All except for one, anyway.
He was thinking about that, about Jacob, when he caught the flash of a cherry-red knit cap at the bottom near the lodge. He tried to focus in but the sun slanted over the peaks and right into his eyes.
He shook his head. What was he thinking? Bailey wasn’t here. She had no reason to be here. Clearly he was tired. He and his team were scattered across the mountain and had been since oh-dark-thirty o’clock. They’d been avalanche training, which was exhausting. He had a break coming at ten and he was looking forward to taking it stretched out on the floor of his office.
So naturally a call came in over his radio. A snowboarder had just crashed into a tree on White Chute. From where he stood halfway down Home Run, Hudson was closest, with fellow patroller Mitch right on his heels.
They cut through the trees due east, across the runs Stagecoach and Comstock, and came out on White Chute.
“If we made a YouTube video of someone hitting a tree in slo-mo, complete with the sound effects of the head going splat, we’d cut these incidents in half,” Mitch said as the two of them navigated the rough terrain with the ease that years on this mountain had given them.
Mitch was a friend of the family. Like Aidan, he worked at the resort and was also a firefighter in the off season. He was also possibly the world’s second-biggest smartass.
Right behind Hud himself. “Can’t do that,” Hud said, ducking a low-lying branch and snorting when Mitch didn’t duck fast enough and caught it across his helmet. “Our lawyer nixed it. Said it was bad promo.”
They found the snowboarder sitting at the base of a tree halfway down White Chute, bookended by two buddies. Their guy was clutching his leg, not his head—a good sign. Another was that he’d remained conscious.
Hud dropped to his knees at the guy’s side. Mitch was on the radio, directing the patrollers on their way with a sled to get the guy down the mountain if that was needed.
“I’m going to die,” the guy said to Hud.
“You’re not going to die,” Hud said, visually assessing the situation. No visible injuries—which meant zip. “What’s your name?”
“Sean.”
“Okay, Sean, can you let go of your leg?”
“No.” Sean shook his head, pale and waxy.
His friends looked the same so Hud didn’t know if they were skiing on hangovers or if something was really wrong. “I’m going to open your boot,” he said.
“Dude, no!” Sean shook his head vehemently. “If you take off my boot, my leg’s going to fall off!”
Hud and Mitch exchanged a look. Sean and his buddies all had a certain scent to them that said they’d been smoking weed. Apparently they’d skipped the munchies and gone straight to paranoia. “I’ll be very careful,” Hud assured Sean.
“It’s okay,” Mitch told him. “Hud here hardly ever has legs fall off on his watch.”
Hud had been very carefully loosening the guy’s boot to get a look while Mitch spoke. And… shit. Sean had a compound fracture and it wasn’t pretty. Blood had filled his boot.
“I’m going to die, right?” the guy asked, panicked, breathing erratically.
Hud met Mitch’s gaze again and Mitch immediately reached for the radio. They were going to need more than just a sled. They needed a heli ride stat, straight to General Hospital Trauma Center.
“Oh, God, it’s happening,” Sean moaned.
“Listen to me,” Hud said, leaning over him to make sure he had Sean’s full attention. “You’re not dying.” As long as they got him to the hospital before shock set in or he bled out. Hud and Mitch went to work on that.
When the sled arrived and Sean was about to be loaded, he yelled, “Stop!”
Everyone stopped.
Sean slapped a set of keys into Hud’s hand.
“What’s this?” Hud asked.
“My car. It’s a ’68 Camaro, man. I want you to have it, so I bequeath it to you. It’s in the lot.”
Hud shook his head. “You’re not dying.”
“Just take the fuckin’ keys, okay? Don’t let these two assholes get their hands on my baby,” Sean said, gesturing to his two cohorts, who were huddled together looking higher than kites. “The last time they did, they blew the engine and I had to rebuild her. So I’m begging you, keep her safe. You got me?”
Wanting to keep Sean calm so his heart rate didn’t skyrocket more than it already had, pumping too much blood through his body, Hud nodded. “I got you,” he said. “But you’re still not dying.”
They skied Sean down to the bottom, where the resort’s resident nurse and a trauma crew met them. In less than twenty minutes from the original radio call, Sean was airborne, bound for the trauma center.
Now officially on break, Mitch headed for the cafeteria for food. Hud stood amidst the lunchtime chaos outside the lodge and found himself once again looking around for that cherry-red hat.
But there was no sign of her. Telling himself he was good with that, even if he’d given her way too much thought over the past week, he pulled out his buzzing cell phone.
“Cafeteria,” Aidan said in his ear. “Family pow wow.”
“Busy,” Hud said. And by busy, he meant he had that ten-minute nap on tap.
“Penny said to tell you please.”
Shit. Hud had no problem refusing his brothers Gray and Aidan whatever they thought they needed, but Gray’s wife Penny was another thing entirely. She had big warm eyes and was the sweetest tyrant he’d ever met. “Sure,” he said. Sucker.
He headed over to the lodge and stopped short at the sight of a ladder against the north wall. A very bad feeling came up from his gut and he strode inside. Gray, Penny, Kenna, Aidan, and Aidan’s fiancée Lily sat at a table having a late breakfast.
“Told you he’d come if there was food involved,” Gray said. “He thinks with his stomach. That’s because he’s single.”
“What part do you think with?” Penny asked him.
Gray waggled a brow suggestively.
Penny rolled her eyes. “And I put up with you why again?”
“I’ll remind you after breakfast,” he told her, voice husky.
“Eww,” Kenna said. “Old people shouldn’t talk about sex.”
“I’m thirty-two,” Gray said.
“Old,” the twenty-five-year-old said.
There was an empty seat waiting for Hud. A plate had been loaded with his favorites: bacon, eggs, hash browns, sourdough toast, and… a big, fat blueberry muffin, the top of it dusted with sugar.
His mouth watered. “Who died?”
Penny laughed. “No one, you big lug. Sit down and enjoy.”
It was hot as hell inside. Making a mental note to have someone check the thermostat and make sure they weren’t bleeding money with a heater cranked up too high, he dropped his jacket, hat, and gloves. He unzipped his sweatshirt and sat. Then he looked at Penny, aka the sweet tyrant.
“What?” she asked innocently.
Shit. He knew it. The plate had been a misdirect and he’d fallen for it. “Talk to me about the ladder against the wall.”
Penny looked at Gray.
“Told you he was smarter than he looked,” Gray said, stuffing his face.