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Frustrated with herself, and feeling as if she were letting Zoe down, Milly bent at the waist to tighten her bindings, only she leaned too far forward. The slight shift in position caused the front of the skis to slide until Milly was teetering on the edge of the world.
“No, no no!”
“Yes, yes, yes,” the Universe said and suddenly she wasn’t teetering, she was moving. Slow at first, then picking up speed. As the trees raced by, Milly tried to remind herself the rules of skiing.
“Zig and zag, Milly. Zig and zag.” Forcing her feet to turn, Milly zigged to the left, but that put her on a direct route for the parking lot, so she zagged to the right. Only she zagged too hard, overcompensating and picking up speed. She tried to turn but her legs weren’t listening. Maybe because they had morphed into two big trembling wet noodles.
“On your left,” she hollered as she zipped past two of her classmates, nearly taking them out at the knees.
“Kelly,” she hollered over her shoulder, one octave away from manic. “What do I do?”
“Turn your feet in to make a triangle. Like a slice of pizza,” Kelly hollered back. But Milly’s legs stayed knees forward, pointed straight ahead.
Milly looked down at her feet, willing them into a pigeon-toe, but nothing happened. It was like her body wasn’t getting the memo that if they didn’t point in, they were going to die. And how embarrassing would it be to die on the bunny slope.
“Fore!” she called out to everyone around her, her gut telling her she was using the wrong sports metaphor. “Avalanche on the move!”
People scattered out of her way as Milly’s arms, neon-pink poles in hand, flailed in the air, grasping for balance as she barreled forward like Lindsey Vonn in the 2010 Vancouver Games. She nearly buzzed a massive sequoia, veering at the last minute, setting her on a direct course with—
“Oh shit.”
—the stone wall of Sierra Vista Lodge, a luxury ski resort based at the foot of the most treacherous runs in all the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The faster she went, the more imposing the wall became, until she was certain she was going to die. And wouldn’t that piss Zoe off. For Milly to die before at least trying to live balls-to-the-wall. Zoe would accuse her of purposefully dying rather than facing a few of her fears—like ski lifts.
Milly prepared herself for impact, raising her arms in front of her face and closing her eyes. Except when she plummeted into the wall with an oof, she fell forward, rather than bouncing back, in a landing that was softer than expected.
“Ow,” she moaned, putting her hands in front of her to push herself up. Instead of snow, her hands came into contact with hard ridges and valleys. Warm, hard ridges and valleys. Raising her head, she blinked up into the most mesmerizing green eyes she’d ever seen. Eyes that were swimming with concern and a tiny bit of recognition.
“Milly?” her unexpected savior said.
“Am I in heaven?” she asked, and that concern flipped to amusement, but the recognition remained.
“Why? You hoping to see me in heaven?” His voice was rough and low, like tossed gravel on steel, and so familiar she’d recognize it anywhere. It was her first crush.
Lucas Macintyre. Who also happened to be her newest, and only, client—at the moment.
When Zoe discovered she had just a few months to live, Milly relocated to Sierra Vista to live in the family’s weekend home. Not wanting to miss even a moment, Milly took personal leave from her job as a logistics coordinator for a publishing house in New York. She liked problem-solving and spreadsheets and anything color-coded. The way she viewed the world, like it was a big Tetris puzzle waiting to be solved, made her good at what she did. And even with the stress associated with her job, she loved what she did.
Her boss allowed her to telecommute for a time, but when it became too difficult Milly had to choose. She chose Zoe, and she’d choose her again, but there were times that Milly wondered what her life would have been like had she stayed in New York.
Would Dillon have followed through on the engagement? Would she have landed the promotion she’d been working toward? Mainly, would she be happy?
Everything had moved so quickly. One second, she was on her way to ticking off life’s boxes—dream job, dream husband, dream house—the next she was a caretaker to her sister. A job which had consumed the past nine months of her life.
After a while, her work friends had stopped calling, as if unsure what to say as the grief extended from weeks to months or somehow afraid that they’d remind her of her sister’s death. Not that it would have mattered. She remembered every waking moment of every day. Some of the sleeping ones too.
Her life was stuck on pause while the rest of the world moved forward without her.
“I’d be lucky if I saw tomorrow at this point,” she said to him.
His eyes lowered and she followed his gaze, realizing that she was cupping his pecs, one massive muscle in each hand, like she was copping a feel.
“Oh my god. I am so incredibly sorry. This is so unprofessional.” She tried to jerk her hands back, but his arms wrapped around her, holding her firmly against him.
“I’m the one who caught you.”
“You caught me?”
