by Ava Miles
Unhappy employees tended to leave their jobs, he told himself, but he knew that wasn’t why he’d said it. He just wanted her to be happy—Moira, with the encompassing laugh, the green eyes, and the challenging stare. The woman who’d suggest they invite their competitors to the fundraiser and stood her ground in the face of his disagreement.
He realized he was seeing her less and less like an employee and more and more like a partner in Evan’s vision. Except for the whole inviting their competitors to the fundraiser notion, which he planned to nip in the bud with Evan later. Moira’s mind was set for reasons he understood. Artemis was establishing itself as the premier invention center in the world, so they needed to include all of the companies that applauded and recruited innovation to make themselves legitimate.
But it was a goddamn corporate nightmare for Quid-Atch. Chase was always worrying about safeguarding the secrets in their government bids and contracts and keeping their highly skilled employees from jumping to a competitor like K-Barker. That was why they offered them the sun, moon, and stars.
“You can’t imagine ever moving back to Laramie?” Moira asked, refocusing his attention on the present.
“No,” he said flatly.
Because he and Moira were so linked by their gaze, he saw the ripple of shock crest across her beautiful face. Had he sounded too harsh? When she finally broke their stare-off, he felt bereft, and found himself struggling with the sensation. He was acting like a moonstruck boy, and he didn’t like it one bit.
“What is it?” he asked.
“There’s smoke over on the bench,” she said, raising her hand against the sun. “A lot of it.”
He’d seen the bench on his previous visits. It was one of the flatter areas cut into the mountain to make room for new housing developments.
Chase followed her gaze, squinting against the bright light reflecting off the snow. What he saw was enough to make his insides roll over in his gut. “Fire.”
He knew that thick, black smoke. Had seen it before in the hometown she’d just mentioned. It had destroyed his family’s ranch when he was twelve—and everything they’d worked so hard to build. Worse, it had destroyed their pride. The loss of it all had driven his father to take his own life six months later when the insurance check arrived, not enough to help them start over.
His mother had never been the same. He had never been the same.
A sharp pang ricocheted through his chest and down his left arm, and he stumbled enough that he had to plant his ski poles to regain his balance.
“Are you all right?” Moira asked, walking sideways in the snow to reach him.
His gaze was focused on the smoke. “Someone’s house is on fire.”
Her hand touched his arm. “Let’s pray the fire department comes quickly.”
Another sharp pain rocked through his chest, but he bit his lip hard enough to keep from making a sound.
“Chase?” Moira asked, her eyes scanning his face. “Are you okay?”
He was sweating inside his blue ski suit, and his heart was pounding in hard, painful beats. “I’m fine. We should ski down and meet Evan. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Then he pushed off with his poles.
“Hey!” someone called in panic, and when he swung his head to the right, he saw a woman with a pink fleece cap gliding into his path. He turned his skis inward hard to avoid hitting her and felt the snow give underneath him. Losing control of his skis, he sailed off the path down a hill. The sharp descent increased his speed, but he was too off-balance to turn or stop. He was hurtling toward the wooden fence with the yellow caution tape on the side of the mountain, a marker designed to keep skiers from journeying into an unskiable area. He made one last effort to use his poles to avert disaster, but his skis slid out from underneath him. All he saw was the fence.
He struck it hard.
Chapter 2
“Chase!” Moira shouted as he careened into the fence.
The sound of him thudding into—and then through—the wood slats made every hair on her body rise up. His skis flew off in opposite directions and then one of his poles vaulted through the air like a spear before sinking into the snow yards away like a punctuation mark.
“Oh my God!” she heard people saying around her.
Shaking off the shock, Moira dug her poles into the ground and skied toward him, crouching lower as she passed the broken part of the fence. It was a dangerous fifty-foot drop, and possibly a stupid move on her part, but she had to do something. Chase was down there, and she was a good skier. She took it slow, using steady mogul-like maneuvers down the hill. When she reached him, he was lying at an odd angle on his stomach.
“Chase!”
His head was turned to the side, and with his goggles on, she couldn’t see if his eyes were open. Scared to touch him should it hurt him, she gently placed her hand on his back.
“Chase! Are you okay?”
She scanned his body, and that was when she noticed his leg twisted under him, something that made the gorge rise in her throat.
“Get a medic!” she shouted to the skiers up the hill.
“Is Chase okay?” Evan shouted down to her.
“He’s hurt,” she yelled back. Badly.
“I’ll get help,” he called back.
She watched him ski off and then turned back to Chase. He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t so much as groaned. Fear drove an ice pick into her belly. Was he unconscious? A fall like this could certainly have caused it. Goodness, how she wished her brother were here. Andy was a doctor—he would know what to do.
“Help will be here soon, Chase,” she told him, deciding her best course was to take off her skis and sit beside him.
His right arm was turned underneath him in a way that made her queasy, but his other hand was palm down in the snow.
“Wake up, Chase,” she told him, laying her hand gently over his. She took off one of her gloves and touched his jaw. He didn’t stir. She checked her watch, thinking it best to keep record of how long he was out. Minutes passed, and with every single one of them, she grew more afraid for him. What if he didn’t wake up?
He groaned then, and she jerked her hand back before resuming their connection.
“Chase, it’s Moira,” she told him. “You’ve had a bad fall. Try not to move. The medics will be here shortly.”
She looked up the hill. There was still no sign of Evan or a red-suited medic, but more people were gathering. Time continued to pass, heedless of her worries, as Chase lay there unmoving. She found herself rocking in place, offering up snippets of prayers.
“Oh, Christ,” he finally said, sucking in a breath. “What…happened? Where?”
He sounded completely disoriented. “You had a skiing accident. Help is coming. Lie still.”
“What? Fuck, shit, damn. This…hurts.”
When he tried to roll to his side, he cried out in agony. She fought off a shudder at the raw pain in his tone.
“Don’t move,” she made sure to say in a gentle voice, noting his right leg was lying listless and…bent like a broken stick. Oh, God. “I think you broke your leg.”
“Ah, fuck,” he groaned. “My arm too, feels like. Jesus Christ.”
She was unfazed by his language. “Just lie still,” she repeated. “Evan went for help.” She stood up and cupped her hands against her mouth so the sound could carry. “Where’s the medic? Any sign?”
“Your friend said he’d get them,” a tall snowboarder shouted back. “Do you want me to come down and help you?”
“No,” she shouted back. “There’s nothing you can do. He’s broken his leg, we think. And his arm maybe. We’ll need a stretcher.”
“Fuck that,” Chase called out. “I’m not a goddamn baby.”
With two brothers, Moira was used to tough guys. She crouched back down beside him. “You think you can ski out of here with a broken leg and maybe a broken arm?”
He pounded his good hand in the snow. “I can fucking do a
nything I set my mind to. Help me up.”
From their very first meeting—her job interview at this very hotel—she hadn’t minced words with Chase. “Don’t be some stupid He-Man. Have you looked at that hill? I barely got down here.” Okay, that wasn’t completely accurate, but she didn’t want to encourage him.
He tried to lift his head and groaned. “What the hell were you thinking? Skiing down that drop after me? You should have left me alone.”
“Couldn’t do it.” Gently, she took off his ski goggles. “Does your head hurt?”
“Are you kidding?”
“I mean, do you think you can turn it?” She kept her gaze on him as he moved his head slowly to the right and then the left.
“It’s fun making snow angels with my face,” he quipped in a hoarse voice. “God, I feel like I took a few punches to the jaw. But yes, I can move my head. Satisfied?”
“Yes.” She dug out the snow near his head and then gently settled his head on her thigh. “You’ll be warmer without your face planted in the snow.”
“This doesn’t qualify as appropriate behavior,” Chase muttered. “Oh, Christ, I can’t believe I took a fall like this. I never fall.”
Something told her that he wasn’t only talking about a physical, time and space, disaster. Chase Parker didn’t fall down in life like most people, she imagined. He wouldn’t allow it.
“Maybe the fire across the valley distracted you,” she said, looking over in that direction. Black smoke was still rising in the sky unchecked. She hoped the family was safe, if they’d been home.
“It wasn’t the house. I just didn’t fucking see that woman… Oh, fuck this hurts. Shit, damn…ignore my cussing. Not appropriate.”
“Oh, shut up about that already. I fucking wrote the human resources manual for Artemis. These are not normal conditions. You’re lying here with broken bones and likely a concussion.”
“I was out?” he asked, his head heavy on her thigh.
She was tempted to put her hand on his head in comfort, but felt it would be weird. Plus he probably had a huge robin’s egg under his black fleece ski cap. “Yes, and we both know how dangerous that can be.”
“Good thing I have excellent health insurance,” he quipped and then sucked in his breath again. “It’s like a hot poker is burning my right side and the left is freezing from the ice.”
“Let’s pray the medics bring blankets. And yes, you have great health insurance.”
“Negotiated the plan myself,” he muttered.
“Of course, you did,” she said agreeably, finally resting her hand gently on the back of his damp neck. “This doesn’t hurt, does it?”
He was silent for a moment. “No.”
His words were gruff, and she found herself blinking back tears—unusual for her. Must be the shock of the situation. Good thing she and Caroline were getting together tonight. She’d been looking forward to it, mostly because her sister had a mysterious lunch date with their great uncle and they were both dying to know what it was about, but now she had another reason. After the morning she’d had, she would need to vent.
“You’re going to be okay,” Moira told Chase.
There was a swoosh of activity above them, and then she heard, “We’re coming down for you guys.”
Two red-suited medics skied around the wrecked fence. She spotted Evan at the top, his head bare now, peering anxiously down at them.
“Help is here,” she said.
Chase nestled his face more comfortably into her thigh and let out a pained sigh.
“About goddamn time. I’m turning into a popsicle.”
“Maybe we could market that,” Moira said, knowing she was rambling but unable to stop. “An executive popsicle—”
“Shut up,” Chase muttered. “I have something to say before those yahoos get here.”
She shut up.
“Thanks for coming after me, Moira.”
That shut her up even more.
Chapter 3
Even though it had required her to take a vacation day, Caroline Hale hadn’t even considered ignoring her uncle’s invitation for lunch at Brasserie Dare. First, Uncle Arthur rarely took a lunch. Everyone in Dare Valley knew he’d eaten a sandwich, pretzels, and a green apple at his desk for some sixty years, with red hots for dessert, as he liked to joke. Second, the only time Uncle Arthur ate lunch out with someone was either for a story or to drill some sense into a person.
Since she’d spent practically every moment of the last couple of weeks working on a new show for the art gallery she curated for in Denver, Caroline couldn’t think of any stories Uncle Arthur could wrest from her for his famous newspaper, The Western Independent. Moira had told her to keep on her toes around their uncle. They’d concluded he was planning to drill some sense into her.
For the life of her, she couldn’t imagine why. Caroline was doing great right now career-wise. Of course, there were currently no prospects in the dating department, but that could change any day. She was an eternal optimist.
Uncle Arthur was already seated at his special table when she arrived—he was the restaurant’s primary investor, after all. There was an untouched basket of steaming hot baguette in front of him, accompanied by a wad of butter in a small clay dish, reminiscent of Provence. The chef and her cousin by marriage, Brian McConnell, paid attention to details like that.
“My dear,” Uncle Arthur said, rising half out of his chair. “You honor me with your presence.”
When Uncle Arthur kicked off with bullshit like that, Caroline knew she was in trouble. Just like she and Moira had thought. Best be plain speaking about it. He’d run over her otherwise. “Honor you? Did you forget to take your medication this morning?”
He harrumphed, which made her smile as she pulled out her chair and sat down across from him.
“Why can’t I say something like that?” he asked, his white, bushy eyebrows pinched closer together with his glare. “Didn’t you drive all the way from Denver on a work day to have lunch with me?”
“You know I did,” she said. “You’re usually not so mysterious. Besides, you wouldn’t budge on shifting this to a weekend.”
He made a rude gesture with his hand. “Too much family around. Everywhere I turn on weekends, there are happy couples making goo-goo eyes at each other and babies everywhere. Even Rhett and Abbie’s new girl is being shoved in my face every time I turn around. Do I have to adopt all the children in this town as my grandchildren?”
He loved every minute of the attention, and he damn well knew it. “You’re just being ornery. And Rhett and Abbie’s little girl is the sweetest baby ever.”
“Bah! You young people say that about every baby. In my day, we just stuck them in a drawer with a blanket and told them to go to bed.”
She bit her lip. He was in a mood. “The good ol’ days before modern cribs. Have you ordered a drink yet?”
He gestured to his coffee cup. “They’re always pushing that sparkling water when I come here. Like I want fizz all over my face.”
“Well, I’m going to have a glass of wine since I’m staying over with Moira.” She and her sister had plans to watch Magic Mike for the hundredth time and drink at least one bottle of wine while consuming an entire pepperoni pizza. Bliss, to her mind. After they conferred about her mysterious meeting with Uncle Arthur, of course. Damn, but she missed having her sister in the same city.
“Be irresponsible of you to drink and drive back to Denver,” Uncle Arthur said, shoving the breadbasket her way. “Might as well have some of this fancy bread too.”
She signaled the server, who seemed to be waiting, and ordered her wine and the sparkling water just to get Uncle Arthur’s goat. He narrowed his blue eyes at her, and she tried and failed to hold back her smile.
The waiter was just walking away when Brian came striding across the restaurant toward them, the kitchen doors swinging shut behind him. “Hey, you two. Caroline, I heard you were meeting Uncle Arthur about something secret.”
>
“Secret?” Uncle Arthur scoffed. “Stick to cooking, kid. Journalism is safe without you pursuing stories.”
But Brian wouldn’t have used that word—secret—unless he had a reason. Did Jill, his wife, know something Caroline didn’t? Or had Moira said something? In a big family, sometimes it was hard to know.
“What do you recommend for lunch, Brian?” Caroline asked.
He hung his thumbs in his pants. “For you, I would suggest the grilled octopus with lemon tarragon sauce for an appetizer.”
“Octopus! Good Lord. What is the world coming to?”
Brian didn’t even look in Uncle Arthur’s direction, but she saw his mouth twitch. “For an entrée, I would go with the lamb chops. Grilled to perfection with a black pepper cream sauce and a side of frisée.”
“Sounds delicious.” She wanted to purr, it sounded so good.
“If you’re over your gastronomic ecstasy, Caroline, I’ll order.” Uncle Arthur rested his elbows on the table. “French onion soup and a croque-monsieur sandwich.”
Brian sighed. “Arthur, you always get that. Why not try—”
“Do I look like I’m interested in trying anything new? I’m in my final years here. The routine of life comforts me.”
Usually Caroline would have called bullshit, but there was something in his voice. Brian glanced over at her, and it was obvious he’d sensed it too.
She reached for her uncle’s hand. “You look better than ever to me.”
“Yeah,” Brian said, rocking on his heels. “I want to be as alive and hopping as you are when I’m your age.”
The side of Uncle Arthur’s mouth tipped up before flattening out. “That’s my order. Go make it happen, Brian. You’ve been shooting the breeze with me long enough.”
Brian rolled his eyes. “All right, I’ll head back to the kitchen, but your soup is coming out with Caroline’s appetizer, Arthur. Don’t fight me on this.”
Uncle Arthur muttered to himself as Brian headed away from the table. “I hate all this pomp and circumstance.”
