Four Nights to Forever Read Online Free PDF

lowered his gaze to look Cassie head-on, regret deepening the brown of his eyes. “It’s not a very funny joke.”
    “Explain to me how it’s a joke at all.” If only there were something Cassie could punch. Or if the young patrolman wasn’t out of sight already she could yell at him for making a joke about her friend who had been lying broken in the snow.
    Instead, Cassie stomped over to her gear and snatched up her poles, using the time to take deep breaths. Doug had been kind to Karen. He hadn’t made jokes at her expense. He’d teased her friend and taken her mind off her pain. He didn’t deserve all the anxiety Cassie wanted to throw at him.
    She stabbed her pole tips into the snow and looked at him. The rhythm of the lift had returned to normal quickly, with pairs of children getting off sliding off the chairs and milling around the top of the cat track waiting for their ski instructors. The occasional nonstudent skier hopped off the lift, gazing at them before skiing past. Not only had Doug stayed put in his spot in the snow, but he was still looking at Cassie, his head cocked and the corners of his mouth tight in frustration.
    “The woman in that sled is my friend,” she said, using her breath to control her anger. “I want to know what they meant.”
    “We don’t have many students injured during their lessons, but—” he sighed again and rubbed at his sun-ravaged cheek “—a quarter of the injured students are mine. ‘Doug luck,’ the patrolmen call it.”
    “I hope you don’t teach children,” she said, her nerves pushing the words out of her mouth in bites of irritation.
    Doug shook his head, brushed the snow off his knees, and headed to where he’d left his skis. “No, I only teach adults.” He stopped when he passed her. She leaned forward, her weight resting on her poles, all her worry pushing the tips deep into the hard-packed snow.
    “Let’s go.” He reached out a hand as if he were going to touch her shoulder but pulled it back. She wished he hadn’t, though; she could use a hug. Or at least a comforting pat on the shoulder. Even from him.
    “We can meet her in the clinic,” he continued. “If the break isn’t bad, they’ll be able to set it. Otherwise, she’ll need to go to the university hospital in the valley.”
    Cassie nodded, unable to reach out for the touch she needed and not certain how to ask a stranger for it. She didn’t move as he walked away, and it took the sound of his boots snapping into his skis to break through the concern clouding her mind and propel her to move. When she’d gotten into her skis and secured her poles around her wrists, he said, “Follow me,” and slipped over the edge of the cat track. There was nothing else to do; Cassie obeyed.

Chapter Three
    ‡
    O range rubber mats barely muffled the thunk of their ski boots against the concrete floor as Doug led Cassie through the bowels of the resort center to the small urgent care clinic that served both the resort and the tiny town of Pines, Utah, that surrounded it. He opened the glass door in front of them and gestured for Cassie to take a seat in one of the red, molded plastic chairs. They were just as hard and uncomfortable as they looked, but it could be awhile.
    “The doctors here are great,” Doug said, sitting down next to her. His ski pants rustled as he tapped his fingers on them, stopping himself from reaching out and patting Cassie on the leg. He wanted to reassure her, but he also wanted to touch her simply to touch her, and the hospital clinic wasn’t the place to give into that urge.
    “Thanks.” Her smile was a washed-out version of what he’d seen this morning when she’d introduced herself on the plaza, keeping the somehow-endearing gap in her teeth hidden. She looked down at the floor, giving him a chance to admire her profile and the flare of her nose against her cheeks. Her throat moved as she swallowed three times in succession, hard enough that he could hear it.