“There’s always some danger,” Joe said. “Being a mountaineer’s a little like being a pilot. There are old mountaineers, and bold mountaineers, but no old bold mountaineers. So you check conditions ahead of time, and right now, conditions are pretty safe. But you still check your terrain, and you pay attention. You know what to do if the unexpected happens, and you’ve got the equipment to do it. That’s how you get to go skiing again next year. This is important, so pay attention.”
“Hoo-ah,” Alyssa muttered, but she paid attention.
Twenty minutes more, and Joe was finally satisfied. “All right,” he said. “Looks like everybody’s got it. You good, Alec?”
“I promise to find you and dig you out,” Alec said. “And I know you know how, so if you’re on top of the snow, I’m not worried. The question is . . .”
They both looked at Alyssa, and she sighed with impatience. “You just saw me do it, and I’m betting Joe gives me the refresher course tomorrow. I’ll bet you give me a test, in fact, Joe. I’m not sure if I’m more scared of the avalanche or of you flunking me. Who knows what would happen?”
“Bad things,” Joe said, and he was smiling a little. “All right, let’s go find Rae. You want to ski with me a while, Alyssa? Want to show me your stuff?”
“Think you can keep up?”
“Oh,” he said, “I think so.”
He could, too. He didn’t even raise an eyebrow when she wanted to start out on one of the steepest slopes, and as soon as they started down, she realized why. She wouldn’t have called him graceful even now, but he skied tougher, pushed it harder than she’d ever have given him credit for, powering down the most technical runs with a raw athleticism that gave her a rush just to watch. Sometimes she led, sometimes he did, and she enjoyed the rare satisfaction of skiing with somebody even better than she was, somebody who enjoyed it as much as she did.
They must have covered close to half the mountain when Joe pulled up with an aggressive spray of snow at the base of a double black diamond run that had had Alyssa laughing aloud on the way down, trying to keep up, pushed to the edge and loving it.
“Lunch,” he said, breathing a little heavily.
“Time for one more first?” she begged.
She saw the flash of his teeth under the goggles. “No. After lunch, I promise. Having a good time?”
“You know I am. You’re great.”
“You’re not so bad yourself,” he said, and he was still smiling. “Come on. Lunch. Let’s find out how Rae did.”
“I don’t have to ask if you’ve had a fun morning, Alyssa,” Rae said when they were seated at a wooden table devouring pizza, overlooking the big windows showcasing skiers coming down the slope, none of them, Alyssa thought privately, doing it as well as she and Joe had. “It’s obvious.”
“Fantastic,” she said happily. “How about you?”
Rae rubbed her thighs ruefully. “I’m enjoying it, but I’m glad to take a break. I don’t have ski muscles. I’m going to be sore.”
“You did really well,” Alec said. “Improving all the time. You just haven’t skied enough.”
“Not a big part of my life plan,” she agreed. “I’m going to sit here a while longer before I go out again, and you’re going to ski with Joe and Alyssa. I saw you looking at those signs,” she went on when he would have protested. “I know you want to go down all the runs that say ‘Danger’ at the top. It’s written all over you.”
“The need for speed,” Alec said. “Sorry, baby, can’t help it. I enjoy being with you, too.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, and she was smiling at him. “Either that, or you enjoy being so much better at it than me.”
“You wound me,” he protested, sitting back and putting a hand over his heart. “Besides, it’s unfair to deny me the very, very occasional pleasure of knowing there’s something in this world I do better than you. I’d better not bring you up here too often, or you’re going to catch up, and then I’ll really be in trouble. Don’t invite her,” he told Joe. “That’s an order from your CEO.”
“My CEO can take a flying leap,” Joe answered, reaching for another slice of pizza. “Your ego can barely fit through the door as it is. How about this? I’m inviting your wife right now to come skiing with me anytime she wants to.”
“Whoa,” Alyssa said. “Them’s fightin’ words.”
“Good thing we’re friends,” Alec said as Rae started to laugh. “And that I’m so much better-looking than you.”
“Well, don’t worry,” Rae said. “I’m not going skiing without you, Alec, and I’m not going at all for the next hour, and I’m not going with you for the rest of the day, because I’m staying right on those blue-square routes, and there might even be some green circles in there. If I fall down too many more times, I’m telling you, it’s back to the bunny slope for me. And meanwhile, you’re going to be doing the hard stuff. If you’re going out with Joe and Alyssa tomorrow, you’d better practice, because I saw what they were doing out there.”
“My natural athletic ability will carry the day,” Alec proclaimed, making his wife smile again. “But all right, if you’re sure, we’ll meet you at the base of that lift right there at—four?” he asked Joe.
“Sounds good,” Joe said. “And a few hours of Alyssa and me schooling you sounds good, too.”
Cliff, Lance, and Talon
“How’d you do?” Alec asked Rae when they met up again.
“Not too bad,” she said. “How about you?”
“Terrific. But, damn, Liss and Joe are good. They already kicked my ass. By the end of the day tomorrow, you can expect my ego to be fully downsized.”
“What do you think?” Joe asked. “One more run, something we can all do together, and call it a day?”
“Sure,” Rae said, although Alyssa could tell she was tired. “As long as it’s easy.”
Joe chose one of the easier intermediate routes, and they set off down the slope, three of them taking a more vertical descent, and Rae quickly falling behind. The light was flat now, the changes in terrain harder to see, and Alyssa, who’d been a little disappointed not to finish off the day with a bang, privately conceded that Joe had probably chosen well. They reached the bottom fairly quickly and turned to wait for Rae.
Five minutes went by, and Alec took a look at his watch. “She should be down by now. Hope she didn’t fall again. I should probably have sat this out with her.”
A few more minutes, and his anxiety was showing. “She should be down,” he said again to Joe. “Could she have skied off the route?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, but he was down on a knee, his day pack on the ground in front of him. He unfastened his bindings, attached skins to the bottoms of his skis.
“I didn’t know you brought those,” Alyssa said, trying to make conversation, trying to make this all right.
“Just in case.” He put his skis on again and stood up. “I’m going back up to look for her.”
He set off, moving fast straight up the mountain, and Alec was shifting on his skis, stabbing a pole into the snow, his normally confident expression giving way to anxiety as Joe’s figure receded, then disappeared from sight.
“I’m sure she’s OK,” Alyssa tried again. “She just fell or something. It can take a while to get up when you’re not used to it.”
“She’s had a lot of practice today,” Alec said. “She knows how to get up.” He gave a nearby drift another stab, and Alyssa couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she didn’t say anything.
More achingly slow minutes passed, until at last, they saw a lone skier coming down the mountain.
“Is that Joe?” Alec asked.
“No,” Alyssa said. She knew the look of Joe now, and the skier didn’t have his size, or his moves.
It was a teenage kid, they saw as he skied to a stop at the bottom of the lift near where they stood. “There’s somebody hurt up there,” he told the attendant, looking excited to be reporting it. “They told m
e to ask you to get the ski patrol.”
The attendant nodded, pulled a radio off his belt and spoke into it. Alec was at the kid’s side in an instant.
“Who is it?” he asked him. “Who’s hurt?”
The kid looked at him in surprise. “Uh . . . a lady.”
“How badly hurt is she?” Alec pressed. “Where? Is anybody with her?”
“Yeah, a guy’s with her,” the kid said, backing up a bit at the intensity on Alec’s face. “I don’t know how bad. I didn’t see. The guy just waved me down and told me she was hurt, and to ask them to send the ski patrol. That’s all I know.”
“Alec,” Alyssa said, her hand on his arm. “We don’t know. I’m sure it’s all right.”
“I should have sat this one out with her,” he said again. “She was too tired, and the light was too bad. Stupid—selfish—I should have sat it out. Where are they?”
He subsided, but his anxiety was almost a tangible thing now, and he couldn’t stand still. The wait felt endless, but it was probably only a few minutes before they saw another skier carving a quick route down the mountain, and this time, Alyssa recognized Joe. And, behind him, a skier towing a sled, a sled that had something on it, and she thought Alec was going to jump out of his skin.
Joe came to a quick stop, pushed up his goggles, and spoke to Alec. “It’s her knee. She torqued it good. It’s hurting pretty bad, and she might have got a little banged up, took a hard fall, but that’s all. She’s talking, didn’t black out. She’s OK.”
Alyssa saw Alec let go of a long breath, and had to wonder for a bleak moment what it would be like to matter that much to another person.
The patroller skied up to join them, and it was Rae on the sled, of course, covered with a blanket and fastened down with straps, and Alec was at her side, bending down on his skis to talk to her, pulling off his glove to stroke her face as if he couldn’t stand not to.
“Baby,” Alyssa heard him say, “you OK? I’m so sorry.”
Rae smiled at him, though Alyssa could tell it took an effort, because the pain was there in the tightness of her lips, the pinched look of her. “Just . . . embarrassed to be—riding on the sled. Sorry. So stupid. I fell. I tried to get up, but—I couldn’t. I thought I could wait for it to feel better. Joe made me get on the sled.”
“I’m taking her to the clinic,” the ski patroller told Alec. “You all can come along, but we need to go.”
They followed him to the clinic, stopped outside. Alyssa and Alec took off their skis, stuck them into the rack outside the low wooden building, and Alec got Rae’s skis and poles as well. Joe, though, didn’t follow suit.
“I’ll ski down for the car,” he said. Alec nodded, and Joe took off.
A wait inside the clinic’s reception area, then, while Alec filled in forms, and then they sat and waited some more until the door opened to the sight of Rae in a wheelchair pushed by a middle-aged woman, and followed by what Alyssa assumed was a doctor, judging by the white lab coat and the stethoscope. Young, tall, dark hair with a bit of curl to it, looking like he belonged in a movie about a good-looking doctor working at a ski area. A romantic comedy, probably, from the jaunty confidence of his walk. When he got closer, she could see the name embroidered in black script on the white coat. Cliff Monaghan, M.D.
“Your wife’s got an MCL strain,” the doctor told Alec as the nurse, or whatever she was, headed through the door again to the back of the clinic. “As I’ve explained to her, this is one of the most common injuries we see up here, but she did a pretty good job of it. Sounds like she was going fast when she fell, and that twists the knee with more force, can increase the severity of the injury. I’m recommending that you head on over to a hospital with her and get it checked out. The ligament’s got some fairly significant tearing, that’s my guess, judging by the amount of pain and the fact that she can’t move it. For right now, we’ve got an icepack and an elastic bandage on her, but Carolyn at the desk there will give you a couple options for hospitals. I’d like to see you check that out before the swelling gets any worse.”
Alec already had his phone out. “I’ll call my brother. He’s a doctor.”
The doctor hesitated. “You’ll want a hospital, and if it were my wife, I’d want a specialist.”
“I know,” Alec said impatiently. “I’ve got a specialist.” He turned away, was talking into the phone.
“My brother-in-law,” Rae explained. Her face was even more pale, and she sounded like she was speaking through gritted teeth. “Gabe Kincaid, in Truckee.”
“Really?” The doctor laughed. “Small world. I send a fair amount of business Gabe’s way. You couldn’t do better.”
Alec was holding out the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Hey,” the doctor said into the phone. “Cliff Monaghan here, up at Alpine Meadows. How you doin’? He paused to listen. “Yeah,” he said after a minute. “You’ll want to get this lady into an MRI machine tonight, I’d say. Looks like Grade III MCL to me. Quite a bit of pain, enough so I didn’t want to palpate.”
Another pause. “OK,” he said. “I’ll hook her up with the good stuff.” He winked at Rae. “Talk to you soon.”
He hung up, handed the phone back to Alec. “Back to my magic cabinet for some samples. I’ll be right with you. Meet you at the front desk.”
True to his word, he was back again within a couple minutes with two small white packets with a name Alyssa recognized. That was the good stuff. He held them out to Rae, still in her wheelchair. “Two of these puppies right now,” he promised, “and you’ll be a lot more comfortable in that MRI machine.”
Alyssa went over to the water cooler, filled a little paper cup, and brought it back to Rae, glad to have something, even this minor, to do.
“Let me guess,” Dr. Cliff said to her as Rae swallowed pills and Alec paid the receptionist. “You’re a Kincaid too.”
“Sister,” she said. “Alyssa.” He was cute. Pretty insensitive, though. No pain pills until Gabe had asked for them? If Rae had broken her leg, he probably would have advised that they shoot her, put her out of her misery.
“It’s the eyes that give you away. Beautiful eyes. I wouldn’t say that to him,” he said, inclining his head in Alec’s direction and flashing Alyssa a smile, “but I’ll say it to you. Unmarried sister, I hope?”
She raised her eyebrows. “If anybody’s asking.”
“Well, isn’t this my lucky day. I meet Gabe Kincaid’s family, and there’s even a bonus in it. You all will probably be heading out after this, though, which is a real shame.”
She hadn’t even considered it, but of course they would. The thought of it gave her a purely selfish pang of regret for her lost chance to try backcountry skiing. “Probably,” she said. “Unfortunately.”
“Accidents are my job, but they’re not much fun, are they? Let’s hope you get a little more skiing time in, if not this trip, another one. We’re having a good snow year. Be a shame to miss it.” He pulled a business card from his breast pocket, unclipped a pen from the same spot, and scribbled something on it. “This is me. I’ve put my cell on there. Give me a call, if you’re around. You can let me know how your . . . sister-in-law, I guess, is doing.”
“Hmm,” she said, flicking the card and giving him her best are-you-man-enough? look. The handsome doctor flirting with her—well, that was fun, even if she didn’t care much for him. Eat your heart out, Joe. “I thought you doctor types talked to each other,” she said, and if she was flirting back, well, a girl needed to practice. “I won’t know all the technical words. Maybe you should ask Gabe instead.”
“Oh, if you tell me, I think I can get the gist.” He smiled back, showing some very straight white teeth this time. It was a pretty good smile, and a pretty practiced one, too. “And I’m always on the lookout for a good partner. Skiing, that is.”
“Uh-huh.” She shifted the load of coats she was carrying—hers, Alec’s, and Rae’s—found a pocket, shoved the card inside. �
�I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Well, if you lose it,” he said, “you know where I work.”
He turned to shake hands with Rae and Alec. “Take care,” he said, serious again. “You can’t do better than Gabe, so I know I’m leaving you in good hands.”
With a last smile for Alyssa, he returned to the back regions, ready for the next unfortunate victim of the slopes.
They had a wait, then, until the door to the clinic opened and Joe came in. He’d changed from his ski boots, Alyssa saw.
“How we doing?” he asked.
“Seems I’ve abused my MCL,” Rae said. “Because when I fall, I fall big.”
“Need to take her to see Gabe in Truckee,” Alec told him. “He says it’s a thirty-minute drive. All right?”
“Sure,” Joe said. “Car’s right outside.”
Alec pushed Rae to the door, waited while Joe held it open for them, then took the wheelchair ramp down to where Joe’s car sat waiting. As soon as Joe had the door open, Alec picked Rae up despite her protest, deposited her gently in the front passenger seat, waited while she fastened her shoulder belt, then closed her door.
“Alec,” she said once the others had collected the skis and poles, Joe had stowed them in the back of the car, and they were heading out of the lot, “You can’t go around carrying me. I could have got in the car myself. I was only hesitating because I don’t have any shoes on, and I wasn’t thrilled about stepping in the snow.”
“Nah,” he said from his spot behind her. “That’s why I married a skinny woman, so I could look powerful carrying her around. Now, if it had been Alyssa, we’d have been in trouble.”
Alyssa gasped in outrage, but Rae beat her to it. “That is such a fail. So not smooth. I am not skinny. Slender is the word you’re going for. And Alyssa hardly weighs more than I do.”
“Oh, yes, I do,” Alyssa put in.
Rae ignored her. “Even Joe knows you don’t insult a woman about her weight. Either direction. I don’t care if she is your sister, that’s a major loss of points, huh, Joe?”
“Yep,” he answered. “Nobody ever accused me of being smooth, but you’re right, even I’m smarter than that. Guess we’ll blame stress.”
Asking for Trouble (The Kincaids) Page 13
