by Ann Lister
“No, not at all. Why?”
“You’re whispering, so I thought maybe you had someone in your office,” he said.
“I did, but they’ve thankfully gone back to their own desks. It seems the kiss you gave me at the door caught the attention of more than a few of my co-workers.”
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked.
“I don’t know. They’re full of questions now, that’s all.”
Nick chuckled. “What’s the matter, Colby? Are you embarrassed to tell your co-workers the other parts of your body I was kissing last night?”
Colby spun her chair around, away from the open door of her office. “Nick, I’d never tell them something that personal,” she whispered, fanning the heat in her cheeks with her hand. “I hardly know these people!”
“I didn’t think you’d mention it,” he said. “But, you have my permission to tell them we’re together - if you want, unless you’re embarrassed to admit that?”
“Of course not.”
“After all, I am a man with a reputation, right?”
“Nick, stop it. Why did you call me?” she asked.
He paused against the railing of the deck outside the triage building. “I can’t meet you for lunch, like I suggested earlier. I have to help the blasting crew set-up their explosives for the avalanche release.”
“What does that mean?”
“We blow-up areas on the mountain that are too heavy with snow to purposely cause an avalanche. It’s a controlled maintenance program to help keep the risk of a more serious avalanche from happening in areas that are frequented by skiers.”
“It sounds dangerous,” Colby stated.
“Not for me. I’ll be a safe distance away from any moving snow, Colby. There's no need for you to worry.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“The area we’re working on today is on the North side of the mountain and it would take too long for me to get down in time for your lunch break. I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. I understand,” she said, still worried about his safety.
“I’d still like to see your for dinner, if that’s okay?”
“I’d like that,” she said, smiling to herself.
“Good. I’ll call you later.”
“Nick.”
“Yes?”
“Please, be careful.”
“You know I will be,” he reassured and said good-bye.
A short time later, the co-worker that had warned Colby about Nick’s reputation and previous engagement stepped into her office.
“So, rumor has it, you and Nick Gaffney were seen kissing this morning,” Sandy said. The woman sat down into a chair in Colby's office. “Is there any truth to that?”
Colby raised her eyes and looked at the woman. “You were there, so why are you pretending you didn’t see it for yourself?”
“Are you dating him?”
“Yes,” Colby replied succinctly.
“Really?”
Colby set her pen down onto her desk and folded her hands. “Look, I know what you said about him and we’ve discussed it at great length - all of it. There’s a lot more to Nick than what everyone around here thinks they know about him.”
“You don’t have to defend him or yourself to me,” Sandy said.
“I wasn’t.”
Sandy smiled brightly. “Well, it’s obvious, he’s crazy about you.”
Colby met the woman’s gaze again and held it.
“Just be careful,” Sandy said, and stood up from the chair.
Colby was about to respond, when a loud explosion could be heard. “What the hell was that?” she asked.
“It’s the blasting crew. In a few seconds you might be able to hear the avalanche they just created.”
Sure enough, as Sandy had predicted, a distant and subtle rumble could be heard, sounding much like a freight train. The noise made Colby shiver in fear. “That sounds so scary.”
“You get used to hearing that sound at a place like this, but it’s comforting to hear the roar of the moving snow after the blast, because then you know it was a controlled avalanche and not one set off by a careless tourist.”
“Nick said he was helping the blasting crew today.”
“The guys usually fight for that job. It gives them an excuse to blow-up stuff.”
Colby forced a smile but she could not get rid of the uneasy feeling she had in the pit of the stomach about Nick working on the mountain. She worried about Nick all morning. When lunch time came, she decided to eat outside in the sunshine.
She was picking at her salad when another thundering roar could be heard in the distance. Colby quickly realized this roar didn’t follow the sound of a blast. The hair on the back of her neck rose and every nerve ending in her body tingled with fear. Something didn’t feel right. She picked up her cell phone and dialed Nick’s number. After several rings her call went directly to his voice mail. As she was setting her phone back onto the picnic table she noticed a commotion at the far end of the lodge.
It was almost noon when Nick got an emergency call for two skiers hurt at the edge of ‘Devils Ridge’ about a half a mile away from where he was positioned with the blasting crew. Nick jumped behind the wheel of one of the medical trucks and took a rookie EMT from his squad to rescue the two skiers. Their orders were to stabilize and evacuate the injured skiers to base, then they could return to work with the blasting crew.
When they arrived at the scene, Nick noticed one male skier sitting in the snow on the side of the trail holding onto his wrist. The man on the ground pointed to a second skier that was laying on an outcropping of ledge about five feet below the trail. Nick quickly assessed that the two men had somehow collided with each other while skiing, each getting tossed in opposite directions from the impact.
Nick instructed the rookie to evaluate the man with the injured wrist, then grabbed his own medical bag and eased himself over the lip of the embankment to climb down to help the second skier.
It took only seconds for Nick to process the man’s injuries. Besides a few cuts and bruises, the man had a dislocated knee that was causing him intense pain. Nick gave the man an injection of pain medication and began to stabilize the knee joint in preparation for transport.
“Stewart, how you doing up there?” Nick called to the other EMT working above him on the trail.
Stewart leaned over the edge of the trail and peered down at Nick. “It looks like a possible wrist fracture. I just finished wrapping it. Do you need any help?”
“No. Stay up there,” Nick replied. “I’m not sure how much weight this snow shelf can hold. I’m almost done stabilizing him, then you can get the basket and we’ll lift him back up onto the trail for transport. Radio base and give them a status report.”
“Okay,” Stewart said, and pulled out his walkie-talkie. “Stewart to base,” the rookie transmitted.
“Go ahead, Stewart. What’d you have?” their supervisor from the triage building called back through the speaker.
“We’ve got two male skiers. One with a possible wrist fracture. The second has a dislocated knee, which Gaffney is now stabilizing,” Stewart said, watching Nick working on the second skier below him.
Nick shifted on the ledge beside his patient, inadvertently loosening the snow beneath his feet and in the flash of a second, the snow shelf broke apart and sent Nick crashing over the edge of a twenty foot cliff.
“Gaffney’s down! Gaffney’s down!” Stewart screamed into the walkie-talkie, his eyes widening in horror at seeing Nick’s body slam into an out-cropping of rocks at the side of the cliff before impacting with another snow-covered plateau two dozen feet below. About ten feet from where Nick’s body landed, Stewart watched as the snow began to crumble and break into dozens of large plates of moving snow.
“Avalanche! We’ve got an avalanche!” Stewart yelled into the walkie-talkie speaker.
“What the hell is going on up there?” the supervisor’s curt voice called
back.
Stewart quickly rattled off their coordinates and prepared to climb down to the patient with the knee injury.
“Give me a status, Stewart!” the base supervisor’s voice shouted.
“Gaffney's down! He fell about twenty-five feet and he isn’t moving! The avalanche just missed taking him and the snow shelf around him looks really weak. What'd you want me to do?”
“Damn it!” the supervisor said aloud, attracting the attention of the gathering EMT’s in the medical building. “Can we land a helicopter up there?” he asked Stewart.
“Negative,” Stewart replied.
Without thinking about it further, Colby stood up from the picnic table and began to run toward the triage building. She knew she’d never be able to finish work, until she knew Nick was safe. The closer she came to the medical building, she noticed several EMT workers scattering about in a controlled panic, tossing rescue and medical gear into two evacuation vehicles. She ran into the building and saw Glen pacing beside another man yelling instructions into a walkie-talkie.
“Glen! Thank God you’re here, that must mean Nick is, too.” Colby said. She hugged Glen, then released him to look around the room. “Where is he?”
Glen shook his head. “Nick isn’t here, Colby,” he said, holding her by the shoulders.
“What do you mean? You're partners. You work together everyday, don’t you?”
“Yes, we do, but today I was late getting to work and Nick was partnered up with Paul Stewart,” Glen explained.
Colby’s heart sank and her eyes began to burn with emotion. “Where is he, Glen?”
“He’s on the mountain.”
The blood began to drain from Colby’s face and the room began to spin. Behind her she heard the frantic voice of the supervisor shouting into his walkie-talkie, as other EMT’s began to gather.
“Give me a status, Stewart!”
“Gaffney isn’t responding to my voice and I can see blood in the snow around his head!” Stewart yelled back.
“Can you rappel down to him?”
“I think so,” Stewart called back, his voice becoming shaky.
Colby turned to face Glen again, tears already beginning to run down her cheeks. “Nick’s hurt?”
“Yes, Colby, he’s hurt,” Glen said.
Colby’s knees buckled beneath her. She fell into Glen and held onto his arms for support. “Is it bad?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
“It could be.”
“Oh, dear God! This can’t be happening!”
“Stewart! Give me a status!” the supervisor squawked.
“I’m almost down to him.”
“I’ve got two teams on their way up to you. I want a visual assessment, Stewart! Do not remove Gaffney’s helmet and do not attempt to move him. Do you hear me?!”
“Roger that.”
A few painful minutes passed, feeling more like hours, for everyone inside the medical building. Colby held onto Glen tightly using him like a lifeline, quietly sobbing against his arm, as she carefully listened to every detailed transmission between Stewart and the base supervisor.
“Okay! I’m with Gaffney,” Stewart panted. He pressed two fingers against Nick’s neck. “I’ve got a pulse!”
A collective sigh of relief escaped from everyone around the radio, as they waited for further details from Stewart.
“I see head trauma,” Stewart coughed and cleared his throat, obviously effected by the sight of his co-worker’s battered body. “Above his left eye. Jesus! There’s a lot of blood!”
Glen slowly began to tug Colby away from the radio. He was afraid the details of Nick’s injuries would be more than she could bear hearing. He pulled her back toward one of the examination rooms and waited.
“His left leg is broken above the ankle,” Stewart said. He knelt beside Nick and carefully ran his hands over his extremities for further assessment, then unzipped Nick’s red EMT coat and ran his hands across his chest and ribs. When he lightly pressed against Nick’s ribcage, he heard a low moan rattle from Nick’s mouth.
“Gaffney! Wake up for me!” Stewart yelled at Nick. “Gaffney!”
“Shit!” Nick sighed, attempting to lift his head.
“Don’t move!” Stewart ordered Nick, then he pressed the talk button on his walkie-talkie. “He’s conscious!” he transmitted back to base.
Another sigh of relief washed through the gathered crew in the medical unit.
“Ask him what hurts!” the supervisor instructed.
A few seconds lapsed before Stewart’s voice could be heard again. “He said his ribs and Colby. What the hell is a Colby?”
Glen left Colby inside the examination room and stepped toward his boss. “Colby is Gaffney’s girlfriend,” he stated beside his boss’s ear.
“Gaffney has a girlfriend?” the man asked with surprise.
“Yeah,” Glen said, and turned to point at Colby pacing the floor of the examination room.
The boss rolled his eyes and grabbed Glen by the arm. “I’m putting you in charge of keeping her in there and away from me. If you fail, then I will have to ask her to leave. Are we clear?” he firmly stated.
“Yes. We’re clear.”
“Stewart!” the boss screamed into the radio. “Tell Gaffney, Colby is here and he can see her after we get him off the mountain.”
“He’s unconscious again,” Stewart replied with regret. “His breathing is really labored, boss. I’m going to give him a shot to try and relax him. Hopefully, that will relieve the pressure of his lungs pressing against his ribs.”
“Affirmative,” the boss announced.
“What’s the ETA of my back-up, boss?” Stewart asked, doing his best to stop the bleeding from Nick’s forehead.
“Ten minutes,” the boss stated. “I’ve got a helicopter on stand-by to transport Gaffney to County Hospital. Get him stabilized and be ready when EVAC arrives.”
“Roger that.”
It would be hours before the evacuation team returned to base with Nick and the other two injured skiers on-board the rescue vehicle. Nick was immediately loaded onto the waiting helicopter and flown to the nearest hospital, while Glen drove Colby to the emergency room to see Nick. By the time Colby arrived at the hospital, Nick was already being evaluated by the doctors, which prevented her from seeing him.
“I need to see him, Glen. I need to make sure Nick’s okay,” Colby said, wiping at the constant stream of tears running down her face.
“I know. Me, too,” Glen said. He leaned up against a window overlooking the parking lot. “I can’t help but wonder, if I had been with Nick instead of Stewart, maybe this accident might not have happened.”
“Why weren’t you with him?” Colby asked, with an accusatory tone.
Glen rubbed at his eyes. “I was with Lana last night and I overslept this morning.”
Colby shoved Glen hard on the shoulder. “Are you serious? Nick is laying in there because you overslept?”
Glen turned to face her, emotion straining his voice. “Look, I already feel bad enough about this. You couldn’t possibly make me feel any worse.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Colby said, shaking her head.
An hour later, a doctor entered the waiting room and walked toward Colby and Glen.
“I understand you came in with Nick Gaffney?” the doctor asked them both.
“Yes,” Glen said. “How is he?”
“My name is Dr. Weston. We have Mr. Gaffney stabilized and he’s being moved into a room. You can see him shortly.”
“Is he, okay?” Colby asked.
“He sustained a fractured fibula, three cracked ribs and a pretty significant concussion, along with a serious laceration to his forehead, which required ten stitches to close. As of now, he’s still unconscious and that has me the most concerned. Head trauma is always difficult to fully assess until the patient wakes up.”
“Oh my God!” Colby said, and covered her mouth.
“His ribs will
keep him sore for quite a while, but precluding any complications, I see no reason why he shouldn’t make a full recovery,” the doctor reassured, patting Colby on the shoulder. “I’ll have a nurse show you to his room shortly.”
“This is really bad, isn’t it?” Colby asked Glen.
“Colby, Nick is going to be fine - even the doctor said so.”
She nodded, even though Glen’s reassurance came with a tone of uncertainty. “He’s never been hurt like this, has he?” she asked.
“Nope. Up until this accident, his work record has been clean,” Glen said, watching Colby lean against the window frame, the sunlight making the tears on her cheeks glisten. “You really love him, don’t you?”
“Yes. Very much,” Colby said, her eyes focused on the cars in the parking lot.
“He’s crazy about you, too,” Glen smiled. “When you went back to California, he was a mess. I’ve never seen him that distraught - except after my sister left,” Glen shrugged. “You know about my sister, right?”
“Yes, Nick recently told me about their broken engagement.”
“It was a long time ago,” Glen sighed. “Nick is much happier now. I really don’t think it would have worked with my sister, had they followed through and gotten married.”
“Why not?” Colby asked.
“Honestly?”
“Yes, of course.”
“This isn’t painting a very nice picture of my sister, but Nick was too good for her. She didn’t deserve him. He changed after she left and I think that bothered me the most. He became very cynical and untrusting of everyone.” Glen turned and faced Colby. “When he came down from the mountain after spending those four days with you, I immediately sensed another change in him - but this one was for the better.”
Colby grinned. “Those four days were…magical and completely unexpected,” she said, feeling her face blush at the memory.
“I’m ashamed to admit this, but, after you left I went out of my way to hook Nick up with other women. It bothered me to see him so depressed.” Glen met Colby’s gaze again. “He never took advantage of the opportunities, though - in case you’re wondering.”
“I know, Glen,” she said, forcing a weak smile. “Although, I understand he came close with Lana.”
