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I could practically hear Doctor Harzel cheering in my mind. Yeah, yeah, I heard it…
“You promise?” she asked.
“Promise.”
James beamed at me, and I blushed as I grinned back at him.
We all left the penthouse together, with James breaking off to go to work and the rest of us continuing on and out the door toward the slopes.
“Alright,” I said as we got up to the top of the slope where I fell a couple of days ago. I tried not to let my voice shake as I talked to them, but the memory of my fall on this tiny slope came back to haunt me as much as the avalanche did.
But then another memory took over. The memory of what happened after the fall. Of James showing up and saving me. Of him pulling me into the warm tower. Of…
“Now what?” Ben asked, ready to go, pulling me out of my daze.
“Right,” I said, drawing my attention back to the kids and their lesson. “Step one is to make sure your feet are straight forward. Don’t turn them in or out.”
“I see people turn them in all the time,” Leann says, eying me suspiciously.
“That’s true,” I say to her. “But that’s for learning how to brake. Right now, you’re just going straight down the hill. Now, when you go, your poles help you stay upright, so you can use them to go faster or to push yourself upright. Here, let me show you.”
I took a deep breath and got to the edge of the landing above the slope and swallowed hard. This was it. Could I do it for the kids? For James and his kids?
I started off down the slope with all of the kids watching me intently. My leg began to shake about halfway down, and I had a moment where I truly thought I was going to fall, but I thought about the kids at the top, about Doctor Harzel, and about James, who had enough faith in me that he trusted his kids to me not only at home, but here on the slopes.
With a huge effort, I made it to the bottom, then turned around and shouted, “Okay, kids. Who’s first?”
Unsurprisingly, Ben insisted on going first. He made it about halfway, then turned his skis out and ended up falling to his butt, which he slid the rest of the way down on. Leann told Katie to go next, and she made it about half as far as Ben did before tumbling down, thankfully laughing the whole way. Finally, Leann went, and I could see the concentration all over her face as she kept her skis perfectly straight, making it all the way to the bottom.
I gave her a high-five and said, “Yeah! Amazing job, Leann.”
She squealed with happiness and jumped up and down, which, if you had ever been on skis, you know wasn’t the best idea, so she immediately fell. I was worried for a minute that she’d get frustrated, but she didn’t. In fact, she laughed so hard I was worried her ribs would hurt, and eventually, her siblings joined in, piling on top of her.
This was why I liked nannying. I loved getting to see moments like this, to give the kids someone there to experience it with them since their parents didn’t have the option.
Well, usually they didn’t.
“I don’t think you guys will make it very far like that,” a voice said from behind me, and I turned to see James in his snow gear, holding a pair of skis.
“Daddy!” Katie said, trying to get to her feet and failing as her skis got tangled up with Ben’s and Leann’s.
“Easy there,” James said, laughing and picking his youngest daughter up after freeing her from the pile. “You guys having fun with Haley?”
“I made it all the way down the hill on my first try!” Leann said.
“That’s amazing,” he said, also giving her a high-five like I’d done. He looked over at me and was about to say something when Ben scrambled to his feet and raised his hand at his dad like he was asking for permission to speak, but he didn’t wait to be called on.
“I made it all the way down, too,” he said excitedly.
“You did not!” Leann said, looking irritated. “Don’t lie.”
“I’m not lying,” he said. “I made it all the way down. I just wasn’t on my feet for half of it.”
James and I laughed while Leann rolled her eyes and Ben stuck his tongue out at her. We all pulled off our skis and started the trek back up the hill, with the kids running ahead.
“Be careful of slippery spots!” I shouted after them, thinking how it would be just my luck for one of them to fall and get a concussion now that their dad was here to watch.
“I’m gonna get there first!” Ben shouted, running as fast as he could.
