Jill Shalvis - Free Fall

She smiled grimly. "I was lucky enough to land my attempt."

He marveled at her. Not just at the daredevil, come-what-may persona-which was utterly genuine, not forced or faked as it might have been-but at the fact that she had such intelligence, such heart to go with all that toughness. "What's taking them so long to get him up?"

"There's an unexpected complication." She sighed, clicked out of her skis and moved into the fray.

In spite of the vicious wind, they'd brought out the ropes and had created a Z-rig, a zigzagging combination of rope and manpower. Because they stood on an expert run, where the lifts were now closed, there weren't any spectators around, which Logan knew would make the job easier.

This close to the edge, the dizzying height rushed up to meet him, a sensation increased by the bruising winds. He thought of anyone purposely skiing off here, of Lily doing it, and had to admit that she had more guts than he did.

He watched her get into gear, feeling far more tense than whenever he geared up for a rescue. Then she was going over the edge, and he held his breath.

"Why is she going down?" Logan asked Chris over a gust of wind that made him stagger back. The two front men on the Z-rig swore and scrambled to tighten their hold on Lily, and Logan nearly crunched his teeth to dust.

"It was a request," Chris said.

"What do you mean, a request?"

"The victim asked for her specifically."

Logan stared at him for a moment, then down at Lily. The wind kicked up again, gusting hard, blowing up a cloud of powder, and suddenly everything went white. Lily vanished. Hell, everything vanished for the longest moment of Logan's life, as he was forced to wait for the snow to settle again. When it finally did, both Logan and Chris leaped to the edge.

Lily was still there.

Logan was well familiar with emergencies such as this: bad weather, worse conditions for the climb and an injured vic. Always, he calmly handled it, all of it.

But he found he couldn't handle this, not with Lily dangling fifty feet in the chasm and the wind beating at her as if she was nothing more than a rag doll.

The brutal wind didn't let up, and on the next harsh gust, the light snow once again went airborne, brushing free of the rocks, completely choking off their vision and creating another full-blown white-out situation.

It was the eeriest thing. Logan could have put both hands right in front of his face and he wouldn't have seen them, so he stood there and clenched them into fists, swearing helplessly while the seconds passed, long, heart-pounding seconds, because while they were blinded, no one could keep track of the victim.

Or Lily.

Logan was known for his patience, but every ounce of it had deserted him, replaced by a bone-gnawing desperation that he should have been used to after the hundreds of rescues in his past. But it never got easier, and that it was someone he knew in trouble- something too close to when, just a few months ago, he'd been forced to leave Wyatt and Leah on a houseboat in the middle of a twister-made it all the more chilling. He didn't care to ever repeat this fear.

What seemed like eons passed, but it was probably only thirty seconds before the gust finally died and the snow settled. Lily was still down there, on the rope, against the rock. Not moving.

Logan and Chris pressed as close to the edge as they dared and shouted her name.

She tilted her head up, brushed the snow from her goggles and lifted a hand.

"She's okay," Chris said in clear relief.

Insides quivering, Logan nearly sank to his knees. Everyone around them breathed the same relief, and with tension taut enough to be cut with a knife, they went back to the rescue efforts.

Logan moved to the Z-rig, adding his hands to the fray without hesitation, wishing like hell he could be the one down on the rope. Twice more the winds kicked up, and twice more everything stopped. With Lily dangling off a rope over a cliff.

On the last time, the wind whistled and raged around them for an agonizing three full minutes, and this time when they could see, Lily wasn't so quick to wave.

Logan held his breath, and next to him so did Chris. "Come on, come on," Chris muttered, fingering his walkie-talkie, hesitating to use it. Logan knew why: Chris didn't want Lily having to reach for it, occupying a hand she needed. "She'll call if she needs something," he said.

But would she? Logan knew her now, or was beginning to. The woman was stubborn and unbelievably tough. He thought maybe she was tougher than some of the guys he'd worked with for years, and with that came a sense of personal indestructibility. He knew this firsthand because he'd felt it himself. Something about being on a rescue, with lives in the balance and the elements battering everything, changed a person's perspective, made them feel immortal somehow. All that mattered in that moment was getting the victim to safety.

Lily felt the same way now, he just knew it. Which made his fear for her escalate. It wasn't often he felt helpless, but he felt the greasy weight of it now. He'd rarely been on this side of a rescue before, and he didn't like it.

He watched grimly as she finally landed on the rock far below and bent over the victim with the other patroller.

Chris brought out his walkie-talkie. "How is he?"

"Pissed," came Lily's voice. "And amused that -you guys got me down here."

"He demanded it," Chris said in exasperation. "Said he was going to wait there until either you came or spring arrived."

"Well now he can listen to me bitch at his stupidity. Send down the litter."

"Who are we talking about?" Logan demanded as the crew sent down a flat litter for Lily and the other patroller to get the victim into so that he could be hauled back up the cliff. Whoever the jerk was, Logan felt the urge to wrap his fingers around his neck and squeeze-

"Pete Wheeler. You might have heard of him, he's won gold in boarding the past two X Games. You know, the extreme adventure games."

"He's local?"

"Yeah. He's also…" He shut his mouth.

"What? An idiot?"

"Lily's on-again, off-again boyfriend."

Well, hell, he'd asked, hadn't he? And anyway, it didn't matter. He was only here for another few days. What had he really thought, that they'd actually make some kind of go of this? Of course not, she'd told him right up front that this was just fun.

She'd made him promise the same.

Just fun. Yeah, this was a riot a minute.

When Pete's litter came over the top, Chris and two others grabbed him, preparing to ski him down to meet the ambulance waiting for him at the lodge. Lily came up next and dropped to the snow in exhaustion. Logan was right there. It was all he could do not to haul her close, but instead, he examined the nasty scratch along her chin and jaw. "You got slammed into the rocks."

"Saw stars," she agreed grimly and backed from his hands to move to Pete. She looked down at him, and he looked right back at her, pale and wanly smiling.

"Knew you'd come get me," he said, making her laugh softly

"You're such a fool." She touched his cheek with a tenderness that shouldn't have surprised Logan. Hell, she'd touched him like that, too.

"A fool who wanted to keep up with you," Pete said.

"I haven't skied off that cliff in years."

"Ah." He closed his eyes. "Aunt Debbie's been pulling my leg, regaling me with stories of your craziness."

"Old craziness," Lily corrected, and sighed. "No one ever gets that. Enjoy your ride, Pete."

"You take me down."

"Oh, no." She stroked the hair back from his forehead. "I got you off the mountain. Now take your medicine like a big boy."

"Yeah." Pete let out a careful breath, grimacing at the pain. "I didn't mean for you to get hurt, Lil." He jerked his chin in the direction of the wrist she held against her belly. "I'll save you the bed next to mine at the hospital."

"Don't hold your breath." She nodded to Chris, who with a partner began to ski Pete down the hill.

"You need some medical attention," Logan said to her.

"It's just a scratch."

He gestured to her wrist.

"Oh, this?" She opened and closed her fingers. "Not broken."

"Why didn't you say something after you'd been hit? Any of us would have hauled you up and taken your place."

"I was fine."

"You're always fine."

"That's right," she said cautiously, her smile fading. "What's the matter?"

"You risked yourself needlessly."

"Needlessly? There was an injured party down there and I went after him. That's a part of the life out here. And I'd have thought you, of all people, got that."

That she was right didn't ease his tension or make him feel any better. She'd turned away from him now, gathering a rope to entwine it. He snatched it from her and did the job himself. "Go get some ice," he said, probably more roughly than he'd intended. But screw it. He'd let her mess with his head, and that was so far from his usual realm of not caring enough, it shook him to the very core.

She stared at him for a long moment, then backed away. "All right. Thank you."

And then she was gone.

When she got down the mountain, Lily cleaned up her cuts, wrapped her wrist to match her knee and dug into work. There were other fires that had to be put out all over the resort, such as someone posting a party notice for that night in the bar on the bulletin board in her name. Obviously a joke, but she removed it-thankfully before Sara or Gwyneth caught wind of it.

Or maybe not a joke. Maybe the same person who'd messed with her food delivery.

Aunt Debbie happened by as Lily was tossing the party flyer in the trash, and lifted a brow at her. "Mom always wondered if you'd outgrow your party years."

"She knew I had," Lily said.

"I guess that's why you inherited." Debbie's smile went from playful to wistful. "One of us had to grow up and be responsible, huh? Oh well, it wasn't ever going to be me, that's for sure." Surprising Lily, she pulled her in for a hug. "Thanks for putting up with me."

Since Lily sensed a lingering sadness alongside the usual mocking humor, she endured the embrace. "I'm sorry you're sad." She wished for Sara, who was better at this nurturing, mothering thing.

"Are you?" Aunt Debbie pulled back and laughed. "Well, that's unexpectedly sweet. You must be mellowing with old age."

"Am not."

"Used to be no one was badder than you. You never took anyone's crap."

"I don't take any now, either. Speaking of which, stop telling stories about me."

"But you're a legend."

"Pete took a crazy chance today because of your stories."

"Pete's a big boy, he should have known better. See?" She clucked Lily under the chin. "You're not yelling at me. Definitely mellowing. And you know what else, kid? I'm not the only sad one here."

Lily thought about that as she went back to work. Was she mellowing? Sad? All she knew was that the day-to-day running of this place was eating away at the joy and peace the mountain gave her, and she was tired, so damn tired, from trying to keep up with everything.

Maybe that's what Aunt Debbie had seen-pure exhaustion.

She thought about that while she sorted her way through the piles on her desk as evening came. Gwyneth showed up and reported that the cafeteria looked filled to brimming and that Logan had joined a group of dispatchers and cops from L.A. who'd come up to ski. Sounded like so much fun that Lily rushed through the expense report she was working on, but by the time she got to the bar, she was too late.

"They took the moonlit trails on rented snowmobiles," Matt told her, drying glasses and watching her carefully. "I suggested it."

"Oh. That's…nice." She sat on a bar stool and joined him in drying.

"Didn't know you were going to go back for seconds."

Her gaze whipped to his.

"It's not like you."

"I've gone out with guys more than once."

"Name one."

"Pete."

"Yes, but he's a ski bum who shows up on this mountain once, maybe twice, a year. You've always been safe pretending to date him."

Lily shook her head. "Matt?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

He grinned. "Not until you take back calling me a sap."

"You are a sap. A sap who has to build me new shelves."

He grumbled at that and moved away to serve a customer.

Lily's job of irritating him now complete, she got into her car and drove to town to visit Pete at the hospital.