“Yeah, it’s not so easy once you’re the one making the choices, is it?” Xander shouted. “He has carbon monoxide poisoning. It’s not a long-term situation. They just need to get him breathing again, and we’ll bring him home. This isn’t what Dad meant, if you’re so certain he even meant it.”

“I’m certain!” We were right under the blades, and the words felt sharper than the metal slicing through the air.

“Sir? We can take one of you with us, but not both!” the paramedic called from the doors.

“I’m coming!” Xander replied and immediately started toward the bird.

I gripped his arm, which earned me a glare.

“For God’s sake, Cam, I have to go!”

“I asked him! Last week, we had lunch and I asked him. He meant it, Xander!”

Xander wrenched his arm from my gloved grasp and climbed into the helicopter without another word.

“We’re taking him to Salida!” the paramedic said.

I nodded, and he shut the doors. Knowing I needed to move, I turned and made my way back down to the house. Midway there, the helicopter was airborne, flying east down the pass.

Only my heavy breaths and what had to be a bass drum beating in my chest punctuated the silence once I reached the driveway.

The plywood in the center of the snow-covered space was the only evidence of what had just occurred. Xander had resuscitated Dad, and I had helped. Disgust filled my mouth, the taste so bitter that I almost vomited.

…

Two hours later, I walked into Heart of the Rockies, the closest hospital. It was a Level IV trauma center, so knowing that Dad had been admitted and not transferred was a good omen. That and the fact that he wasn’t dead yet were definitely marks in the positive column.

I’d had to call to get that tidbit of information, seeing as I’d found Xander’s phone on the garage floor. It had taken me an hour and a half to get the drive plowed with Dad’s quad, and I was lucky that the truck had enough gas in it to get down the pass to Salida, since my wallet was currently MIA.

Sure, it would only take a phone call to know that I’d left it at home, but the idea of talking to Willow after everything that had gone down this morning was enough to make me debate switching to the ostrich approach to life.

“ICU?” I asked at the front desk.

She directed me, and I quickly made my way through the sterile halls, my boots leaving muddy footprints on the pristine floors.