Harlan didn’t know where the bison was, so he stayed where he was, on top of the woman. She wasn’t saying anything at all. He’d knocked the wind out of her, maybe, but he couldn’t worry about that.
Owen’s voice, then, shouting, “Get out of there!”
Harlan rolled off the woman, or he tried to. He’d forgotten he was on skis, though, and it took him an awkward few seconds to get over them and onto his feet, and to put a hand down for her.
Her fluffy pink hat had come off in the collision, and her hair was red, curly, and wild against the snow. Her eyes were enormous and gold as coins, which startled him, and her nose and cheeks were covered in freckles that stood out against her white face as she stared up at him. He said, “Give me your hand.” The bison was standing a little ways off, still shaking its massive head. “We have to get out of here,” he told the redhead. “He doesn’t look happy.”
“I’m not that … good a skier. I don’t know how to … get up yet. I haven’t learned, uh … that part.” She took her own look around, saw the other skier, and called out, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” the other girl said. “I’m not the one on the ground. Come on. We need to hurry.”
“I’m trying,” the redhead said. “I … told you we should snowshoe.” She was trying to push herself up, but since she didn’t have her weight over her skis, she wasn’t making much progress and kept falling back.
Owen said to the other girl, “Come on. We need to put some distance between us and that bull, get him less upset.”
It wasn’t easy to get somebody upright when you were on slippery skis yourself, but by planting himself behind the woman and sideways to her, Harlan found he could crouch down, get both arms around her, and haul her to her feet. The second he did, she said, “I’m good now. Thanks. Let’s go,” and headed toward the others. Not very fast, but clearly as fast as she could go. She may have been limping some, if limping was something you could do on skis.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She waved an arm. Since it had a ski pole attached, she waved extra, and nearly fell over again. He grabbed her arm and said, “Steady.”
“Oh,” she said, “I’m fine, thanks. Just fine. What a wonderful vacation. I am going to kill Blake. I’ve been here about five hours, and I’ve already almost died twice. This was supposed to be relaxing.”
“You have not almost died twice,” the other woman said, because they’d caught up to the others now, thankfully leaving the bison behind. This girl was younger and extremely pretty, with short, pale-blonde hair that looked natural, a double ring through the outer part of her right eyebrow, and about the most lively little heart-shaped face Harlan had ever seen. “You’ve been spared twice,” she told the redhead. “And there’s more to life than relaxing. Wow. That was such an adrenaline rush. I’m shaking. Are you shaking?” she asked Owen, who was skiing beside her.
“Yeah,” he said. “But in a good way.”
“I know,” she said with clear delight. “Right?”
“Do not say it,” the redhead said. “Do not quote the Tao at me. I’m not in the mood.”
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes,” the elf-girl said, and the redhead groaned.
“Don't resist them,” Owen put in. “That only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
The elf-girl turned her whole body to him and said, “You study the Tao?”
“It’s that or read my horoscope,” Owen said, and she laughed.
“Right,” the redhead said. “Well, apparently I’m failing at flowing, because to me, that just felt like almost getting mowed down by a ten-year-old on a snowmobile. What a stupid way to die. I need a glass of wine. Or two. Probably two.”
“I think you’ve earned a glass of wine,” Harlan said. They were almost back at the lodge now, and he was feeling a whole lot better about his weekend. She was wearing stretchy black ski pants and filling them out just fine, he liked those freckles and that hair, she had a great mouth, wide and full and just as curvy as the rest of her, with a deep crease in the center of the upper lip and the kind of bow you wanted to keep on kissing. That mouth promised everything, and let’s just say she was a pleasure to lie on top of.
While rescuing her. Besides, he’d got right off again.
Owen wasn’t saying anything, for some reason, so Harlan ran with the ball. “If you’re staying here at the lodge and you don’t have other plans,” he told the redhead, “we could buy you that glass of wine. Adrenaline rushes can leave you a little shaky. Good to talk it out. Also, I think you may be hurting some. Advil works, but wine tastes a whole lot better. Or, hell, let’s go all out. Hot buttered rum.”
“Oh,” the redhead said. Blankly, like she was completely taken aback by that. By a guy asking her out for a drink. Along with a friend. At a lodge where they were all staying.
Which meant she had a boyfriend. A husband. Somebody. That was another bad thing about cold weather: gloves. You couldn’t check for the ring.
She’d said “Blake,” he remembered belatedly. Well, yeah. That would be it. That would be the guy.
The elf-girl said, though, “We’d love to. That sounds fun, doesn’t it, Jennifer?”
The redhead, for some reason, looked even more flustered at that, opening her mouth, then closing it again. She didn’t say anything, though, and after a second, Harlan said, “I’m guessing here. Hang on, because I’m about to use my intuition. You’re taking a break from the relationship. You’ve broken from the relationship. You’re still in the relationship, but your girlfriend’s trying to talk you out of it, because the guy’s a jerk. I’m guessing one of those is it, because you don’t seem used to being asked, and I can’t think of any other possible reason for that.”
She was still limping some, but she was hanging in there. “Maybe I am used to being asked,” she said. “Maybe I get asked all the time. Maybe I just don’t like you, did you think of that?”
He laughed out loud. “Nah. Plus, I saved your life.”
“I thought we were just experiencing a natural and spontaneous change,” she said. “Flowing naturally forward.”
“Hey,” he said, “I’m not the one who said that. I’m going with saving your life.”
7
Practice
Jennifer let the door to the lodge room bang shut behind her, and Dyma said, “Mom. Breathe.”
“I am breathing,” Jennifer said, unzipping her coat and unwinding her scarf. What did she have to wear that would look both like she was expecting nothing, and like she was … well, possibly expecting something, without being too obvious about it?
Not that she wanted something. Anything. And why had he asked her, anyway?
“It’s a drink,” Dyma said. “Not an invitation to a menage a trois. Unlike your first Yellowstone boyfriend, back in the ski shop, and you weren’t nearly as thrown by that. You thought it was funny, even though it was actually gross.”