“Why did you do that? You know I don’t want to see him! Now he’s going to think I wanted him to find me.”
Claire surveyed the scenery, a satisfied smile on her face. “Lighten up. You have physical and emotional needs. You need adult companionship. What would it hurt if you got together with this Jesse guy for a while? You don’t have to marry him. If he’s into you, then why not go for it?”
“You don’t understand.”
It wasn’t as simple as Claire made it sound.
Since Dan died, nothing had been simple.
*
“Ellie Meeks wanted me to tell you she’s here,” Kenny said over the radio. “She was headed up the Little Bear lift with another woman.”
“Copy that. Thanks.” Jesse started back down the slope, patrolling Silver Bullet, one of the resort’s double-blacks.
He would never understand women, even if he lived to be a hundred. Yesterday, Ellie had made it clear that they were nothing but neighbors. Today, she’d had one of the lift operators flag him as if she wanted to see him. It made no sense.
What made even less sense was the fact that Jesse was happy about this.
No, he wasn’t going to ask her out again. He’d gotten the message. He wanted to see her because he needed to apologize.
When she’d turned him down and then suggested that he’d volunteered for the first-aid tent just to get closer to her, he’d let himself get butthurt. He’d acted like she’d read him wrong, let her believe she was out of line.
Way to be an asshole, buddy.
He was a better man than that. He could take “no” for an answer.
Okay, so maybe she hadn’t been entirely right. He’d had to choose between the kids’ snowman contest and the first-aid tent. That had been a no-brainer. But he had been looking forward to spending time with her.
Of course, there was no chance of him running into Ellie. They were on different mountains on opposite sides of the resort.
He was wondering whether he might be able to find her on his lunch break when a skier in a lime-green jacket and red hat flew past him, bombing his way down the run, almost colliding with other skiers and breaking a half dozen safety rules as he went.
There was no way Jesse could catch him, not without putting other skiers on the slope at risk. He reached for his mic. “Forty-two to dispatch.”
Matt replied. “Forty-two, go ahead.”
“I need a couple of patrollers at the base of Silver Bullet. We’ve got an out-of-control skier. He’s wearing a lime-green jacket and a red hat.”
“Copy, forty-two.”
Jesse skied to the bottom of the run, expecting to find the kid in the green jacket spending some quality time with a few patrollers. Instead, he found Amanda and Steve standing empty-handed.
“Sorry, Jesse,” said Amanda. “I guess we missed him.”
“Shit.”
Jesse went on a few more patrol runs, stopping to aid a skier who was having an asthma attack. When the skier had been evacuated via snowmobile, he headed down to the lodge for lunch. He’d just taken a seat when Kenny walked by, headed for the grill.
Kenny saw him, waved. “Sorry about your friend, man.”
Jesse had no idea what Kenny meant. “My friend?”
“Yeah, you know. The woman who wanted to see you. They brought her down in a toboggan about ten minutes ago—knee injury or something.”
“Jesus.” Jesse had heard that call, but he’d had no idea it involved Ellie.
He shoved his lunch back into the bag and got to his feet, then headed over to the First Aid Center. A knee injury was the last damned thing Ellie needed. How was she going to keep up with the twins? How would she work? If it was a break or a torn ligament, she might even need surgery.
Damn it.
He stepped inside.
Ellie stood in the middle of the room, talking on her cell phone and walking back and forth, still in her ski boots. She wasn’t limping. She didn’t look injured at all.
She ended the call and walked over to him. “Hey.”
“I heard you’d been hurt.”
“Oh, that was my sister.” She pointed to a dark-haired version of herself that was lying in one of the beds, her leg elevated and splinted. “Jesse, meet Claire.”
*
Ellie pushed Claire’s wheelchair out to the parking lot. “I called the ER and checked her in. We shouldn’t have to wait too long.”
Jesse walked beside them, carrying their skis and boots. “Smart.”
Ellie couldn’t help but feel drawn to him. It wasn’t just that he looked like every Colorado girl’s vision of heaven in that Ski Patrol parka. It was the fact that he cared about her. She’d seen the worry on his face when he’d burst through the door at the First Aid Center. He’d thought she was hurt, and once again he’d come to help her.
“I don’t need to go to the ER,” Claire protested.
“Stop being stubborn. I’m the registered nurse, so I get to make these decisions. Besides, Cedar is meeting us there.”
Claire looked up at Jesse. “Do you see how she bullies me?”