“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. I slipped and the edge of my board caught your ski.”

Seth had her sitting up now, so she was able to answer with some dignity. “That’s all right. It was an accident.”

“I’m still sorry,” the teenager said.

“Ow,” Tara yelped and the that’s okay that had been on the tip of her tongue got waylaid in a cloud of pain. It felt as though a pair of metal clamps were attempting to crush her ankle and doing a decent job of it.

“Shit. I’m so sorry, Tara,” Seth ground out, sounding frustrated and angry with himself. “I need to remove your boot to see how badly you’re hurt. I don’t know if I can do it without hurting you. Can you hang on while I take it off?”

“Yes, I’ll hang on,” she said, bracing herself. If the pain she’d felt when he unlatched her ski was any indication, this was going to hurt like a bitch.

“I’ll help,” the girl volunteered and grabbed her right leg to steady it as Seth gently worked her boot off.

She couldn’t help it. She whimpered, biting down on her lip.

“Fuck,” Seth said, turning worried eyes to her. Then his continued efforts drew a moan out of her. He stopped immediately. “Fucking hell.”

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry,” the snowboarder said again, wringing her gloved hands.

“I’m okay. Keep going,” she said to Seth, setting her jaws to prepare herself.

Tara tried to stem the tide of tears streaming down her face. She didn’t want to upset Seth anymore, and the poor girl was near tears herself. She took a deep breath to stop herself from grimacing. When her boot was finally off, cold sweat drenched her face and back from enduring the pain.

“Goddammit,” Seth cursed under his breath. “Your ankle is too swollen for me to tell if it’s broken or not.”

“Crap,” Tara sighed. “We don’t have cell reception up here, right?”

“Right,” he confirmed, pulling off his beanie to run his hand through his hair. “I’ll have to go down to get the medics, but I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

“I can go.” They both turned to the girl. “I’ll go down and let the medics know. It’s the least I can do.”

“Thank you,” Seth said. “I really appreciate that.”

“Yeah, thank you,” Tara echoed, surprisingly relieved that he could stay with her.

“I’ll go down as fast as I can,” she said with determination on her face.

“No,” Seth and Tara yelled at once.

“No. Take your time and be safe.” Tara spoke calmly, hoping it would dampen the girl’s postcrash adrenaline. “We don’t want you to fall again.”

“Okay,” the girl said, deflating a little. “Bye. Don’t freeze to death or anything.”

With those reassuring words, the teenager shoved off on her snowboard and disappeared down the slope. Tara shifted her seat on the snow, then winced in pain.

“Dammit,” Seth growled as he shrugged off his backpack. “We need to get you more comfortable. Well, as comfortable as you can be sitting on the freezing snow with a possibly broken ankle.”