Snowfall

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

What a glorious day! Riley filled her lungs with the icy air. The seat of the chairlift slid under her and she settled onto it, gripping the arm with her right hand, holding her poles with her left. The seat was as cold as the air, but her insulated pants and jacket protected her from a chilly invasion of her firm derriere and muscular thighs. Looking out as the lift pulled her upward, she saw the night’s storm had floated fresh powder not only over High Mountain, but as far as she could see.

Riley smiled with excitement. Fantastic. We’ll be busy today, and if the weather holds, we’ll have a white New Year’s Eve. Had to use the snow machines at Christmas, but this week all the snow will be nature-made.

Everyone—staff and guests alike—would love that.

Angels Ski Resort was on the California side of the Sierra Nevada range, and as an instructor, she worked at the base of the lift and runs. Today her task as a ski patroller was to do a trail safety sweep. Arriving early, she’d keyed open the drive terminal, stepped inside to set the chairlift in motion, and went out again to relock it.

Then, she’d unlocked the nearby building that held the instruction rooms and patrol offices. Still wearing her Yukon cap—ear flaps snapped in the up position—she’d entered and removed her heavy gloves, but worked in her insulated jacket and turned up the heat so the chill would be off the rooms by the time her team arrived.

She frowned as she lifted the lid on the large, staff coffeepot. The rule was it had to be clean by closing time each night. I’ll have to remember to check the schedule to see who messed up. One of her least favorite jobs in this position was coming down on someone for this sort of thing. It seemed so small, but if the resort suddenly closed due to a blizzard and didn’t reopen for weeks, the pot could end up moldy. That might even ruin the entire pot, which the crew, not the resort, had chipped in to buy.

Since it involved crew property and wasn’t a firing offense, she would tell Paul about it, but it was hers to handle. Paul dealt with the bigger problems.

Riley dumped yesterday’s filter with the old grounds into a waste basket that hadn’t been emptied either, adding another mark to the lazy crew member’s tally. She rinsed the holder and pot before filling it with deliciously unadulterated mountain spring water. Working the grinder, she inhaled the wonderful smell of beans being ground—Moroccan French roast, the scent even more intense. Somewhere she’d read the smell of freshly ground beans contained a “feel good” chemical separate from that of the caffeine when you drank it. As her spirits lifted, she confirmed the truth of the story.

Riley opened her backpack and schooled herself against claiming this early in the day one of the bear claws she’d bought in the resort bakery. Her mouth watered in anticipation of the savory taste of cinnamon combined with the sweetness of the tracks of white icing dribbled across the bread, but she laid all of them out on the table intact.

Those chores completed, she’d strapped on her skis, bundled up, and headed for the lift.

Now, a flash of color drew her gaze upward. A man in red ski clothes and helmet trimmed in dark blue stood at the top of the closed, double-black diamond run named Satan’s Domain. He stood poised as if waiting for a starter to yell “Go!”

“Hey, you! Stop!” she yelled, waving one of her poles as anger and concern flared. “The runs are—”

Before she’d finished her warning, he mimicked breaking through a gate, pushed hard with his poles, and set a blistering competitor’s pace down the fall line of an extremely dangerous piste, or run.

Whoever you are, you’re an i***t. You have no right to be on one of our trails before we’ve officially opened them to skiers. And now, dammit, I have to go after you! Lord, help me. I hope you don’t get a concussion, break a leg…or tear an ACL. And I hope I don’t either.

She figured he must’ve hopped on the lift while she was inside doing heat and coffee. He was trespassing, but that wouldn’t matter, because in court, the resort would be ruled liable if he was injured. Even if the All Runs Closed sign was in place…which she could testify to because she’d checked.

The skier seemed to know what he was doing, but Satan’s Domain hadn’t been checked for safety yet. In fact, none of the trails had been. That was why she’d arrived early. Oh, s**t. Now it was her responsibility to be sure he hadn’t flown off the trail and crashed. Or failed to manage a mogul—a treacherous hump of ice—correctly and had broken something, like his head, despite his helmet.

She clicked on her radio and called down to security to be sure the trespasser had arrived at the bottom in one piece. No one answered. Miles Lawton, their security guard, was late.

Irritation set her nerves jangling. Anger made her gut clench. Paul always checked this run because she hated it. Since her accident, Satan’s Domain or any murderous trail terrified her. She could barely make herself look at it much less traverse it for pleasure. Since taking the job here, she had refused to ski it. That was Paul’s job…after all, he was patrol leader.

Exiting the lift at the top, Riley crouched to study the tracks cut in the soft snow by the intruder’s skis. Fear caused her heart rate to spike, but she had no choice. She had to be sure he wasn’t injured and needed help. Gritting her teeth, hoping her stomach wouldn’t deposit her breakfast all over her clothes, she bent her knees, pushed with her poles, and leaned in to the sway and curve of the course. Soon, feeling only a twinge in her damaged knee, she fought to pick up on the balance and rhythm required to manage the moguls hidden by last night’s heavy powder fall.

Always aware of the perfect line of the stranger’s tracks, she followed. Thank God he wasn’t on the slope, dead or alive. If he’d gone over the edge, his tracks would have shown it. As it was, they raced steadily toward the end.

Within minutes, she flew out the bottom of the trail and snowplowed to a stop. Laughing with exhilaration, she dug her poles into the ground. She’d done it! Maybe she wasn’t qualified for the top US teams because of her injury, but her training and experience had overcome—for the time being, at least—the terror that she would ruin a knee again. Of course, the run didn’t begin to match the dangerous levels of those on which she’d trained for World and the Olympics, but she would avoid ever doing this one again at all costs.

Still, she’d learned this morning that she could force herself to do it in a pinch if she absolutely had to. Like today. Anger pumped her up, preparing her to harangue the renegade skier, but to her disgust, she saw no sight of him.

The other patrollers were exiting their cars and walking to meet her. She skied over to greet them, still smiling. “You don’t need to check the double-black, Paul. I did.”

He lifted his brows in question, and she told them about the stranger. “Good for you, kid! We knew you could do it.”

“I’m not a kid, boy,” she snapped back, teasing him.

They all hand-slapped her.

In his Spanish-accented voice, Rodolfo Carrillo said, “I wonder if he’s the Olympian I overheard someone say might train here for the next World Cup.”

“What Olympian?” petite Maria Unger asked.

Rodolfo shrugged his wide shoulders. “Haven’t a clue.”

Paul McClellan added, “Me, either. You’d think someone would have told me, since I’m patrol leader.”

That brought a laugh from the team, but Riley kept the annoyance from her tone. Yes, Paul, who was older, was their leader, but she was second-in-command and should’ve been notified as well, especially if he couldn’t be reached.

Fact was, she’d often felt overlooked by the administration. Was it because she was female? Maybe because she hadn’t qualified for the Olympics again? Who knew? Perhaps someone in administration wanted her to fail so they could fire her. If so, she had no idea who it might be. Or what she might have done wrong to be considered for firing.

Insecure and paranoid to boot, that’s me…Riley O’Ryan. So stop these bad thoughts. Stop. Right. Now.

Ellie Marsh and Le Roy Adamson arrived, completing their team. They soon confirmed they hadn’t been told either.

Paul changed the subject. “Then I’ll check the single-black diamond. Gives you extra time for paperwork today.”

Riley grinned. “Thanks a lot,” meaning she didn’t thank him. Paul knew she hated paperwork. She smiled and clapped him on the shoulder, leaving to check the remaining pistes and start her classes. Afterward, she’d have time to zero in on reports.