Falling Hard (Colorado High Country #3)(8)

“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.

“It’s been almost four years, sis. Four years.”

Ellie tried not to get irritated with Claire. Her sister had been her rock after Dan’s death, flying to Kentucky, staying with her for six weeks. She’d helped Ellie make the funeral arrangements and held her hand through the service when Ellie had been broken with grief. She’d helped Ellie put her house on the market. Once the house had sold, it was Claire who’d dealt with the movers.

“You don’t think I know that? But if I were going to get involved with someone, it wouldn’t be a man who does risky things for a living. I lost one husband. I couldn’t survive losing another.”

“We all lose the ones we love, and they lose us. If you stop caring about people, you’ll miss out on happiness. If you could go back in time, would you avoid getting together with Dan?”

“No, of course not! What a stupid question.”

“I know you miss Dan, and I know you love those kids, but you need some adult time—if you know what I mean, and I think you do.”

Oh, yes, she did.

Sex.

She hadn’t been with a man since the night before Dan deployed that last time in 2013. His death, her pregnancy, and the birth of the twins had made sex the farthest thing from her mind. But lately…

Still, the idea of getting naked with some random guy held no emotional appeal. Dan had been the love of her life. When she imagined having sex with another man, it only made her miss him more. She wasn’t even sure she’d be able to enjoy it. Her heart just wasn’t in it. Apart from sexual frustration and the love she felt for the twins, she had long since gone numb.

“Maybe you should invite Jesse over for dinner—you know, just to thank him.”

Yeah … no. That wasn’t going to happen.

But she did need to call him or send a thank-you card.

“On that note… ” Ellie got up from the sofa and started toward her bedroom. “I need to get some sleep.”

She thanked her sister for checking on her and ended the call, then brushed her teeth, tears filling her eyes when she met her own gaze in the mirror.

Almost four years. It felt like an eternity.

Oh, Dan.





Chapter 3





The next day turned out to be the strangest in Jesse’s short career as a patroller. It started out normal enough. He responded to a few injury calls—two skiers with knee injuries and a snowboarder with a dislocated shoulder.

Nothing strange about that.

Then, shortly after noon, he helped evacuate a teenager who had wiped out getting off the ski lift and couldn’t get back on his feet. It took Jesse all of two seconds to realize that the kid wasn’t injured. He was stupid drunk.