Falling Hard (Colorado High Country #3)

by Pamela Clare

  “I’ll call him when we get to your place and see what’s up.”

  Ellie found her car in her driveway, her handbag and cell phone on the front seat, courtesy of Megs. A stack of newspapers sat on her front steps—copies of the Scarlet Gazette with a banner headline that read “Hometown hero” and a photo of Jesse handing Daisy to Ellie. She showed them to Jesse, then brought them inside and set them on the coffee table. She would read the article later when she could face it all again.

  “Did nothing else happen in the world yesterday?” Jesse grumbled.

  “Not in my world.” Ellie made black bean quesadillas with corn for lunch, while Jesse stepped outside with her mother’s cell phone to call Nate.

  When he came back in, he seemed lighter, excited, and she knew he’d made his decision. “God, that smells good.”

  “I made enough for you, too, if you’re hungry.”

  “Nate says he’s good to go if I am.” Jesse watched her, as if trying to gauge her reaction. “The Wests are all coming into town to watch.”

  She tried not to let her worry show. “I’d love to see them again. If the kids are up from their nap and Daisy is doing well, we’ll join you all.”

  Jesse took a quick nap, curling up with Ellie after the kids were asleep. He felt refreshed when his watch beeped an hour later. Careful not to wake Ellie, he got up, checked on the kids, then went out the back and hiked up the mountain to his cabin. He changed into ski pants, grabbed his gear, and was on his way.

  Parking downtown was almost impossible, and traffic was bumper to bumper, pedestrians filling the crosswalks, standing on the roundabout where Bear was preaching, and darting across the roads wherever they felt like it. Jesse decided to park his Jeep at The Cave and walk the couple of blocks to the starting area, where Nate would be waiting with Buckwheat.

  Sasha ran out when he stepped out of his vehicle and gave him a hug. “God, I just love you so much right now. I’m so glad you were able to save that little girl.”

  He didn’t know what to say. “Thanks.”

  Belcourt stepped outside, too, walked over to him, and also gave him a hug, slapping him on the back. “It’s good to see you safe and sound, brother. You were a warrior yesterday.”

  Again, Jesse was at a loss for words. “I did what anyone would have done.”

  “Really?” Belcourt raised a dark brow. “I didn’t see anyone else go in that water. You doing the skijoring race?”

  Happy that the subject had changed, Jesse told Sasha and Belcourt how he’d done some practice runs earlier in the week. “I’m hoping to get through it without making a fool of myself or breaking something.”

  Sasha jumped up, planted a kiss on his cheek. “You’re going to rock it. I’ll be cheering you on. See you there!”

  Jesse made his way to the starting area, people he knew waving as he passed—Frank from the gas station, Rose, Jenny Miller, the guy with the big beard who ran the marijuana dispensary on First Street.

  Bear, now hale and hearty again, called out to him from the center of the roundabout. “Whoever saves one life, it is as if he saved an entire world!”

  Shit.

  Bear, too?

  Jesse made his way along the busy sidewalk to the west end of the street where dozens of horses stood with their riders, waiting for the race to start. He found Nate and Buckwheat standing beside a trailer with “Cimarron Ranch” painted on the side.

  Nate gave him a brother handshake and a clap on the shoulder. “Good to see you. I didn’t get a chance to tell you how damned grateful I am for what you did yesterday. Dan’s little girl wouldn’t be alive today if not for you.”

  For some reason, it wasn’t as awkward to hear this coming from Nate, perhaps because he’d known Dan, or perhaps because they’d already talked about some pretty serious shit. “It was one of the scariest damned moments of my life.”

  “I bet it was.”

  A door on the side of the trailer opened, and Megan stepped out, holding little Jackson, Emily darting out behind her. Jack and Janet followed with their baby.

  “Good to see you, Jesse.” Jack wore a cowboy hat on his head and a big sheepskin barn coat, his face a wide grin. “You’ve been busy. Thank God for you, son.”

  “Where are the twins?” Emily asked.

  “They’re home with Ellie taking a nap right now.”

  “How is Daisy?” Megan asked.

  “You’d never know that she went for an hour without a pulse yesterday.”

  “Thank God,” Megan said. “I watched the footage. I felt sick for Ellie. I’m so glad you were there.”

  “So am I.”

  “Do you have time to come in and warm up?” Janet set Lily on the ground and zipped her coat.

  Come in? Into where?

  Then Jesse realized that they had all stepped out of the trailer. It wasn’t just a horse trailer. There was living space inside.

  Nate glanced at his watch. “We need to get a look at the course. The race starts in about fifteen minutes.”

  Jesse thanked Jack, Megan, and Janet and walked with Nate along the length of the course, getting a feel for it.

  Nate pointed. “It’s different than what I set out.”

  There were three jumps and three gates as there’d been on his practice course at the Cimarron, but there were also three sets of rings to catch rather than one.

  “This is going to be a little tougher.” The rings hadn’t been Jesse’s strength.

  “Just remember what we practiced. Keep your mouth shut. No slack. Land the jumps. Don’t miss the gates. And get all the rings. You ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” He glanced around hoping to see Ellie with the kids, but she wasn’t there.

  Ellie made her way down the crowded sidewalk, the twins tucked beneath blankets in their stroller. There were a lot of people from out of town who’d come for the race, and some of them weren’t kind enough to step aside for her. But there were lots of locals, too, people she’d known all of her life. They said hello when they saw her, told her how happy they were that Daisy was okay.

  When a couple of young men almost knocked her over, Harrison Conrad from the Team grabbed them both by their collars and jerked them to a stop. “Apologize to the woman here. Do you see she has two small children?”

  They looked sheepishly at Ellie. “Sorry.”

  Harrison let them go, shook his head. “Flatlanders. Good to see you, Ellie.”

  When Ellie finally reached the skijoring course, there was almost nowhere to stand, especially not with such a wide stroller. She’d just found a spot where she could almost see the street when she heard someone call her name.

  Megan waved. “Ellie! We saved a spot for you over here.”

  Ellie made her way through the crowd to find the West clan except for Nate sitting together on folding chairs with one chair left for her. “Thanks so much. It took me so long to find parking, I was afraid I was going to miss it.”

  “They’re just about to start.” Megan helped her move the stroller to a good spot. “Hi, there, Daniel. Hi, Daisy. She looks so healthy and happy.”

  “We are very lucky.”

  Megan gave Ellie a hug. “We saw the news coverage. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”

  Then a man’s voice boomed over the speakers welcoming everyone and telling the first competitor to come to the starting line. Then he gave the crowd the rundown on the rules. Each skier got one chance to complete the course with added time penalties for anyone who missed a gate or a jump or dropped or missed a ring. The skier-rider team that finished the course with the fastest time got to split a prize of five thousand dollars.

  Ellie willed herself to stay calm. “After Dan, I made a promise to myself not to get together with any man who enjoyed taking risks, and look at me now.”

  Janet leaned closer. “That recklessness is probably why you’re attracted to Jesse in the first place.”

  Ellie thought about that for a moment. “Yo
u’re right. I’m drawn to the part of him that rushes in when other men are afraid.”

  That’s why Daisy was alive today.

  The announcer’s voice ended their conversation. “First up are Carina Johnson and Billy Springer riding Thor. Is the team ready? They are ready.”

  A pistol shot sent the horse galloping forward, hooves churning up clods of snow. The skier was promptly jerked off her skis and dragged a short distance down the street.

  It was hard to watch, and Ellie had to remember that she wasn’t here as a first responder or an RN today.

  God, she hoped Jesse wouldn’t be hurt.

  The next pair had trouble when the horse, spooked by the pistol shot, reared rather than ran, and then stomped in nervous circles. The next finished the course, but missed one of the gates and failed to catch most of the rings.

  “They’re racing in the order they signed up, so Jesse and Nate are going to be one of the last teams,” Megan told her, shouting to be heard above the cheers. She patted Ellie’s arm. “He’s going to be okay. Nate said he was a natural.”

  Ellie drew a deep breath and did her best to get into the spirit and enjoy the show.

  Jesse stood near the starting line, heart pumping with anticipation.

  Nate was talking to a skier who’d wiped out on the last jump, leaving blood on the snow. He came back, shared what he’d learned. “He says the course is running fast. He says he caught an edge on ice on the way up the ramp and lost his balance. I guess you’ll need to watch those edges.”

  “Right.”

  They were the second-to-last team to compete, with three more teams ahead of them. The first of those three finished the course with the fastest time so far—one minute and nine seconds. The second finished, as well, but was penalized for missing a gate by having four seconds added to her time of one minute fifteen seconds. The third wiped out coming off the first jump, injured his ankle, and was taken away by EMTs.

  “You ready?” Nate took Buckwheat’s reins.

  “Hell, yeah. Let’s do this.”

  The announcer’s voice boomed through the air. “Next up, Jesse Moretti and Nate West riding Buckwheat.”

  Cheers.

  Jesse glanced around. “I guess everyone in Scarlet knows you and your horses.”

  “You think they’re cheering for me? They’re cheering for you, buddy. Everyone in this town knows your name now.”

  Jesse didn’t believe that for a moment.

  Nate mounted Buckwheat, rode over to the starting line, while race volunteers, Sasha among them, straightened the tow rope.

  “Good luck!” she called to him.

  Jesse drew the slack out of the rope, adjusted his grip, flexed his knees a few times, then waited for the announcer.

  “Is the team ready? The team is ready.”

  A moment went by and then …

  Pop.

  The gelding responded to Nate as if the two were one, doing what quarter horses had been bred to do, exploding into a gallop, its hooves kicking up clods of icy snow.

  Jesse was ready for the sudden acceleration, sailing over the snow, through the first gate and toward that first jump—a four-footer. The ramp was icy, but he’d been warned. Careful not to catch an edge, he flew up and over, nothing but air beneath him for a good fifteen feet, adrenaline making his blood sing.

  But now for the hard part—the rings.

  He swerved to the right, bunched up his fist, held out his arm.

  One, two, three.

  He had them.

  The crowd cheered.

  He held up his arm so the judges could see the rings, then dumped them onto the snow, his gaze focused on the next gate, which came up hard and fast. He made it then swung to his left, his skis scraping over ice as he flew up the six-foot ramp and into the air. “Woohoo!”

  The crowd cheered when he stuck the landing.

  Three more rings.

  One, two…

  He bumped the third with his fist, knocked it to the ground.

  Shit.

  A two-second penalty.

  He didn’t have time to think about it as the third gate was ahead of him and to the right. He swung over, just made it through, then turned hard for the final jump. Up and over he went, soaring, his skis landing on blood-stained snow, only three rings between him and the finish line.

  He raised his arm, clenched his fist.

  One, two, three.

  Fuck yeah!

  He sailed across the finish line, fist in the air.

  “Fifty-six seconds, folks! That’s Jesse Moretti and Nate West on Buckwheat, ladies and gentlemen, and we have a new SnowFest skijoring record! Fifty-six seconds with a two-second penalty!”

  The crowd roared.

  Jesse skied to a stop, stepped out of his bindings, and met Nate, who leaped from Buckwheat’s back, for a full-on man hug.

  Nate slapped him on the back. “I told you we could do it. No one’s going to be that. We’ve won.”

  And then Ellie was there.

  She jumped into his arms, laughing and crying at the same time. “You’re a lunatic! I am so crazy proud of you.”

  He held her tight, inhaled her scent, his heart filled with her.

  It was the first time Jesse had gone to Knockers and hadn’t sat with the rest of the Team. Jack had invited him and Ellie to join them at the restaurant, which had set aside a table for ten with four high chairs in a quiet corner. But that didn’t keep his fellow Team members from finding him. They came over in ones and twos to rib him, congratulate him, and generally be pains in his ass.

  Sasha hugged him. “I knew you would kick butt.”

  “What are you going to do with all that money?” Conrad asked. “I mean, besides buy me a drink.”

  Jesse pointed toward the donation jar. “You’re out of luck man. I donated it.”

  Nate had done the same thing, the jar now almost full.

  “You learned to climb and became a primary Team member in less than a year, so forgive me if I’m not amazed by your win today,” Megs said.

  But she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “You looked good on the winner’s podium, Moretti,” said Taylor, who was there with Lexi, Hawke, and Victoria. “I might have to race next year to give you some competition.”

  Jesse chuckled. “You can try.”

  “Taylor here was the state’s high school ski champion, but he forgets that high school was a long time ago,” Hawke said. “Good job today.”

  Ellie pointed toward Lexi’s swollen belly. “How much longer?”

  “Five weeks,” Lexi answered. “I can’t wait till she gets here.”

  “I get to be there,” Victoria said. “I’ve never seen a birth. I’m so excited.”

  “It’s a special experience,” Ellie said.

  Jack ordered a round for everyone at the table and made a toast to Jesse, Nate, and Buckwheat in honor of their victory, then went off to shoot the shit with Joe, who stood behind the bar, long hair in a man bun. He was back by the time the food arrived.

  Jesse helped with the kids, who again showed their love of French fries by tossing as many as they ate. He’d finished his bison burger and had lifted Daisy into his lap so that he could clean her up when Liz Pascoe, the organizer of SnowFest, stepped onto the stage and took the mic.

  “Hey, everyone. I just wanted to thank you for making this another great year for SnowFest. We broke attendance records this year, which is a reason to celebrate. Without the support of the Town of Scarlet Springs and all the volunteers from the community—the Team, the hospital, the fire department—this wouldn’t be possible. Let’s give a round of applause to our volunteers.”

  When the cheers had died down, she went on. “We weren’t able to award the prize to the winning shotski team last night due to a town ordinance that prohibits giving alcohol to visibly intoxicated persons.”

  People burst into laughter and cheers at this.

  “So, to give out that prize, here’s Caribou
Joe.”

  Joe got on stage. “Thanks for being here tonight, folks. It’s great to have a full house. I’ve got a bottle of Glenmorangie 1981, with a retail value of twelve hundred fifty-five dollars, to give to last night’s winning shotski team, Bottoms Up.”

  “Damn!” Nate said. “Next year, Moretti, we enter the shotski competition.”

  “Fine by me.”

  “Damn!” said Daisy.

  The members of Bottoms Up went up to the stage to collect their prize, and Jesse recognized Kenny, one of the lift operators, among them.

  Jesse laughed. “Way to go, Kenny!”

  Joe waited for the cheers to die down before going on. “Before I step down, I wanted to take a moment to thank a member of our community who went above and beyond yesterday and risked his life to save another.”

  Ah, shit.

  “Jesse Moretti moved here from out of state after serving as an Army Ranger. He took our town and us Springers to his heart and became one of us. He learned to climb and ski, and spends his days saving lives with the Team and working as a ski patroller. And today, he and Nate West set a new skijoring record. You’ve all heard the story and seen the images of him diving into the reservoir yesterday to save Ellie Meeks’ two-year-old daughter, Daisy. I ask you to join me in showing your gratitude by raising your glasses for Jesse Moretti, a true Scarlet Springs hero.”

  There was a scraping and rustling as chairs were pushed back and people got to their feet. Everyone at Jesse’s table stood, too, including Ellie, who had tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Joe held up his glass. “To Jesse Moretti.”

  “To Jesse Moretti!”

  It was the first time that being called a hero didn’t make Jesse feel guilty or unworthy. “Thanks, Joe. Thanks, everyone.”

  Daisy put her arms around his neck and hugged him. “Jesse.”

  And that right there was all the thanks he’d ever needed.

  Chapter 24

  Ellie drove to her house with the kids, while Jesse went home to shower and stash his gear, promising he’d come by later. She gave the kids their baths, bundled them into pajamas, and read them bedtime stories, getting about halfway through The Blub Blub Fish before she heard the back door open.