Falling Hard (Colorado High Country #3)(10)

In the ops room, Megs had already started roll call, her shoulder-length gray hair tied back in a ponytail, bright red reading glasses perched on her nose. “Nice of you to join us, Moretti. Heard you had an exciting day.”

Jesse stopped and stared at her. “Not you, too.”

“It’s all over the Internet, man.” Creed Herrera held up his smartphone, a shit-eating grin on his face. “You took down that skinny naked guy like a boss.”

Laughter.

“That skinny naked guy was tripping and a lot stronger than you’d think.” Jesse got himself a cup of coffee then sat between Eric Hawke, the town’s fire chief and one of the Team’s best climbers, and Herrera, who until this moment had been Jesse’s best bud. He started to remove his parka, but felt strangely cold and so left it on.

Megs continued her way down the list, using full names despite the fact that they’d worked together for years and probably knew each other better than they knew their families. “Malachi O’Brien. Isaac Rogers. Gabe Rossiter … is excused. Jack Sullivan.”

That was the thing about Megs. She was a perfectionist who never cut corners. That quality had helped her become a legend back in the days when rock climbing was a fringe sport dominated by men. Sometimes her nitpicking got on Jesse’s nerves, but that attention to detail and refusal to take shortcuts had given the Team its reputation as the best search and rescue team in the nation. Jesse could respect that.

“Nicole Turner. Austin Taylor. Lexi Taylor … who is looking very pregnant.”

Lexi, the Team’s accountant and wife of Austin Taylor, the Team’s best lead climber, ran a hand over her rounded belly, a smile on her pretty face. “Only ten weeks till my due date.”

Roll call completed, Megs set her clipboard aside and pulled her glasses off her nose. “Okay. Glad to see all of you here. We’ve got a few pieces of business tonight, and then you can go waste time staring at your TVs or your phones or do whatever it is you do. The first item on the agenda is SnowFest.”

“It’s that time of year again,” said Chaska Belcourt, who was as good a climber as he was a mechanical engineer. The son of a Lakota Sun Dance chief, he’d come to Colorado to study engineering and had stayed for the climbing. His sister Winona, a vet who ran a rehab clinic for wildlife, had joined him.

Megs went on. “I don’t need to remind you—or maybe I do—that the Team gets about fifteen percent of its annual operating budget from SnowFest proceeds. We’ve been asked to volunteer again this year, and I expect each and every one of you to sign up. Hawke is the only person who gets a pass because he has to play fire chief all weekend.”

All eyes turned to Hawke, who nodded. “It makes up a chunk of the fire department’s budget, too.”

Megs held up a printout. “We’ve got the usual events—ice climbing, the polar bear plunge, a snowman competition for kids, the snow sculpture contest for adults. Knockers is sponsoring a new shotski event—”

“A … what?” asked Sasha Dillon.

Petite, blond and only twenty-three, Sasha was the country’s top-ranked female sports climber and lived off professional sponsorships.

Talk about a dream life.

Megs explained. “A shotski is where shot glasses are fixed to the back of old skis, and four people as a team drink a shot at once, trying not to spill a drop. The winning team gets some kind of prize.”

“A hangover,” said Harrison Conrad, the Team’s mad dog alpinist. As big as an ox, he had climbed Everest twice now and had his sights set on K2 next year.

Megs went on. “It seems you’re right, Conrad. The morning after the shotski, Knockers is hosting the ‘Hair of the Dog Breakfast.’”

Laughter.

“There will be bonfires at night, food vendors all day, bands playing at the main event tent, lots of drinking, and, of course, skijoring. The organizers are seeking volunteers to work each of these events. They would also like help at the first-aid tent. The official sign-up is online. It’s first come, first choice. Those of you who wait will have to take what’s left.”

After that, Megs gave them a quick budget update then asked for someone to fill in for her on the dispatch desk for two weeks in March when she and Mitch Ahearn, her partner and also a primary Team member, were heading to Alaska for serious skiing. And then the meeting was over.

Jesse got to his feet, feeling dizzy.

“Want to head out for a brew?” Herrera slapped him on the shoulder, then frowned. “Hey, you okay? You don’t look so good, man.”

“Today kicked my ass. I’m heading home.”

Twenty minutes later, he fell into bed, chilled to the bone.



*

Ellie bundled up Daniel and Daisy at six Monday morning, piled them and their car seats in her rental car, and drove them to her parents’ house, where her mother met her at the door, still wearing pajamas. Ellie set the kids and the diaper bag down on the sofa. She reached into the bag and pulled out two bottles of amoxicillin. “Here are their antibiotics. Daniel still fights me about it sometimes.”

Her mother took the medicine. “You won’t give Grandma a hard time, will you, Daniel?”

Daniel didn’t answer, but curled up on the sofa with his blanket, still sleepy.

Ellie gave her mother a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Mom.”