This whole thing had just become much more appealing.
* * *
Ellie droppedthe kids off at her mother’s place Monday morning after a busy weekend working in the emergency room. “I’m sorry, Mom, but I just don’t see how I’m supposed to run a meeting with two toddlers running around.”
“You don’t have to apologize, honey. Believe me, I understand.” Her mother gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Just remember I’ve got that eye appointment at one.”
Her mother needed surgery for cataracts and had been putting it off for months.
“I’m not letting you wiggle out of that. I’ll be back long before then.” Ellie bent down and kissed the twins. “Be good for Grandma, okay?”
Feeling irritated at being forced to give up part of her day off, she drove to the library, where she’d reserved a conference room. She reminded herself that SnowFest accounted for some portion of the hospital’s annual operational budget. Still, there were people on staff who attended the event and didn’t have kids. Couldn’t Pauline have drafted one of them to organize the first-aid tent?
Ellie had spent a few hours last night looking through the folders Pauline had given her. Organizing this whole thing was a bigger responsibility than she’d been led to believe. She’d already put in an order for a long list of supplies with Central Supply at the hospital. She still had liability insurance requirements to manage and about thirty-six hours to fill with qualified volunteers. She hoped she had enough people to staff the tent throughout the three-day event. She would be there eight hours each day starting at seven, but the tent was open until nine at night.
She grabbed the expandable file organizer that held the folders and all of the paperwork for volunteers, climbed out of the car, and walked inside to the reference desk. “Ellie Meeks. I reserved a conference room for ten a.m.”
A young woman she didn’t know set a clipboard on the counter in front of her. “You’re in the Summit Room. I’ll need you to sign for the key.”
Ellie signed her name, put the date and the time, then took the key and made her way upstairs. She found a handful of people waiting outside the locked door, most of them nurses she knew from the hospital. “Good morning.”
Lolly Cortez, an older LPN who worked in the ER, gave her a sympathetic smile. “I was wondering who Pauline had roped into doing this.”
Ellie tried to act less irritated than she felt. “I guess it was my turn.”
She unlocked the door, stepped inside, and flicked on the light, then went about setting out the paperwork volunteers would need to fill out, along with copies of the schedule. People shuffled into the room through the open door behind her, taking their seats.
She looked up—and froze.
Jesse.
He moved toward a vacant chair—all six-feet and four-inches of him. He looked wind-blown, as if he’d just come off the slopes, his hair rumpled, his cheeks red from cold. His lips curved into a smile. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
There was something in that smile, something in his eyes, too, that made her heart beat faster—and left her feeling uneasy. Was he interested in her?
Oh, no. No. Ellie didn’t want that. Did she?
She searched for something to say. “Are you … uh … off today?”
He shook his head. “My boss gives me time off for Team stuff.”
“Oh. Yeah. Right.” He’d told her that already.
She willed herself to break eye contact and greet the others in the room. Most were nurses from the hospital, but there were a few paramedics from the fire department as well. “Thanks for being here this morning, and thanks for signing up to help staff the first-aid tent. I’m going to pass around the volunteer forms. If you could each take one and fill it out, we’ll get started.”
She moved point by point through the basics—how many hours each of them would need to volunteer to fill the schedule, what supplies the hospital would be donating, what she expected of them during their time on duty. Then she ran through the check-in procedure.
“What kinds of patient visits can we expect?” Lolly asked.
“Good question.” Ellie pulled out the report from last year’s festival. “Last year, we had fifteen cases of hypothermia, one person with chest pain, a bloody nose, six people with altitude sickness, a twisted ankle, an ice climber with abrasions and lacerations, two severe hangovers…”
That brought laughter.
“… and two hospital transfers from the skijoring event—a dislocated shoulder and suspected concussion, and a broken wrist.”
She could feel the heat of Jesse’s gaze on her as she spoke, his attention making it hard to think. She avoided looking his way, willed herself to focus on the job.