Snowbound (4 page)

Cassidy nodded. He wanted to give her confidence, to tell her there was nothing wrong with being scared sometimes. Mostly he just wanted to tell her that all guys weren’t like Rick. Instead, he said nothing. It wasn’t his place.

They were now standing with the other two students, who were women he guesstimated to be in their mid-forties. He pulled the list from his pocket and read that their names were Diane and Nancy. Each of them were dressed in one piece ski suits in very bright colours, one in hot pink, the other in lime green, and they seemed to have the latest in ski gear. He realized the women were looking at him expectantly, so he shoved the list back in his pocket and cleared his throat.

“We’re going to start over on Paradise so I can assess where each of you are in your abilities. Follow me, please, ladies.”

* * *

They were half way down their third run on Paradise. Cassidy stood off to one side watching the debacle in front of her. The other women, calling each other “D” and “N”, constantly had trouble doing any move Daniel asked them to make.

Right now, the one in hot pink, “D”, was saying she didn’t understand how she was to bend her knees and asked him to help “move her into position.” She’d actually said that. Cassidy couldn’t believe it. It had taken her all of five minutes to realize these women couldn’t care less about learning to ski and were likely here to pick up a man. Any man by the looks of it, as “N” had
accidentally
run into one of the other ski instructors whose group was on the other side of the hill. Daniel seemed oblivious to it and kept trying to encourage the other two by telling them they almost had it.

Cassidy rolled her eyes, but just did whatever they were supposed to do next. At least it was amusing and, if nothing else, it kept her mind occupied. She also enjoyed being around Daniel. He was so easygoing. She didn’t feel threatened by him. It was nice to see someone who was so relaxed and honestly giving. Rick never relaxed, he was always uptight about something. But then again, she knew Rick was passionate in all things, it was in his nature. That passion is what drew her to him in the first place, and what now separated them. So far Daniel had made time for everyone, although the other two women seemed to need more of it. It was obvious he tried to be fair. He always called Cassidy over and made her feel like she was part of the lesson. Truthfully, she could already ski, she just didn’t like the harder runs. She preferred to stick to the green and blues. It was more relaxing that way. She’d never intended to take lessons and if Sandra hadn’t signed her up she still wouldn’t have. Seeing that Daniel and the other two had moved quite a ways down the slope while she stood there daydreaming, Cassidy skied down to them.

Nancy and Diane appeared affronted that someone wouldn’t pay attention to them. “Well pay attention now, because it’s lunch time and we’re done. Daniel wanted the group together so he could give us some information about tomorrow.” Nancy had a snarky tone in her voice as she talked and she tapped the top of her ski poles impatiently.

Well excuse me!
Thought Cassidy.

Daniel appeared not to notice the animosity between the women and said, “Ladies, we did pretty well today but we should have made it a bit further. Maybe tomorrow we can each try more on our own before asking for help. I don’t think you are giving yourself enough credit—you can handle these simple moves, no problem. We’re going to start on Brazen tomorrow; we’ll just meet up at the top of that run, ok?”

One of Diane’s eyebrows rose and she put a gloved hand on Daniel’s arm, “Brazen? Hey, I like the sounds of that. What can I do to get a private lesson?”

Cassidy rolled her eyes again, while Daniel just laughed along with Nancy and Diane. “See you tomorrow, ladies.”

Cassidy skied away, trying to decide whether to get some food or just keep skiing. She certainly wasn’t tired since all they had done was stop and start all morning. Thinking about Diane and Nancy, Cassidy laughed softly. “Talk about coyotes...”

Cassidy was embarrassed. “Yes, but I didn’t realize I said it aloud. How rude of me.” She didn’t feel too bad because those women were truly awful. However, she was sorry she’d spoken the words out loud and that Daniel had caught her being catty.

Daniel’s blue eyes twinkled in amusement. “You weren’t being rude, no one else heard, and even if they did they probably wouldn’t know what you were talking about. I just assumed it was them because, well...”

“Yeah.” Cassidy nodded, feeling totally in sync with him at that moment. “You wanna grab some lunch?”

“Sure. That’d be great.”

“Great, I’ll meet you at the bottom, I want to take this side run and hit a few moguls. I’m feeling a need for speed.” Daniel took off.

Watching him ski away, Cassidy definitely liked the way his ski suit molded perfectly to his athletic build and the way his powerful legs made his skis cut across the mountain. Just as he reached the entrance to the side run he turned and waved. She waved back, feeling a bit giddy.
Oh for goodness sake Cass, you’re acting like those other two now, all giggly!
Oh well, it was nice to feel happy and free for a change. She didn’t feel like she was walking on glass. As she made her way down the rest of the run Cassidy thought that maybe staying here on her own wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Chapter
Four

Cassidy got off the chairlift, a lot more easily thanks to some advice Daniel had given her. “Hey! Lady—watch out!” a voice yelled, and a snowboarder jumped out of the way.

Distracted by Diane and Nancy, she’d almost skied over a teenager who was clicking his boot into a snowboard.
Holy smokes! What are those two up to now?

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you ok?” she asked the snowboarder. “Jeez, Cass, could you knock any more people over on this mountain?” she muttered to herself.

The snowboarder didn’t respond, just mumbled some stuff that sounded like expletives and took off.

Cassidy stopped moving, but her gaze never left Diane and Nancy.
I don’t believe it
. The weather today was fantastic and warm, so Cassidy had worn a light sweater over her ski pants. She also had a windbreaker tied around her waist in case she needed it later. Apparently Diane and Nancy had decided that they were on a beach. They were each wearing bikini tops with some kind of stretchy-type tight ski pants. Spring skiing conditions were nice and it did get quite warm, but that was ridiculous as far as Cassidy was concerned.
What if you fell wearing something like that? Talk about snow burn!
The women were certainly garnering a lot of attention. She noticed a group of guys gathered around talking to them, Daniel included.

Cassidy was slightly disappointed that Daniel had joined the fray. He seemed to be just as enamoured of the older women’s assets as the others. She shouldn’t really be surprised that he was just as interested in half naked women as any other guy, but the more she got to know him the more she thought he was different than most of them. Cassidy had spent a lot of time with Daniel since they started the lessons a couple of days before. This was the third, and last, day of their group lesson.
I’m really going to miss this… well, maybe not this. More like, I’m going to miss seeing Daniel every day.
She rather liked skiing with the group in the morning and then having lunch with Daniel. Yesterday they even went skiing in the afternoon, just the two of them. He was a very relaxed guy who seemed at ease wherever they went. He obviously made friends easily. He was constantly being hailed by other skiers around the resort.

He had told her about his love of volleyball, softball, and a variety of other sports. She was fairly intimidated since she wasn’t that athletic, although she tried. Obviously very fit, she noticed his very muscular arms while he was stripped down to his t-shirt. Cassidy assumed this was from all the lifting he did at work. However he got that way, it was definitely good. Daniel appeared to be single. She hadn’t actually asked him yet, though she desperately wanted to. It seemed whenever she tried to turn their conversation in that direction, somehow they always got sidetracked. Unfortunately, they had spent most of the time talking about her and how she felt about being abandoned here at the resort. Truthfully, she was becoming more and more aware of how much she didn’t miss Rick.

“Cassidy—hey, Cassidy, we’re over here.” Daniel waved her over.

Sighing, she made her way over to where the group stood. The other men were reluctantly dispersing. “C’mon now, everyone, let’s get going. This is our last day and while we did pretty well on Brazen...” Daniel was interrupted by a fit of giggling from Nancy and Diane.
Sheesh, what are they? Fourteen?

“Dan,” Nancy practically purred, “how about we try out Mustang Sally? I hear she’s a hot run.” Nancy wiggled in closer to Daniel, causing her chest to brush into his arm.

Daniel blinked rapidly, and he couldn’t seem to look up to Nancy’s face.
Holy cow, get a grip man—they’re not even real.
Cassidy began to get annoyed. This was ridiculous, they were out here to ski and yet, apparently, there was some kind of mating ritual going on. Cassidy knew she had no right to feel proprietary over Daniel but, for whatever reason, she just did.
It’s not like he went to lunch with them
. Of course, maybe it was because she was more like his buddy, his friend. Nancy and Diane certainly seemed well equipped to make a man really interested.

Cassidy stood there for a few more minutes, listening to all three of them laughing, while they tried to decide where the group should ski. Daniel still blinked furiously, looking up and down.
Yeah, we get it buddy you’re enjoying the view.
Cassidy looked down at her own assets, which were completely covered from head to toe, and realized she could never compete with these women.
Rick’s probably right... he left me and no one else would likely be interested.

“You know what Daniel? I’m not really into this today; I think I’m going to head off on my own.”

“Hey wait...you shouldn’t go off on your own...” Daniel was interrupted by a comment from one of the “cougars”, as Cassidy now thought of them. She couldn’t overhear the comment, but she didn’t need to. Turning, she skied away.

* * *

Daniel stood in front of Peaks Cafe because he figured that Cassidy would come down for lunch and join him. Not that they’d set it up in advance or anything, he just hoped she would. He really liked talking to her, and especially loved watching her laugh. She would throw back her head, laugh heartily and her eyes would twinkle through the corkscrew curls that hung in front of them most of the time. He had a feeling she hadn’t laughed very much in the last few years. Not that he really had either, at least not since the accident with Natasha.

Daniel let his mind drift back to that day. He and Natasha had gone hiking with some friends on a mountain trail they knew very well. Natasha said she was bored with the same old routine so she and another friend of theirs, Jill, had split off on a smaller trail that would connect back up again a little further on. Daniel hadn’t wanted them to go. He had argued with Natasha that it was a bad idea. Natasha had always been very independent and the fact that Daniel didn’t want her to go seemed to further spur her on. Since he couldn’t come up with any valid reasons, other than a “feeling”, Natasha and Jill had just laughed, said it was fine and then took off.

Daniel and the rest of the group had made it to the area where the two trails met in record time, so they sat down to catch their breath and enjoy the views. As time passed they realized the girls should have arrived, and yet they couldn’t even hear them. Since the group hadn’t planned on separating, and were doing a trail very familiar and easy to them, they hadn’t thought to bring their walkie-talkies on this particular hike. Their cell phones were useless as they couldn’t pick up a signal in the area. As the hours passed Daniel had become increasingly worried and tried to go down the other trail himself. Since there were four of them, his friend Matt joined him and the other two were sent back to the bottom to call a rescue team. It had been too long without any sign of the girls. Daniel and Matt reached an impasse where they saw there had been a rock slide. There was no way to get across to the other side. It was there they heard Jill’s feeble voice calling up to them.

Later, after the rescue team had heli-lifted the girls from below, Daniel heard the whole story. As the girls had hiked up the trail Natasha’s foot had slipped and she had grabbed for a rock above her. Unfortunately, the trail was narrow and the ground mostly shale at that point. Everything crumbled at once. Jill had reached for Natasha only to start slipping as well, the entire ground had given way and they had both gone down in a hail of rocks and dirt. One of the rocks had knocked Jill out and when she came to, Natasha was mostly buried. Jill worked frantically to dig them both out, but there had been a large boulder pinning Natasha down and Jill couldn’t move it. Natasha wasn’t breathing—the paramedics believed that the boulder had crushed her chest and probably given her a heart attack when it landed.

Daniel hadn’t gone hiking since that time. He barely saw Jill, although that was her doing since she couldn’t look him in the eye. She’d taken responsibility for the whole thing, even though he told her it wasn’t her fault, it had been a freak accident. Natasha had wanted to go and no one had made her. The whole incident had been rough on all of his friendships, since Daniel couldn’t seem to feel or care that much about anything anymore. He just didn’t want to. A drift of snow coming off the lodge roof hit him in the back and brought him back to the present. Shivering he looked at his watch and realized that Cassidy probably wasn’t going to show for lunch.
Maybe she’s already grabbed a bite and gone.
Although he was disappointed, he knew they hadn’t made plans, so he couldn’t really complain.