Chapter 7 Nicole
Nicole tugged her ski jacket tighter around her chest as the shuttle van rolled to a gentle stop near the base of Deer Valley.
Bri grinned widely, eyeing her in the rearview mirror from the driver’s seat. “How ya feeling, girl?”
Nicole swallowed and glanced over at her dad, who was also grinning like a kid on Christmas morning. She rolled her eyes.
“You two are both entirely too excited about this. I’m going down the bunny hill and trying not to die. It’s not some big comeback story.”
Jack shrugged and glanced out the window to hide his smile. “I didn’t say a word. I’m just happy to be getting out on the slopes with you, kid.”
“And I’m beyond jealous,” Bri said on a groan as she pulled the shuttle van up to the resort entrance to drop them off. “That powder is calling my name.”
“It’ll be there when your shift ends,” Nicole said with a smile as she grabbed her helmet off the seat next to her.
“But it’ll be all skied over and I want first tracks.” She stuck her tongue out playfully.
Jack chuckled. “And we’re going to make them.”
First tracks? Ugh. Nicole just hopped out of the van with a wave of her gloved hand. “Bye, Bri. Sell lots while I’m gone today.”
“Ski like the wind! Have fun, Flying Jack!” Brianna blew her a kiss and Nicole stepped away, trying to ignore the fact that her knees felt wobbly at the very sight of the lift base.
Beyond them, the mountain rose in layered folds of white, dusted with fresh powder that glittered in the morning sun. The air was filled with the distant whoosh of skis carving downhill and the cheerful clatter of poles.
Guests in brightly colored jackets bustled between the base lodge and the lifts, laughter and music from outdoor speakers floating through the cold like confetti.
Nicole’s stomach twisted as she marched next to Dad, the scent of hot cocoa wafting from a nearby stand clashing with the old, familiar knot of nerves curling beneath her layers.
She hoisted the pair of skis she grabbed from the shed over her shoulder and tried to take a calming breath. Maybe the coffee she’d downed before leaving was a bad idea after all, because all she felt were jitters and a hint of heartburn.
“You okay?” Jack asked, walking beside her with the skis he’d chosen for the day effortlessly resting on his shoulder.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this, Dad.”
Jack notched his chin toward the medley of groomed green ski runs that wound down from the first-level lifts. “No worries, Nic. You were ripping those when you were three.”
“I was fearless at three.”
He stopped, bracing her shoulder with a strong hand, the kind of steadying support she always loved from her father. It hit her right then how much she missed it—missed him—and how deeply she wanted to show this man what she was made of.
“Hey, the second you say you’re done, we leave.”
“I’m done,” she joked. “Can we go get pancakes instead?”
“Just try,” he urged. “Come on. Let’s get you locked into your skis and see how it feels to just…glide around. Sound good?”
Actually, it sounded horrible, but she followed him to the snow-covered hill where people were lacing up their bindings and shuffling to the lift lines.
The morning sun peeked through the frosted pines, casting a soft glow over the pristine white slopes of Deer Valley. Snow clung to every tree branch like thick icing, and the air sparkled with the crisp magic of early winter.
“I forgot how much gear was involved with this sport,” Nicole muttered, fumbling with her two—yes, two—layers of gloves and shoving her neck warmer over her braided hair. “You have to bring a suitcase-worth of clothes just to get out here.”
Jack stood a few paces away, adjusting his gloves and laughing softly.
He looked every inch the former Olympian, even at sixty—still tall, still confident, still radiating that unshakable peace she remembered from her childhood.
He’d always seemed unbreakable on skis, despite the injury that derailed his competitive dreams.
He hadn’t let that stop him from skiing again.
She, on the other hand, felt like she was about to unravel nineteen years after…that day.
She scanned the mountain, which was peppered with skiers and teeming with the excitement of a big early season snow.
Her gaze fell on a section of trees, and her heart rate kicked up. She remembered the feeling of going face first into a tree well—not there, but much, much higher. She easily recalled feeling trapped, stuck, terrified. She hadn’t broken anything, but the fear had calcified in her bones.
Jack looked over and smiled. “You good?”
“Yeah. Fine. I’m guessing you want to start by going up Carpenter?” She nodded toward the set of main lifts—Carpenter and Silver Lake.
“You think you’re ready for Success?” he asked, referring to the quintessential green run that took beginner skiers down from the top of Carpenter lift to the base.
“It’s a long green,” she said, the knowledge more from conversations she’d had with Brianna and customers than her dimmed memory.
“You’re right,” he said quickly. “Why don’t we start with Snowflake?”
She chuckled softly. “I’ve never seen anyone over the age of five take that lift.”
“It’s perfect.” He skied over and crouched beside her. “We’re taking it slow this time. Just the bunny slope. We’re not even doing turns yet—just relearning how to shift your weight and get used to the skis. You’ll be fine.”
Nicole nodded stiffly.
He gestured up the hill where the tiny, two-seater lift took beginners to the top of a mostly flat, wide slope. “Come on, Nic. It’ll be fun.”
Of course, Snowflake had no lift line, so they got right on.
She let him guide her onto the lift. It wasn’t steep. It wasn’t fast. The other lift riders were all younger than Benny. Much younger than Benny, who could ski, but didn’t really have a passion for it.
It wasn’t anything like that black diamond run from two decades ago. And yet her palms were sweaty in her gloves.
At the top of the hill, the world opened up in soft curves of snow.
Nicole stepped off the lift and skidded slightly, her boots clunky in the bindings, her legs leaden and stiff on the skis.
The slope below wasn’t steep, but from up here, it looked vast—an untouched sheet of white stretching down toward the base, dotted by a scattering of toddlers in neon snowsuits and parents crouching behind them.
The cold nipped at her cheeks, but sweat was already prickling under her layers. Around her, ski instructors called encouragement, poles clicked, and laughter rang out, carefree and echoing—so opposite the weight dragging in her chest.
Before they started, Jack stood at the top of the rise, squinting at the bottom.
“Five bucks?” he said, fighting a smile.
She smiled, too, remembering their old bet—his first form of bribery to get her to take a run that scared her. They always bet five bucks on who’d get to the bottom first.
“I’ll take that bet,” she said, more to honor the special memory than any notion that she’d beat him on this pathetic little hill.
They started down. It was seriously flat, but Nicole was terrified. She wobbled, caught her balance, wobbled again.
Jack skied alongside her slowly, offering gentle corrections. “Weight on your downhill foot. That’s it.”
Her downhill foot. The one that felt like it weighed fifty pounds? She nodded, trying to concentrate, but feeling so, so unsteady.
“Eyes ahead, Nic,” he said. “Where you look is where you’ll go.”
So…don’t look at a tree. “’Kay,” she managed to say.
“There you go, honey,” he cooed. “Trust your body. It knows what to do.”
It did, once upon a time. Today? She slid a little and whimpered.
“Pick your line and trust it, Nic.” he continued. “You want this. You know you want this. Steady, steady…”
Her ski veered left, she overcorrected, and panic seized. Leaning forward, her skis caught a little too much speed, and her old fear bloomed like frostbite in her chest.
“Dad!” she gasped.
He tried to ski over, but before he reached her, Nicole tumbled sideways into a fluffy pile of snow just off the run.
She lay still for a moment, humiliated, snowflakes melting on her cheeks.
Jack coasted over, worry on his face. “You okay?”
Nicole sat up, brushing snow off her jacket. “I’m fine. Just…” She couldn’t admit she was scared of this. There were scarier slopes on the Snowberry Lodge property, not that she’d ever attempted back-country skiing.
Jack crouched beside her. “You did great, Nic. Honestly. That was a solid first run.”
“I fell.”
“Everybody falls.”
But not everybody almost dies, she thought.
Jack sat down on the snowbank next to her. He raised his goggles onto his helmet and studied her with concern and care. “Come on, honey. That wasn’t bad. You fell onto your side, just like I taught you when you were young.”
She tugged at her face covering, getting an icy breeze on her skin.
“I remember,” she said softly, grabbing clumps of snow with her gloved hands. “You used to always say, ‘If you’re not falling, you’re not trying.’” She said in a playful, mocking voice. “I wanted to strangle you.”
He laughed heartily, patting her back. “It’s true, though. And you always got back up.”
“Until…I didn’t.” She looked down at the rental skis, sprinkling them with the fistfuls of snow in her hands.
“Nic…”
She let out a slow breath, staring at the slope. “I feel like I let you down. Back then. When I quit skiing.”
Jack blinked. “Nicole. We’ve talked about this a million times. You didn’t let me down. You had an accident.”
She closed her eyes. “You had an accident, Dad,” she reminded him. “I had a trauma.”
“You think hearing a bone crack and knowing what shattered was a chance to stand on the podium at the Olympics wasn’t traumatic?”
Nodding, she didn’t fight that, but eventually looked up at him.