Chapter 7 Nicole #2
“Fine, but so you know, I’m not going to shy away from the tough topics,” she warned him. “So, let’s start with…” She gave him a playful poke in the arm, not surprised there were hard muscles under his ski sweater. “Relationships.”
He chuckled. “You do like the difficult things.”
“Hey, I just did a blue run for the first time in nineteen years. I feel powerful.”
Smiling, he turned to her. “You start. Anything serious in your past?”
“Not really,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. “I had a long-term boyfriend all through high school, probably because he was the one guy at Canyon View High School who didn’t ski. That was my prerequisite.”
He rolled his eyes. “And look at you now. A date with a ski patrol.”
So, it was a date, she thought, fighting a smile. “Right? All this time I’ve been missing the joys of the Powder Keg. In college, I dated one guy for a year, but we fizzled. And in the past five years, I’ve given my heart, soul, and time to building my business at the ski shed.”
He nodded, considering all that.
“And you?” she pressed when he didn’t offer anything.
“Me? You’d cry if you saw my schedule,” he said on a laugh.
“I drive forty minutes twice a week for classes at Weber State in Ogden, then I have, oh, I don’t know, ten hours a week of ambulance ride-alongs—not working, but training.
I do rotations in the ER, and patrol. Between all that and my, um, you know, family, I don’t have much time. ”
“So you never date?” she asked, finding it hard to believe he didn’t have plenty of girls—probably some who frequented this cabin—who would be happy to distract him from his busy schedule.
“Not really,” he said. “I’m too serious about studying and working.”
“Then why ask Bri for my number?”
A very slow smile pulled, and he tipped his head to her, a softness in his blue eyes touching her right to her soul.
“I’d love to say, you know, I’m a sucker for big brown eyes and all that pretty hair—which I am—but there was something about you…”
For what felt like five full heartbeats, he regarded her closely, as though he was trying to figure it out.
“My famous father?” she guessed, hoping so much that wasn’t the attraction.
“No, absolutely not,” he assured her. “I think it was your…vulnerability.”’
“On skis? You call it vulnerability. I call it scared out of my mind.”
“No, it wasn’t your fear. I didn’t really see that, since people fall all the time, even experts. It was…” He breathed out a sigh. “I think I felt like I could trust you.”
“With what?”
He swallowed. “My wipeout story and the…aftermath. You ready?”
She nodded. “When you are.”
Nicole gave him time, sensing that this was no ordinary ski tale. Checking the weather again, they decided they had time for some coffee, which he brewed. While he did, she asked him about the paramedic training.
“How much do you have left until you get certified?” she asked.
“One more year, then I’ll take the National Registry Exam, which is grueling,” he told her. “A written exam that I’ve heard MDs say they couldn’t pass, then a hands-on station test.”
“What’s involved with that?” she asked.
He poured two mugs of coffee and opened a cabinet, producing powdered creamer and a bag of sugar that looked like it had survived more winters than her grandfather. He made a face.
“Black okay?”
“If I want to live,” she joked, taking the cup and walking with him back to the sofa.
“The station tests are tough, too,” he said, going back to the conversation.
“I have to lead cardiac arrest management, pediatric emergencies, prove my airway skills, trauma assessment, the whole deal. Since I’m already a firefighter, I’ll do that on the job, but it could take another six months to complete. ”
“Wow.” She blew on her coffee, eyeing him over the rim. “That’s impressive.”
“Be impressed after I get licensed, but yeah.” He took a sip of coffee and set the mug on the table. “It’s been hard.”
“Lifelong dream?” she guessed.
His expression darkened. “Well, it’s part of the aftermath of my wipeout story, which I am now ready to share.”
Silently, she put her cup down, too, and turned to him on the sofa.
“There were no skis involved,” he said after a beat and a slow exhale. “But a lot of ice, swerving, and a cocky attitude from a kid who…should have known better.”
She leaned closer, forgetting the snow, the cabin, the whole world. Cameron’s voice had grown deeper and quieter, and she knew what he was about to share wasn’t something he talked about a lot.
“I was sixteen and had a driver’s license for a grand total of four weeks.
” He let out a dry laugh, but there was no humor in it.
“We were driving back from Salt Lake—me, my mom and dad, and my little sister, Elise. We’d turned my sister’s indoor arena lesson down in Draper into a Hale family outing that day.
She competed in junior cross-rails with horses. ”
“Oh.” Nicole felt her face brighten. “I loved to go see those shows,” she said. “I always wanted to do that but just owned horses, never competed.”
“Maybe you saw her. She was excellent, a natural before she was even ten years old. Really wanted to be a vet.”
She stared at him, the past tense making her hold her breath. “And…”
“We were in our Subaru Outback,” he said.
“The quintessential Utah family car. The roads were wet, temperatures were dropping, and it was that time of day where the sun turns the whole mountain gold but blinds you at every turn. I was doing everything right, at least I thought I was. Under the speed limit, both hands on the wheel, Dad reminding me to ‘ease up on the brake.’” He shook his head. “Didn’t matter.”
Nicole fought a groan of fear at where he was going with this story, picturing the two-lane road, the jagged ridgeline of the canyons, and a boy trying to prove he could handle it.
“A truck towing snowmobiles hit black ice and jackknifed right across the line. I tried to steer us away.” He looked down at his hands, curling them like they still gripped the wheel.
“Way too fast, too hard on the brake, like the rookie I was. We spun and the truck slammed into the driver’s side back door, right where Elise was sitting.
The whole panel crushed like crumpled paper. ”
Nicole let out a whimper at the image.
“The sound…” Cameron’s voice cracked. “Metal on metal. Glass shattering. And Elise—screaming bloody stinking murder because her legs were pinned. Mom was crying, Dad was cussing, and I was just sitting there with the airbag in my face thinking, what did I just do?”
She put her hands over one of his, mostly because she could tell he was trembling and she desperately needed to comfort him.
“Dad broke his wrist and Mom still has a bad neck. I barely had a scratch. But Elise…”
She held her breath.
“Well, she rode her last horse that day,” he whispered. “They saved her. I’ll never forget the first responders and how they moved. Or the doctors or the surgeries or the months of trying to put her legs back together.”
“Oh, Cameron.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry your family, your sister, had to go through that.”
“She’s a couple years younger than you,” he said.
“Just about to turn twenty-five. And she has permanent nerve damage, is paralyzed from the waist down, and gets around my parents’ house in a wheelchair.
Tough as nails, funny and bright and beautiful, but she will never have a normal life.
” He closed his eyes, guilt etched over his clenched jaw.
Nicole leaned back, taking in the story and trying to imagine how life could change in the blink of an eye.
“Everyone says it wasn’t my fault,” he added. “Legally, it wasn’t. But I wonder if someone else behind the wheel—someone older—might’ve swerved just right, braked with more finesse. Maybe she’d still be whole.”
Nicole’s throat ached. “You were a kid, Cam.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “But she’s the one paying the price.” He finally looked up, his eyes raw and unguarded. “That’s why I do what I do. Firefighting, ski patrol, paramedic school. If I can save one person, maybe I’ll balance the scales. And it’s also why I never got…serious with a girl.”
She frowned. “Why would that stop you?”
“Elise,” he said, as if it should be obvious. “She can’t really live alone, so she’s my responsibility for the rest of my life. My parents are older. My mom was in her forties when Elise was born and she’s facing seventy. My dad’s five years older. They got married a little later in life, so…”
So he thought about their passing, and how he’d take care of his sister.
“Anyway, I have some, uh, baggage,” he said, looking directly at her. “And I’ll never, ever put it down.”
The vehemence in his voice squeezed her heart, the sound of a man who genuinely loved his sister and had made a commitment to her. A man who wanted a potential girlfriend to know exactly what she was walking into. She respected that, and wasn’t the least bit afraid.
“I’d like to meet her,” she said. “If I could.”
He blinked. “Of course you could,” he said. “But I…you’re…we…”
She smiled. “Why is this man stuttering?”
“Because you just make me like you more every minute,” he admitted, laughing softly.
“Then my evil plan is working,” she joked.
His smile faded as he searched her face and leaned closer. “I knew I could trust you,” he said. “I don’t know why, but I knew it when I met you. She’s alone right now, but she insisted I come today because…I kind of talked you up.”
She felt a rush of warmth to her cheeks, and covered with a laugh as she pushed up. “Come on, let’s get down that mountain and go see Elise.”
“Okay,” he said, pushing up. “I love that—” He froze at the sight out the window, and sucked in a breath at the view that was nothing but white. “Yikes. We maybe talked too long.”
Yikes was right. Could she ski in that?
He walked to the front door and cracked it, the wind buffeting it into his shoulder and blowing in some snow as Nicole joined him.
When he finally got it open, they stood in the freezing cold, taking in the sight of a blizzard. The air was thick with flakes blown sideways. The line of trees that framed the porch had blurred to ghost shapes. The slopes they’d skied to get here were white-on-white and barely visible.
The lifts that ran near the cabin weren’t moving, the chairs whipping in the wind.
“We’re not leaving here tonight,” he said softly.
“But your sister—”
“I can get someone to check on her. I’ll call her now.” He pulled out his phone. “Thank God, there’s service.”
“Maybe we could…”
“No,” he said, tapping the phone. “I could, but I would never ask you to. No trauma on my watch.”
“We have to stay here all night?”
He smiled. “No trauma with that either,” he said. “Don’t worry. There’s some canned food, an air mattress that you can have, and plenty of firewood. We’re snowed in, but safe. You know what that means?”
So many things she couldn’t even begin to name them. “What?” she asked.
“You get to carve your name in the whiteout wall.”
She had no idea what that was, but what mattered was letting her mom—and now her dad—know she was safe.
“Let me call my family,” she said. “They’ll be worried about me.”
“I can talk to your parents if you like,” he suggested. “Just to assure them you are completely safe. We’ll stay warm, comfortable, and play board games all night.”
She smiled at him, touched by the offer and by this tender-hearted young man who was not the carefree partying ski patrol she thought he was. He was nothing like she’d thought, and that just made her like him more.
“It’s fine,” she assured him. “But if there’s Monopoly, be warned. I was trained by a master.”
He laughed and just the sound of that made her feel safe and weirdly excited about being snowed in with him.