It was just a flash, a snapshot of memory, but for some reason as Jess came in the door, as she flicked her hair back and grabbed the frame and waited for Sierra to move over, something flickered in Brette’s memory.
The snapshot fled her recall before she could wrap her fingers around it, but in that second, she knew.
She had seen Jess before.
“Hey, everyone,” Sierra said as she pulled off her coat. She headed over to the coffeepot and poured herself a mug of java before going to the communications station.
Jess shut the door behind her, hung up her coat, then looked at Pete. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he answered softly and gave her a small smile.
Look at that. For a second, something passed between them, and Brette wanted to slow it down, take it apart.
Regret? Longing?
Then Pete glanced away, looking back toward the snowy landscape.
He was a handsome man when he smiled, Brette would give Pete that.
Jess headed over to the kitchen. Brette watched her, the way she moved, the tiny touch she gave Ty on his shoulder, another flick of her long blonde hair. She was pretty, with high cheekbones, a tall, lean body. She wore a pair of jeans, a sweater, no makeup.
“Can I order two eggs, sunny-side up?” she asked Ty.
Jess carried herself like a woman used to getting what she wanted. Or at least used to being in charge.
Ty plated the eggs he was cooking and handed the plate to her, and she carried it to the counter. She slid onto a stool beside Brette.
Then Jess reached for a napkin and put it in her lap. Interesting.
It was right there, the answer, floating around in the back of Brette’s mind, almost tangible. She must have been staring, because she didn’t hear Sierra until she raised her voice.
“Ty! It’s Gage calling in.”
Ty turned off the heat on the stove while Brette slid off her stool and followed the rest of the team over to the radio.
“PEAK HQ, PEAK HQ, this is Watson, come in, over,” came the voice again.
“Watson, this is PEAK HQ. What’s your position? Over,” Sierra said.
The noise brought Chet out of his office, where he must have spent the night.
“We’re still on the face of Heaven’s Peak. We didn’t make it to the snow cave, but we’re okay. Heading down the face this morning, and we’ll keep you posted. Over.”
“Roger. No sign of the boys?” Sierra asked, voicing Brette’s question.
“No,” Gage said. “But we’ll find them.”
Brette glanced at Ty then. The sunlight illuminated his profile—strong, with an intensity about it that slid under her skin and into her heart.
Yeah, she very much liked cowboys.
He nodded in the wake of Gage’s words, as if agreeing. Then he turned, met her gaze, and held it.
And Brette forgot all about the mysterious Jess Tagg.
11
ELLA HAD AWOKEN TO GAGE’S VOICE as he finished his call to headquarters.
“They know we’re alive?”
“Yeah. We need to get going.”
Dawn crested into the tent. The wind still rattled the poles, but no more torrential gusts, the kind that could blow them right off the mountainside.
For a second, she simply stayed tucked into her sleeping bag, her gaze on Gage as he pulled his hair back and scratched his fingers through his dark whiskers.
She had the urge to do the same, feel his whiskers between her fingers as she ran her hand along his jawline.
His earlier words caught in her head. “No one in trouble should be worried about whether they deserve help. They need help, and that’s the point.”
But see, it wasn’t that easy. It seemed, to her, there needed to be some sort of payment, some penance, some reason for him to want to help her.
He stretched, moving his arms side to side, then behind his back, and she watched with a greedy eye, a little mesmerized at those snowboarder muscles.
But she averted her eyes when he looked at her. “Are you getting up?”
“My muscles are sludge,” she muttered.
He gave her a tight smile. “C’mon. Let’s see if I can dig us out. By tonight, you and your brother will be back at your resort, drinking cocoa.”
“Oh, I know you’re just trying to make me feel better, but when I find him, I’m going to kill him with my bare hands. Right after I weep with joy.”
“How about if I make you coffee?”
“I’ll trade it for my birthright.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“That was a Jacob-Esau joke my mother used to say.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry.”
He laughed and reached for the pack. “So, your parents are Christians? I mean, the Blairs?”
“Oh yeah. Mansfield and Marjorie never missed a Sunday or Wednesday night at church. And my parents too—Jozef and Alena Laska. I still have my father’s Bible. And my mother’s prayer covering. She was Orthodox until she married my Protestant father—quite the uproar.”
Gage had pulled out the stove, and now he cleared a space for it, then opened the back door. Snow had piled up against it, and he took the shovel, knocked it away. “It’s just a drift. We’re not snowed in.” He leaned out then, and for a second she thought he was getting snow for the container. Then, “C’mere, Ella, you have to see this.”
He came back inside, the finest frosting on his hair, his eyelashes.
He had such pretty dark brown eyes. They bore flecks of gold near the center in the early morning. A new day, fresh starts.
Oh no. Because that thought found her heart. Nope—forgiveness was one thing. Romance, a different story.
They couldn’t go back there. But they could be friends, and she leaned up toward the door in response to his request. He scooted out of the way and she looked out.
A glorious sunrise just barely tipped the eastern ridges, gilding the fresh snow on the peaks an impossible molten gold while striations of deep crimson and fiery orange burned into the deep indigo sky.
“Gorgeous,” she said.
“I know.”
Farther down, in the valley, ragged magenta shadows draped over the crisp white snow, so thick and fluffy it seemed the world had been frosted with one giant dollop of heavenly meringue. Perfect. Unblemished. And probably lethal.
“Can you get us safely down?” she asked as she slid back into the tent.
“Yeah. I got this.” His eyes sparked, just for a second. “As long as . . .”
“I follow you and don’t fly off a cliff.”
“I was going to say as long as your brother is okay. But that too.”
She managed a wry smile, and he didn’t waver from her gaze. He suddenly reached out and touched her hand, squeezed.
His expression turned solemn. “I’m going to get you down this mountain in one piece. And you might even have fun doing it.”
His touch on her hand sent warmth through her entire body. Not unlike the effect it had last night, when he cupped her cheek, thumbed away her tear.
She’d nearly kissed him when he told her that they’d be okay. In that moment, she’d believed him.
Now, she squeezed his hand back, wanting to believe him again. “Okay.”
“That’s the girl I remember.” Then he let her go and turned back to the stove to light it.
But his words had ignited something inside, and if he kept it up, there was no way she would make it down the mountain in one piece. Not if, at the end, he walked away with her heart.
He boiled water while she packed up her sleeping bag, zipped up her jacket, pulled on her boots, and took a hygiene trip outside. He had a tidy breakfast assembled when she returned, including power bars and instant coffee. He’d also packed his gear.
“So, how’s it looking out there?” he asked as he pulled on his boots.
“White,” she said.
He grinned, and all of a sudden, it was the kind of grin he gave the cameras after a triumphan
t run, something that would grace magazine covers and posters and not a few sponsor webpages. Only this one was better—it included a twinkle in his brown eyes, the tiny huff of laughter, deep and low in his chest.
Oh my, 3-D Gage Watson was worth the trip up the mountain. Exactly what she’d told herself three years ago.
“I’ll dig us out,” he said. “Let me know when you’re ready for the tent to come down.” He pulled his pack out with him.
He climbed out, and she finished her power bar and the coffee, then capped the canister, packed the rest of her gear, and set her pack outside the tent. She zipped up her jacket and added her helmet. “Coming out!”
His gloved hand appeared to pull her from the tent. She scooted out and let him help her up.
The wind hit her hard, and she grabbed his arms.
“It’s still a bit gusty!” he yelled. He wore his helmet and his goggles, and she pulled her goggles down and nudged her neck gaiter to her nose.
Despite the cold, the glory of the world dropping at her feet could steal her breath. “Great is the Lord and worthy of praise,” she said.
Gage was taking down the tent, but he looked over at her. Smiled. “You said that before. Right before we skied Redemption Ridge.” He leaned toward her. “And killed it.”
“It is pretty mind-blowing,” she said, trying to tamp down the adrenaline raking through her.
From her perch, the mountain looked like it dropped straight down into nothing.
He tucked the tent into the tiny bag. “We’ll take it one section at a time. Just like I did. Nothing fancy.”
She looked at him. “Oh, please, Gage. You have fancy in your soul. And I know it’s itching to come out.”
He raised an eyebrow, but one side of his mouth ticked up.
She retrieved her snowboard. “Help me get this pack on.”
He had tucked the tent into his pack and now lifted hers, and she climbed into the shoulder straps, then connected the straps at her waist.
He hiked his on and strapped it tight around him.
Then they stood together at the top of the mountain. “I sort of feel like we should pray or something,” she said.
He glanced at her, held her gaze. Then he held out his hand.
Really? She met his grasp.
“God. You know we’re here. You know what we have to do. Make us smart. Brave. Sensible. And keep us safe. Help us find Oliver and Bradley. Amen.”
She hadn’t even closed her eyes; she just watched Gage, listened to his words.
Bold as he approached the throne of the Almighty.
Huh.
She dropped her board, strapped in, and he did the same.
“Okay, we’re going to follow this wedge down into a nice bowl. It’s steep, so we want to take it slow, but we’ll work our way down to the Weeping Wall. And then, from there, the Great White Throne. We’ll hit the cave by lunch, probably.”
“Got it.”
He held up his fist for a bump, and she met it. However, a line of sweat formed at the back of her neck as she watched Gage traverse the hill, slowly, warming up. He cut a beautiful, arching line through the fresh powder, and it bloomed up behind him, a crystalline plume of light and color.
The master at work. If only she had a GoPro.
She hopped in place, trying to get the blood flowing, then eased down after him, her arms out.
He had such a beautiful rhythm that her heartbeat settled down, and she took in the view, the pine-furred valley, the frozen waterfalls. Powder slicked her goggles, crusted on her neck gaiter, sprayed up over her board as she dug in. He stopped every hundred yards, maybe more, just to let her catch up, point out their next destination. Then, they’d hit it again.
The sun rose, shortening the shadows as they worked their way down across the bowl toward the granite face known as the Weeping Wall.
She recalled what she knew of it—a sixty-foot drop, nice soft landing zone, thick powder—at least that’s how Gage described it in his video. But he hadn’t taken his planned route. To the right, a frozen waterfall added drama, but the landing would be treacherous, mostly because of the ice forming below the powder.
He’d changed his line at the last moment and had probably saved his own life with the impulse.
Hopefully her brother had watched that part of the video, listened to Gage’s explanation of how he’d survived.
She’d done plenty of cliff jumping in her life—mostly ten- or twenty-foot drops. She could almost hear Gage in her head, from one of his many instructional videos put out by Xtreme Energy.
“Square up before you take your ride off. You have to be balanced before you launch or you’ll flip in the air.”
Unless, of course, like Gage, you wanted to do a flip.
“And don’t forget forward momentum—a little speed helps with your landing momentum. But you don’t want to fly into the cliff—too much and you’ll do a superman, probably into a tree or off a cliff.”
Those words, spoken before the Dylan McMahon accident.
“Finally, keep your eyes on your landing.”
That, she’d never accomplished. The world always turned to a blur the minute she launched.
Gage stopped on the mountain, this time in the gap above the Weeping Wall.
When she reached him, he handed her his water bottle and she took a drink.
“So, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to edge down to the left, through this channel, keeping clear of the waterfall. The ice is probably thick, but we’ll want to watch for crevasses.”
He couldn’t know, probably, how her eyes widened.
“Slide down until you’re right above the cliff, about twenty feet. You won’t want more of a run than that. But you need enough to clear the outcropping at the bottom, so don’t cut it too close.”
Her breath must have hitched, because he looked at her. “Ella?”
She didn’t move.
He grabbed her jacket. “Ella. Listen, you got this? Can you do this?”
She nodded, but it was more of a wobble of her head.
He reached down and clicked out of his board.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting into your head.”
She stared at him as he stepped in front of her and grabbed her helmet in his hands to center his gaze on hers.
“You’re only scared because you’ve built this up bigger than it is. We’re not dropping from a sixty-foot cliff, we’re suddenly dropping from Freedom Tower, right?”
She nodded.
“You probably saw my video—”
“A couple hundred times.”
His mouth tweaked up in a smile, just for a second, then he nodded. “Okay, then you know, first, we’re jumping into a pillow of powder. Second, I’ll go first. You just have to launch off, keep your eyes on me, and you’ll land right where you need to be.”
She nodded, trying to take in his words.
“Ella. Breathe. One full breath.”
Oh. She breathed out. In. Swallowed.
“Again.”
She repeated it.
He grabbed her shoulders. “Stop looking at what you can’t do and look ahead, to your safe landing. Visualize it.”
She gave him a wan smile.
He put his arm around her, turned her. “Look at what you’ve already done.”
There, above her, stretching nearly straight up into the clouds, the peak betrayed a beautiful curving S down the hill, a line so perfect it could have been made by one person.
“We did that,” he said. “And it’s because you let go, stopped looking at your feet, and just trusted the line.”
Huh. She had, actually. Started to feel it, believe in Gage’s rhythm, his ability to choose the right path.
He turned her back to him, and this time he lifted his goggles onto his helmet. “Listen, Ella. Remember what I said about trusting me? Even if it doesn’t make sense?”
She nodded.
“This is now.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Atta girl.”
And then, he pressed a kiss to her nose, quick and fast, a cute gesture probably meant to reassure but which instead left her just a little weak.
“Ready?”
She nodded and watched as he stepped into his bindings. Then he reached out and took her hand.
She held on as they slid down, her heart a fist in her chest. Overhead, the blue sky arched over the mountains.
“Remember, stay balanced, flex your knees, and keep your eyes on me.”
She nodded.
He considered her one last moment, then squeezed her hand and jerked his board forward.
In a second, he’d cleared the cliff, arms out. She heard a shout, something like a whoop, and couldn’t help but move forward a little to peer over the edge.
“Are you okay?” she shouted.
“I’m down and it’s perfect.”
She couldn’t see him from here.
“C’mon, Ella, let yourself fly!”
Right, yes.
She slid down the mountain, her breath caught, and—
Just before the edge, she tried to pull up. Wait, no!
But despite the fact that she’d cut hard, her momentum kept going.
She flew off the cliff. Soaring, her arms windmilling.
Look for Gage.
She saw him below, waving and hollering, and somehow she found her feet below her. She landed in a poof of snow, bounced, and found herself up on her board, fighting for balance.
Headed straight for Gage.
“Whoa, slow down—”
She edged hard to cut out of it, and he leaped out of the way a second before she would have taken him out.
The momentum tossed her into the snow.
Gage landed beside her, on his back.
And then, he was laughing. His voice low and sweet as the sound bubbled out of him. “Oh, El,” he said, sitting up on his elbows. “I wouldn’t exactly say that you stomped that landing, but—well, I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks.”
He looked over at her. “All right, now we just have the Great White Throne—”
A shot reverberated in the air, and Ella looked up, trying to locate the sound. Gage sat up.
A Matter of Trust Page 16