by Krista Wolf
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
1 - Morgan
2 - Morgan
3 - Morgan
4 - Shane
5 - Morgan
6 - Morgan
7 - Shane
8 - Morgan
9 - Jeremy
10 - Morgan
11 - Morgan
12 - Morgan
13 - Jeremy
14 - Morgan
15 - Morgan
16 - Morgan
17 - Morgan
18 - Morgan
19 - Boone
20 - Morgan
21 - Morgan
22 - Morgan
23 - Morgan
24 - Boone
25 - Morgan
26 - Morgan
27 - Morgan
28 - Shane
29 - Jeremy
30 - Boone
31 - Morgan
32 - Morgan
33 - Morgan
34 - Boone
35 - Morgan
36 - Morgan
37 - Morgan
38 - Shane
39 - Morgan
40 - Morgan
41 - Morgan
42 - Shane
43 - Morgan
44 - Boone
45 - Morgan
46 - Morgan
47 - Morgan
48 - Morgan
49 - Morgan
50 - Morgan
Epilogue
Quadruple Duty
About the Author
~ Snowed In ~
A Reverse Harem Romance
Krista Wolf
Copyright © 2018 Krista Wolf
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without prior consent of the author.
Cover image: Stock footage — story is unrelated to subject/models
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One
MORGAN
“C’mon!” Faith shouted, her voice muffled by the thick drifts of snow. “Just one more run!”
Just one more run. The last run. The last run on the last mountain of a week-long ski-tour in the Italian Alps. Such a bittersweet ending to an amazing time.
But I didn’t want to push it.
“The snow is crazy though,” I argued. “And the wind’s picking up. And the weather says—”
“Blah blah blah,” Faith laughed, with an accompanying eye-roll. “Really Morgan, you have to let loose! You’ve been wound up way too tight, our whole time here!”
Maybe, I thought to myself. But maybe not. The trip had been fun — a much needed and welcome break from our studies. We’d come all the way from Massachusetts with a bunch of other students, and I’d been drunk two nights out of seven. That was a personal record for me. Wound up tight my ass…
Then again, Faith had already hooked up. Twice. And with two different guys! Although the first one — the cute one — I think she only made out with, and—
“We’re already up here,” Faith said, lowering her goggles. My shoulders slumped as she pointed with one ski pole. “Forget taking the gondola down, we’re doing this double-black diamond!”
Double-black diamond?
My stomach rolled as my friend turned and skied to the edge. I caught up with her cautiously and looked down, already not liking what I saw.
The trail was steep. Wicked steep. It was narrow too, with trees on both sides and what looked like a 90-degree turn that ended in a cliff if you didn’t make it.
“That doesn’t even look like a ski run,” I groaned. I glanced around for a trail marker.
“Sure it is. I saw it on the map earlier.”
“What, that map my parents gave you?” I chuckled. “The one from when they were here in the 70’s?”
Faith laughed again. She really did have the best laugh.
“I will not have you shit-talking your parents!” she said. “Your parents rock! They have more adventure in their little fingers than you do in your entire body!”
I shuddered against the wind. It was probably true. That made it worse.
“Really, Morgan,” she went on. “I don’t know how you were even born to them. Maybe you were switched at the hospital or—”
The rest of her sentence died on the wind. The gusts were picking up again, and conditions were getting blinding. I could barely see her mouth moving, through the blowing snow.
“C’mon,” Faith shouted over the wind. “You’ll remember this forever! This is your YOLO moment!”
With that she planted her poles, pushed forward, and leapt over the edge.
I gasped as her skis caught deep powder, and she began swishing back and forth. She was going fast! My heart leapt into my throat.
Better go now or you’re gonna lose her, my mind warned.
I wanted to turn back the clock. Go back twenty minutes and remake the decision to step into the gondola one last time. We could be in the lodge right now, sitting before the fire. Drinking hot chocolate spiked with Kahlua, alongside the twenty-five or so other UMASS students who were wrapping up our much-needed winter break with us.
Faith was almost gone from sight. She was a tiny pink dot, zigging and zagging, with a blizzard of snow swirling around her.
Dammit.
This was it. My YOLO moment. Only, if you checked the internet, not every YOLO moment ended well for everyone.
No. Some ended horrifically, in fact.
Morgan!
I slipped on my goggles. Tightened the grip on my poles…
And pushed off, over the edge.
Two
MORGAN
I was right. The slope was steep. Steep and narrow and choked with loose snow; almost as if no one else on the entire mountain had made this run all day.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind I could do it. While sports had never been my thing, skiing was the one physical activity I was really good at. Chalk that victory up to my parents, who forced me to travel virtually everywhere with them, all throughout my childhood.
Really Morgan? Are you complaining?
No, not really. My parents were great, for the most part. Great when they were present, anyway. I hadn’t seen much of them since they’d dropped me off at school, of course. It was my third year at UMASS, and they’d still never once come to visit.
Probably for the best.
Right now I had to focus — had to concentrate on keeping myself upright against the speed. Otherwise…
I made the first turn with relative ease. The trail leveled out, turned left, then plunged downward again. It even got narrower. Steeper, if possible. And there were a lot more trees.
This is crazy!
Suddenly I realized something: I’d lost Faith. Against the blinding sea of swirling white, I could no longer pick out her pink jacket.
Did she even make the turn?
I almost skidded to a stop. Something told me to go back and check. Then again, she’d been way ahead of me. She was probably just too far up to see her anymore. Either that, or—
WHOOSH!
Someone whizzed by me — someone else in a red and white UMASS jacket! Another student. They even shouted as they went past.
“GOOOOO!”
I took it as a challenge. Pointing my skis I raced downward, cutting a thin swath through the powdery snow. I’d catch him, whoever it was. I’d catch him and pass him, and then I’d already be
undoing my boot-bindings by the time he got to the bottom.
Suddenly I felt a rumble beneath my skis. Which was weird, because my skis were barely touching the ground to begin with. I glanced up. Started looking around…
“DON’T LOOK BACK!”
The voice was loud and clear enough to be distinct — definitely a man’s voice. And of course, the first thing I did was turn around…
HOLY SHIT!
The mountain behind me had disappeared. Not just part of it… the entire mountain! In its place was nothing but a sheer wall of blank white snow. A churning, shifting wall…
AVALANCHE!
Terror struck me, nearly freezing me in position. Luckily, self-preservation took over. I bent my knees, driving hard, coaxing every ounce of speed and power from the surface of my long, sleek skis. My shoulders were scrunched, waiting for the inevitable. Waiting at any moment to be overtaken with a rush of snow and ice…
Don’t look back!
It was so tempting. I needed to know! And at the same time, I knew it would be the end of me. I knew the last thing I saw would be a blinding crash of white, and it would all be over.
The speed was terrifying. I’d never gone this fast. My brain screamed at my body to slow down. To just aim for the softest-looking bank of snow and take the fall. That no matter how many bones I broke, at least I wouldn’t die.
It would’ve been easy. So simple to just throw myself to the ground and cover up.
Instead I kept going. Kept racing…
The blizzard was blinding now. I’d already lost my red-jacketed companion — I could no longer see to my left or right. I could barely see ten feet in front of me, and at the speed I was going, ten feet would’ve been less than a half second anyway.
I screamed. It was the only thing I could do. I screamed until the rumble of the mountain drowned me out. Screamed until I could feel the cold swirl of air rushing up behind me…
This is it! Your YOLO moment!
I was going to die. In my heart I was sure of it. I could taste it even, and the taste made me angry.
C’mon, just one more run!
The taste was bitter and painful, like coffee-grinds and gravel shredding my mouth. Faith’s sing-songy voice echoed tauntingly through my skull, making me vengeful. Filling me with hatred and sorrow and rage…
Up ahead the white parted… and I could see nothing but a vast stretch of grey sky. It was too late to turn. Far too late to stop. I could only fly into it…
Fly into it as a wall of snow crashed into me violently from behind, sending me head over heels… spinning, churning…
My poles were ripped from hands.
My skis, torn from my feet.
I felt my jacket whip over my head, and then something struck me from in front and behind at the same time.
Every ounce of air was knocked from my lungs. I tried to breathe, but sucking in breath was wholly impossible.
Then even the white was taken away from me, as my entire world went utterly black.
Three
MORGAN
I woke in the cold, to pitch-black darkness.
Am I dead?
I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t standing, that was for sure. But I wasn’t lying down either. In fact, I felt like I was floating…
I could barely breathe. Something was crushing me, pressing in on my lungs from both sides. I reached out to feel for it, but I couldn’t do that either. I no longer had arms.
Panic flooded through me. Eventually I calmed down enough to realize I did have arms, they were just pinned to my sides. I wriggled away at them, pulling hard. One popped free and I felt around.
Snow. All around me, nothing but darkness and cold and snow.
You’re underground.
I blinked hard. It didn’t make sense.
You’ve been buried... by the avalanche.
My panic turned to terror. I had to get out! Had to claw my way back to the surface, before I ran out of air!
Calm the fuck down, Morgan!
I tried taking a deep breath, only that was impossible. Most of my body was embedded in the snow. Slowly, painfully, I freed my other arm. My jacket was gone, but I still had my shirt. There was snow up my back. Down my ski pants…
My ski pants!
Reaching down, I managed to unzip my left pocket. Carefully I pulled out my phone, swiped it open, and the pitch-black darkness was shattered by light.
I was in a small circular pocket of space, surrounded on all sides by snow. My body — thankfully whole from what I could tell — was embedded firmly against one wall.
Sticking out of the snow, a few inches from my face, was one of my ski-poles. It had missed my eye by inches.
“Fuck…” I breathed.
Hoping against hope, I checked my phone’s screen. Of course I had no signal. No way to call for help.
Dig.
It seemed absurd, but it was also my only option. My only viable one anyway.
Dig yourself out.
I grabbed at the ski pole. Maybe I could use it to probe my way out. The problem was, I didn’t know which way was up! I could be upside down for all I knew. Or on my side. Or on my—
A flash of insight brought tears to my eyes, as something suddenly came to me from a show I’d watched. It had been one of those survival shows. The ones you always scoffed at from your couch, but never thought you’d actually need.
I spat.
It was that easy. That simple. My spit traveled upward, sliding over my nose, disappearing somewhere past my forehead. That was the direction of down. The direction of gravity. Which meant that ‘up’ was somewhere beneath me.
Thank God!
I grabbed the pole and started jabbing it downward. It was slow going, but somehow I managed to push it through, until the entire length of the shaft had disappeared and only the handle remained.
Did that last part just break the surface?
I thought it might’ve. Quickly I pocketed the phone again, plunging my little void back into darkness.
The tiniest pinprick of light seemed to be coming from my ski pole’s end.
“HELLLLLLP!” I screamed, as much as my constricted lungs would allow. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”
It was a longshot, especially with the storm raging above me. Or rather, below me. Or rather…
“HELP, PLEASE!” I cried. With my free hand I pumped the ski pole up and down, imagining the tip poking out from the snow. “HELLLLLLP!”
A sound reached my ears, muffled by several feet of snow. A cry? A shout?
“HEY!” I screamed, until my throat went raw and voice cracked. “HEEEYYYYY! I’M DOWN HEEEEERE!”
I shoved hard, wriggling the pole all around, thrusting it up and down wildly. I could hear something for sure now. A voice, calling out over the storm.
Suddenly the pole was yanked out of my hand! I heard the sound of scratching, louder and more pronounced, until I realized it was the sound of someone digging… digging their way down to me.
“OH MY GOD!”
The snow broke away in giant chunks, falling on top me. I spit it out, coughing and sputtering as light flooded my eyes. The sudden brightness obliterated my vision. I couldn’t see a single thing! The wind was a savage force, roaring loudly in my ears.
I was blind. Practically deaf. Then I felt the most beautiful thing in the world: a strong hand closing tightly over mine.
“Gotcha!”
Four
SHANE
She looked astonishingly beautiful — like an angel, emerging from the snow. Or like some kind of screwed up reverse phoenix, one that rises from the ice instead of the ashes.
“ARE YOU OKAY?”
I had to practically scream to be heard. Between the driving storm, and the howling wind? All my little angel could do was nod back at me.
“COME ON!” I said, extending my hand. “WE HAVE TO GET DOWN THE MOUNTAIN!”
She nodded again, this time while shivering. As the wind whipped her long hair all around
her pretty face, I realized something:
She wasn’t wearing a jacket.
“WAIT… HERE!”
I shrugged out of my own coat and wrapped it around her. I did it without thinking, without hesitation.
Then the wind hit me, and I knew we were in serious trouble.
“C’MON!” I pulled her along. “HURRY!”
The snow was so deep all we could do was slosh our way through. It was slow going. Exhausting. Even powering my way forward, swinging my arms, I could barely cut enough of a path through to continue moving.
All of a sudden, the ski run was wide open despite the trail being steep and narrow. All at once, I could see forever in every direction. And then, with growing horror, I suddenly realized why:
Everything had been buried.
The trees, the hills, everything was just gone. So much snow had roared down from the upper peak it had buried 50-foot fir trees all the way up, until not even the tops were showing.
And it was getting dark, too. Darker and colder. The paths were long gone, leaving nothing but a long stretch of pure unblemished white.
Shit, I wasn’t even sure I was going in the right direction.
Follow her!
I’d been following her since Ponte di Legno, when I saw her riding the lift in her cute little fur-lined parka. Following her with my eyes, at least. She was one of those rare girls who didn’t know she was pretty — not yet, anyway — and I wanted to be the one to tell her.
She hadn’t shown for the after-party that night though. That part was sorely disappointing, but we still had one more day, one last trip. One final chance for me to approach her before we were all whisked back to campus, where she’d mingle in with the thousands of other students and the magic of something familiar halfway around the world would be gone.
It had been a stupid idea, jumping down the old double-black diamond trail. Following this girl during the last run of the day, trying to catch up with her in time to—
“WAIT!” Her eyes went wide with sudden recognition. “MY FRIEND!”