Daddy Lessons

by Carolyne Aarsen

  So they did.

  Natasha was in her glory and as they started down the hill for the third time she was laughing and relaxed. Another skier is born, Hailey thought, watching as Natasha made her turns a little sharper, angled herself down the hill, gaining speed.

  But, thankfully, she always listened to Hailey.

  Halfway down the run Hailey stopped at the edge to wait for Natasha and Deanna and to check her helmet. As she unbuckled it, she turned, and looked up.

  Natasha was halfway across the open space when Deanna, who was about two turns behind, made a sharp turn and came flying down the hill. She was a blur of neon-green.

  And she was out of control.

  One foot lifted off the ground as she tried to make a turn to slow down. But she was moving too fast. She tried again, arms flailing. She avoided hitting a mother with her little boy, avoided an older man, but kept coming.

  “Turn, turn,” Hailey called out, unable to do anything else. The little girl was uphill from her. All Hailey could do was yell instructions and hope Deanna didn’t plow into anyone as she tried to slow down. “Snowplow, push on your downhill edge, push, push.”

  Deanna tried to regain control and managed to form a snowplow. She wouldn’t make it, Hailey thought, watching in horror as Deanna headed straight toward Hailey and the trees behind her.

  No time to kick off her board. All Hailey could do was try to position herself to slow the girl down.

  Deanna came right at her, Hailey reached out and scooped her arm around Deanna’s waist. The momentum of the little girl’s speed pulled Hailey off balance. They landed together, rolling down the hill, a collision of arms and legs and skis. Snow showered over them, covering Hailey’s face, blinding her as she hung on to Deanna.

  Hailey heard Deanna screaming as she tried to get her board under her to dig in the snow. Finally, after what seemed like an age, they skidded to a halt. In the melee Hailey had lost her helmet. Melting snow covered her face and slid down the back of her neck and pushed up the front of her jacket.

  Deanna lay against her, sobbing, one ski off her foot, the other still attached.

  “Are you okay, honey?” Hailey asked, hurriedly brushing the snow off her face, blinking it out of her eyes, trying to look at Deanna.

  “I’m scared,” Deanna wailed.

  Then Hailey cranked her head around.

  Natasha. Where was Natasha? Hailey yelled her name, her head whipping around as she tried to find the little girl.

  “I’m here.” Natasha’s voice was a tiny, wobbly sound from just above Hailey.

  Hailey craned her neck. Relief sluiced through her when she saw Natasha sitting on the snow a couple of feet behind her.

  “Hailey. Your face,” Natasha called out, pointing. “You’ve got blood on your face.”

  Hailey reached up and touched her face with her gloved hand. But she couldn’t feel anything.

  “Are you all okay?” A woman’s voice called out as a skier came to a stop beside them. When Hailey looked up, the woman’s eyes grew wide and with a few quick flicks of her ski poles, she was out of the bindings of her skis.

  And as Hailey blinked again, she realized that it wasn’t melting snow running down her face. It was blood.

  “So you haven’t seen them all afternoon?” Dan asked one of the liftees working on the small chairlift situated beside the bunny hill.

  “No, man. Sorry.” The kid whipped his head back, tossing his shoulder-length hair back from his face, his multipierced ears glinting in the sun. He caught the chair coming around the turn, held it and helped a couple of giggling young girls onto it. “I saw them for most of the morning. Next thing I know she booked it for the Crow’s Nest.”

  The main chairlift going up the hill.

  Dan pushed down his panic as he walked back to the chalet. Hailey knows what she’s doing, he told himself. It would be fine.

  Standing by the stairs leading to the chalet, a middle-aged couple waited for him. The woman wore a thin wool blazer over a skirt and leather boots and despite the sun pouring down on the mountain, she shivered, the silk scarf around her throat offering her scant protection from the cold.

  The man had his hands pushed deep into his wool topcoat, his groomed and graying hair glinting in the sun.

  Mr. and Mrs. Anderson. Lydia’s parents. Natasha’s grandparents. They had showed up at the store twenty minutes ago, demanding to see Natasha. Immediately.

  Dan had explained that Hailey would bring her back when the hill was closed, but they couldn’t wait to see their granddaughter and make sure she was okay.

  Thankfully, his parents were able to take care of the store. So he’d led the Andersons here. And then started looking for Hailey and Natasha.

  “Did you find them?” Carla asked as he walked across the snow-packed ground toward them. “We checked the rental shop, but they hadn’t returned the equipment and they weren’t anywhere in the main lodge or the coffee shop or the restaurant.”

  “It’s a big place. We could easily have missed them,” Dan said, squinting against the sun glinting off the snow as he looked up the main hill.

  The run coming directly toward them was the easiest on the mountain. If they weren’t on the bunny hill the chances were good they were on that one.

  He would have a few words to share with Hailey if that were the case. Though he hadn’t specifically said that Natasha couldn’t go down the big hill, it had been assumed.

  Skiers and snowboarders in brightly colored coats and pants flowed down the hill, all coming from various runs, funneling toward the main chairlift. But Dan couldn’t spot Natasha’s bright red suit or Hailey’s distinctive red-and-orange coat.

  He looked over toward the bunny hill again, checking all the bodies going up and coming down but there was no one he recognized.

  “What’s going on over there?” Mr. Anderson asked, pointing one gloved hand toward the main run.

  Dan turned and his heart flopped in his chest.

  A little girl wearing a neon-green coat and pants was being led by a woman on skis. And behind her came Natasha and Hailey. Hailey had lost her helmet and she was holding something against her forehead.

  Was she hurt?

  “Wait here,” he told the Andersons, and with his blood rushing in his ears he ran across the hill, kicking up lumps of snow as he went.

  “What happened? What’s going on?” he called out as he came near the little group.

  “Daddy. Daddy. Hailey had an accident. Deanna ran over her,” Natasha called out. “She’s bleeding.”

  Something deep in his gut downshifted, like a truck hitting black ice. Dan’s eyes flew back to Hailey holding a bloody cloth to her forehead.

  “I’m okay,” she called out, obviously picking up on his panic. “I’m fine.”

  She turned to the woman holding Deanna’s hand. “Could you make sure she connects with her parents?”

  The woman frowned. “You should get that cut looked at.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Hailey assured her. “It’s already stopped bleeding. Please, just get Deanna to her mom.”

  The woman glanced at Dan, obviously assuming he was taking over, then she nodded and she and Deanna skied farther down the hill toward the lodge.

  “What happened? Is Natasha okay?” Dan hardly knew what to ask first, his heart still thudding in his chest. “Where’s your helmet?”

  “Natasha is fine. Deanna went out of control and I caught her and we tumbled a bit.” Hailey gave him a quick grin that, he guessed, was supposed to reassure him.

  But his emotions had gone through a horrible turmoil and he couldn’t focus on any one feeling. As he looked down, his thoughts jolted backward and ice slid through his veins.

  He and H
ailey had been in he same place when the ski patrol had come off the mountain carrying Austin’s body.

  Now Hailey, the woman he had put in charge of his daughter, stood in front of him, blood dripping down her face as all the worst scenarios ran through his mind. So close. So close.

  His emotions exploded.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Natasha, Grandma and Grandpa Anderson are waiting. Take your skis off, go to them and wait for me with them,” Dan said.

  Hailey heard the chill in Dan’s voice and an answering shiver grabbed her neck.

  Natasha seemed to sense her father’s anger and without so much as a whimper or pout, bent over, popped her skis off and walked down the hill where an older, very well-dressed couple stood. Lydia’s parents, Hailey presumed.

  Then Dan turned to her, his hazel eyes cold, deep lines bracketing his mouth.

  “What were you thinking, taking her down that hill?” he snapped.

  Hailey’s own misgivings crowded in her mind at the anger in Dan’s voice. “She did really well. And she wanted to go. She’s a capable skier.”

  “I thought I told you to keep her on the bunny hill?” Dan kept his voice down but the ice in his gaze and the fierceness of his voice buffeted her like a blizzard.

  “She’s going to ski the main hill sooner or later, Dan. And I was with her the whole time.” She reached out to him, touching his coat sleeve with her hand, trying to bridge the gulf that seemed to yawn between them. “She’s a good skier, Dan. And nothing happened to her.”

  Dan looked down at her hand and Hailey saw the blood streaked on it. She pulled her hand back, curling her fingers against her palm.

  Dan swallowed but didn’t meet her eyes. “This place is too… It’s… She’s not coming here again.”

  Hailey heard the finality in his words, but then her own anger kicked in.

  “Really, Dan? You would keep her from the most popular thing to do in this town? Where her friends will be every weekend? Don’t you remember how much fun we used to have here?”

  “Used to,” he said, chopping the air with his hand, as if slashing past away from present.

  Hailey glanced down at the bloody cloth now twisted around her hand. The cut on her forehead still stung, but the cold air probably kept it from feeling worse.

  “You’re upset about me and Natasha because of what happened to Austin, aren’t you?” she asked, trying to understand the relentless current of his anger. When she looked up at him again she almost fell back at the cold fury stamped on his face.

  “That’s in the past. It’s done. We’re not talking about that.”

  As she held his flinty gaze, realization moved like a slow storm through her. Shannon’s warnings about Dan’s lack of communication after Austin’s death flickered and gained strength. “And that’s the trouble, isn’t it? We’ve never talked about Austin.”

  “What’s to talk about? It’s basic. He got lost. He died.” His gaze cut away from hers as he shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat.

  But he looked away as he spoke and his voice caught on his last word.

  Hailey felt as if she was within inches of grasping something that had eluded her for seven years. “I don’t know if it’s that simple,” she said. Then she moved closer, fear skittering through her abdomen. It was as if she and Dan were staring across an abyss.

  No way that was happening. Not again.

  Her sister’s warnings about Dan rang once again through her head, along with every other concern that wove in and out of their relationship.

  “Dan, I know something important is happening between us. I don’t want to lose that. I’m happier now than I’ve been in a long time. I don’t think I’m imagining what you are feeling either.”

  “You’re not,” was his reply, and in his eyes all traces of anger had been replaced by a broken, longing gaze. “I lost too much when I lost you.”

  “And I don’t want to lose you again,” she pleaded. “But I feel like I am. And I think it has everything to do with what happened in the past. What happened with Austin.”

  They were surrounded by the sounds of happy laughter and shrieks of pleasure backed by the steady hum and thump of the ski lift picking up skiers and boarders. But it was as if they were captured in their own moment in time.

  How could she get through to him? She felt on the verge of discovering the one thing still standing between them.

  “When Austin died, I lost so much as well.” Her voice broke as she reached out to him.

  Dan looked at her and in his eyes she only saw emptiness and sorrow. “And that’s part of the problem,” he said as he took a step back and away from her.

  She fought down her panic, sensing his physical movement was an echo of his emotional withdrawal. Not again, please, Lord, not again.

  But how could she get through to him?

  “Dan. We would like to go,” Mrs. Anderson called out.

  Dan shot a look over his shoulder, then looked back at Hailey. “I gotta go,” he muttered, but Hailey didn’t release him right away. Surely whatever Mrs. Anderson wanted could wait a moment?

  “Please don’t walk away from me,” she pleaded.

  His mouth set in grim lines, Dan glanced from her to the Andersons, who were now walking toward the lodge.

  “Don’t throw those ambiguous statements at me and then walk away,” she said, pressing on. “I’m not letting you leave me again. I need you to tell me about Austin before you leave.”

  Dan shot her another anguished look, but then, without another word he turned and strode away, each step he took away from her falling like a hammer on her heart.

  Dan stared at his cell phone for what seemed like the hundredth time. Should he try to call her?

  What could he possibly say to her when his fear at seeing the blood dripping down her face had been like a blinding storm? In that moment so many things had come together. He knew how much he cared for her. He knew how much she had also lost when Austin died.

  And he knew how little he deserved to hold Hailey’s heart.

  But he hadn’t had time to sort it all out. Not with the Andersons and their threats to take Natasha hovering behind him.

  After leaving the hill, they had all driven to Cranbrook, an hour and a half’s drive from Hartley Creek. The Andersons had flown there from Vancouver and had rented a hotel suite there.

  Dan wasn’t letting Natasha go with them on her own, so he had come along. Now it was late evening and Carla and Alfred Anderson were tucking Natasha in for the night.

  Dan dropped his head against the chair in the hotel suite, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. His head ached and his thoughts were a tangle of worries and fears. His concern over the Andersons’ unexpected visit battled his struggle with Hailey’s anguished gaze as he walked away.

  You should have told her.

  And how could he in the few minutes he had? And even worse, what would she think?

  If she cares for you it doesn’t matter.

  Dan wished it were that easy. As she had said, when Austin died, she had lost something too. As had his parents.

  As had he.

  Too much sorrow, he thought, dragging his hands over his face. Too much pain and grief on his conscience.

  The door of his and Natasha’s bedroom clicked shut and Alfred Anderson came out, his smile relaxing his features. “She’s quite the girl,” he said as he folded his suit jacket in half and laid it carefully over the chair. “Pretty precious to us.”

  Dan tried not to see that as a veiled threat and instead decided to take it at face value. “I know. She’s very precious to me too.”

  Alfred sat down in a chair across from Dan, then sighed heavily. “I know we should have warned you we w
ere coming, but Carla and I got scared.”

  “About what?” Dan said, a knot forming in his gut.

  “You know what Natasha means to us,” Alfred said, leaning back, looking every inch the successful businessman he was. Dan tried to keep his cool and not feel intimidated by a man wearing a suit worth more than his truck. “We need her in our life. We can’t function without her.”

  Dan felt as if Alfred’s words sucked the center out of his world. But he waited to let Alfred play his hand before reacting.

  “We know you love her so I’m hoping you understand that we love her as well,” Alfred continued. “And we miss her.” Alfred’s voice broke on that last word.

  Dan felt a flicker of surprise at the unexpected emotion Alfred let slip past his businessman’s facade. But as he watched Alfred lean forward and drag his hand over his face, Hailey’s words slipped back into his mind. Her comments about her grandmother’s relationship with her and how important that was.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Dan said. “But I needed to give Natasha a chance to settle in to her new life.” Dan put extra emphasis on the last phrase, as if to underline the fact that Natasha’s life was in Hartley Creek.

  Then Alfred looked over at him and Dan saw the anguish in his eyes.

  Please, Lord, Dan prayed, let Hailey be right about the Andersons and let me and my worries be wrong.

  “I know that Carla has been pushing to get Natasha back with us,” Alfred continued. “But you have to understand that my wife is a very frightened woman.” Alfred pushed his hand through his hair, rearranging its neat waves. “Lydia never gave us much time with Natasha—”

  “She didn’t give me much either,” Dan put in, leaning forward as if tensing for battle.

  “I know. I gathered as much. But you have to understand she is our only granddaughter.”

  “But she’s my daughter and I think that would hold more clout in court.”

  Alfred pulled back, looking surprised. “Of course it does. We don’t want to take her away from you.”

  “That’s not what I understood from Carla.”