by Tessa Clarke
Alissa took her down a few easy runs to get warmed up before leading her to the top of the Starlight Bowl where the competition was taking place. When they reached the top of the Stairway to Heaven chair and started down the catwalk to the Starlight Bowl, Jolene nearly gasped in delight.
White Peak was the tallest mountain around, and the other mountains of this part of Montana panned out all around them, white and black points rising out of a sea of low lying cloud. She inhaled the fresh and cool air and marveled at the sky that seemed to have no end. The big timber framed lodge where Alissa and Cade’s wedding would be held the next night bustled with activity behind them, skiers in all colors of bright carrying steaming coffees, cocoa and hot dogs dotting the open deck. It was the perfect place for the wedding of two committed skiers.
“It’s so beautiful,” she breathed, mostly to herself, since Alissa was too far ahead to hear.
They arrived at the edge of the bowl, and Jolene saw the run that the freeskiers would be taking. It was almost a sheer face, studded with jagged black rocks, cliffs, and impossible drops. Jolene’s head nearly spun with the vertigo of it. People skied that? Not only skied, but did jumps and three-sixties, and all sorts of other insane tricks. Jolene couldn’t believe it. Were they crazy?
They stood on the lip of the bowl about a hundred meters away from the start gates of the competition. Jolene could see that the catwalk that they were on led to a gradually sloped loop around the sheer bowl face where intermediate skiers, like herself, were picking their way down. The top of the run was already marked with waving flags, and the start gates were cordoned off. Tall skiers in blues, bright greens, and oranges milled around the top in numbered bibs, and loud music blared from a speaker. A crowd had gathered beside a fenced-off area at the bottom dotted with open tents and more flags.
“That’s where Cade saved my life,” Alissa said, pointing to a set of toothy-looking rocks that stuck out of the run at the bottom of a steep section and appeared to lead to a sheer drop off.
“You skied that?” Jolene said.
Alissa laughed. “Absolutely. Cade and I ski it all the time.”
“Absolutely…” Jolene murmured. “Absolutely nuts, is what that is. Give me a hot tub and some gin and tonics over this any day.”
“Oh, we have the hot tub and gin and tonics after we ski it,” Alissa said. “Shall we head down?”
Jolene took a couple of deep breaths. She could do this. The go-around looked fine. She just couldn’t believe that all those men milling around the top were about to throw themselves down this cliff for prizes and glory. Alissa pushed off, her turns in the snow deep and confident. Jolene followed at her slower, more tentative, pace, but nonetheless enjoying the soft swish of powder beneath her skis.
The energy at the finish gates was high, and the announcer worked to keep everyone stoked about the skiing. Skier after skier flew down the hill, executing breathtaking turns, drops, three-sixties, and flips under the brilliant blue sky. Jolene said a little prayer of thanks every time one of them made it down the hill, while Alissa cheered enthusiastically for all of Cade’s athletes. How did they manage to stay on their feet at that speed? How did they manage not to sail off the jagged outcrop of rocks over which Alissa had almost fallen?
Jolene had checked when they reached the bottom to make sure that a medic station was set up, and had seen to her relief that two ski patrollers with white crosses on the backs of their jackets had a sled, beefy backpacks, and radios set up at a station nearby. One of them, a tall, broad, ridiculously good-looking man with high cheekbones and strawberry blonde hair, watched each skier closely. Alissa had given him a little wave when they arrived, but since he was clearly on the job, hadn’t approached to talk.
Jolene tried not to oogle the man. He was absolutely delicious in a way that made her warm and wet between the legs. Watching him move around with an almost languorous grace, his binoculars fixed on the run, distracted her from her spiral of worry over the safety of the skiers. Still, she fretted each time one launched out of the start gates to the cheers of the people below. There was no doctor on the hill. So many things could go wrong.
Jolene tore her eyes away from the handsome medic to focus on the run. The twelfth skier had just left the gate—Chance Trainor, a White Peaks local, the announcer bellowed, who was in the lead after the qualifying runs the previous day and placed first in the event last year. The crowd went wild. The man swooping down the run was absolutely breathtaking, his turns more confident and his airs higher than any of the previous competitors. Jolene watched with her mouth hanging practically open, while Alissa jumped up and down next to her, and the announcer practically squealed with enthusiasm. After executing a massive seven-twenty off a jump near the bottom of the run, Trainor swooped down towards the huge cliff, heading for the finish gates.
Movement to the left of Trainor caught Jolene’s eye. A giant white hare was on the ski run, barely visible against the snow. The hare was moving at a breakneck speed, an enormous white owl on its trail. The hare cut right in front of Trainor, causing him to skid to a stop lest he take the animal out, and the owl smacked directly into Trainor’s head, or pole or something. Or did Trainor leap into the air after it? It was impossible to tell with the distance and the speed at which things happened. The noises of the crowd went from excitement to horror as Chance Trainor, temporarily blinded by the owl, hit the set of jagged rocks and flipped over them, plummeting down the cliff to the outcrop of black below.
Jolene started running in her ski boots towards the fallen skier before she even thought about it. She was an ER nurse. It was her responsibility to help this man. Through the corner of her eye, she was vaguely aware that the two medics were running to the man too. She was closer, so she got to his crumpled form first, but they were hot on her heels.
She fell to her knees in front of the skier who was surprisingly conscious and already moving around.
“You shouldn’t move,” she said automatically. “We need to check for concussion and spinal injury.”
The shockingly attractive medic appeared in front of her on his knees on the other side of Trainor, his head bent over the skier. “I got this, ma’am. Ski resort personnel only.”
“I’m a nurse,” she insisted. “I can help. That was a massive fall. He needs a spinal board and an ambulance.”
The medic’s amber eyes, so like Alissa’s, regarded her and his head seemed to jerk back a bit in surprise. Despite the gravity of the situation, and her concern for the man lying in the snow, Jolene felt an odd trill of hope in her heart that she quickly quashed. The important thing was to help the patient, not become speechless with lust over some ski resort medic, even if he was by far the most attractive man she’d ever seen.
The medic seemed briefly similarly lacking in ability to speak. Finally he said, “Let me assess the patient, ma’am. Please step back. I appreciate the offer of help. You can stick around and watch if you like, but we can only have ski patrol working on the patient.”
Jolene nodded, rose, and took a step back.
Chance Trainor immediately started to try to rise. “I’m fine Dylan. I got to get back up there. I’m sure they’ll let me ski again after what happened.”
The medic—Dylan apparently—pushed Trainor gently back to the ground. “You may be, Chance, but I need to assess you first, and yes, I’m sure they’ll let you ski again, but we have to make sure you’re in one piece first.”
Jolene watched the assessment with growing shock. Dylan did all the right things, checking for broken limbs, assessing pain levels, shining a light in the man’s eyes, feeling everywhere for tenderness. But he’d implied that the man could ski again. Jolene shifted her gaze to the top of the cliff from which the man had fallen. It was a drop of at least thirty feet. How had the man possibly come through that without injury? Any normal person would be off to the hospital on a board for a full set of x-rays.
Trainor freely admitted to Dylan
that he’d banged his head and right knee on the rocks, and yet Dylan didn’t seem to think this was cause for alarm. Surely the fact that Trainor was intent on skiing again so soon after such a terrible fall was a sign of a head injury.
Jolene had worked in the Denver General Hospital ER for almost a decade, and she knew that the way this Dylan was treating this patient wasn’t normal protocol.
Chapter Four: Dylan
Dylan Blake couldn’t believe he’d been lucky enough to meet his mate today, at the Senior Freeski World Tour event no less, but he also couldn’t believe how angry she was with him.
She stood in front of him in an all-black ski suit, goggles up, one long blonde braid hanging out beneath her helmet, with her hands on her very generous and attractive hips. Her eyes were an extraordinary blue, almost the color of the sky, and they were narrowed at him.
“As a nurse, I can’t in any good conscience let you send this man back out to ski,” she said. “He needs to go to the hospital for x-rays.”
Dylan struggled to find words. Chance Trainor had taken pretty good blows to the knee and head when he fell off the thirty-foot cliff. But he was also a trained athlete and a shifter, which meant not only did he have a pretty good sense of whether he was fit to ski or not, but also that he probably landed better. If Trainor were human, Dylan would have him strapped to a spinal board and in a sled tout suite. Of course, if he were human, Trainor would probably still be unconscious with at least one of his limbs askew.
Moreover, because extenuating circumstances caused the fall, Trainor would get a redo. If Trainor, who prior to his fall was in the lead in the event, wanted to go back and ski another run, Dylan wasn’t going to stand in his way. In fact, Dylan rather doubted that he could stand in Trainor’s way. Dylan stood six foot four, and there were few men that he wouldn’t take on, but Trainor was at least six foot six and a good friend.
This nurse—his mate, clearly a fiery woman, and the most stunning creature he’d ever set eyes on—apparently thought otherwise.
Trainor was already strapping on his gear to head down to the lift. The crowd, which had gone quiet while Trainor lay on the ground started to clap, and when Trainor pumped his gloved fist and pole in the air, they erupted in cheers.
“I know this guy,” Dylan said in a low voice, looking pleadingly at the woman. “He didn’t land as badly as you think. He managed to slow his fall on some of the rocks near the top. I’ve checked all his limbs. Nothing’s broken.”
“What if he has a brain bleed?” she asked. He’d become acutely aware of the fineness of her features, her exquisite nose and perfect pout of a mouth, and every instinct in him wanted to grab her and crush his lips to hers.
“We wouldn’t CT him anyway unless he showed symptoms of a concussion.”
“But another blow, if he falls again, if he’s unbalanced because of the previous fall, could be disastrous.”
“It’s a dangerous sport and Trainor knows the risks. He’s also experienced enough not to screw around if he’s injured.”
“He needs to see a doctor,” she said firmly. The subtext someone who knows what he’s doing was evident, and Dylan felt his jaw grow tight. Mate or no mate, he wasn’t keen to have someone question his medical decisions. But she was so hot, and she didn’t have any reason to suspect that he was in fact a doctor.
Chance Trainor had already skied away, and Dylan’s partner, James, sat in the snow several meters away restuffing one of the backpacks and writing up the incident report.
“Hey Dylan, everything okay here?”
Dylan peeled his eyes from the woman to see his Cade’s mate, Alissa, regarding them with an odd expression.
“Yep, it’s good,” Dylan said. “Trainor banged himself up a bit, but he’ll be okay.”
Alissa turned to the woman. “Jolene, this is one of Cade’s best friends Dylan, the doctor. He’ll be your partner in the ceremony.”
Jolene, Alissa’s friend, his partner in the ceremony. And also his mate.
Jolene’s face colored, possibly at the realization that Dylan was in fact a doctor, but her expression didn’t soften significantly.
“Great,” said Jolene. “I’m going to head down now. I’m hungry and I think I’ve seen enough of this event.” She dug her poles into the snow and pushed off, weaving carefully through the onlookers before picking up speed on the ski out. Dylan watched her swaying ass and tried not to lick his lips.
Alissa had that assessing look on her face again. “I better go with her. She has no idea how to get back to the lodge.” Alissa did a jump turn and skated off after her friend at considerably greater speed.
The announcer was marveling at Trainor’s strength, spirit, and ability to push through the pain.
Great, Dylan thought. Well he better goddamn well win, because he sure put Dylan in the shithouse with his mate.
“Alissa says something might have happened, with Jolene?” Cade said carefully because he could probably see that Dylan was already scowling.
They were both on ladders in the Timber Wolf Lodge hanging strings of little lights from the rafters. Trainor had won the event of course, and even though Dylan had insisted on checking him from head to toe in the patrol shack after the event, had emerged with only a minor bruise on his knee and a goose egg on his scalp. Then Dylan had started drinking and had four beers under his belt when Cade came to collect him for light-hanging duty. Even though he could easily handle four beers, he and Cade had consumed one more when they got to the top, and Dylan’s ladder-climbing skills weren’t at their best. He just wanted to go home, have a long, very hot shower and get ready for the evening’s festivities, where apparently he would be sitting with his mate, Jolene, who hated him.
“It was nothing,” Dylan mumbled. “Just a minor difference of medical opinion.”
“Alissa said Chance’s fall was pretty spectacular.”
“It was,” Dylan conceded. “I don’t know where the hell that hare and owl came from.”
“Freaky,” Cade agreed. “Alissa said you looked like you’d been struck by lightening when Jolene skied off. Care to share anything?”
Dylan shook his head firmly and tossed the string of lights he was holding around another rafter, catching it neatly as it fell on the other side. Cade, apparently having decided to leave Dylan alone, descended his ladder and retrieved his beer from the table below. He strode over to the massive three-story windows of the lodge that looked out over the Starlight Bowl.
The sun had already set and stars had started to blink into the sky. The setting couldn’t be more beautiful. Normally Dylan loved being up in the lodge at night, after all the skiers had left and they had the silent, white slopes to themselves, but tonight Dylan envied Cade. He was about to walk down the aisle with his sexy mate, and they were clearly so in love. Cade knew he’d have his mate to have, hold, and fuck for the rest of his life, whereas Dylan had just met and totally enraged his.
Dylan looped his last string once more around the rafter and plugged it into the string of lights adjacent. Then he climbed down the ladder himself and downed the rest of his beer in one gulp.
Cade crossed the room and plugged the dangling lights into the wall. Instantly the whole room, which had grown dark over the last few minutes, seemed filled with tiny stars. It was pretty. With the right woman, it would be a magical place to make a little romance as a prelude to a hot night in bed. Of course, this just filled his mind with hot images of Jolene naked in his bed, her pert little ass raised while her long blonde hair fell over her shoulder. To his surprise, his cock was fully erect. He kept his body angled away from Cade’s, and put on his ski jacket. They still had to ski out in the deepening dark, and if they both wanted showers before the pre-wedding dinner, which he rather expected Cade did, being the groom and all, they had to get a move on.
“Does Alissa know?” Dylan said quietly, still focused on the stars that filled the bowl of sky outside.
“Doe
s Alissa know what?” Cade said.
“That Flynn and I are shifters.”
Cade shook his head. “No. That’s not my secret to tell.”
Dylan nodded, and wordlessly they exited the building, put on their skis, and started down the mountain.
Chapter Five: Jolene
No matter which way she turned it, Jolene couldn’t make sense of what she’d seen. Chance Trainor should have been badly injured from his fall, but not only was he not hurt, he somehow managed to win the whole event. Worse, she had hideously embarrassed herself in front of the hottest man she’d ever met. She couldn’t believe she’d questioned his medical expertise and suggested that Trainor needed to see a doctor. And now it turned out that not only was Dylan a doctor and a friend of Cade’s, he was also her partner in the wedding party. She was completely and utterly attracted to him—not that any woman with a shred of red blood in her body wouldn’t be completely and utterly attracted to him—and she’d probably pissed him off.
She paced around her hotel room in nothing but a white towel, thinking about the afternoon’s events, and feeling a bit like a caged animal. The red dress hung ready to be donned, and drinks were scheduled to start in an hour. If she was going to retrieve her dignity in any way, she’d better get in the shower.
When they were on the chairlift after leaving the freeski event, Alissa had mentioned with great casualness how kind and caring Dylan was, talking about how he’d worked with Doctors without Borders, helped Cade with so many of the wedding tasks that Renate had dispensed, and welcomed Alissa as Cade’s mate with open arms. Great. So he was blindingly hot, and nice.
She wondered if he was also a shifter. Alissa hadn’t said anything, but those amber eyes….
