Page 92 of Santa's Girl
"Always."
"But Caroline's here, and Margie says there's not enough room?—“
He nodded. "Tomorrow, then. I’ll take you both up the mountain on the snowmobiles. You’ll love it."
I smiled. Tomorrow sounded perfect.
20
BEAR
Saturday was supposed to be fun. I had the boys fired up—snowmobile races, bonfires, a hot pot of chili, and a few bottles stashed for later. Becca, Caroline, and Margie were supposed to come up the mountain around noon. We were finally doing something light. Something easy.
But the second that call came over the CB, everything in me shifted.
Black ice.
Multi-vehicle crash off the main county road.
EMTs and police were twenty minutes out, maybe longer. But us? We could cut through the woods on the sleds and be there in less than ten.
I barked orders without thinking. Diesel grabbed the med kits. Jinx radioed to the rest of the boys still up the hill. I swung onto my sled, my kutte flapping behind me in the wind like a damn warning flag.
My jaw was tight. My gut twisted.
Because I’ve seen this before.
The crunch of twisted metal.
The way snow turns red and doesn’t stop.
The way a scream can echo through the trees and crawl inside your chest, and live there forever.
We got there before the chopper. Before the sheriff. Before anyone who could explain to these people why the hell the road wasn’t salted.
I stepped off the sled and walked into a damn nightmare.
Three cars. One flipped.
One had a tree through the hood.
The other still had a baby seat inside. Empty.
Screaming. Crying. Moaning.
Blood in the snow.
I moved like a machine. Checked pulses. Told Jinx where to apply pressure. Handed Diesel a tourniquet. I barked out to Regi to keep traffic from sliding into us.
But inside, I wasn’t okay.
Inside, it was years ago. It was a truck. It was snow. It was a phone call and a funeral. I was a kid left all alone.
Becca’s face tried to float up in my mind, but I shoved it down.
I couldn’t be that man here.
Here, I was the one who kept people alive.
