Snow Angel (14 page)

“Don’t forget your brain buckets,” his dad called over all the racket, and everyone held their helmets in the air in acknowledgment. Bill gave them all the double thumbs up and moved forward.

The storm had blown itself out overnight, leaving a heavy new blanket of mostly undisturbed white over everything as far as the eye could see. It glistened like diamond dust in the sun, the scene so pure it hardly seemed real. A cloudless blue sky stretched overhead, though it was bitterly cold.

At least it wasn’t windy. Jacob bounced lightly in place and pulled his hat more firmly over his ears.

The parking lot showed signs of recent activity—the various shuttles coming and going, taking fellow guests to the two main ski areas, the Bag Jump, the snowmobile rental office, and beyond.

A narrow path led from the edge of the wide exit out of the condo’s covered walkway. It provided a clear, straight shot down to the waiting area for the next shuttle, evidence that they were not the first ones out this morning. Everything else remained pristine.

Filling his lungs with the sharp morning air, Jacob tilted his head back, eyes closed, face to the sun. Anticipation curled through his stomach. There was nothing better than fresh powder on challenging slopes and a gorgeous day.

Then he opened his eyes and saw Melinda directly in front of him, and the anticipation in his gut spiraled into a swooping sensation that left him dizzy. The voices all around him faded and he felt like he was looking down a long white tunnel. Everything vanished but Melinda.

She sparkled.

There was no other way to describe her, and looking at her in the mountain light shot a hard blow to his solar plexus.

He could not be falling for his friend.

No way.

But he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Melinda’s ski jacket and pants were white and pale blue, making her eyes look even darker by comparison, and her hair gleamed in the sun, one thick, glossy braid falling down her back. Her cheeks were pink with cold. He knew her skin was every bit as soft as it looked, and his fingers itched to touch.

She stepped her boots into the bindings on her skis, preparing to ski down to the shuttle stop, and laughed at something Eddie said. The sound sent a delicious shiver down his spine. Jacob had to stop himself from calling for the attention of the rest of their group to note her perfection, though he did glance around, casual like, astounded that no one else seemed to notice the angel in their midst.

How could they not be as bowled over by her as he was?

Singly and in pairs, their group began the descent to the shuttle boarding area. Jacob stood rooted to the spot. This could not be happening. He—

“Earth to Jake,” Rick said, clapping his gloved hands in front of Jacob’s face. “You coming, man? I have a need to beat your ass on a slope. Repeatedly.”

Jacob shook himself like a dog throwing off a pile of deep snow. “In your dreams, diva.”

He pulled his tinted goggles down to cover his eyes and shoved off, following Melinda, who was already halfway to the bottom of the hill.

By the time he and Rick got to the lines for the shuttles, Melinda had already popped her skis back off and queued up for the bus going to the beginner’s slopes. Jacob frowned. He was half tempted to go with her, to spend the day with her and goof off, enjoying each other’s company. But he’d never hear the end of it from the guys.

“Come on, Mel,” Jacob called instead, “come with us. We’ll go slow today.”

“The hell we will,” Gabe said in disgust before she could answer. “If you wanna build snowmen and play Barbies with the girls, that’s on you. The rest of us are skiing.”

“Barbies!” Melinda huffed, crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out at Gabe when he winked at her.

“Yeah, let her go to her baby hills,” Rick chimed in, aiming a mock-patronizing look at Melinda. “We don’t need no stinkin’ girls getting in our way.”

Danny opened his mouth to add his opinion to the mix, caught his mother’s eye, and wisely subsided.

“Is that a fact, Richard?” Aunt Pat inquired sweetly of her middle son.

Rick mimed zipping and locking his lips, then throwing away the key, an angelic smile on his face.

Aunt Pat snorted. “That’s what I thought.”

“Dude, you are so whipped,” Wendell said to Rick, though not loud enough for Aunt Pat to hear. Christian and Eddie only laughed.

“We’ll see you at the lodge for lunch, Mel,” Karen said as the first shuttle pulled in. “Call if you need anything, and if your ankle starts hurting again, go back to the condo and rest it for a while.”

“I’ll be fine, Mom,” Melinda said. “See you later.”

Jacob watched as Melinda climbed aboard the shuttle, along with two families with young children, and a couple of teenage girls who kept giving him and the other guys the eye, then giggling into their gloved hands.

Christian and Wendell gave the girls an eye back, and the giggling increased exponentially.

Rolling his own eyes, Jacob blew out a breath. Not only were the teen girls jailbait, they were giggly jailbait. He was so not interested. He searched out Melinda in her seat. She waved from her window as the shuttle pulled away.

Their shuttle pulled in right after hers departed, and Jacob put Melinda out of his head as best he could, focusing on the day ahead as they climbed aboard. He’d think about what all the craziness meant later.

Or never.

Never would be good.

The fifteen of them nearly filled the shuttle, and the trash talk flew. Most of the adults would stick to the intermediate or advanced slopes, but he and the rest of the guys, along with Peter Thomas and Melinda’s Aunt Pat and Uncle Allan, would head straight to the expert runs.

Later in the week, they’d go to the snowboard parks and the Bag Jump—the best one in Utah, according to the pamphlet—to mix it up, or maybe rent some snowmobiles for a few hours, though most of their time would be spent on the slopes.

Jacob cracked his knuckles and rotated his neck to work out the kinks from sleeping on the tiny twin bed.

One of the perks of their annual ski trip was the utter exhaustion at the end of each day. It was a good exhaustion.

All-consuming.

With any luck, he’d be far too tired at night to think much about Melinda at all.

CHAPTER TEN

Melinda settled into her seat for the short ride to the beginner’s side of the mountain, Aunt Pat’s earlier words circling in her brain. Evidently, the rest of the women had agreed not to bring Mitch up at all during the course of their vacation, but her aunt had still wanted to speak her piece, and had pulled her aside right after breakfast.

Aunt Pat had had several choice words to say about the deceiver, also known as Mitch, and the way he’d betrayed not only Melinda but the whole family. Her aunt had assured her that, should it become necessary, Melinda’s cousins would “deal” with Mitch in a way he’d understand, and Melinda was not to worry. They had his number now, and the two-timing, bottom-dwelling, rat bastard piece of filth would not bother her ever again.

Melinda couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face. She had no doubt that if it came to a rumble between Mitch and her cousins, Aunt Pat would lead the charge.

Disembarking from the shuttle, and putting the matter firmly out of her mind, Melinda made her way over to check in for her first class, dodging fellow skiers left and right. Even this early—forty-minutes before the lifts opened—there were people everywhere.

The families she’d ridden with from the condos followed her to the rentals-and-reservations building, a squat no-nonsense space of white-painted wood and concrete blocks. The concrete floor was covered in thick black mesh to prevent slipping on the icy slush tracked in on everyone’s boots.

Friendly employees processed guests quickly and smoothly, getting them onto the slopes to maximize the day.

At the check-in window beside hers, a young couple checked their children in for the kids’ class. Their little boy, who was no more than four, ducked his head bashfully behind his father’s legs when Melinda smiled at him as she stepped past.

“Have fun today,” she said. He peeked at her and grinned, then hid again, giggling.

Back outside, she took in her surroundings fully for the first time. Melinda approved of what she saw.

Everyone’s breath blew white in the chilly air, though the sun shone brilliantly, dazzling her eyes. The mountain thrust majestically upward into the bright blue sky like an offering to the gods of ski and board. Evergreens covered the slopes and smaller peaks, bits of color peeking through the heavy mantle of crystalline white. The trees gradually petered out as they climbed to the edge of the tree line where the rocky mountainside took over and soared to the highest peaks.

To her left, an enormous log-cabin-style lodge sat near the edge of the wide runout at the base of the ski runs. Fully decked out in Christmas lights and decorations, it overlooked the mountain with a comfortable air, inviting the winter enthusiasts into its warm interior for a hot drink, a quick meal, and a much-needed breather before heading back out onto the slopes. Frost rimmed the multi-paned windows, each with a large, red-ribboned wreath in its center, and red-and-orange flames from an impressive central fireplace glowed through the glass.

It looked like the perfect spot for a cozy break.

A huge rock-and-timber walled deck fronted the building, with clear plastic panels mounted on the low wall and plenty of outdoor heaters, tables, and chairs for guests. The panels would serve as protection for anyone enjoying the outdoor seating from the snow spray of passing skiers or the potential threat of a misfired snowball. Speakers mounted near the eaves piped Christmas music into the mix of voices and languages calling across the grounds.

Rows of snowboards, skis, and poles already lined the length of the wall, their ends jammed into tall mounds of snow to hold them upright while their owners took advantage of their early arrival at the lodge to get in one last cup of coffee.

“Brisk this morning,” an older, magenta-haired woman said cheerily, clunking past in her unhooked ski boots and rubbing her gloved hands together as she made for the lodge steps.

Melinda smiled and
m-hmmm’d
in agreement.

The purity of the air was staggering, and she drank in deep lungfuls. Everywhere she looked, people in colorful ski clothes dealt with their gear or raced from one side of the wide, mostly flat base to the other, waiting for the lift operators to declare the slopes open.

The teen girls from the shuttle, who didn’t have their own equipment, were lined up waiting to get fitted for their rental skis and actively scoping out the cute guys. They whispered to each other behind their hands.

Waving to the girls, Melinda secured her lift ticket on a ring through the front zipper on her jacket and skied to the meet-up area for the morning lesson, dodging fellow skiers as she went.

“Skier’s left!” two guys hollered as they zipped past, going too fast for the crowds around them and nearly clipping the tips of her skis.

They should be on the other mountain. No way were they first-time skiers.

Well, neither was she, but she knew better than to race around the real beginners.

She had an adult beginner’s class first thing, which would include anyone aged thirteen and up, then an intermediate class in the afternoon. She was looking forward to the beginner class the most. It was always fun to be surrounded by people on skis for the first time, especially the younger teens. They were so excited and enthusiastic, and she enjoyed cheering them on as they discovered their ski legs.

Plus, beginner classes usually used a surface lift—in this case a rope-tow—rather than the chair lifts, which helped her get her own ski legs back under her before attempting the elevated lifts and having to deal with her fear of heights.

No one knew the real reason for her insistence on starting every ski season with lessons, except her mother. She planned to keep it that way.

Melinda glanced at the chair lift off to her right and suppressed a shudder as she tracked an empty three-person seat moving up the cables, the mountain dropping away beneath it as it went flying above the tops of mammoth trees.

“Whew,” she said under her breath, puffing out her cheeks.

And that was a beginner-mountain lift. The ones on the other side of the mountain, where she’d be the rest of the week, would be a lot higher and steeper.

The heights thing both embarrassed and irritated her, blindsiding her the way it had when she was thirteen. Prior to that summer, she’d never had a problem with heights, had in fact enjoyed them. She’d been a high diver for years.

But then...

Melinda had climbed the ladder to the top of the diving board at the rec center’s public pool as she’d done hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. Had made her way to the edge, poised on the balls of her feet in preparation for making her first dive of the day. And some total idiot waiting his turn behind her had bounced the board.

Even now, the memory of that plummeting sensation swooping through her stomach could make her both nauseated and lightheaded.

She’d screamed as she fell, unable to help herself, unable to twist her body into any semblance of a dive or to recover from the sudden jolt off the board and out into space. She’d landed hard, a back-flop that had felt like smashing into concrete. The stunning shock of pain forced all the breath from her lungs.

In response, she’d tried to suck in a mouthful of air and had swallowed pool water instead, choking and flailing like an untrained swimmer. A sudden, visceral, and overwhelming certainty that she was about to drown had swamped her. She panicked.

Sam, the lifeguard—an oh-so-adorable nineteen-year-old boy she’d crushed on for ages—had subdued her wild struggles and pulled her from the water.

In her girlish daydreams, such an heroic rescue might have been thrilling and romantic. In reality, she’d been a blubbering, choking mess, her nose running watery snot all over her face and tears pouring from her eyes. Her swimsuit top had come down.

Even in her state of advanced terror, the humiliation had devastated her. An unbearable wave of it, totally eclipsing the fear and pain of the actual fall, even after she learned how close she’d come to cracking her head on the edge of the pool and possibly dying.

Inches. Mere inches.

They’d sent her home after they determined she wasn’t seriously injured, and once she’d recovered physically, she’d purposefully blanked the incident out of her mind. Getting over the soul-crushing embarrassment was harder.

A lot harder.

Still, deep down, she knew Sam had no idea who she was. She was barely a teenager, covered in bad skin, braces, and the kind of shyness that pulsed around her like an electric fence. He was already out of high school, handsome, popular, and outgoing, and he had a gorgeous girlfriend. It wasn’t likely Melinda’s little episode had influenced his opinion of her one way or the other, because he hadn’t had an opinion to influence in the first place. He was simply doing his job.

So she put on her big-girl panties and, an avid swimmer, she was back at the pool a few days later, like usual.

But she never went near the high dive again.

It wasn’t until the beginning of the following school year that she discovered her avoidance of the high dive was only a minor symptom in a full-blown case of acrophobia.

Her junior-high-school band had gone to their annual, enormous music competition at a university near Los Angeles that October. While the honor band warmed up, she and her fellow flute players had dashed to the top of the steep—and exceptionally high—bleachers in the school’s gymnasium to await their turn to play.

She’d reached the top, turned to sit down, and frozen in place like a flash-formed ice sculpture.

The tug on her center of gravity seemed like a physical pull, one she felt still, any time she ventured too close to a ledge, even one as innocuous as the second-floor railing at the mall in San Bernardino, or the top step of a downward escalator, never mind the soaring ski lifts. It was an invisible, relentless force seemingly determined to cast her out and away, to propel her into space where she’d free-fall to the deadly ground, impossibly far below.

That day in the university gym, her vision had wavered, and she’d collapsed, flailing backward onto the steps in reaction against that incessant pull, shuddering beneath an avalanche of unreasoning terror. Heart thundering in her ears, breath stalled, and tears running down her face, her friends had gathered around her in bewildered concern.

She’d needed an embarrassingly long time to pull herself even marginally back together.

It had taken a friend’s threat to call their band director for assistance to jerk Melinda out of her spiraling panic. She’d had to scoot down the steps on her butt, her friends surrounding her for protection against the wrenching gravitational tow, her legs trembling the whole way.

Later, she’d made a not-entirely successful joke out of the whole event, brushing it off as a weird fluke, not wanting anyone to realize the full extent of her fear.

Since then, she’d fought the consuming dread at every turn, unwilling to let her phobia control her life.

For the most part she managed not to let it interfere with her activities, except for that time in New York City when she’d gone to the top of the Empire State Building with her family. They’d badgered and teased her into it—kindly, not understanding the real depth of her fear. She’d been unwilling to give a good reason for not going.

She’d been sick for three days afterward.

If her hands tingled and sprang with fear-sweat when reading books or watching movie scenes involving heights, only she knew. She’d developed strategies to deal with the anxiety and told no one, not even Jacob, only confiding in her mother.

And Mitch.

She’d told Mitch her greatest fear and embarrassment, had trusted enough to share that vulnerable part of herself with him. He’d seemed so supportive and understanding, too, making her love him even more. Now she knew it had been another part of his good-boyfriend act. He hadn’t really cared at all.

“Stop.” Melinda said the word out loud, then pretended not to notice the odd looks tossed her way by the three very hot ski instructors gliding toward the lifts.

She refused to spend the day shackled by the intensity of Mitch’s absence, feeling him, missing him in the empty space at her side. Her phobia was enough of a challenge for one morning. Mitch was a liar and a jerk. She had no time for him today.

Or ever again.

She wished Jacob had decided to come with her. By now, he’d be on his way to the backcountry with the others, ready to challenge himself against the sheer rock face of a nearly perpendicular drop.

She shuddered.

Lunatics, all of them.

“Nine-thirty class,” a deep, masculine voice called across the snow. “Where are my newbs? Gather up.”

Melinda gave the ski lift one last glance, then turned toward her morning instructor, who had both hands raised in the air, waving the oncoming class in his direction.

Yes, she had her strategies. She took bunny-slope lessons the first time out skiing every year so that she could work her way up to getting on the regular lifts. After the first ride or two each year, usually she was okay for the rest of the season.

Sometimes, especially if the winds caused more-than-usual swaying on the seats, she had to push herself extra hard to keep going, and push she did. She would never go near the black-diamond or expert runs the guys all thrived on, but overall, this particular little strategy worked for her.