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No one played the guilt card better than Violet Sawyer. Mere weeks after Ace’s visit—or the gang bushwacking as he liked to call that afternoon—Doug strapped on, for the first time, the prosthetic arm the hospital had created for him.
According to his doctor, the latex and metal contraption was state-of-the-art. But it still looked like what it was: a robotic arm. He might as well start wearing an eye patch and a parrot on his shoulder. At least, one day a year he’d look like everyone else—on Halloween.
And how in God’s name could he type with this... this... claw?
But his physical therapist didn’t expect him to simply type. No, the torture king wouldn’t rest until Doug could feel the difference between the ace of hearts and the jack of clubs with his fake fingers.
Which wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
Although nerves in his upper chest were rewired to control the apparatus, the simplest actions, like raising his hand, took focus and time he’d never needed before that miserable day in Afghanistan. Tasks he’d done since toddlerhood: tying his shoes, buttoning his shirt, writing his name, had to be relearned in excruciating therapy sessions.
And now, he was about to attempt downhill skiing. With the torture king’s blessing, of course.
Mount Elsie, a small ski resort in the middle of Vermont’s Green Mountains, catered to local residents, families with small children, and maimed veterans who sought a shot at regaining independence after losing a limb or two. Or three. Or four.
“All set, Doug?”
From his seat on the bench at the bottom of the bunny hill’s J-bar, Doug glanced up at his ski instructor, then turned a furious gaze toward Ace. “Is this a joke?”
Kerri-Sue Parker looked exactly the way Doug would expect a Kerri-Sue Parker to look. Perky, blond, blue-eyed, no older than twenty-five, tops. Jeez, he probably owned clothes older than this kid.
Despite her youth, or maybe because of it, she flashed him a blinding smile. “You’ve got a problem with me, Doug?”
“Yeah,” Ace replied with an amused snort. “You’re not Brooklyn Raine.”
“Who?” Her expression blanked.
Good God, was she younger than he thought? How could anyone even remotely linked to the skiing industry not know the name Brooklyn Raine? Not that there was any truth to Ace’s comment. The kid had harped on Doug’s teenage crush since the night he’d first learned about it.
“Brooklyn Raine was a slalom skier from a dozen years ago,” Ace told Kerri-Sue with an exaggerated sneer. “You know. The old days. When snowboarding was reserved for the far side of the mountain.”
When Ace pointed past the tree line, Kerri-Sue’s gaze naturally followed. “Oh. Right.” She flashed a thumbs-up. “Got it now.”
Thwap! Thwap! Ace bounced on his purple and green board, a subtle hint he was bored and eager to hit whatever challenging slope he could find far from the beginner’s area.
“You may not believe this, Doug,” he said between bounces, “but you got the best instructor in the program. Kerri-Sue gets results from the troops the other guys can’t.”
Flashing another dazzling smile, Kerri-Sue shrugged. “It’s a gift.”
The dawn of understanding illuminated Doug’s brain. Of course, Kerri-Sue got results. No red-blooded American male would risk disappointing this beautiful snow angel. Except him.
“I want someone else.” The meanest, ugliest bulldog on the instructional team. Someone who wouldn’t giggle every time he lost his balance and fell on his face.
“Too bad.” Kerri-Sue knocked bits of errant snow from her bindings by tapping her pole against her ski. The slow precision in the motion made him think she wished she was pounding his head. “You’re stuck with me today. Don’t make me knock you on your butt in front of all these Marines.”
He took a look around, at the wounded men and women, all struggling to adapt to a new normal. How in God’s name had he arrived here? A year ago, he’d had a successful career, a modicum of celebrity in New York journalistic circles, and two working, matching arms. Now he was just another freak in this snow circus.
“You’re all in the same boat, Doug,” Kerri-Sue added, as if she’d read his thoughts. “We tend to group our students by category. Everyone here this week is a two-tracker with upper torso issues.”
“Two-tracker?”
“Yeah,” Ace replied from his left. “That means you’ll use two skis.” He grinned, no doubt proud to show what he’d learned while serving his public penance here.
Kerri-Sue shooed Ace toward the main chairlifts. “Go play, Ace. Doug and I will be fine without you.”
Ace turned toward the larger part of the mountain, then back to Doug. “You’re sure?”
“Go,” Doug replied. One know-it-all youth watching his every move would be all his cracked pride could take during this debacle.
Lucky for him, the kid needed no further prodding. With a whoop of delight, he picked up his board and raced to the main lift line.
Kerri-Sue sighed dramatically. “Alone, at last.” She stepped into her skis with a click-click. “Basically, we handle five different types of skiers here: two-trackers like you; three-trackers are one-leg amputees who use one ski but two outriggers. An outrigger’s that long-handled thing—kinda looks like a pole with the front piece of a ski tacked on.”
Doug nodded. He’d seen them before in competition use at the Special Olympics and Disabled Sports games.
“Four-trackers use two skis and two outriggers. Then there’s the sit-trackers who work a sit-ski. And visually impaired skiers use a guide. We’ve got one guy, Max, suffers from some rare vision disorder—he gets... like... tunnel vision and can’t see what’s on either side of him. He skis with his dog.”
Deep inside his brain, a dormant instinct sparked. His reporter’s senses tingled, like Spiderman’s. But he shoved the sensation away. His reporting days were over; he couldn’t type, and no way he’d be seen on television with The Claw.
“Yeah, right.”
“No joke. He’s got a human guide for racing and stuff, but just for toodling around the easy slopes, he uses his Labrador retriever. The dog’s a two-tracker, by the way.”
A smile twitched his lips, and Kerri-Sue beamed brighter than sunshine on fresh snow. “Now, that’s more like it. You’re actually a good-looking guy when you’re not growling at me.”
“I’m old enough to be your father.” Or at least, an uncle.
She gave him the critical once-over. “You think so? You’re...what? Thirty-five?”
He shrugged. Thirty-eight in years, but ninety in experience. And feeling older every minute...
“How old do you think I am?”
A dangerous question. And he had no intention of stepping closer to that ledge. Not with a woman who could push him off a cliff and get away with it.
“Come on,” Kerri-Sue pressed. “You started this. Finish it.”
He’d lowball her to be on the safe side. “Twenty-one.”
She laughed. “Now you’re just making fun of me. Come on, be honest. I can take it. How old do you really think I am?”
“No more than twenty-six.”
“Which would make you too young to be my father. The fact is, though, I’ll be forty this coming August.” She must have seen his eyes widen because she nodded like a bobblehead doll. “Really. Good Swedish genes. Great Swedish genes, actually.”
Okay, so maybe he didn’t have clothes older than her.
But maybe she only told him she was forty to make him feel better somehow. Some kind of pity-lie for the cripple.
His doubts must have shown on his face because she leaned closer, eyes crinkled with mirth. “Wanna see my driver’s license?”
Embarrassment crept up his nape, and he quickly looked away, focusing on the J-bar lift as it revolved from the bottom to the top of the slope.
“I can go back to the locker room and get my wallet,” she persisted.
Leveling a steely gaze her way, he replied, “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Good. Then slap on your helmet and let’s get started.” She picked up the helmet and shoved it at Doug’s chest.
Instinctively, he reached with his right arm, but, of course, nothing happened. He’d left his prosthesis in his slopeside condo. Still not one hundred percent comfortable with the motion of the fake arm, he preferred to relearn skiing without it.
“Here.” On a maternal sigh, Kerri-Sue slipped the helmet over Doug’s head, then slid the goggles into place over his face. She bent close to study his field of vision. “Can you see okay?”
He had to swallow hard to keep his pride from screaming he could do these tasks himself. Because, the truth of the matter was, he couldn’t. Too frustrated to speak, he settled for a nod.
Apparently, that was enough acknowledgement for Kerri-Sue. With gentle fingers, she clipped the strap under his chin.
Once again, he gulped back his resentment. Good God, how many more insults would his ego have to suffer? How on earth could he ever be whole again? Bitterness bubbled like bile in his gut. He couldn’t. The best he could hope for was a half-existence. He’d either be stuck fumbling with that phony artifice that masqueraded as a human arm or playing helpless victim so others could tie his shoes for him.
No. No way. He’d fight this battle. No way did he intend to spend the rest of his life with a hired coddler. Or his mother.
Kerri-Sue smiled, her cheeks rosy from the cold. “Come on, Doug. Let’s hit the slopes!”
♥
AFTER LEAVING BECS and Michael under the watchful eyes of the kitchen staff amid steaming cups of cocoa and squares of brownies, Lyn took one of her last runs of the day. At the top of the Snow Blind trail’s final hill, she stopped to watch the new Ski-Hab recruits on the bunny slope, Snow Wonder.
One by one, with their instructors alongside them for guidance, the class of two-trackers eased their way down the graduated hill in the classic S pattern. Nice. Slow. Steady form.
The good thing about Marines: they knew how to take orders.
On an inhale of crisp mountain air, she swooped closer to the beginner’s area. Years of skiing this mountain had made her all too familiar with the instructors. These days, she could recognize any staff member based on his or her unique motions on the slopes.
Curiosity riveted her to the student working with Kerri-Sue. The slender, beauty-queen blonde, usually the most popular and successful of the instructors, struggled with a hulking, one-armed giant of a man.
As he attempted the winding slalom downhill, his center of gravity tilted, and he faltered on the skis. Splat! He landed hard on his right side—the side without an arm. Rather than flipping to his left and regaining his stance, he began the wiggle routine, which Lyn usually associated with children and weaker amputees.
At first, Kerri-Sue stood back and watched, patiently waiting for him to realize his mistake and correct his approach. But as he continued to flounder while she no doubt stiffened in her boots, she finally broke protocol and bent to wrap an arm around him.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. The bigger they were, the more they acted like babies. This one was no exception. Time for her to intervene.
One strong push with her poles set her in motion, and she quickly gathered enough speed to cross the flat section that separated her trail from the bunny slope. Kerri-Sue must have heard her approach because her head jerked up toward the crest of the hill. Seconds later, the instructor dropped her hold on the student and stood upright, hands at her sides.
Lyn came to a hard stop, spraying snow on the man’s black ski pants. “Back off, Kerri-Sue,” she said, planting her poles deep enough into the ground to keep them upright. “I’ve got this one.” She turned to the man whose face was hidden behind a helmet and snow goggles. “What’s your name, soldier?” she barked with the force of a drill sergeant.
“Umm... Lyn,” Kerri-Sue leaned toward her.
Lyn waved her off, never turning her gaze from the man on the frozen ground.
“No, Lyn, really,” Kerri-Sue continued in a hurried hush. “You need to know—”
“I’m talking to the soldier now, Kerri-Sue. Go wait for us at the lift, please.”
“I’m not a soldier,” the man ground out through gritted teeth.
Huh? Lyn started. “You’re not?” Confusion smeared across her brain like petroleum jelly, and she turned to Kerri-Sue for clarity.
Kerri-Sue’s cheeks reddened with embarrassment, but her eyes blazed outrage. “Doug is our first civilian in the program. He was referred to us by Ace Riordan. Remember?” She edged the last word with frozen iron.
Oops.
Vaguely. Lyn recalled the program’s director, Richie Armstrong, had told her about a prospective recruit—a civilian—who’d been injured in some kind of accident. When Richie had confided the guy was a friend of Ace’s, Lyn had hesitated to agree. No one had bothered to tell her the civilian had been accepted, without her approval.
Oh, she liked Ace—most of the time. But, Ace had a reckless streak. Which made him an ideal athlete. Not, however, the most reliable participant in a program like Ski-Hab. And this was a friend of Ace’s. What were the chances the man would take the work involved seriously enough to succeed? She’d purposely limited Ski-Hab to members of the armed forces because they were in excellent physical condition and accustomed to following orders.
Still...
Ace’s time with Ski-Hab must have left a positive mark for him to refer their first civilian. A civilian who currently flopped on the snow like a fish pulled out of an ice hole. While she played Attila the Hun, snapping demands.
“My apologies, Mr....?”
“Sawyer,” he replied through the same barely moving lips. “Doug Sawyer.”
Once again, Lyn turned her attention to Kerri-Sue. “Go wait at the lift.”
While Kerri-Sue pushed off toward the rest of the class, the man on the ground struggled with the length of his skis, fumbling to turn himself around.
“Have you ever skied before, Mr. Sawyer?”
She’d softened her tone, but if the glare he shot in her direction was an indication, he’d snow ski with Satan before he forgave her.
“With one arm?” he retorted. “No.”
“I mean, ever. One arm or two.”
“Yes.”
Good. Thank God. “So, you remember how to get up when you fall down, right?”
“Yeah, but I’m at a disadvantage since I have no arm on this side to use for support.”
“Then you’ll have to flip yourself around to the side that has an arm, won’t you?”
“You could lend a hand, you know.”
“I could,” she agreed and folded her arms over her chest. “But that would defeat the purpose of Ski-Hab. Now flip.”
He struggled, but managed to face the other way, positioning his skis parallel and facing upward. Pole planted firmly, he pulled himself to a standing position. Thunderous applause and cheers erupted from the circle of people standing on the sidelines.
At last, the man turned to face Lyn, a relieved grin splitting his cheeks below the bridge of his goggles.
“Well done, Mr. Sawyer.” She clapped her gloved hands in muted applause. “How do you feel?”
“Better,” he said.
“Ready to do it again?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” With one quick shove against his armless shoulder, she knocked him off-balance.
He teetered for the briefest moment, and then fell right back into the same patch of snow he’d just managed to escape.
“Do it again.”