Asking for Trouble (15 page)

“You know I am. You’re great.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” he said, and he was still
smiling. “Come on. Lunch. Let’s find out how Rae did.”

“I don’t have to ask if you’ve had a fun morning, Alyssa,”
Rae said when they were seated at a wooden table devouring pizza, overlooking
the big windows showcasing skiers coming down the slope, none of them, Alyssa
thought privately, doing it as well as she and Joe had. “It’s obvious.”

“Fantastic,” she said happily. “How about you?”

Rae rubbed her thighs ruefully. “I’m enjoying it, but I’m
glad to take a break. I don’t have ski muscles. I’m going to be sore.”

“You did really well,” Alec said. “Improving all the time.
You just haven’t skied enough.”

“Not a big part of my life plan,” she agreed. “I’m going to
sit here a while longer before I go out again, and you’re going to ski with Joe
and Alyssa. I saw you looking at those signs,” she went on when he would have
protested. “I
know
you want to go
down all the runs that say ‘Danger’ at the top. It’s written all over you.”

“The need for speed,” Alec said. “Sorry, baby, can’t help
it. I enjoy being with you, too.”

“Mm-hmm,” she said, and she was smiling at him. “Either
that, or you enjoy being so much better at it than me.”

“You wound me,” he protested, sitting back and putting a
hand over his heart. “Besides, it’s unfair to deny me the very, very occasional
pleasure of knowing there’s something in this world I do better than you. I’d
better not bring you up here too often, or you’re going to catch up, and then
I’ll really be in trouble. Don’t invite her,” he told Joe. “That’s an order
from your CEO.”

“My CEO can take a flying leap,” Joe answered, reaching for
another slice of pizza. “Your ego can barely fit through the door as it is. How
about this? I’m inviting your wife right now to come skiing with me anytime she
wants to.”

“Whoa,” Alyssa said. “Them’s fightin’ words.”

“Good thing we’re friends,” Alec said as Rae started to
laugh. “And that I’m so much better-looking than you.”

“Well, don’t worry,” Rae said. “I’m not going skiing without
you, Alec, and I’m not going at all for the next hour, and I’m not going with
you for the rest of the day, because I’m staying right on those blue-square
routes, and there might even be some green circles in there. If I fall down too
many more times, I’m telling you, it’s back to the bunny slope for me. And
meanwhile, you’re going to be doing the hard stuff. If you’re going out with
Joe and Alyssa tomorrow, you’d better practice, because I saw what they were
doing out there.”

“My natural athletic ability will carry the day,” Alec
proclaimed, making his wife smile again. “But all right, if you’re sure, we’ll meet
you at the base of that lift right there at—four?” he asked Joe.

“Sounds good,” Joe said. “And a few hours of Alyssa and me
schooling you sounds good, too.”

“How’d you do?” Alec asked Rae when they met up again.

“Not too bad,” she said. “How about you?”

“Terrific. But, damn, Liss and Joe are good. They already
kicked my ass. By the end of the day tomorrow, you can expect my ego to be
fully downsized.”

“What do you think?” Joe asked. “One more run, something we
can all do together, and call it a day?”

“Sure,” Rae said, although Alyssa could tell she was tired.
“As long as it’s easy.”

Joe chose one of the easier intermediate routes, and they
set off down the slope, three of them taking a more vertical descent, and Rae
quickly falling behind. The light was flat now, the changes in terrain harder
to see, and Alyssa, who’d been a little disappointed not to finish off the day
with a bang, privately conceded that Joe had probably chosen well. They reached
the bottom fairly quickly and turned to wait for Rae.

Five minutes went by, and Alec took a look at his watch.
“She should be down by now. Hope she didn’t fall again. I should probably have
sat this out with her.”

A few more minutes, and his anxiety was showing. “She should
be down,” he said again to Joe. “Could she have skied off the route?”

“I don’t think so,” he said, but he was down on a knee, his
day pack on the ground in front of him. He unfastened his bindings, attached skins
to the bottoms of his skis.

“I didn’t know you brought those,” Alyssa said, trying to
make conversation, trying to make this all right.

“Just in case.” He put his skis on again and stood up. “I’m
going back up to look for her.”

He set off, moving fast straight up the mountain, and Alec
was shifting on his skis, stabbing a pole into the snow, his normally confident
expression giving way to anxiety as Joe’s figure receded, then disappeared from
sight.

“I’m sure she’s OK,” Alyssa tried again. “She just fell or
something. It can take a while to get up when you’re not used to it.”

“She’s had a lot of practice today,” Alec said. “She knows
how to get up.” He gave a nearby drift another stab, and Alyssa couldn’t think
of anything else to say, so she didn’t say anything.

More achingly slow minutes passed, until at last, they saw a
lone skier coming down the mountain.

“Is that Joe?” Alec asked.

“No,” Alyssa said. She knew the look of Joe now, and the
skier didn’t have his size, or his moves.

It was a teenage kid, they saw as he skied to a stop at the
bottom of the lift near where they stood. “There’s somebody hurt up there,” he
told the attendant, looking excited to be reporting it. “They told me to ask
you to get the ski patrol.”

The attendant nodded, pulled a radio off his belt and spoke
into it. Alec was at the kid’s side in an instant.

“Who is it?” he asked him. “Who’s hurt?”

The kid looked at him in surprise. “Uh . . . a lady.”

“How badly hurt is she?” Alec pressed. “Where? Is anybody
with her?”

“Yeah, a guy’s with her,” the kid said, backing up a bit at
the intensity on Alec’s face. “I don’t know how bad. I didn’t see. The guy just
waved me down and told me she was hurt, and to ask them to send the ski patrol.
That’s all I know.”

“Alec,” Alyssa said, her hand on his arm. “We don’t know.
I’m sure it’s all right.”

“I should have sat this one out with her,” he said again. “She
was too tired, and the light was too bad. Stupid—selfish—I should
have sat it out. Where
are
they?”

He subsided, but his anxiety was almost a tangible thing
now, and he couldn’t stand still. The wait felt endless, but it was probably
only a few minutes before they saw another skier carving a quick route down the
mountain, and this time, Alyssa recognized Joe. And, behind him, a skier towing
a sled, a sled that had something on it, and she thought Alec was going to jump
out of his skin.

Joe came to a quick stop, pushed up his goggles, and spoke
to Alec. “It’s her knee. She torqued it good. It’s hurting pretty bad, and she
might have got a little banged up, took a hard fall, but that’s all. She’s
talking, didn’t black out. She’s OK.”

Alyssa saw Alec let go of a long breath, and had to wonder
for a bleak moment what it would be like to matter that much to another person.

The patroller skied up to join them, and it was Rae on the
sled, of course, covered with a blanket and fastened down with straps, and Alec
was at her side, bending down on his skis to talk to her, pulling off his glove
to stroke her face as if he couldn’t stand not to.

“Baby,” Alyssa heard him say, “you OK? I’m so sorry.”

Rae smiled at him, though Alyssa could tell it took an
effort, because the pain was there in the tightness of her lips, the pinched
look of her. “Just . . . embarrassed to be—riding on the sled. Sorry. So stupid.
I fell. I tried to get up, but—I couldn’t. I thought I could wait for it
to feel better. Joe made me get on the sled.”

“I’m taking her to the clinic,” the ski patroller told Alec.
“You all can come along, but we need to go.”

They followed him to the clinic, stopped outside. Alyssa and
Alec took off their skis, stuck them into the rack outside the low wooden
building, and Alec got Rae’s skis and poles as well. Joe, though, didn’t follow
suit.

“I’ll ski down for the car,” he said. Alec nodded, and Joe
took off.

A wait inside the clinic’s reception area, then, while Alec
filled in forms, and then they sat and waited some more until the door opened
to the sight of Rae in a wheelchair pushed by a middle-aged woman, and followed
by what Alyssa assumed was a doctor, judging by the white lab coat and the
stethoscope. Young, tall, dark hair with a bit of curl to it, looking like he
belonged in a movie about a good-looking doctor working at a ski area. A
romantic comedy, probably, from the jaunty confidence of his walk. When he got
closer, she could see the name embroidered in black script on the white coat.
Cliff Monaghan, M.D.

“Your wife’s got an MCL strain,” the doctor told Alec as the
nurse, or whatever she was, headed through the door again to the back of the
clinic. “As I’ve explained to her, this is one of the most common injuries we
see up here, but she did a pretty good job of it. Sounds like she was going
fast when she fell, and that twists the knee with more force, can increase the
severity of the injury. I’m recommending that you head on over to a hospital
with her and get it checked out. The ligament’s got some fairly significant tearing,
that’s my guess, judging by the amount of pain and the fact that she can’t move
it. For right now, we’ve got an icepack and an elastic bandage on her, but
Carolyn at the desk there will give you a couple options for hospitals. I’d
like to see you check that out before the swelling gets any worse.”

Alec already had his phone out. “I’ll call my brother. He’s
a doctor.”

The doctor hesitated. “You’ll want a hospital, and if it
were my wife, I’d want a specialist.”

“I know,” Alec said impatiently. “I’ve got a specialist.” He
turned away, was talking into the phone.

“My brother-in-law,” Rae explained. Her face was even more
pale, and she sounded like she was speaking through gritted teeth. “Gabe
Kincaid, in Truckee.”

“Really?” The doctor laughed. “Small world. I send a fair
amount of business Gabe’s way. You couldn’t do better.”

Alec was holding out the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Hey,” the doctor said into the phone. “Cliff Monaghan here,
up at Alpine Meadows. How you doin’? He paused to listen. “Yeah,” he said after
a minute. “You’ll want to get this lady into an MRI machine tonight, I’d say.
Looks like Grade III MCL to me. Quite a bit of pain, enough so I didn’t want to
palpate.”

Another pause. “OK,” he said. “I’ll hook her up with the
good stuff.” He winked at Rae. “Talk to you soon.”

He hung up, handed the phone back to Alec. “Back to my magic
cabinet for some samples. I’ll be right with you. Meet you at the front desk.”

True to his word, he was back again within a couple minutes
with two small white packets with a name Alyssa recognized. That
was
the good stuff. He held them out to
Rae, still in her wheelchair. “Two of these puppies right now,” he promised,
“and you’ll be a lot more comfortable in that MRI machine.”

Alyssa went over to the water cooler, filled a little paper
cup, and brought it back to Rae, glad to have something, even this minor, to
do.

“Let me guess,” Dr. Cliff said to her as Rae swallowed pills
and Alec paid the receptionist. “You’re a Kincaid too.”

“Sister,” she said. “Alyssa.” He
was
cute. Pretty insensitive, though. No pain pills until Gabe had
asked for them? If Rae had broken her leg, he probably would have advised that
they shoot her, put her out of her misery.

“It’s the eyes that give you away. Beautiful eyes. I wouldn’t
say that to him,” he said, inclining his head in Alec’s direction and flashing
Alyssa a smile, “but I’ll say it to you. Unmarried sister, I hope?”

She raised her eyebrows. “If anybody’s asking.”

“Well, isn’t this my lucky day. I meet Gabe Kincaid’s
family, and there’s even a bonus in it. You all will probably be heading out
after this, though, which is a real shame.”

She hadn’t even considered it, but of course they would. The
thought of it gave her a purely selfish pang of regret for her lost chance to
try backcountry skiing. “Probably,” she said. “Unfortunately.”

“Accidents are my job, but they’re not much fun, are they? Let’s
hope you get a little more skiing time in, if not this trip, another one. We’re
having a good snow year. Be a shame to miss it.” He pulled a business card from
his breast pocket, unclipped a pen from the same spot, and scribbled something
on it. “This is me. I’ve put my cell on there. Give me a call, if you’re
around. You can let me know how your . . . sister-in-law, I guess, is doing.”

“Hmm,” she said, flicking the card and giving him her best are-you-man-enough?
look. The handsome doctor flirting with her—well, that was fun, even if
she didn’t care much for him.
Eat your heart
out, Joe.
“I thought you doctor types talked to each other,” she said, and
if she was flirting back, well, a girl needed to practice. “I won’t know all
the technical words. Maybe you should ask Gabe instead.”

“Oh, if you tell me, I think I can get the gist.” He smiled
back, showing some very straight white teeth this time. It was a pretty good
smile, and a pretty practiced one, too. “And I’m always on the lookout for a
good partner. Skiing, that is.”

“Uh-huh.” She shifted the load of coats she was carrying—hers,
Alec’s, and Rae’s—found a pocket, shoved the card inside. “I’ll keep that
in mind.”

“Well, if you lose it,” he said, “you know where I work.”

He turned to shake hands with Rae and Alec. “Take care,” he said,
serious again. “You can’t do better than Gabe, so I know I’m leaving you in
good hands.”

With a last smile for Alyssa, he returned to the back
regions, ready for the next unfortunate victim of the slopes.

They had a wait, then, until the door to the clinic opened
and Joe came in. He’d changed from his ski boots, Alyssa saw.

“How we doing?” he asked.

“Seems I’ve abused my MCL,” Rae said. “Because when I fall,
I fall big.”

“Need to take her to see Gabe in Truckee,” Alec told him. “He
says it’s a thirty-minute drive. All right?”

“Sure,” Joe said. “Car’s right outside.”

Alec pushed Rae to the door, waited while Joe held it open
for them, then took the wheelchair ramp down to where Joe’s car sat waiting.
 
As soon as Joe had the door open, Alec picked
Rae up despite her protest, deposited her gently in the front passenger seat, waited
while she fastened her shoulder belt, then closed her door.

“Alec,” she said once the others had collected the skis and
poles, Joe had stowed them in the back of the car, and they were heading out of
the lot, “You can’t go around carrying me. I could have got in the car myself.
I was only hesitating because I don’t have any shoes on, and I wasn’t thrilled
about stepping in the snow.”

“Nah,” he said from his spot behind her. “That’s why I
married a skinny woman, so I could look powerful carrying her around. Now, if
it had been Alyssa, we’d have been in trouble.”

Alyssa gasped in outrage, but Rae beat her to it. “That is
such a fail. So not smooth. I am not skinny.
Slender
is the word you’re going for. And Alyssa hardly weighs more
than I do.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” Alyssa put in.

Rae ignored her. “Even Joe knows you don’t insult a woman
about her weight. Either direction. I don’t care if she
is
your sister, that’s a major loss of points, huh, Joe?”

“Yep,” he answered. “Nobody ever accused me of being smooth,
but you’re right, even I’m smarter than that. Guess we’ll blame stress.”

“I did not talk about her weight,” Alec protested. “I just
said, I’m not sure I’d want to lift her into any cars.”

Rae was laughing again, and if Alyssa hadn’t already known
what those pills had been, she’d have had a pretty good idea by now. “I think most
men would be a whole lot happier to pick Alyssa up than to pick me up. She has
the figure I always wanted. Aren’t I right, Joe? You’re not her brother.
Wouldn’t any guy be happier to pick her up?”

“Uh . . .” he said. “Is there a good answer to this
question? Because it doesn’t seem like it to me. I abstain.”

Rae didn’t seem to care that he wasn’t answering, because
she went on. “I know Dr. Handsome in there would have been happy to pick her
up. In fact, that’s exactly what he was doing. Pretty good work, Alyssa,
scoring the ski doctor. See, that’s why I wanted to look like you. That kind of
thing never happened to me.”

“Hey,” Alec protested. “I seem to recall some fairly hot
pursuit.”