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reviews_and_ramblings
Fall Down the Mountain by PD Singer Release Date: 06/2009
Publisher: Torquere Books
Publisher Link: http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2685
Blurb: Ski patrol Mark McAvoy dug Ulf’s body out of the avalanche, and the dead man haunts his dreams. Mark needs someone to wake him from the nightmares as much as he wants someone to share his days. He gave up the fleeting encounters with vacationing skiers who don’t remember his name later, but he’s aghast at the well-meaning friends who are trying to round up potential boyfriends.
Chef Allan Tengerdie cooks dinner for seventy skiers every day, delivers it to their condos, and eats his own meals alone. A chance invitation to a pot-luck at Mark’s home is his perfect opportunity to captivate a hungry, lonely man. Mark’s ready to be there for him, even after he gets hurt on the slopes, until another man’s shadow falls across them.
That man is dead, and now the grand jury wants Mark to explain his role in the avalanche that killed him.
Excerpt
I watched a skier in a burgundy patrol jacket, twin to my own, swing expertly around the chain barrier to the lift line. I’d been about to yell, “Single!” to collect a partner for the chairlift, but Kim would ride with me and we could talk patrol business on the ride to the top of the West Peak. She waved at me and skied up to the front of the line. The patrols didn’t wait turns -- we were needed on the slopes.
“Hey, Mark! I just came off Sundance.” Kim named an intermediate run once we were seated in the chairlift. “A couple of snowboarders are riding kind of wild -- cutting back and forth in front of each other, possibly they’ve been drinking. I think one of them is that guy from the robot action flick that opened right before Christmas, Cal Somebody-or-other. Black and silver jacket, his buddy’s in some loud blue Hawaiian print pants.”
Great. We patrols loved inebriated celebrities. I had liked this particular celebrity a great deal, one wine-fueled evening last season. So he’d brought a companion this time. Cal probably didn’t remember my name.
“So, how did Cereal Bowl look?” Kim pulled her fleece headband off and tried to bring some order to her curly brown mop. I held her poles as she waged the losing battle.
“Not bad, I only had to rescue one loose ski for some guy who’d done an eggbeater.” I shook my head -- he’d gone down in a whirl of arms, legs, skis, and poles about a third of the way down the easy slope. “He said he wasn’t hurt, though he managed to get the inside of his goggles full of snow.”
“How far did you have to climb to get back to him?” Every patrol chased equipment down the mountain now and then. Kim got the headband back on and retrieved her poles. She didn’t look much different than when she’d started.
“About twenty yards. He was grateful.” I’d gotten a blinding smile and a genuine thank you when I’d pulled him up off the snow to put the errant ski back on, not the muttered politeness of wounded machismo.
“He should have been. You could have made him come down to you.” Going down a mountain on one ski was beyond a lot of people’s skills, though I’d seen Jorey Taylor do it in a race. Kim grinned slyly. “So, was he cute?”
“Kim!” I did not want another assault on my social life, or lack of, from her, and I was stuck on this lift for a while yet. “I don’t flirt with the skiers.” I used to, but I’d been cured of that when Rudi Gernsbach tried to hire me for Alpenschlossl. What a wake-up call that had been. I didn’t need any more one-night-stands or fly-by-night relationships, and I was sick of being used like a ski lift or hot-tub, just another resort amenity. That was all gone with last season’s snows -- I was ready for something, someone real.
“More fool you then,” she shot back, as if she understood. “Was he cute or not?”
“Well… not cute, really.” The smile was wide, the cleft chin strong, and the brown eyes under straight dark brows were warm, if a bit shy, as he cleaned the snow out of his goggles. Good looking, more like, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. Also probably someone I wouldn’t see again, a stranger met once. “And leave the social life alone.”
“Nuh uh, not any more.” She made a face at me. “Mark McAvoy, you are officially being tossed back into the dating pool. Julie, Chelsea, and I are sick and tired of you mooning around. Your social life has been nonexistent except for us. You’ve been alone and unhappy, and even if Jake perked you back up for about a day and a half…” She trailed off. “Anyway, he’s not an option, so we’re going to find you someone who is.”
