White Christmas with Her Millionaire Doc, page 4
‘So I guess you heard there’s a grizzly roaming around?’ Carson handed her a lanyard with her name on it. ‘I told Jax while you were with Amanda, the guy they choppered out this morning is stable. He has more stitches than skin in some places, but he’ll live. Next person might not be so lucky. Be careful out there, will you?’
Ophelia slipped the lanyard over her head with a sense of pride she hadn’t expected to feel so soon, and adjusted Ant’s necklace around it, so it wouldn’t be tangled. Was Carson testing her too? To see how she’d react to danger? ‘I’m sure everyone here is on the lookout, and prepared,’ she said coolly. ‘As am I.’
‘There’s no way to prepare for a bear that decides it wants a hug,’ Jax interjected, stepping to her side. The mood shifted. The faint scent of his musky manliness mingled with the snow and disinfected floors and set her nerves on edge as much as his words.
There was something about him that could easily have had her visibly flustered if she hadn’t been well-trained to keep her cool in challenging situations. She couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d avoided that other, much faster path down the mountain. She wouldn’t have thought much of it had he not acted so strangely.
‘I have my bear spray, I’ll be fine,’ she said now, although in truth she’d been so distracted by Jax and Cody that she’d left it in her cabin.
‘Sure you don’t want to join me for a shooting lesson?’ Jax cocked an eyebrow, and she shook her head.
‘Quite sure.’ What was with the folks in these parts? If a guy mentioned guns this often in New York he’d be on a suspect list for a murder within minutes.
‘I’ll give you that tour I promised tomorrow, show you where’s safe to go and where isn’t.’
‘Like that other path, down the mountain?’ She faced Jax head-on now. ‘Why wasn’t that safe? It’s just off the beginner’s hill, medium level, right, not even a black diamond run? Do you think the bear might be hiding out there?’
Silence.
Jax’s jaw seemed to shift this way and that. He pulled his damp hat back down over his head and she watched as tufts sprang defiantly from the sides again, as if his hair had its own idea about how it wanted to arrange itself. Carson eyed the floor tiles for a split second too long, before the men exchanged a look she couldn’t read.
‘What?’ She narrowed her eyes between them. ‘If I’ve said something wrong, you need to tell me. Is there something not safe about that slope that I should know about?’
Silence.
‘Guys? If I’m going to be working here it’s imperative you tell me...’
‘I don’t know where the bear is. It’s probably long gone by now. But there’s no real trail on that run for snowmobiles or skiers, not for anything or anyone. It’s a no-go zone. People know to stay away, and so should you.’
Jax’s tone held the same gruff warning note as before. Ophelia almost challenged him anyway, but he pulled his phone from his shirt pocket to signal the end of the conversation. ‘I’ll tell Hunter we’re on the way back for Cody. We should go while we still have some daylight.’
Ophelia crossed her arms. ‘I’d like to stay a while longer with Dr Fenway, if that’s OK, Carson? I have a few questions before my shift tomorrow.’
She locked eyes with Jax. For a second Carson disappeared and it was just the two of them, embroiled in a kind of silent battle. An icy chill seemed to rush in out of nowhere and envelop them. ‘As you wish,’ Jax grunted, eventually. ‘Carson, make sure she gets safely back to the cabin.’
‘I don’t need anyone’s help,’ she said quickly. She knew she probably sounded affronted, but she was, so why hide it? ‘You don’t have to worry about me, Jax.’
Something like irritation and helplessness flared around his almond irises. His jaw did that thing again, as if he was grinding his teeth, but he bowed his head almost submissively and made his exit out into the snow without another word.
She turned to Carson as the sound of the snowmobile faded into the twilight. Her heart was pounding in her throat. ‘What was all that about?’
Carson looked awkward to say the least. She felt bad for putting him on the spot, but she had a right to know about any potential danger, didn’t she? ‘There was another path down the mountain. He wouldn’t take it on the snowmobile...’
‘He doesn’t let anyone take it, Ophelia,’ Carson said stiffly. ‘It’s where his wife was killed.’
Ophelia closed her eyes, feeling sick on the spot. She’d pressed him, argued with him, pushed all his buttons. Talk about putting her foot in it.
CHAPTER FIVE
JAX STOOD CLOSE to Cody, circling him from behind with both gloved hands on the axe over his. ‘Ready, son? Just like we practised. After three. One...two...’
‘Three!’ They brought the axe down hard into the birchwood log together, splintering a satisfying dent in the side. Jax watched the Cheshire-cat grin spread across his son’s face, and Jax’s heart spilled as he ruffled Cody’s hair. ‘Good work, couple more hits and we’ll have our first pieces of firewood. Let’s go again.’
They were high-fiving the first splits of the season going into the firewood buckets for the guest rooms when Ophelia walked into the woodshed. She took off her hat and shook off the snow, and he saw a touch of sheepishness etched on her face as she nodded a silent greeting. He had left a note on her cabin door late last night and told her to meet him here before sunset.
‘How was your first day at Base?’ he asked her now, a spark plug stuttering deep inside his chest at seeing her. He still couldn’t place why he was so drawn to her; she was so polished, so glamorous...and totally different to Juno.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Cody about to raise the axe again. Quick as a flash Jax snatched it from his hands. ‘Not without me, ever, you know that.’
Cody rolled his eyes to the ceiling.
‘Go find Grandpa, help him get a start on supper,’ he said, annoyed with himself more than Cody. He’d been distracted.
‘OK, Dad. Hey, Ophelia, I like your boots.’ To Jax’s surprise Cody high-fived Ophelia on his way past and ran out into the snow.
‘My day was great. Carson showed me the ropes,’ Ophelia said when Cody was gone, looking around the woodshed. She was wearing the too-new jeans again, he noted, and designer snow boots that looked more fashionable than anything he’d seen in the thrift store in Bozeman, where most women resorted to buying their clothes around here. It wasn’t exactly New York, when it came to shopping. He wondered how long it would be before she got homesick.
Her breath left faint clouds in the light from the open door behind her, and she looked kind of awkward now, as if she didn’t know what else to say while he finished up with the wood. He knew they’d got off on the wrong foot before. It wasn’t her fault she’d questioned him about the slope. How was she to know why he’d had it cordoned off for the last four years? She’d just caught him off guard, that was all.
‘Carson’s a good guy, an asset to this community. He’s been on the team a long time,’ he said eventually.
‘He told me. He was very informative actually.’
Jax frowned to himself. What did Carson tell her? Did he tell her how Juno had died out there? That she’d steered around what she’d assumed was a small bush that turned out to be a twenty-foot buried tree with just its tip showing? How she was smothered instantly as the hollows sucked her deep between the drifts? How they couldn’t get her out? How Cody was forced to watch it all?
‘We had a sprained ankle, an incident with a hung-over Austrian who fell off the ski lift, luckily right at the bottom,’ Ophelia said to his back. ‘No bears, thank God.’ When he turned around he met the full force of her emerald stare.
‘Good to hear Carson filled you in,’ he said, clearing his throat.
‘On the job, yes,’ she said carefully. ‘He’s very professional.’
He threw the gloves down with the axe; the rest of the chopping could wait. Of course, he should have trusted that his friend wouldn’t tell a new recruit more than necessary. Carson would leave that up to him to do, if and when he was ready. Which he wasn’t. Ophelia jumped out of his way as he went to roll an unchopped log back to the pile with one foot.
He wasn’t used to talking about how Juno died, especially not with strangers. Not even ones with eyes like hers...as if they were seeing right through him. Ophelia knew all about grief, he remembered. She’d lost someone close to her too.
‘So, Cody chops wood. Does he help you fell the trees every season too?’
‘Of course.’ He shrugged into his favourite jacket, wishing he didn’t feel so unaccountably magnetised to her. ‘Why wouldn’t he? He’s strong, he’s smart.’
She was half smiling now. ‘Where I’m from, kids mostly play video games.’
‘Well, here, they have to learn how to deal with reality,’ he said, reaching for his scarf. ‘It’ll be getting even colder soon. We have enough wood to last the guest cabins all season.’
Her eyes on him, wrapping his scarf around his neck, made him fumble slightly and get it caught in his jacket zipper as she trailed him to the exit. Her lashes were blacker with mascara again, but the lip gloss was gone. He scowled. Why was he even noticing these things?
This was the kind of attraction that could make a man weak. He wondered briefly what her ex had been like. It felt kind of uncomfortable to think about, especially when Juno seemed to hover on the edge of every conversation.
He bolted the woodshed shut behind them as a gust of wind whipped up a drift by the door. ‘So, city girl, are you ready for your tour?’
* * *
The sun had started its descent towards the mountains, leaving peach and salmon streaks across the blue sky. On the back of the snowmobile, Ophelia alternated between holding the side handles and gripping Jax around his middle like before. The latter felt weird, as if she was getting too close to him, but she was undeniably mesmerised by Clayborn Creek. ‘You can never see this much of the sky at once in New York,’ she heard herself saying in awe.
Jax took another turn and slowed the snowmobile along the edge of a babbling stream. ‘We can build you a skyscraper if you like,’ he joked in his low, gravelly voice, and she contemplated that he actually could if he wanted to. The man was rich enough. She still couldn’t get her head around the size of the property.
‘I’m enjoying all this space. It reminds me of what I picture when I’m doing my meditations. You know how they make you picture a snowy mountain, or somewhere else that makes you feel calm?’ She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. ‘“The present moment is bliss. This is all that matters now.”’
Jax smirked. ‘You don’t think it will drive you crazy?’
Ophelia frowned into her scarf. Was this another one of his tests?
‘It’s just that most people start out loving the space. Then they get tired of it, seeing only the same places, the same people. It’s not a meditation class. Most people...’
‘I’m not most people,’ she interjected sharply.
Jax dragged a gloved hand across his jaw and his hat as if he hadn’t been expecting that. She knew she would rise with confidence to his every test, but it didn’t stop the tension between them swirling, or the tiniest leap of her heart in her chest whenever she remembered yesterday.
Ophelia had maintained her professional stance so far, introducing herself to the staff they came across, complimenting the state-of-the-art facilities on the runs, questioning him on the difficulty levels of the hiking trails up the mountain. She’d asked him more about the wildlife, the students due to arrive soon to train with him for their Outdoor Emergency Care certificates. But the stretches of silence in between, she took as a sign that he didn’t want to mention the way their time together on her first day had ended. He probably didn’t want to bring it all up again, she thought. Talking about that closed-off ski run would mean talking about what had happened to his wife.
Carson hadn’t told her anything else and she hadn’t asked. Obviously Juno must have got into trouble on the disused slope and Jax had kept it closed down ever since. It was unbearable, feeling forced to relive difficult memories in front of strangers, she knew that from back home. So she’d been forcing herself to ask Jax about other things, like why he chose to chop the wood himself at Clayborn Creek when he had all these staff members.
Not that she was complaining.
His strong olive-skinned forearms on full display with his sleeves rolled up, wielding an axe with sinews straining...it had almost been impossible to walk in a straight line towards him in the woodshed. The coarse black hair that trailed a tempting line up from his jeans to his navel, and the shadow of abs when his shirt rose... Jax had the kind of body that was pure muscle and power, proof he’d found the time to overcome adversity and channel his time and strengths into something worthwhile—himself. He was dangerously attractive, no matter how troubled, she couldn’t deny it, and now he was hurtling them both across another ski field.
* * *
‘Ready for the best bit?’ Jax had slowed the snowmobile to a stop by a snow-covered gate but her heart was still pounding with adrenaline. Thick fir trees parted for a tiny path that looked as if it might be about to get steep. He grabbed up a backpack from a hook between his thighs and helped her down from the seat into the snow.
‘Where are we going?’
‘We have to walk from here. It’s worth it, trust me.’
‘Even with a bear on the loose?’
‘You have your spray, don’t you?’ He slung the backpack over his broad shoulders and tucked his thick scarf further into the top of his puffer jacket.
‘I was hoping you’d have your gun,’ she confided, then she paused in her tracks. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever hear myself say that.’
Jax laughed. It was the kind of laugh that came from his soul, a burst of joy that vanished almost instantly, as if he was surprised by it, or felt he shouldn’t have let it come out. Something about it made her want to hear it again.
The forest seemed to whisper more secrets she couldn’t quite untangle from the breeze as she followed him through the thickening forest. He explained a distant sound was a coyote, and told her how he’d saved a wolverine kit once, all tangled up in some fencing wire. Every now and then he’d stop and hold a chivalrous hand out to help her up a rock or steady her.
Ophelia’s skin tingled as if someone were injecting champagne into her veins every time they made contact. But the unspoken subject matter lingered like a cloud on the horizon. One of them was going to have to mention Juno, or that slope, eventually.
* * *
‘It’s beautiful out here,’ she breathed. They’d finally arrived at a lookout point in a clearing on a clifftop with views out to infinity. Jax pulled out a flask of hot chocolate from the backpack and she wondered if his gun was in there too as he poured them both a steaming cup.
‘You should see it in the spring,’ he said. ‘I’ll bet you’ve never seen greens like the greens we get here.’ He handed her a steaming cup of chocolate, meeting her eyes as if he was memorising their colour. It made her feel unsettled in a good way. As if she was alive and being seen. ‘So, do you like to ski?’
‘I prefer snowboarding,’ she answered, crossing with him to the wooden railings and soaking up the endless sky. ‘But I bet I’m a long way off being as good as you probably are at both.’
In the distance the tiny ski lifts crawled up the mountain, taking skiers on a sunset ride. Birds he said were nightjars and swifts circled the vast space in between. They probably had thirty minutes before it got dark and they’d have to wind their way back down to the snowmobile, but Jax didn’t seem fazed.
‘Sanjay was the skier. He did it mostly on business trips to Dubai. They have a huge indoor ski place there.’
‘Skiing in Dubai?’ Jax almost laughed again, but he seemed to think better of it. ‘Give me the clouds above me any day. You can’t replicate this indoors.’
‘That’s what Ant would have said. He spent a lot of his vacation time in Boulder before...’ She trailed off, lost in her own thoughts.
Silence enveloped them.
Should I say something about the disused slope? Just to let him know it’s OK to talk about it?
Jax hadn’t taken her anywhere near it on the tour. He probably hated it if that was where his wife had died, she thought. She could relate to that feeling. ‘You know, Jax, I am sorry if I upset you yesterday,’ she started tentatively. ‘Carson said—’
‘So, he did tell you, huh?’
‘He said the slope you keep closed was where your wife died. Nothing else.’
Jax nodded slowly, bringing the steaming cup of chocolate to his mouth and staring at the sky ahead of them. Ophelia’s heart was drumming like a tribal instrument, so loudly she was sure he could hear it.
‘When my brother Ant died, it was impossible for me to even visit his neighbourhood,’ she started, watching their breaths meeting in the frigid air. ‘I couldn’t go past Tony’s, where we used to order whisky sours for half price in happy hour. Or the farmers’ market, where we bought ourselves this overpriced ten-dollar cheese with cranberries every time we had a movie night, in case the cheese guy asked where Ant was. It would have hurt too much to talk about it.’
Jax’s shoulders were hunched, his jaw almost locked. ‘It sounds like you were close.’
‘We were very close,’ she managed. She watched another bird circling the valley below. Her throat was dry, and she didn’t tell him the other reason she couldn’t go to the bar she used to drink at with Ant. Tony had tracked their father down one night while she’d been on a late shift at the hospital, unable to get to the phone. Ant had gone into the bar alone, drunk, and started a fight. It hadn’t been like him at all. Looking back now, it had been a red flag.
