“Too tall?” Ellie had to bite back a smile. “Daniel can build whatever he wants to build. You don’t get to decide what’s too tall. That’s not your choice to make. Now, what do you say to your brother?”
“Sowwy, Danny.”
And peace was restored.
Unfortunately, she’d left the stove on, and the onion was burned, leaving her to start over.
Ten minutes later, Daniel tripped and bumped his head on the floor. Then Daisy shut her finger in the toy box. No real damage was done in either case—except to Ellie’s nerves. In the end, she did what she swore she’d never do. She popped in a DVD and left Elmo to babysit the kids while she made dinner.
Life as a single mother was anything but graceful.
*
Jesse dropped down the ridge into Snow in Summer, a dense glade that cut from Eagle Ridge toward the double-blacks below. His skis surfed through the powder, sent it billowing into his face, a cloud of cold white. Face shots and fresh powder. Did winter get any better than this?
Of course, he wasn’t up here to have fun. It was closing time after a long and busy day. His job now was to sweep the double-blacks and glades to make sure no guests were left behind when the slopes closed. He’d already caught a pair of losers trying to make their way uphill outside the resort boundary for one last run. They hadn’t liked him much when he’d revoked their season passes for two weeks.
“You want to break the rules? You gotta pay.”
But now the slopes were empty, not a soul in sight.
Jesse let skis and snow carry him, the day’s tension melting away.
A glimpse of red.
Jesse stopped, then skied off into the trees for a closer look. Someone had probably lost a glove or something.
No, not a glove. It was a boot—and the boot was attached to a leg.
Adrenaline shot through Jesse’s veins. “Son of a bitch.”
He bent down, moved snow away with his hands, and found a young man upside down in a tree well, dried blood on his forehead. He reached down and felt for a pulse, certain the kid was dead.
The lucky bastard was still alive.
Jesse reached for his hand mic. “Forty-two to dispatch.”
Matt’s voice came back to him. “Go ahead.”
“Code 3, Snow in Summer. I’ve got an unconscious man, probably mid-twenties, upside down in a tree well. It looks like he hit the tree with his head as he fell headfirst into the well. No helmet. Suspected head injury, possible internal injuries and spinal cord trauma. We’re going to need a chopper.”
“Copy that. Patrollers are being dispatched via snowmobile to help prepare for chopper transport. Hang tight. Do what you can.”
“Forty-two out.” Jesse shucked off his pack, reached inside, and pulled out the emergency blanket. He didn’t dare move the kid by himself. All he could do until other patrollers arrived was try to keep him warm and monitor his pulse. He wrapped the blanket around him as best he could and listened for the sound of the approaching snowmobile.
*
By the time Ellie got the kids fed and bathed, read them bedtime stories, and got them to sleep, she was exhausted, the lingering effects of illness leaving her sapped.
She was about to retreat to the sanctity of sleep when the phone rang. It was Claire, her younger sister. A massage therapist, Claire lived in Boulder with her husband, Cedar, a computer engineer.
“Hey, sis. Mom says you’re having one hell of a weekend. What’s going on?”
Ellie told Claire the whole story—how Daisy had caught strep and passed it on, how the car had died in the middle of the snowstorm, how Jesse Moretti had given her a ride, how Dad had gotten the car towed to the garage and arranged for a rental. “He was out there at five this morning, shoveling my walk.”
“Dad needs to watch it. At his age—”
“Not Dad. Jesse Moretti. I heard a scraping sound and looked out to find him shoveling my walk.”
“Oh. Oh! I want to hear more about this guy.”
Ellie knew what her sister was thinking. “It’s not like that. Jesse is just my neighbor.”
A tall, good-looking, thoughtful neighbor, but Claire didn’t need to know that.
“Oh, well.” The disappointment in her sister’s voice almost made Ellie laugh. There was a moment of silence. “But is he single?”
Hope sprang eternal with Claire where Ellie’s love life was concerned.
“Yes—at least I think so.” He hadn’t mentioned a wife, and there’d been no ring on his finger. Yes, Ellie had looked. “He’s with the Team and works as a ski patroller. I heard he used to be an Army Ranger.”
He had that military bearing—an intensity, that constant awareness, a hint of aggression. She had noticed that despite being sick.
“So he’s brave, ripped, and super athletic, but broke. Hmm.”
“Claire, he’s my neighbor.”
“So much the better. He won’t have far to go when you hook up.”
“We’re not going to hook up.” Even as she said the words, Ellie’s pulse skipped, an image of Jesse standing shirtless at the reservoir flashing through her mind.
The man was blazing hot.