A Matter of Trust

by Susan May Warren

  Oliver still waited, trussed up for his evac, beyond the edge of the slide field where Ty had left him. Ty had jumped on the back of Pete’s machine the moment the field solidified.

  Now, he hiked back to Oliver, pulling out his walkie.

  “PEAK HQ, Remington, come in, over.”

  Jess answered, and it only made his conversation with her yesterday stir in his mind. That, and Pete’s strange response when he discovered Jess’s secret.

  How he wished Pete hadn’t found out that way.

  “She owes the world an explanation. She doesn’t just get to start over,” Brette had said.

  Why not?

  He had, without an explanation.

  In fact, if anyone should be paying for crimes, it was Ty.

  He updated Jess on their situation, gave an ETA, and asked Kacey to meet them at the base. They could airlift Oliver from PEAK to the Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

  Then Ty checked on Oliver, who seemed to be hovering just below consciousness.

  He climbed on the snow machine and headed over to Pete. Gage already had Ella loaded into the litter. He’d splinted her ankle in an inflatable cast, then strapped her in, surrounded by blankets.

  Ty noticed the kiss Gage gave Ella before he climbed on behind Pete.

  Good for you, Gage.

  The gesture only brought to mind the kiss he’d shared with Brette before everything went south.

  Pete kept a steady pace, back through their early morning trail, to the medical truck parked on Going-to-the-Sun Road. Ty and Pete loaded in Oliver and Ella while Gage drove the machines onto the trailer.

  Then, with a little help and a groan, Gage climbed in back.

  Ty took the wheel.

  Pete slid into the passenger seat.

  Pete hadn’t said anything outside the parameters of their evacuation plan on the drive into the park, and even now, he sat silently looking out the window.

  His jaw tight.

  In the back, Gage sat on the floor between the two litters, taking Oliver’s blood pressure.

  “Let us know if there’s any change,” Pete said to Gage.

  He nodded.

  Ty glanced at Pete. Okay. “Dude, are you going to say nothing about Jess?”

  Pete glanced at him. “What’s there to say? She clearly doesn’t trust me. I’m not sure what I did, but I wish she’d given me a chance to prove to her that I could keep her secret.” He turned away. “She didn’t have to go running to you.”

  The roads out of the park weren’t well plowed, and Ty kept his speed down as they traveled around Red Rock Point.

  “She was upset and scared,” Ty said. “And we’ve been friends a long time.”

  “How long?”

  Ty drew in a breath. “My father was friends with her dad and some of his buddies. The Taggerts would come out skiing, sometimes stay with us, or we’d go with them to their condo at Vail. Jess—Selene—and her brother Barron and I would hang out. Later, when she went to Wharton, she started dating my roommate.”

  “Her fiancé,” Pete said softly, but Ty sensed an edge to his words.

  “Yeah. But the minute he found out about the scandal, he left her, so . . .”

  Pete swallowed, said nothing for a long while. Then, “I suppose she thought I might do that too.”

  “It’s a good bet. She came out here looking for a fresh start. She had nothing. She surrendered all her possessions, her bank account, everything when she testified against her father. And imagine for just one second how that felt—to testify against your own father. It wasn’t like they had a terrible relationship. She loved him. He came to college to take her out to lunch, or on holiday. He actually told Jess to testify against him as part of a plea deal to save her brother.”

  “So why the secrets?”

  The road had been cleared here, by Lake McDonald, and Ty picked up the pace.

  “You heard Brette. There are a lot of people who blame the entire family for Damien’s actions. Jess doesn’t want to get pulled into that again.”

  “I wouldn’t have broadcasted it—”

  “No, but your friend and our local reporter Tallie might have.” Ty glanced at him. “Think about it—the night you two broke up was the night you brought in the youth group from their accident last summer. Tallie was there, with a press crew. Jess took one look at that and ran.”

  Pete was looking at him now. “I thought she was jealous of Tallie. Or at least thought Tallie and I had something going.”

  “Do you?”

  Pete frowned. “No. Of course not.”

  Ty lifted a shoulder. “It’s a fair question.”

  Pete drew in a breath. “Not anymore. I’m trying to change.”

  Ty could give him that—he’d seen the change in Pete at the hospital. And maybe in his off-hours, which he spent mostly working out, training, or on the occasional weekend climbing trip.

  “I’m in love with her, Ty.”

  Ty hadn’t expected that. He glanced at Pete. “Really?”

  “I have been since last summer. I thought it was just a . . . maybe a crush, but I can’t get her out of my head. And I tried to tell myself that she was with a better guy—”

  “Thanks for that.”

  “But it didn’t help.”

  Oh.

  “So, you’re really not dating, then,” Pete said.

  Sorry, Jess. “No. She just didn’t—”

  “Trust me enough to tell me about her past.”

  Ty had no words.

  “The problem with keeping a secret is that you don’t give someone a chance to come through for you, to prove to you that they love you unconditionally.”

  “It was too risky, Pete. Sorry, but it could have gone south and destroyed her world. Although, with Brette in possession of her identity, probably it will anyway.”

  “We need to stop Brette,” Pete said quietly.

  Ty had reached Apgar Center, took a left toward the West Glacier entrance. “Yeah, how?”

  “Maybe I could talk to her. Offer to tell her my story for Jess’s.”

  “I don’t think your feel-good story about saving a bunch of kids—one that’s already been told, I might add—is going to top her scoop of the year. She’d need something . . . juicer.”

  Or at least something just as revealing.

  The answer hit Ty like a blow to his chest.

  He might have even groaned because Pete looked at him. “What’s up?”

  Ty sighed. “I could tell her about the crash.”

  Silence from Pete. Then, “What about the crash?”

  See, this was why Ty had never talked about it. Because every time he even thought about it, shame cut off his words. Still, if he was going to tell Brette, maybe he could try it out on Pete first.

  “It was my fault we crashed.”

  Another beat of silence. “Chet said it was weather, a wind shear—”

  “Our engine seized up. In midair.”

  Ty turned onto Highway 2, toward Mercy Falls.

  “That’s not—”

  “I was supposed to do the preflight check. We were low on oil, and I would have seen it. But . . .” He forced his words out. “I didn’t do it. We were in a hurry to get to the callout—”

  “It was just a mistake, Ty.”

  “No. The reason I didn’t check it was because I’d been out partying. I was a little wasted, and I wasn’t thinking.”

  Pete went quiet beside him.

  “I hid it from Chet, but I was in no shape to fly that night.”

  More silence, then finally, “Yeah, I’d probably keep that to myself too.”

  And Ty felt it again, that hand on his chest telling him to take a step back, into the safety of obscurity.

  He forced himself to keep talking. “Except that’s not the only thing that happened. While I was dragging myself out of the crash site, trying to get help, I had a weird thing happen. You could call it a spiritual encounter, maybe, but . . .”

  He
didn’t know how else to describe it. A divine presence, a holy moment as he collapsed in the snow, overwhelmed.

  Done.

  Ty lifted his voice to the back. “Five minutes out, Gage.”

  “Good,” Gage said.

  Ty turned back to Pete, took a breath, and tried to frame it. “I guess I realized that I had a choice. I could die with my mistakes or let God save me and start over. Be someone different. And I know that sounds crazy, but that’s what happened. One minute I was freezing to death, the next your brother had found me.”

  “I remember him telling me how he thought he heard you calling out, but when he got to you, you were completely passed out,” Pete said.

  “So, the thing is, I do have a story to tell. About a guy who used to think he was somebody but who had to nearly die in order to figure out how to live.”

  Pete was just staring at him.

  “What?” Ty said.

  “I have this terrible feeling that you are the better man.”

  Ty let a grin tug up one side of his face. “Maybe.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “Good. Because Jess isn’t in love with me.”

  “Really?”

  “No, dude. She has it bad for you. And she’d kill me if she knew I told you that.”

  “I thought so. I mean, I couldn’t put it together, the way she ran to you—”

  “Hey. I’m a catch.”

  Ty pulled up to the PEAK ranch. Kacey was already striding toward them, Jess beside her. Ty put the truck into park and turned to Pete. “I’ll talk to Brette. No more secrets, huh?”

  Ella hadn’t seen Gage since he and Ty had transferred her and Oliver to the chopper. Jess had jumped in beside them and taken the short hop to the hospital.

  Ella had, however, met Gage’s father, an orthopedic surgeon. He even looked a little like Gage. A handsome man in his late fifties, with dark brown hair cut short, earnest eyes, and a confidence in his work that echoed his son’s abilities on the mountain.

  “You’ve got a double break, in both your tibia and fibula. You need surgery to set it.” While he’d pointed out the X-ray, Ella kept her eye on the door.

  But Gage didn’t show up, even in time for Dr. Watson to take her away to surgery.

  Her only other thought was for Ollie.

  “My wife is looking in on him,” Dr. Watson said.

  Ella had forgotten that Gage had two outstanding parents. Talk about needing to keep up. No wonder he pushed himself into being a champion.

  She woke in the quiet late-afternoon shadows of her hospital room, her leg in a cast. Outside, snow had begun to fall, gentle flakes peeling from the sky. The clouds hung low, obscuring the mountains from her view of the park. Someone had come in, left flowers on her tray.

  But no Gage.

  He hadn’t been hurt, had he? She reached for the call box and buzzed for a nurse.

  The door opened, and the nurse came in. “Oh good, you’re awake.”

  She walked over, lifted Ella’s wrist to take her pulse.

  “Do you know anything about my brother? He came in with me—Oliver Blair.” The anesthesia still weighted her body, turned it heavy.

  The nurse reached for the pitcher of water, poured her a glass, and handed it to her, holding the straw. Ella took a drink, the water soothing on her parched throat.

  “He’s in surgery. That’s all I know.”

  She sighed. “Have I had any visitors?”

  The nurse reached for the blood pressure cuff. “As a matter of fact, I have someone outside your room, just waiting to come in.” She took Ella’s blood pressure.

  It might have risen a little with the nurse’s words.

  She sat up, wishing she’d had a chance to comb her hair, maybe pull it back into something that resembled anything but a rat’s nest. But that’s what two days of backcountry snowboarding did. Messed a woman up, made her forget who she was and what she thought she wanted.

  No. She knew what she wanted. Gage.

  The door opened and she heard footsteps. She smiled.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so relieved.”

  “Mom?” Ella didn’t have time—or presence of mind—to school her disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

  “As soon as Brette called us and told us what was happening, we caught a flight. We had to drive up from Missoula—last night’s winds wouldn’t let us in—but we’re here now, and . . . oh, honey. What a terrible ordeal.”

  Marjorie Blair had never lost her senatorial grace, despite her cancer. Dressed in a pantsuit, her honey blonde hair cut short in a bob, her makeup impeccable, the woman looked ready for a press conference.

  “You look nice. Heading up a board meeting down the hall?”

  Marjorie sat on the side of her bed. “Yes, well, I did want to talk to you about something.” She took her hand. “But not now. I’m just so thankful you made it off that mountain.”

  “Me and Oliver. Mom, he told me you knew what he was doing.”

  “Yes, we knew. He talked with us six months ago and told us his plans. Showed us the video of him skiing, as well as one of someone who’d skied it years ago. We finally agreed that if this was his passion, we were behind him—”

  “He could have gotten killed. Did you not think of Dylan?”

  Her mother’s mouth tightened. “Yes. Of course we did. But he’s an adult, and I can’t wrap him in cotton. He has to live his own life, make his own choices. It was time for us to let him.”

  She stared at her mother. “If Gage and I hadn’t gone after him, he would still be up on that mountain.”

  “Gage?”

  “Watson—yes, the guy who was with Dylan. But before you say anything, he saved Oliver’s life. And mine. He rode into an avalanche to save me. I would have been buried alive if it weren’t for him.”

  Her mother took in a long breath as if weighing her words, her opinion of Gage. Her diplomacy apparently won. “Well, we’re very proud of you going after your brother the way you did. You remind me a lot of your mother, you know.”

  Ella just stared at her. “What?”

  “Your mother had such determination. Even when she was dying, she hung on until she made sure you and Oliver were going to be taken care of by Mansfield and me. After all you two had gone through, she didn’t want you to be alone.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  Marjorie touched her hand. “You know, if you stop trying so hard to take care of everybody, you might find that there are others already looking out for you.”

  She met Marjorie’s gaze. Such warmth in it, the kind of compassion she’d always seen but never let herself embrace.

  Thinking, of course, she had to earn it.

  “Thanks, Mom,” she said softly.

  Marjorie leaned forward, pulled Ella into her arms. “I know you’re not mine by birth, but your mother gave you to me to love as my own. And I do, precious daughter.”

  Ella closed her eyes, allowing herself to sink against her mother. “I love you too.”

  A beat passed, and then Marjorie held her away. “Good. Because I need to ask you if I can have my senate seat back.”

  Ella raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “I know you took it on because I asked you to. But I’ve seen the strain, the frustration, and . . . do you still want to be senator?”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know.”

  “Well, it’s not an ‘I don’t know’ job. And if you’re not all in—”

  “No. I don’t want it. I guess I don’t know what I want.”

  “Really?” Her mother regarded her with a smile. “Because now I’m doing the math, and I think I know who that man is who kept asking to see you. Your father sent him away. But he’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?”

  “What?”

  “Sorry, honey. We thought he might be one of Oliver’s wild friends. That long hair . . .”

  “That beautiful, amazing long hair. Mom, that’s Gage Watson.”

  Her mother
’s mouth opened, closed. She drew in a breath.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “What?”

  Her mother drew back, eased up from the bed. “Now I think I understand what had your father in such a kerfuffle.” She got up, paced the room.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, he was talking with the young woman who brought you and your brother in, and suddenly, I saw his face change—you know how he gets when he’s angry. A little like your brother, I might add. Stubborn.”

  “Mom—”

  “The local press has gotten ahold of this, and he went down to talk to them. I have a bad feeling he might add in an opinion on the reputation of your rescuer.”

  “What? Why would the press care about us?”

  “I don’t think it’s you as much as the fact that it’s a small town, and you are big news.”

  “But why does Dad have to get involved?”

  Marjorie raised an eyebrow. “Well, when your father heard that you went up on that mountain, he nearly came unglued. And now we know why.”

  Oh. Yes. Gage. The guy who led people into danger. Got them killed.

  “Mom, Gage isn’t the reckless man Dad thinks he is. He was trying to help Dylan stay alive.”

  “He should have never let Dylan on that mountain.”

  “Dylan was going up on that mountain whether Gage took him or not. Gage was just trying to keep him safe. But there’s more. You need to know something.” She sat up, patted the side of the bed. “C’mere.”

  Her mother obeyed. Ella took her hand. “It was part of the sealed case, but Gage isn’t to blame for Dylan’s death. Dylan had TCH—marijuana—in his system when he died.”

  She got the response she expected—her mother’s mouth opened, her eyes widened. “Oh my.”

  “Yeah. And we can’t know if Dylan was high when he went over the edge, but it would have tainted the lawsuit, for sure. But Gage felt so guilty about what happened, he never pushed his lawyer to find out more, just agreed to the lawsuit terms. And now Dad is going to make him relive it all over again.”

  “Oh no he isn’t.” Her mother stood up.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’re not only your mother’s daughter, but you’re my daughter too. And we both taught you to do what’s right, regardless of the cost, right?”

  Ella stared at her.