Falling Snow (2 page)

“I’m really sorry. Did you hit your head?” Adler asked when he got to his feet.

“No. A little bit. I’m fine.” A deep, but distinctly feminine voice answered her. “I’m Cason.”

Adler froze. When the woman stuck her hand out to introduce herself, Adler swallowed the lump in her throat. Had she really just cruised a woman? What the hell? “Um…” She felt horrible for smashing into her and then, well, she needed to get the hell out of there before she made a complete idiot of herself or got recognized. She wasn’t sure which would be worse at the moment. “Can I buy you some hot chocolate?” She asked and stepped over to the window. She held up two fingers and handed a ten dollar bill to the woman behind the window. A second later the woman handed her two steaming cups of hot chocolate. Adler handed one to the dark haired woman. Cason. She had introduced herself as Cason.

“Thanks.” Cason said. She looked at the woman in front of her. She was just a little bit shorter. She was wearing grey ski pants, a baby blue ski jacket with a matching knit cap. A few loose blond curls hung down the front of her jacket touching her breasts. She was also wearing white sunglasses. From what Cason could see she looked very cute, and young, probably too young and definitely straight. But, Cason could swear she saw the woman give her the once over and grin.

“I’m really sorry. I hope your head’s okay. I gotta go.” Adler said as she took off at a brisk pace towards the other end of the village where the tiny parking lot was.

Cason watched her walk away. She rubbed the back of her head where a small lump was beginning to grow. She hadn’t hit her head that hard. She shook it off and turned back towards the ski shop when the woman in the window called her over. She had seen the entire incident.

“Are you okay?” She asked.

Cason smiled. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Man, she came out of nowhere and flattened you.” She shook her head. “It looked like it hurt.”

“I’m good.” She held up the Styrofoam cup she was holding. “This is good too.”

“Do you know who that was?” She asked.

Cason shrugged. “No. She never said her name.”

“I think it was Adler Troy, but I’m not sure she had sunglasses on.” The woman looked like she was in thought.

“Who is Adler Troy?” Cason asked.

“Oh my god, only the best female snowboarder ever. She’s a local girl that’s very famous in the ski world.” She said with a little more enthusiasm than needed. Like Cason was suppose to know who this famous girl was.

“Oh.” Cason shrugged. “I’ve heard her name a few times, but I couldn’t tell you what she looks like.” She did remember the name now that the woman told her who she was. She always went to watch the Winter X Games over on Buttermilk Mountain and Adler Troy’s name was always at the top.

“She tries to be incognito in the winter, but in the summer she can’t under ski clothes so everyone sees her out and about. She’s usually pretty nice. I’ve only really seen her on the streets once. I hear she travels a lot over the summer months.”

“Oh.” Cason wondered if this woman was a stalker or something.

Four

Adler parked her Mercedes SUV in the Valet line of the Premier Aspen Hotel. She tossed the keys to the guy walking towards her and grabbed the valet slip. Infinity Sunglasses, her new sponsor, was waiting on the roof for the first shots of her photo shoot with a renowned photographer. The shots would be in two magazines and a commercial. She had half the day scheduled with them. She was already tired and the shoot hadn’t even started.

“I’m sorry I’m late. I had a bit of trouble in the village this morning.” She said as she took her jacket, hat, and gloves off. She tossed them in a small pile and shook her long curly hair out and flipped it back.

“Is everything okay?” The shoot manager asked.

“Yeah, fans bombard me sometimes.” She flashed a bright smile and she pulled her snowboard boots on and took her dark blue thermal top off. She was standing in front of him in a white bikini top, grey snowboard pants, black snowboard boots and the white sunglasses that she was promoting. They already had two snowboards that her board sponsor had sent them to help work out their color schemes and sets for each shot. It was below zero on the roof, but thankfully no snow was falling at the moment. She was freezing, but smiling like it was a hundred degrees.

The photographer positioned her with Aspen Mountain as the only backdrop. He cranked the I-Pod docking station and shot numerous pictures of her in various poses alone with her ski cap on, then without it, then some more with her snowboard. Ten minutes later she redressed to warm up. The group set up again inside one of the wooden sauna rooms. Again, Adler stripped down to the bikini top. They took the same sequence of shots that were taken on the roof and then played around for an hour doing various other shots. When the manager and photographer were satisfied she dressed again and went back to the roof where he shoot another series of photos of her in her ski jacket, pants, and boots with her hat and without it.

Another hour had gone by before she knew it. These shoots were monotonous, but they paid her big bucks to wear cool looking signature white sunglasses with dark slightly mirrored lenses. She would much rather be riding her snowboard instead of riding the gondola up the mountain with these corporate clowns to take more pictures at the top of the mountain with her and her snowboard.

The manager checked his watch. “We have about an hour of shooting up here. Then, we will do a wardrobe change and head down into the city for some street shots.”

Was he checking his watch to rub it in that she was late? What a dick. She wouldn’t have been as late if she hadn’t smashed into that woman. Cason. It wasn’t like her to be late anyway. Riding in fresh powder meant more to her than having her picture taken for some magazine or the money for that matter. Nothing compared to snowboarding. In her opinion, riding the pipe was better than sex.

***

Cason was freezing when she arrived at Aspen General Hospital for the start of her first shift. She was relieving a fellow trauma doctor from Colorado Springs that she knew from their I-Team annual meetings.

“Good to see you Cason.” Mike Canterro walked up and shook her hand.

“You too Mike, I bet you’re ready to get home.”

“Oh yeah, my wife is due in three weeks so she’ll be happy to have me back home.” He smiled.

“Wow. Congratulations. Boy or girl?”

“A surprise.” He laughed. “I wanted to know so badly, but she wanted to wait, so I guess we will find out soon. I’m kind of hoping for a boy, but it doesn’t really matter.”

“Girls can be just as much of a handful, or at least that’s what I’ve always been told.” She could tell he was nervous, but any expectant father would be. She wondered if one day she’d be in his position waiting for her wife to give birth to their first child.

“Yeah, no kidding.” He pulled a notepad from his pocket. “Not much going on around here. The holiday season was pretty quiet. I had a couple of MVA’s and of course the routine slip and falls.”

“Any surgeries or follow-ups I need to know about?”

“Nope, the only operating I did was on the Operation Game in the doctor’s lounge.” He laughed. “That’s they only shitty part about doing this rotation, you really don’t see much trauma.”

“Yeah, one of my fellows at DMC calls this my vacation.” She laughed.

He shrugged. “Kind of feels like one I guess.” He smacked her on the arm lightly. “Hey take it easy. I need to get on the road. Good to see you again.”

Cason watched him walk through the sliding double doors of the ER. She didn’t have to turn around when she felt a hand rub across her back. Serena Nichols, a triage nurse, had tried to set her claws in Cason since the day she arrived for her very first shift at AGH.

“Hi Serena,” She said through clenched teeth.

“I’ve been excited for weeks. I love this time of year.” She smiled and ran her eyes over Cason seductively. Cason cringed. She really didn’t know why she hadn’t taken Serena up on her offer of casual sex when she was working the rotation. She was pretty, chestnut brown, dark green eyes, creamy pale skin and curves in all the right places. Cason wondered if she made the same offer to all of the I-Team doctors when they were on rotation.

“I should probably get settled. The ER is short a doctor tonight so it looks like I will be filling in for him as well if it gets busy.” Cason said as she walked away. It wasn’t exactly a lie, if for some reason the ER got slammed with patients she would need to fill in because one of the two doctors on shift was out sick. The odds of that happening were pretty much slim to none. Still, it gave her an excuse to get Serena hands off of her. That woman just oozed sex appeal. Two years ago Cason found out she was actually married to a truck driver that was never around. No wonder she was so horny. Maybe she should invest in a BOB.

***

Adler propped her feet up on the table in front of the couch and turned the TV on. She looked out the window at the snow covered mountain right outside the door of her townhouse. She lived in a ski-in/ski-out chalet that had been turned into luxury two bedroom townhomes on side and the other side was a huge resort. Both were walking distance to the ski lift and it was extremely quiet. Most of her neighbors were celebrities that used their townhouses as vacation homes. She had an end unit which she paid extra for, but the privacy was worth it. She wished she was out there in the snow instead of lounging on her couch.

Something fuzzy passed under legs and jumped up on the couch in a very pristine fluid motion, barely indenting the couch. She smiled.

“Hey Clyde,” She said as she ran her hand casually over the grey and white thin haired Siamese cat. He slithered closer rubbing his back further up into her hand. He meowed a few times when she rubbed his head. “I could use a massage too buddy.” She yawned and he stretched.

As soon as she closed her eyes her cell phone rang. “I wonder who that is.” She said sarcastically to the cat as she reached for the phone.

“I left you a voicemail earlier.” The male voice on the other end sounded peeved. She rolled her eyes. Clyde jumped off the couch when he heard the voice.

“I was at a photo shoot for Infinity Kevin. I went to the gym afterwards and I just got home a little while. I forgot to call you back.” She said lazily. She was getting tired of this conversation repeating itself day in and day out. “I emailed you my schedule.”

“I know babe. I just wanted to talk to you. I’m going to Cleveland in the morning to meet with the Cavaliers to continue this post lockout NBA story I’m working on. I really don’t want to go. It’s probably going to be cold as hell. Jeremy wants this piece for the cover of the February Issue so I have to go to Miami too, at least it’ll be nice down there.”

Kevin hated the cold weather, which is why she barely saw him during the snow season. It pissed her off, but she knew what she was getting into when she married him two years earlier. They met on a southern California beach where he met her to do a story for the magazine after she won her Olympic gold medal. After an entire summer of courtship he asked her to marry him. They had so much fun together surfing and walking the beach, until the cold weather rolled around. When the snow started falling she barely saw him. He’d been to her townhouse enough times to count on one hand. He had a huge house in L.A. and traveled around as a writer for ESPN Magazine.

She flipped the channel on the TV. “The X Games are in three weeks. Are you coming up here?”

“Not sure babe. It depends on what’s on the schedule. I’m going to try though. I’ve already missed both of your Tour events.” He said. She knew he meant well, he wasn’t a bad guy. She did love him, she just wished they shared more interests.

“I busted my ass in Snowmass Village today.” She said.

“Oh really. How did that happen?”

She told him the story of running late and plowing down a pedestrian. He asked if they were both okay and then laughed hysterically. “I wish I could’ve seen that. You probably scared the hell out of that woman.”

“Yeah no kidding, I really hope she’s okay.” She thought about the incident again. Cason. She hoped Cason was okay.

“I should probably go I need to be at the Staples Center a few hours early for tonight’s game to do some pre-game interviews for my article. I’ll call you soon. Love you.” He hung up before she could say anything back.

Five

Cason had just settled in for the night in the cozy little condo that the doctors used while on rotation. It was only one bedroom, but spacious enough and it was walking distance to a ski lift so she could sit and watch all the skiers coming down the mountain. She had been in town a week and so far the hospital had been fairly quiet. The pace was much slower than DMC, but she kept her twenty-four and forty-eight schedule. Although, she was still on call twenty-four-seven until she was relieved by the next rotation, it was nothing like ‘hell week’ where you literally worked a week with only a couple hours of sleep when you could squeeze it in.

As soon as she took a bite of the wrap she picked up from the deli down the street from the hospital her cell phone rang. “Damn.” She said out loud as she put the wrap down and answered.

“Dr. Macauley this is Marge at Aspen General, we have an MVA coming in with severe trauma. The fire department is still trying to get the car cut open for extraction. I’m not even sure if they won’t be DOA, but Dr. Henry asked me to go ahead and call you in.”

“It’s fine Marge. I’m on the way. Call me with an update if they come in before I get there.” She ended the call and grabbed her snow boots next to the couch. She quickly laced them up and snatched her jacket from the coat rack and her keys. She turned around at the last minute to get her hat and gloves. She left her sneakers and a pile of clean scrubs in her locker at the hospital so she didn’t bust her ass or freeze to death going back and forth.