okay, Sandy, if you’ll go with Hans and help him locate your parents, we’ll take care of your friend.” Mira stood and helped the girl to her feet, waiting until she’d stopped swaying before saying anything. “Does anything hurt?”
“No. I’m okay.”
“Do you feel well enough to ski to the bottom?”
“I—I think so.”
The man she’d called Hans patted the terrified girl on the shoulder and gave her an encouraging nod. Then they slowly made their way down the slope, while the other guy went in search of a stretcher and called in the accident, telling the instructors and employees at the top to hold everyone right where they were.
Jack glanced at her. “At least they were wearing helmets. Let’s hope she’s out because of the pain and not anything else.”
“My da...er...the lodge requires all minors to use helmets on the slopes. Her pulse is steady. If we’re lucky, she just fainted.” She reached her fingers out and smoothed back her hair. “The EMS guys are pretty familiar with the routine up here, they should have something to stabilize her arm.”
“I’m beginning to think surfing is a hell of a lot safer.”
One curved brow went up. “I can think of a few things that make me think differently. At least you can’t drown on a ski slope.”
Maybe not, but when her brown eyes met his, looking all soft and warm as she kept her hand protectively on the injured girl’s head, he thought it was possible to drown in something other than the ocean.
He shook away the thought.
She’s a doctor, Jack. Not someone you want to play around with.
He was glad when a pair of emergency service guys came clomping down the hill, heavy-duty boots making easy work out of the packed snow.
After a quick rundown of her vitals and injuries and explaining what they’d seen, one of the paramedics asked where the girl’s parents were.
“We sent her friend and a member of the ski patrol to find them.”
In short order, the pair had immobilized the teen’s injured arm and done their own assessment of her injuries, coming to the same conclusions as he and Mira had. Then they stabilized her neck and removed her skis before loading her onto a blue stretcher with a metal pull bar attached to it. The girl started to come to, moaning as her eyes fluttered open.
Mira leaned close and whispered to her.
The sight made a pang go through his chest. If he and Paula had had any kids, is that how she would’ve looked as she comforted them?
Not the time, Jack.
He cleared his throat. “They’re going to pull her down the hill?”
“That’s the safest way. It’s hard to keep your balance on the snow, if you haven’t noticed.” The right side of her mouth curved slightly, as if she was fighting a smile.
“Oh, I noticed all right.” In fact, he was having a little trouble keeping his balance right now, and it had nothing to do with skiing. He felt like the wind had been knocked from his lungs the second he’d realized she was a doctor. He was still struggling to catch his breath fifteen minutes later.
She stood and went over to retrieve the girl’s hat and skis. “I’ll bring these down with me,” she told the men. “Hopefully they’ve located her folks. I want to be on hand if something changes.”
“Sure thing, Mira.” One of the medical workers threw her a quick smile.
It seemed everyone knew her around these parts.
The paramedics started down the hill, leaving them to follow.
“Do you want to walk down or ski?”
“At the rate I go, it’s probably faster to walk.” He took the girl’s skis from her and lumped them together with his, tucking them under his arm with his poles.
Together, they trudged down the bunny slope, staying a few yards behind the rescue team. His mind couldn’t help wandering back to her instructions on how to maneuver with his skis and how her words had yielded much better results than the lessons her ex—the professional—had given him.
Wanting to show off for the pretty doctor, Jack?
Self-preservation was more like it. Something he should probably remember. Because the fact that she was a doctor was all the more reason he should avoid her for the rest of his stay. If his coach were here, he’d be calling for a time-out and hauling Jack’s ass off the playing field.
And the man would be right. Injured players should remain on the sidelines until they had time to heal.
Yeah? Well, he’d had four damn years. How much longer would it take?
Some players never recovered. Maybe he was one of them. He could just throw in the towel right now.
His body gave a quick tug of irritation, one that grew when Mira glanced back at him with a smile. “Keeping up okay?”
Oh, he could keep up just fine. He balled his hands into fists when his mind immediately headed into more dangerous territory. Of Mira saying those words under very different circumstances.
Sidelines, Jack, remember?
Thankfully, they reached the bottom of the slope, and he had other things to occupy his mind, like the small crowd that had gathered near the door of the lodge, and the woman in a pink parka rushing forward to meet the EMS guys as they headed for the pick-up site where their truck was probably parked. Forced to stop, the guys lifted the stretcher just as he and Mira arrived.
Habit made him start toward the group to brief the girl’s parents, but Mira beat him to it, smoothly maneuvering right into the center of the gathering. Besides, he wasn’t here with his football team. This was her gig, not his.
He could see her gesturing as she explained the situation, but he couldn’t hear the words. Whatever she said, it seemed to have the right effect. People started to move away until all that was left were a man and a woman who looked like they were in their early fifties—Marilyn’s parent’s probably—standing near the stretcher. Jack debated slipping through the glass doors of the lodge and escaping while he could, while Mira’s attention was fixed on something else.
Coward’s way out. He’d decided four years ago that he wasn’t going that route ever again. He’d lost his head in a bottle for a while after his wife’s death. Once he’d picked himself up off the bathroom floor after a particularly bad hangover, he’d decided to live a life Paula would be proud of rather than throwing it away in a booze-filled haze. He obviously wasn’t there yet—this temporary exile and the sleep aids were proof of that.
What he needed was something to take his mind off himself for a few hours.
His eyes slid back to Mira, whose glossy hair showed beneath her cap as she leaned over the stretcher to talk to the injured girl once more.
Nope. No matter how tempting that might be, it wasn’t smart. He needed something light and easy. Something other than skiing with pretty women.
Large black letters from a flyer taped to the door of the lodge caught his attention:
Not a Ski Fan?
Ha, you could say that. He continued reading.
Check out Silver Pass’s other exciting offerings.
The bullet points proceeded to list things like evening sleigh rides, trips down the mountains on inner tubes, gondola lifts that boasted spectacular views, and