4. Gray
Gray
When I first really notice her, it's not because she's trying to draw attention. It's because she falters.
Mara stills behind the counter for a fraction of a second the moment our combined scents hit the air—pine, cedar, smoke, and that bright citrus Leo always carries with him like a second skin. Her hand tightens around a tray of mugs, and for a second I think she might drop it. She doesn't.
She steadies herself, breathes in, and smiles—that small, polite kind of smile that hides more than it reveals.
But it's her eyes that hold me for too long.
Last night she was a shape in the dark and a scent I couldn't place.
In daylight she's a little skittish, yes, but god, she's beautiful.
And by the way Daniel and Leo are watching her, I know I'm not the only one who noticed.
There's chatter around me—Tess laughing at something Daniel says, Margaret calling out from behind the counter about more cocoa, the faint hum of the heater—but it all feels a little muted. I find myself trying to memorize the sound of her voice when she thanks Tess for helping carry a tray.
Soft, lilting, careful. The kind of voice that makes you listen even when she says ordinary things.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, sharp and insistent. I glance at the screen. Dr. Anders. I sigh and push my chair back. "Give me a second," I murmur, already stepping outside into the cold.
The air bites. I can still smell the faint mix of coffee and pine through the crack of the café door. I answer. "McAllister."
"Hey, sorry to bother you," Anders says. His voice is tight, rushed—it's the same tone I've heard too many times over the last few years. "We've got a patient in post-op. Vitals are fine, but she's flushed and itching. Looks like a drug reaction. You did her pre-op exam. Any allergies not listed?"
I close my eyes for a second, pinching the bridge of my nose. My brain clicks into place—not the doctor's exhaustion that's been clinging to me lately, but the sharp, clinical precision I built my life around. "Marina Mendez?"
"Yes."
"Check her chart. She had a mild cephalosporin reaction when she was seventeen. If you used cefazolin, that's your answer. Switch her to clindamycin and give her a low dose of diphenhydramine IV. She should stabilize within the hour."
Anders exhales. "Got it. Thanks, Grayson. Sorry again for—"
"It's fine." I rub a hand over my face. "Keep me posted."
When I hang up, I stare at the quiet street for a few moments, watching the light spread across the snow. Denver feels a world away. The ER, the constant beeping, the endless shifts that left me hollowed out—all of it.
Coming here was supposed to be a break. At least that's what Daniel told me when he called. "You're burning out," he'd said. "You need air that doesn't smell like antiseptic and adrenaline."
He wasn't wrong.
I step back inside. The warmth hits me immediately, along with the familiar hum of voices. Leo looks up, eyes narrowing slightly.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah," I say, slipping my phone back into my coat pocket. "They just needed a consult."
Daniel's watching me too, that quiet, assessing look he gets when he's worried but doesn't want to say it out loud. He's always been like that—steady to the point of stubbornness.
Leo leans back in his chair. "See, this is exactly what I mean."
"What you mean?" I ask, raising a brow.
"This—" He gestures vaguely at me, his coffee mug, the world in general. "You can't relax for more than five minutes without someone calling about a patient. That's why we need to get you out here. Go do something fun for once. Breathe."
I snort. "Define fun."
Daniel groans, dragging a hand over his face. "He wants us to go skiing."
Leo grins like he's ten again and just got away with something. "Exactly."
I glance at him over my coffee cup. "You do realize I don't ski."
Tess, perched on a stool near the counter, tilts her head. "You don't know how to ski, or you don't ski?"
I smirk. "Never learned. I grew up in a mountain town farther west. Shattered my ankle and knee when I was ten. Never bothered to get back on skis after that."
Leo shrugs, undeterred. "This could be your chance to learn from the best. C'mon, I'll turn you into a pro."
"Of course you will," I mutter.
Tess grins. "Maybe you can teach Mara, too."
At the sound of her name, Mara looks up from where she's plating cookies. The light from the window hits her hair just right—soft chestnut waves catching in the morning sun. She blinks, startled, and then smiles, polite but a little shy.
"You don't ski either?" I ask before I can stop myself.
She shakes her head. "No. I tried once. It didn't go well."
Leo laughs. "Perfect. You two can fall down the slopes together."
I don't respond, mostly because I'm too busy studying the way she ducks her head, a faint flush creeping up her neck. It's ridiculous, but there's something about knowing we share that—the inability to conquer the mountain—that settles somewhere deep in me. A small, irrational point of connection.
Margaret appears from behind the counter, wiping her hands on a towel. "Maybe you boys should learn before you go dragging Mara down the slopes. I'd like her in one piece, thank you very much."
Daniel chuckles. "We'll be careful, Mom."
Tess yawns. "I'd come with you guys, but I'm working at the lodge later. Then I'm taking the longest nap in existence."
Daniel reaches over, tugging gently at a strand of her hair. "That's what you get for drinking."
"Rude," she mutters, swatting his hand away.
I watch them—the easy teasing, the warmth that seems to hang around this family like sunlight. It's strange how comfortable it feels to sit here, surrounded by them. My own childhood was sterile in comparison.
Both my parents were doctors. The McAllisters of Ridgeview Medical—a family name whispered in hallways because it meant something.
I'd grown up learning that love was efficiency, that success was safety, that anything less than perfect was failure.
I'd never known what this looked like: laughter, shared meals, people who stayed even when things weren't easy.
Sometimes I wonder if I'd grown up like this, if I'd had this kind of grounding, whether I'd still have chosen medicine.
I do like saving people, understanding the body.
But it's also the thing that's hollowed me out the most. There's only so much adrenaline a person can live on before it starts eating them alive.
Not to mention…
I push the thought away. The last time I let that thought consume me, I almost went catatonic. I know it's one of the reasons my packmates insisted on this trip. Daniel says it was what he needed to relax, but I know what happened with me had a part to play, too.
Daniel stands, stretching. "We should eat before we go anywhere. The place is only going to get busier."
Leo's already halfway to the counter, helping himself to more cocoa. "Breakfast first, then we'll grab supplies, maybe look into another car so we're not all crammed together."
Tess groans. "You're going to drive Daniel crazy with your planning."
"I like efficiency," Leo says with mock dignity.
Mara laughs, and the sound of it makes my chest tighten. It's light, unguarded. Different from the polite tone she used earlier.
We find a table near the window as the café fills with locals. There's chatter all around, the kind of cozy morning rhythm that small towns seem to perfect. Margaret brings over a plate of muffins and insists we eat.
Daniel thanks her, Leo jokes shamelessly, Tess rolls her eyes, and I… I sit there watching the way Mara moves behind the counter, calm and graceful, focused even when she's clearly aware of the attention she's getting.
Daniel says something to me, but I only half hear it.
I'm too busy tracing the curve of her wrist as she wipes down the counter, the way her hair brushes her jaw when she leans forward.
It's ridiculous—I've seen thousands of people in my life, been surrounded by beauty and pain and everything in between—but something about her catches me off guard.
Leo nudges me. "You're staring."
"I'm not," I say too quickly.
He smirks. "Sure you aren't."
I take a slow sip of coffee, ignoring him.
Outside, the snow is falling again, soft flakes swirling against the windowpane.
It's going to be a long day—supplies, skiing, whatever Leo decides to drag us into—but for the first time in months, maybe years, I don't mind.
The hospital will be fine without me for a while. Anders can handle the rounds.
There's warmth in my chest I can't quite name. Maybe it's just the coffee. Or maybe it's something else entirely.
Because when Mara looks up and our eyes meet for half a second, it feels like the world tilts just a little bit.
She's impossible to ignore.
The Snowcap General Store smells like cedar shavings, coffee, and waxed rope, like you've stepped fifty years back in time.
We've already been there an hour—long enough for Leo to charm the clerk, long enough for Daniel to compare snow boots like he's weighing courtroom evidence, long enough for me to question my life choices at least twice.
Now, the back of the SUV looks like a ski rental exploded—helmets, poles, boots, thermal jackets, and something Leo insists is "vital safety gear" but is clearly just an overpriced pair of ski goggles.
The SUV Daniel rented this morning, white and boxy and better in deep snow than his truck, idles quietly in the snowbank near the slopes.
The mountain rises ahead of us, white and blinding and alive with motion.
I take a sip from my coffee Thermos, the heat cutting through the cold as steam curls into the air.
My breath fogs instantly. Leo's leaning against the hood, grinning at me like a man who's far too pleased with himself.
Daniel sits behind the wheel for a second longer, phone in hand, probably checking some work email even though he promised he wouldn't.