Page 15 of Cold and Bitter Snow

She already knew Conor was selfless and heroic—he’d proven that the previous day when he’d run into an avalanche to save her. But she felt a sadness within him. Something had happened to make a decorated officer resign from the US Army and end up working night shifts at a ski resort, but her research into him hadn’t been able to uncover what.

In the hotel ski room she picked up her new pair of skis—almost identical to the old ones. She’d gone to the ski store the evening before and hadn’t even had to explain anything—it turned out they already knew about the avalanche and were happy to provide her with replacement equipment.

Wearing her trainers, she balanced the skis, the poles and the boots in her arms and headed outside where Conor was already waiting for her.

His gray eyes lit up at the sight of her. He was freshly shaved, his short brown hair still wet from the shower. Siena wondered briefly what would happen if she took his hand and dragged him inside. They could spend the morning in bed instead.

She shook her head.

That’s not the way the real world works.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Am I late?” she asked. She hated not knowing what time it was.

“Just on time. I was a few minutes early.”

“I’m ready. How’s your shoulder?” she asked, noticing he was balancing skis and poles on his right shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I iced it again last night. A bit of exercise will do it good. Just take it easy on me.”

She laughed.

They walked up to the gondola lift. The resort had just opened and there weren’t many people around. Give it half an hour and she knew it’d be crawling with bodies of all shapes and sizes. They walked up and stepped into their own gondola.

Conor took her skis from her and leaned them against the window.

She exchanged her trainers for her ski boots, placing the trainers in the small backpack she was carrying. It was her lucky pack. She was glad she hadn’t been carrying it a day earlier, otherwise it too would have been lost in the snow.

“You’re quiet,” he said.

“Yeah, just thinking … about what happened yesterday,” she said apologetically.

“It’s okay to think about it, you know?”

“I feel like … we could have died.”

“We could have,” he agreed.

“I keep thinking, what if we’d been buried past our heads? We wouldn’t have been able to dig ourselves out. She looked down at his hands, knowing under his gloves they must still be hurt from the digging he’d had to do.

“Sometimes, things just work out,” he said laconically.

“I’m sorry. I guess you were a soldier. You must be familiar with the concept of death.”

A shadow flew past his face and she wished she could take the words back.

Suddenly, something flew past the gondola—too big to be a bird.

I’ll be damned.

It was a drone.

She rushed to the window and found three young boys huddled below, looking up at the drone. One of them held a small tablet in his hand. She kept waiting for the ski patrol or somebody to show up but nobody did.

“They let kids fly drones out here? On the slopes?”

She went looking for her phone before remembering all she had was a couple post-its and a miniature pencil she’d taken from the hotel room. She made a quick shorthand note to remind herself.