Her words made Ella blink, and she let a faint smile curl up her face. “You’re probably right.”
“Of course I am. And I’m also right about the fact that it’s Gage Watson that has you so rattled. I didn’t even have to know your history with him, the fact you fell for him hard three years ago, to know that seeing him last night nearly blew you over. What I don’t know is what happened after he kissed you on the dance floor. After he asked if he could see you in Vermont after he skied Terminator. And why you prosecuting him wrecked his life. Sure, that had to hurt, but c’mon, he should have known he’d have to face up to his mistakes.”
And that’s when Ella took a long breath. She caught her lower lip in her teeth as she exhaled.
“Oh my gosh, there’s more. You’re wearing the look you did when you caught Sofia with that TA. Like you have a terrible secret you don’t want to tell.”
Ella’s eyes widened.
“You’d make a terrible poker player. Sit down.”
Ella considered her a long moment. Then she tucked her hands in the sleeves of her sweater. “You can’t tell this story, Brette. Ever. To anyone. I could get disbarred. People’s lives would be destroyed . . . or more people’s lives.”
“The things you ask of me—”
“I mean it. You’re not an ace biographer right now. You’re my friend. My dearest friend from college, and don’t forget that I know what you did your freshman year during the homecoming game.”
“Wow, you are a politician. Okay. This is serious.”
Ella raised an eyebrow, and Brette sank down on the sofa. Held up three fingers. “Girl Scout honor.”
“You weren’t a Girl Scout. Just give me your word. This is just between you and me. Forever.”
Brette nodded. “I promise.”
Ella sank down on the sofa, wearing such a forlorn look that Brette wanted to give her a hug. But Ella knew how to gather herself, knew how to hold her ground, to pop out a speech. Putting on a brave face for the hard stuff was practically her specialty.
“That last night at Outlaw Resort, before the run off Terminator Wall, I knew I had completely fallen for Gage, in three days. He was the perfect gentleman, a great snowboarder, and I loved the way he laughed and listened to me. He wasn’t anything like the cocky snowboarder I thought he’d be—he was genuine and honest and grew up in a Christian home, and frankly, I was ready to give him my heart, right there. And then he kissed me, and . . .” She closed her eyes, pressed her hands to her mouth. “Yeah, there was no going back after I kissed Gage Watson.”
A smile tweaked up her face at that, and as she opened her eyes, Brette could practically see it. The shine of hope, the way she must have looked up at Gage as she danced in his arms.
For a moment, Brette longed to look at a man that way, to trust him, believe in his love.
But that meant she’d probably have to let him close, risk letting him see the real Brette Arnold. Risk letting him hurt her.
Nope. Not again.
“So what happened?” she asked, cutting through Ella’s memories.
“We went back to the table, and he was holding my hand, telling me about his run at Heaven’s Peak, when his friend Ramon came in. He wanted to talk to him. Ramon was his manager at the time, and with the big run coming up—well, I told Gage to talk to him while I went to the ladies’ room. I was sort of freaking out anyway.”
She blew out a breath, looked away. “The bathroom was located across the foyer of the chalet, and I didn’t realize they’d stepped outside the restaurant, or that when I came back, I’d be able to hear them. But I did.”
She met Brette’s eyes. “They were arguing about Dylan McMahon. He had apparently offered Gage a lot of money to take him on the run—and Ramon was pressuring him to take Dylan with him. Gage told Ramon that Dylan wasn’t ready, that he’d just get himself killed. I didn’t hear any more, but I wasn’t worried—Gage had promised me, after all, that he wouldn’t take him. I went back to the table . . . but Gage never showed up. He just left me there. I got home on my own.”
“He just left you?”
“Yeah.” She stared down at her hands. “During the deposition, I found out that Dylan McMahon showed up during the conversation, and he and Gage got into a little altercation outside. Ramon got in the middle and ended up with a bloody nose. Gage said that Dylan swore to go down the mountain by himself if Gage didn’t go with him, and that he had, in fact, already paid the chopper pilot, but no one heard him. And Ramon had actually taken Dylan’s money, so it looked bad for Gage, and . . .”
“So, you didn’t believe him?”
“I didn’t know what to believe. I was so shocked—I watched in horror the next morning when Dylan stepped into that chopper with Gage. He’d promised me. And then, I watched the accident happen on live feed. Dylan, skiing off the trail, over the cliff. Then the avalanche that Dylan triggered crashing over Gage as he chased Dylan down, trying to find him. I just stood there in disbelief.”
“Was Gage hurt?”
“Yeah. He rode the slide, had his beacon on, and they were able to pull him out fast. He broke his shoulder, I think. I’m not sure—they took him to the hospital, and I never got a chance to talk to him. Once Dylan’s family showed up, distraught, and . . . it was a bad time. I went home to Vermont and tried to forget it all.”
She got up, walked over to the counter, and opened the cabinet. Took down a mug. “The next thing I knew, the McMahons were plaintiffs and our law firm was filing a lawsuit and I was assigned to the case. I did disclose that I knew Gage, but because I was just an associate and since the fight between he and Ramon was confirmed by other witnesses, I didn’t have to disqualify myself. So, I didn’t. Nine months later, I faced him in the hearing.”
She didn’t speak as she poured herself a cup of coffee. Then she turned, her voice thin. “You should have seen him, Brette. He’d lost weight, and he looked completely wiped out. He’d written to Dylan’s parents and even tried to come to the funeral, but Harry and Jane were so angry. I think maybe, if he hadn’t shown up at the graveside, they might have left it alone, but . . .” She took her coffee back to the sofa, cupped her hands around the warmth as she sat down.
She took another sip, but Brette noticed her hand shaking.
“I should have stepped aside, just the fact that I was so angry. I wanted to face Gage. Until I did. Seeing him like that . . . it took me apart. I wanted to run from the room. And then, the lead lawyer asked me to question Ramon. Oh, Ramon was mad—he didn’t want to reveal that Gage had his hesitations about Dylan’s abilities or that Dylan had paid him. I listed him as a hostile witness, and . . . I pulled it out of him.”
She closed her eyes again, and Brette wanted to reach out, touch her arm. “I couldn’t look at him as I did it. I knew he felt like I’d just shoved a knife through him. My own chest hurt.”
“Oh, Ella.”
“Gage didn’t even defend himself. Ramon’s testimony sealed the case. Gage’s lawyer settled, and Gage lost everything—his sponsorships, his earnings, and his sport.” She wiped her fingers across her cheek. “It was only after we’d settled, when I was going over the final papers of the case, that I discovered the truth.”
The truth?
She looked up at Brette again, this time her eyes clear, her face solemn. “And this can never be repeated, because it’s part of the sealed case. But . . . the family had a private autopsy done on Dylan. I’m not sure why—it was clear he died of suffocation and massive trauma. But the toxicology report was in the file, so I read it.” She swallowed. Took a breath.
“Dylan McMahon had THC in his system. Marijuana.”
Brette couldn’t move. Ella just stared at her, meeting her gaze. Then, she nodded. “Whether or not he was accomplished enough to ride that mountain didn’t matter. Dylan was high when he went down that mountain.”
“Gage should have been exonerated,” Brette said.
“Maybe. It was a civil case, so there may still
have been damages awarded . . . but maybe not. It might have all gone away. I was horrified, but we’d settled, and I didn’t have the authority to open it back up. And I was on the side of the plaintiff.”
“Not to mention sworn to silence.”
Ella nodded. “Yeah. And that’s when things turned ugly. I confronted my boss, as well as the family, and he told me that I was required to keep quiet. I was so angry, I quit. I walked away from my law firm.”
“I remember that. I couldn’t believe you did that—especially since you were on your way to being a junior partner. I thought it was because of your mother—her cancer.”
“That was all about timing. She needed to step down, and she offered me her seat. Of course the governor endorsed me, and it was such a small election, I’m not sure anyone even really knew, but . . . by then I was just trying to fill her shoes.”
“And trying to forget Gage Watson,” Brette said softly.
Ella tugged a tissue from a nearby box, blew her nose. “But it wasn’t as if I could ever forget him. I’d always hoped for a chance to . . . I don’t know, fix it, maybe. Silly, I know, but—”
“Not silly. Because you’re still in love with him, aren’t you?” Brette asked quietly.
Ella sighed. “It doesn’t matter. Because there’s no way he’d ever love me. In fact, I’m the last person he would ever help. I can’t believe he actually took my phone call or that I still had the right number.”
A knock at the door jerked them both out of the conversation. Brette got up, walked to the door, glancing back at Ella.
She’d found her feet. Wrapped her arms around herself, looking as if a stiff wind might knock her over.
Brette opened the door.
Gage’s hot friend, Ty Remington, stood in the frame. Tall, with wind-tousled dark hair and amazing green eyes, he wore his black ski pants and red ski patrol jacket. “Uh . . . Gage sent me by to tell you . . .” He glanced past her, to Ella, then back to Brette. “It’s not good news. He found the chopper pilot who Oliver paid to bring them into the park.”
Brette hooked his arm, tugged him inside. He stepped into the foyer. Brette closed the door.
He looked over at Ella, kept his voice even. “He dropped your brother off on top of Heaven’s Peak over two hours ago.”
The replay of Dylan McMahon’s tragic tumble off Terminator Wall and the avalanche that followed him down looped in Ella’s mind as she pulled up to the Blackbear Mountain ski patrol shack.
Ty pulled in next to her in a shiny blue Mustang.
“Nice car,” Brette commented to Ella as she slid out of Ella’s rental SUV.
Ella had noticed Brette’s gaze lingering on Ty just a little longer than necessary as he’d explained how Gage had called his chopper pals and finally tracked down Deke Curry at AirCurry. He’d confirmed dropping off Bradley and Oliver at the top of Heaven’s Peak.
Which meant that right now, her brother could be flying off a cliff at a lethal rate of speed. Or buried in an avalanche.
Or maybe, hopefully, still on top, having found a smidgen of general good sense.
Probably not.
She followed Brette and Ty into the patrol shack—aka headquarters. The slope at Blackbear had opened an hour ago, and only a couple patrollers’ skis and a snowboard were parked in the rack outside the door.
She opened the door and stepped into an expansive room filled with picnic tables, the smell of coffee and sense of adventure embedded in the wooden walls. Ski equipment—helmets, gloves, snow-crusted neck gaiters—lay scattered on the tables. A couple patrolmen were snapping the buckles of their boots, ready to head back out.
Across the room, Gage bent over a map. He wore black ski pants, his red suspenders up over his thick shoulders, and a gray pullover turtleneck. His long hair was down and tucked behind his ears, and the slightest stubble of whiskers along his chin suggested he hadn’t stopped to shave this morning.
Still every millimeter the freeriding poster boy that she’d made space for on her wall.
She didn’t deserve for him to say yes to what she was about to ask. That part she knew, deep in her gut. She had no business driving down here, marching into the shack with her dangerous request.
But it was Ollie, and . . .
Well, Ollie was all she had of her biological family.
Gage looked up.
She stilled as his beautiful brown eyes fixed on her. His jaw tightened, and he looked back down.
“C’mon,” Brette said and tugged her arm.
Yes. Right. Gage, after all, was a rescuer now. Of course he’d help her.
Her heart gave a little jump of hope when she saw, open on the table, a colored topographical map of Glacier National Park, and most specifically, Heaven’s Peak.
Gage held it open with his wide, strong hands. Didn’t acknowledge her as she came up.
Instead, “There’s a storm rolling in,” he said quietly. He handed her a piece of paper with the weather report, a printed picture of the current storm front still over the far western tip of Montana.
She set it down, hating the look of it.
Ty leaned over one end of the map. “Where are they?”
Gage ran a finger along an area in the middle, clearly indicated by the four ridge points running toward the peak. To the west of the mountain, a lake sat in a groove at about six thousand feet. Tiny circles radiated out from the apex at wider and wider intervals, giving the elevations.
“If they follow my route, they’ll take the northern route. They start by skiing along the spine, then dropping into this nice wide bowl to the north.” He spread his hand over the three-thousand-foot drop filled with gullies and streams and plenty of thick forest. “They’ll camp on the mountain overnight, then they’ll head over to the far eastern ridge and ski down that eastern face to Going-to-the-Sun Road. I camped here, about halfway down the face, then the next day skied through the bowl, then I took the chute on the backside of Heavens Peak down to the base. It’s about forty miles of skiing. But here”—he pointed to a dip between the mountains—“is called Weeping Wall. It’s a waterfall, frozen in the winter, with a fall of about sixty feet. I thought I could jump off it, but once I got there, I deviated from my plan and couldn’t take it head on—there was too much ice accumulation at the bottom to land safely.”
“Would Oliver know that?”
“I don’t know. I talked about it in the video I shot, and there’s a picture, but the plan I posted online included the waterfall jump, so . . . maybe not.” Gage stood up, his jaw tight. “I should have taken that stupid video down.”
She didn’t say anything. But she’d seen his helmet-cam footage dozens of times—maybe more. Could still hear his breathing, his calm voice as he tackled each part of the slope.
Still taste the rush of awe as he sprayed powder in the field he’d dubbed the Great White Throne. And sped down the couloir called Angel’s Wings. She had held her breath through the Cathedral Forest, where he’d cut a trail through thick pine trees, his body quick and lithe, and finally down the last section, a sheer drop into a bowl called Bishop’s Cap. She would have loved to see the entire run from a distance instead of up close, but that would have meant a friend traveling with him.
And back then, just like now probably, Gage skied alone. He could have died on that mountain if he’d fallen into a tree well or landed wrong off a cliff.
At least Oliver had Bradley.
After a moment of silence, Gage picked up the weather report. Studied it.
“Just be honest,” Brette said, speaking Ella’s thoughts. “What chance do they have?”
Gage sighed. And this time he met Ella’s eyes.
She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, with the sense of his gaze reaching in, taking ahold of the shaking inside. He’d always had that power—the crazy calm aura that seemed to suggest, given the chance, he could tame the world. Make the elements surrender, smooth out the rough edges of a mountain, and even teach the sky to call his nam
e. Fearless. Confident.
And even as he seemed to weigh his answer, Brette’s accusation hit her. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”
No. Or, probably not—Ella didn’t want to take a good look to figure out the answer. But she did respect him.
Even trusted him, although he couldn’t know that, not after their history.
“Oliver and Bradley are both decent boarders,” Gage started. “I saw them yesterday when I chased them down through the trees. Oliver can handle his board, knows how to move in the trees. Good instincts. He can cut a line.”
“But . . .” Ella said and drew in her breath.
“I trained for months—a year, really—before I took that ride. And even then . . . well, it was pretty—it was intense.”
He glanced at Ty, then back to Ella. “There’s a reason I haven’t repeated it.”
Ella swallowed. “He’s in trouble, isn’t he?”
Gage lifted a shoulder, his mouth a grim line.
And she couldn’t stop herself. “Please, Gage, you have to go after him.” She didn’t even realize she’d narrowed the space between them. Had reached out, touched his arm.
She felt his muscle twitch under her hand. But she didn’t care. “You’re on a rescue team, aren’t you? That must be your chopper outside. Just go up there and find them, bring them home.”
She still had her hand on his arm, and he reached up, put his hand on hers.
For a second she thought he might wrap his fingers through hers, a tender gesture, meant to calm her, assure her.
But he drew her hand off him. Then he stepped back. “Ella—”
“Please, Gage!”
“We can’t.” The voice came from behind her, and Ella turned and saw a tall woman, her auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a blue jumpsuit and a pair of aviator sunglasses perched on the brim of her baseball cap. Pretty, with freckles and high cheekbones, she didn’t smile as she walked up holding a tablet.
“The storm gives us about a four-hour window. Just to get into the park will take an hour, maybe longer. Then, to search the mountain—that’s hours, not to mention the time to airlift them out. We simply don’t have the window. I’m sorry.”
A Matter of Trust Page 9