The Best Of The Year - Medical Romance. Carol Marinelli

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СКАЧАТЬ three: she could forget about this whole bet-slash-resolution thing.

      But she knew Ellory would worry about her if she really did go and jump into a new relationship. Hell, she would be worried about herself, if it came to that. She had three failed relationships under her belt. Serious relationships. To jump into a new one almost on the heels of breaking her engagement to Robert...

      Stupid.

      Which brought her back to thinking up more options.

      She yawned. Option four: she could fall asleep and hope she didn’t wake up for a couple of weeks.

      Or she could just be a grown-up and go up to him and say, “Hey. Thanks for last night. I had a lot of fun. See ya around.”

      Quick. To the Point. Truthful.

      She liked it.

      She dragged herself up off the chair and headed to the bed, crinkling her nose at Chessie, who was still grinning madly at her. She knocked him sideways.

       There. Just grin into the pillow for a while.

      She decided to jump in the shower and try to pull herself together. As soon as she stepped under the spray she knew it was the right thing to do. The warm water helped soothe her nerves. Maybe she really would take a nap. Everything looked worse when you were tired. Scrubbing herself down with a soapy loofah, she tried to put what had happened last night out of her mind.

      If she could just get his scent off her body and out of her head...

      From a distance she heard her cell ring.

       Please, don’t be Jack. Not right now.

      Despite her thoughts, by the second ring she’d sluiced off the rest of the soap and stepped out of the shower, feet slipping for a second on the bare tile floor in her hurry to get to the phone.

      Damn, damn, damn.

      She picked up the thing and glanced at the readout, adding a fourth “damn” for good measure. Robert. Not Jack.

      “Hello?”

      “Mira, are you free?”

      Oh, Lord. Now what? If he thought they were getting back together he was mistaken. “Why?”

      “Number Five is up here with me, and he might need some help.”

      “Jack? What happened?” Her heart started crashing around in her chest, making her vision swim for a second or two. Here she was agonizing over what they’d done last night, and he was already up on the slopes first thing this morning.

      “He’s fine. But someone fell off the ski lift and...uh...Dr. Perry says she has multiple broken bones. Can you get up here? EMS has already been called, but it’ll be a little while, there’s evidently a lot of ice after the freeze we had yesterday, and they’re having to deal with some accidents on the roads. Your guy wants to stabilize the guest and then get her someplace warmer.”

      “On my way. Which slope?” She probably already knew. Jack wouldn’t risk his life on one of the bigger ones.

      “Grade two.” There was a pause. “Mira, we think she was a jumper. There were a couple of witnesses who saw her go over.”

      Her heart stuttered.

      A jumper. Oh, God. Every couple of years someone decided life was too painful to bear and threw themselves off the lifts and onto the slopes in a suicide attempt. Normally it was onto one of the more advanced slopes, though, as the lifts servicing those areas went higher.

      Her throat was so tight she wasn’t sure she’d be able to respond. But when she opened her mouth, somehow the words were there. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll keep my cell with me, so call if there’s any change.”

      Throwing the phone onto the bed, she rushed around yanking her clothes on and then her snow pants and parka. Her coat still had a ripped spot on the sleeve—just like the shredded portion of her heart.

       Please, let her be okay.

      She searched around for her gloves for a minute or two, and then frowned at the unfamiliar pair she found in her pocket.

      Jack’s gloves. He’d given them to her after the avalanche yesterday.

      Her throat tightened further.

      Had that just been yesterday? It seemed like it had happened weeks ago.

      In reality, there were plenty of accidents to go around at a ski resort, but not usually on a day when she’d gotten so little sleep. Although, with the adrenaline now coursing through her veins, she felt wide awake. Her hair was still wet, but it would have to stay that way for now. She hauled it back into a quick bun and secured a rubber band around it. She’d just pull a hat on and then her parka hood over the top of that. She could blow-dry it when she got back to her room later.

      She knocked Chessie back upright. “Watch the room for me, okay?”

      Five minutes later, she hurried out the door, telling the front desk where to reach her. She snapped on her skis. It would be faster to go up the lift and then ski down to their position. Slope number two. A little harder than the bunny slope but still an easy ride for beginners like Jack.

      Sliding past those in line with an occasional murmured “Excuse me”, along with the fact that there was a medical emergency on one of the slopes, she cut to the front and allowed the next chair to scoop her up and carry her on her way. Her eyes scanned the area. There. About halfway up there was a small crowd of about five people. The one at the center of the group, nearest the patient, was Jack, the sun glinting off the lighter strands of his hair.

      Her heart squeezed again.

      At least the injured woman had someone capable helping her. As a sports medicine doctor he’d have specialized in orthopedics and be well versed on serious breaks. There could be no better person attending that patient, and that included her.

      Impatient to get down there, she had to wait another three or four minutes for the lift to reach the top of the slope. Then she was off and with a couple of pushes from her poles was heading down the mountain at a good clip, mentally playing through her mind how far she had to go before she reached the scene. Thankfully the trip down was a lot faster than the trip up. She turned her body and skis sideways and skidded to a halt next to the little group.

      Robert nodded at her from the edge of the ring, where his job was to keep gawkers at bay. She’d really have to say something to him about using Number Five when referring to Jack. Yeah, yeah, she’d referred to him that way in her head as well, but that was so she could keep some emotional distance.

      A lot of good that had done.

      Right now, though, that was the least of her worries.

      She knelt beside him, noting that he had several splints laid out and was currently binding one to the patient’s arm. The girl— Oh, Lord, and that’s all she was. A teenager. On her back, with her eyes open wide, she whimpered in pain as Jack worked on her. The sleeves on both her jacket and her sweater had been slashed up past her right elbow, revealing a bloody spot on her forearm СКАЧАТЬ