A Matter of Trust

by Susan May Warren

  And maybe that was the key to figuring out how to get Gage to trust her again, to prove to him that she wouldn’t betray him.

  Just go slow. Keep it easy. Except nothing felt slow or easy with Gage. Theirs had been a whirlwind romance from the beginning. Sure, he hadn’t actually asked her out until the third day, but by then they’d spent nearly every waking hour together.

  She had already given away her heart to Gage Watson by the time he walked away from their table.

  So maybe she couldn’t go slow . . . but she wouldn’t pressure him. Wouldn’t make him feel as if he was stuck with her, just because he’d rescued her brother.

  At the bottom, still a few hundred feet down, she spied a couple of snowmobiles emerge from the thick forest. They angled up toward the snowfield at the base of their bowl.

  “Pete and Ty!” she yelled.

  He didn’t answer her, so she looked back. “Pete and Ty are below!” She pointed down.

  But he was looking at her. “Turn, Ella! Turn!”

  She whirled around and saw the lip of the bowl coming up, too fast. She cut hard, fighting to bring Ollie’s feet around, but the action swung the sled around too hard.

  Like a whip, Gage flew over the edge, taking Ollie with him.

  “Gage!”

  Her grip on the backpack strap twisted her around, hard, and in a second she landed on her backside, the strap ripping out of her glove.

  But she didn’t have time to call out, because the force of it turned her over, and suddenly, she was sliding.

  Face first, down the mountain, plowing into the thick powder.

  This was how people ended up in tree wells, buried head first, never to be seen again. She rolled her feet up and around in a moment, edged her board hard into the slope.

  Too hard. A burn shot into her ankle, lighting it afire, and she couldn’t stop herself from crying out.

  But the scream disappeared into the frothy white silence of the powder still drifting down around her.

  She lay there a moment, unmoving.

  And then, “Ollie!”

  She pushed herself up and barely made out the pair of them. Gage had flown into the next bowl, a thick, powdered section riddled with trees and rocks. No doubt that without his charge, Gage could easily handle the terrain, maybe even turn the run into something spectacular.

  But not now. Now he flew down the hill backward, dragging Ollie behind him.

  Oh Gage. She watched, stranded, her heart thundering as he fought his way down the steep slope, clearly trying to slow them down or even stop. But the board ran with a mind of its own. Gage barely steered them around trees and boulders.

  Then, in what seemed a superhuman move, Gage managed to swing the sled around, maneuver himself behind it.

  And slow them to a stop.

  He bent over, breathing hard, halfway down the slope.

  She let out the breath she’d been holding.

  Then, suddenly, he looked up as if searching for her.

  “I’m over here!” She tried to push to her feet, but her ankle screamed in pain, so she stayed on her knees, waving. “I’m fine!”

  Just a little lie, but maybe he’d heard her because he waved back. Gestured her to come to him.

  And oh, how she wanted to. Force herself to her feet, fight her way down the hill. Help Gage bring her little brother to safety.

  Except for her ankle. And the very real sense that Gage really didn’t need her. Had never needed her. Frankly, had been humoring her this entire time. And she’d nearly gotten him and her brother seriously injured.

  As she pushed to her feet, the pain shot up her leg, nearly sent her back to her knees.

  Below, Gage had clearly spied the guys because he began to inch his way down the slope with Ollie. They angled for him, cutting a line through the snow, the motors from their machines thundering in the air despite the distance.

  She gritted her teeth, began to slide down.

  Her ankle gave out on her, the pain blinding, and she sat again in the snow. She’d have to scoot down, on her bottom. Except the powder was too thick, and she found herself just digging a hole.

  Below, Ty and Pete had reached Gage. They were maneuvering Ollie onto the emergency rescue sled attached to the snowmobile.

  For a moment, she dearly wished one of them might see her stranded on the hillside and head her direction. But the powder would bury the sled as they plowed uphill.

  She had to get to them.

  Ho-kay. This couldn’t be harder than delivering a four-hour speech to her fellow senators, a filibuster move that had backfired.

  Except, this couldn’t backfire.

  Now Gage had turned, was looking up at her. She saw him wave.

  She waved back. Yeah, I’m just fine. Enjoying the view.

  Tears filled her eyes as she got up, gritted her teeth. Pointed her snowboard downhill.

  Gage was still waving, now both hands in the air.

  Huh?

  She raised her hands too, held them out, like a giant shrug.

  And then, Gage was moving, still waving his arms.

  Yeah, she knew she was taking her time but—

  And then she heard it. A crack, then a low rumble behind her.

  She went cold as she turned.

  Just to confirm the truth.

  The cornice had unlatched from the top.

  The mountain was coming down in waves of thick snow.

  She screamed as she aimed her board straight downhill and flew.

  17

  ELLA COULDN’T OUTRUN THE SLIDE.

  Gage saw it even before the entire cornice broke off—maybe due to the roar of the snowmobiles, he didn’t know—but he did the quick geometry.

  Even if she headed straight down, the waves of snow would overtake her, bury her. Entomb her in ice.

  Was she wearing her beacon? He couldn’t remember—it had been clipped to her backpack, but he’d emptied it when he stripped off the straps, and left it behind at the campsite.

  She might have picked the beacon up, but . . .

  His was clipped securely to his body.

  While she could be lost in a tsunami of snow.

  The thought hit him like a fist as he watched her bend low, shoot down the hill, racing the wave of snow.

  He shouldn’t have let her come with him. Should have stopped her from getting on that chopper.

  He’d led her to her death. Just like Dylan—

  Unless he got to her first.

  God, please make me fast.

  Behind him, he heard Pete yelling over the roar of the snowmobiles, where they were packing up Oliver for delivery. Pete had him unwrapped and had been checking his vitals and radioing them into PEAK HQ when Gage saw the cornice start to slip.

  Now, as the tumult of snow raged down the mountain, he kept his eyes on Ella, who was bending over her board to increase her speed.

  Stay on your edge.

  If only he hadn’t made her go first, cut the line—but he couldn’t go there now.

  He set a course to intercept, his board on one slick edge as he cut downhill at a diagonal. He went right up over the lip of the bowl into the path of the slide.

  She screamed his name as she shot across his path, and he cut hard, turned his board, and lit out after her.

  The forward trickles of the slide swept past him, the full force thundering down just yards behind him. Ella looked back over her shoulder and reached out to him.

  He caught her hand. And then in a second had his arms around her, pulling her against him.

  But they couldn’t ski this way and get out of the path of danger. “Put your board on my feet!”

  He lifted her up and she set her board on his boots. Now he could move. “Hang on!”

  She didn’t argue, just put her arms around his neck, leaning into his movements.

  Good girl.

  He held her tight against him as he cut hard again and headed out, toward the edge of the flow.

  But the
swell had reached them. It caught them up in the force of the flow.

  “We can’t get separated!” Gage fought to stay on his feet, to balance with the tumult of the wave. The powder and debris rose around him, engulfing them, turning the world white.

  Ella started to scream.

  “I can’t hold you—don’t let go!” He began to swim with his arms, moving the snow away from them even as he rode the slide down. It crested over his head, a cloud of white, blinding him.

  Just stay calm.

  The thunder of the force filled his ears, and he wrapped one arm again around Ella as he thrashed to keep upright. He had to stay above the debris of rock, tree—anything the slide had mowed down on its way down the mountain.

  He felt the wave lift them, and Ella’s arms around him loosened.

  “Ella!”

  He clamped both arms around her and squeezed, leaning back to keep his feet under him.

  But the snow crested over his head, a hand on his back, his shoulders, slamming him forward.

  And then they were in the wash, tumbling, their bodies at the mercy of the slide.

  He felt his board rip off his boots, a violent twisting of his ankles, and beside him, deep inside the surge of the wave, he could hear Ella’s muffled screams.

  Boulders of snow slammed his back, his shoulders, and he focused on holding Ella to him, despite the wrath of the slide fighting to rip her from his embrace.

  He couldn’t breathe, not with the snow filling his mouth, his nose. Still, he arched one arm in front of him, hoping to clear out a pocket of air.

  Elle had apparently lost her board too because she clamped one leg around his body, glued to him as the pressure eased.

  The roar subsided.

  All at once, they jerked to a stop, encased in layers of ice. Silence, abrupt and thick, enfolded them.

  Above them, in a bluish wash of light, the final runnels of snow rolled over the top, adding layers to their tomb.

  He’d managed to eke out a bare channel of space in front of them, but now he couldn’t move.

  Eerie quiet descended, and he fought the memories, hearing only the hammer of his heartbeat against his rib cage. And Ella’s soft gasps beside him. But he couldn’t move; their bodies were cemented in snow.

  Their biggest danger, right now, was suffocation.

  He began, however, to spit, to breathe out, create a pocket of air before the snow settled and his body shut down with cold. When he’d created a tiny air bubble, he shook Ella.

  “Ella—you need to spit. I know it sounds gross, but you need to create a pocket of air for yourself. Spit and blow and breathe and make a hole.”

  Hypothermia would come later.

  Please let my beacon be working.

  He could hear her, next to him, obeying, and he widened his own pocket, able now to move his arm. He started digging with his hand, hoping to free it through the layers, to give Pete and Ty a visual.

  He had no clue how far they’d slid. It could be five hundred feet, given the clear terrain of the bowl.

  Stay calm. He heard his heartbeat pound out the words.

  “Honey, how badly are you hurt?”

  Ella trembled in his arms.

  “El?”

  “I hurt my ankle when I fell, and now it really hurts. I think it might be broken.”

  “Okay.” He moved his arm down, into the area behind her, and tried to push up snow, make room for her to lean away from him, but the snow had turned to plaster around them. He managed to press enough away for her to lift her head.

  He still wore his helmet light, crazily undamaged in the fall, and now flicked it on. The light bounced against the shadows, bleeding through the white. He was able to press his helmet to hers, see her expression through her goggles.

  Wide-eyed, tear-stained. But she was trying to be brave. Her body trembled, maybe from the cold, probably from the terror.

  He might be trembling too.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Gage said. “I’m sure the guys are looking for us. And I have my beacon.”

  “Oh no. That’s why you came after me—I don’t have a beacon.”

  Well, yeah, but . . . “Of course I came after you, Ella. I was following your line, remember?”

  But instead of smiling, she shook her head. “Gage! What were you thinking? This is your worst nightmare.”

  “Being stuck in an avalanche with you? Not hardly.”

  She shook her head. “No. You being stuck in an avalanche. Again. And this time, it was to save me.”

  “We’re going to be fine.” Please.

  “But I messed up—I wasn’t paying attention. I cut too sharp and sent you over the edge—”

  “Shh.” The snow had started to penetrate his layers, especially the wash that had found the collar of his coat. And in his arms, Ella’s tremble had turned to all-out shaking.

  “I can’t believe I talked you into coming out here after everything I did—”

  “Ella, stop!” He lifted off his goggles, then hers. Found her eyes. “Listen, trust that I can make my own decisions, okay? Just like I need to trust you!”

  She blinked at him, her eyes wide, and he lowered his voice.

  “Listen, maybe this isn’t about either of us. Maybe God brought us out here because we were supposed to see that accidents happen. And I have to realize that I can’t stop them—even if I am at my best. And maybe it’s time for you and me both to believe exactly what you said—that God is on our side.”

  She frowned at him. “Yeah, I guess . . . It reminds me of something my dad used to say. That God proved his love for us even before we asked for help, when we were still not only a mess but his enemies. We didn’t trust him . . . but he didn’t let that stop him from saving us.”

  Gage made a small, dark noise, from deep inside chest. “Yeah. Chet says the same thing. That we shouldn’t base God’s desire to help us on our opinions of ourselves. Otherwise we’d always be in over our heads. We need to start believing that he wants to help us. Even when we make mistakes.”

  He lowered his voice, turned it soft. “If I haven’t said it yet . . . I forgive you, Ella. I forgive you for everything.”

  She closed her eyes, and he saw her chin tremble.

  And suddenly, despite the cold, a knot began to unravel in his chest. He could almost feel it—the full breath of grace filling his lungs.

  He should have said the words years ago.

  Ella was sobbing. And he didn’t know what to do.

  But then, because it just felt right, because he longed to believe his words, to make it better, to give him hope, he closed his eyes. “God, I know you see us. Not because we’ve earned your eyes on us but because you love us. Because of who you are. Because that is your nature . . . to love the lost and broken and scared and . . . buried. Thank you that we are still alive. Now, out of your great love, please rescue us. We trust you.”

  He opened his eyes and met Ella’s gaze.

  “Right?” he asked.

  She swallowed, her eyes reddened. Took a long breath.

  Nodded.

  Then she smiled, and it filled him with warmth and light and the sense that, yes, they might just live through this. “What?”

  “I just can’t believe you rode into an avalanche to save me.”

  “And I can’t believe you were angry at me for it.”

  “At least we made it down the mountain.”

  He laughed then, and right behind it, heard the sound of shouting.

  “Gage! Are you down there?” A probe came through the snow, and he grabbed it, gave it a tug.

  “We’re here!”

  Scraping above, and in a moment, daylight found them.

  Pete’s head appeared over the edge of the hole. “Are we interrupting something?” He grinned, clearing out the snow around them.

  And then, because they’d all lived, and because for the first time in three years he could actually breathe, Gage couldn’t stop himself from leaning in and kiss
ing her. Just pressing his lips to Ella’s, tasting the salt of her tears, and adding just a touch of spark, heat, and the promise of what could be, once they got out of the snow.

  “We got you, Ella. You can let go of Gage.” Ty lay on his stomach, reaching down into the hole he and Pete had dug into the slide debris.

  Ty had stood, watching with cold horror as the slide overran Gage and Ella. Without Gage’s beacon, Pete and Ty would have lost Gage and Ella in the massive field of tumbled snow.

  And then, in the aftermath, silence descended over the valley, a quiet in the wake of the storm that settled into his bones.

  It brought Ty right back to the moment after his crash, nearly a year ago, as he lay there, stunned, his knee shattered.

  He was still trying to sort out how it had happened. How, one second he and Chet had been flying, the next, careening to earth.

  But that’s how it happened—one moment you’re flying, the next, an avalanche or a malfunctioning engine cuts out on you.

  And you’re left trying to dig yourself out of a hole. Or dragging yourself out for miles through a blizzard.

  Reaching up for anything that might offer rescue.

  Ty took Ella’s proffered hand, wrapped it around his neck, reached down, and grabbed the back of her jacket. Pete knelt beside her and grabbed her other arm, and in a moment they’d pulled her out of the snowy tomb and into freedom.

  She collapsed on the snow. Scooted back, away from the hole. “Gage!”

  “He’s next,” Ty said and turned back for his friend.

  Gage was seated deep. Pete dug out around him, and Ty braced himself on the edges with his feet, reached out to grab Gage’s arms. Together they wiggled him out of the hole.

  He finally crawled out and fell beside Ella. “She’s hurt,” he said as he unstrapped his helmet and pulled it off. He sat up, and Ty ignored the shake of his hands. It would help Gage to attend to Ella.

  “Brace yourself, honey, this is liable to hurt,” Gage said as he worked off her boot.

  Honey?

  Interesting. Ty glanced at Pete, who clearly heard the endearment but said nothing as he got on the snowmobile, leaning on it with one knee. They’d brought in two litters—Miles’s idea—and now he moved the snowmobile up to Ella and Gage.