Make Me Stay (Men of Gold Mountain)

by Rebecca Brooks

  His lips tasted like syrup, and she teased him with her tongue. Her phone vibrated, and this time it didn’t stop. Goddammit, Steven had an uncanny sense of timing. Clearly since she hadn’t responded to his text within five and a half seconds, he’d decided to call.

  “Do you have to get that?” Austin asked.

  Sam wished she knew the answer to his question. Things must have been getting heated at the office if Steven was so intent on confirming the signing with Mr. Reede was going through. But how could she reassure him she was on top of it while Austin was sitting right there, talking about what they were doing that day?

  “You don’t already have a lift ticket, do you?” he asked.

  Sam shook her head.

  “Okay, good. I don’t want you to waste it.”

  A lift ticket? That was nothing. He had no idea how much she risked losing for him. Her phone vibrated again. God, Steven was pissed. Or worried. Or both. Mentally she told him to cool it and pressed ignore. “Even if I already did, Austin, you should know by now I’d blow it off for you.”

  He shook his head. “Those tickets are so expensive, I’d never ask you to do that.”

  She felt so guilty, her stomach ached. She couldn’t have said how much a ski patroller and racing coach made, but it clearly wasn’t enough to buy new gloves. Austin could have no clue that buying a lift ticket she didn’t use wouldn’t make a single difference in the life of Samantha Kane.

  He told her he’d lend her some ski pants, and she was telling him okay, thinking it wouldn’t be so bad to spend the morning together before he took her to her car and she finally came clean, when the phone vibrated again.

  “Sales?” His eyebrow rose.

  Her heart raced, torn between a fear of getting caught and a fear of what might happen if she actually blew Steven off and didn’t pick up.

  But she simply shrugged and said, “Things are busy,” and Austin seemed to buy it.

  “It’s funny,” he said as he stacked the dishes. “I was the one expecting all these calls today. I thought Kane Enterprises wouldn’t stop bugging me about setting up this meeting, but I haven’t heard a thing. Meanwhile you’re on vacation, sort of, and your office won’t leave you alone.” He wiped his hands on a towel. “Maybe we should trade.”

  Sam snorted. Fuck if she knew what to say to that. “I’d make a terrible ski coach,” she declared.

  “That’s not true, Amelia loved you.”

  “Amelia loved not having to ski with a bloody nose.”

  “Hey, that kid’s tough—don’t underestimate her. If that were a race day, she’d never have quit.”

  “I never said she was a quitter,” Sam said. “But you do remember she’s in high school, right?”

  “Age has nothing to do with it. Amelia’s got a shot to go far, and she’s going to.”

  “And if something happens to her? You yourself said skiers know they could be injured any time.” Sam remembered what Amelia had said in the bathroom, how she didn’t have time for a boyfriend when all she did was ski. “What if she decides she wants to do something else with her life? What if this isn’t her plan?”

  The look on Austin’s face made her realize she’d gone too far.

  “I don’t want Amelia to shy away from what she can accomplish,” he said, his voice low, level, so serious it was almost cold. “It’s important she learns not to back down.”

  Sam wanted to know if they were still talking about Amelia. But the subtext was clear: back off. Austin went to get the ski pants. The conversation was over.

  Once upon a time, Sam had a plan for how her life and her career were going to progress. Then her father died, and everything changed. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t been ready, that she’d thought there’d be more time before the inevitable came to pass. Her father didn’t wait until things were convenient for her to make her CEO. He died during surgery—a risk, of course, but they were in the risk business. No matter how much they’d calculated the odds, she’d never really expected it would be like that, so final, his heart beating and then not.

  Obviously Austin knew there was no such thing as plans. He’d had to remake his life, too. Only instead of realizing nothing was set, he’d gone in the opposite direction. Here was his star skier, and she was going to win. Here were his gloves, and he wasn’t going to replace them. Here was his property, and not a single tree could change.

  Sam knew those things weren’t comparable, and yet watching Austin’s back as he left the kitchen, it sure felt like that. And she was the one who wanted to change his home, his town—hell, even his gloves. She was the one asking whether Amelia’s plans might someday change, asking whether Austin had too much wrapped up in a kid he’d convinced himself was going to make his own failed Olympic dreams come true.

  It wasn’t a fight, exactly. But it wasn’t the note she wanted them to end on. It certainly wasn’t the way to segue into the sale. When Steven called again, she texted him Later and silenced her phone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Austin went outside to warm up the truck and brush off the dusting of snow that had fallen in the night. Yesterday’s clouds were lifting, exposing stretches of blue trying to make their way through. It was going to be a beautiful day.

  If he didn’t blow it first.

  What was his deal, getting so defensive about Amelia? He’d thought he was finally figuring out this whole intimacy thing, like taking Sam to the shelter, even inviting her to wake up in his bed. And then the next thing he knew he was closing conversations, turning his back on Sam when he went to get the ski pants, barely giving her a glance or a word as she put everything on.

  “Don’t do this,” he muttered to himself as he went in to tell her the truck was ready. “Don’t ruin something that might actually work.”

  Not that he knew where anything with Sam was going. Didn’t she have a busy job? A life in Seattle? Whatever it was, it kept her flush with cash, judging by the gloves she’d bought him. The thought made him burn up inside. He couldn’t say yes to them. But how had he actually brought himself to say no?

  He didn’t even know why he’d gotten so touchy about Amelia. I’m not pushing her away, he told himself sternly. I’m protecting my life. So what if he didn’t want to tell her everything that had happened with his knee, or listen to her criticize his coaching? If she stuck around, he’d open up more.

  If that wasn’t going to happen, so be it. He hoped this wouldn’t be their last day together. But he didn’t want to be crushed if she was going to announce that it had been fun, but it was time for her to go home.

  Sam seemed to have come to a similar conclusion, because when she hopped in the truck she was cheerful as usual, as though he hadn’t been terse. Because she didn’t care? Because she was already planning her escape? He didn’t even know how to ask, because they weren’t enough of a thing for him to find out what they were or were not.

  But she was wonderful right now. And right now, that was enough.

  “Where are we going?” Sam asked. “Or is this another one of your Austin surprises?”

  “It’s not far,” he said cryptically.

  “It’s not skiing, because we don’t have any gear. But it can’t be driving or you wouldn’t have me wearing this sexy getup.” She gestured to his ski pants, which managed to fit her after she rolled the bottoms.

  “Does that narrow it down?” Austin asked.

  “Nope.”

  Sam pulled out her phone and checked something, then put it away. Austin was about to comment—did she ever go without that thing?—but he bit it back. That was what Austin usually did. Once he saw the crack, he picked at it and picked at it until it widened and the whole foundation fell down. He didn’t want to do that this time, not when he didn’t even know how long he’d have Sam anyway.

  “I told work I’m unavailable for a few hours,” Sam offered without his prompting.

  “It’s okay.” He looked at the road.

  “It’s not, I know.
But this is how it is with me, and I’m lucky I can be here instead of in the office.”

  The subtext being Drop me off at the corner if you have a problem with it.

  Austin reached over and squeezed her knee as he drove. “Really,” he said, and this time he meant it. “I don’t know why I’m so testy this morning.”

  “Too much to have someone spend the night?” Sam asked, and Austin wondered what it was about her, how she could push through every angle and sink her teeth right into the sore spot inside.

  He withdrew his hand and kept his eyes on the road. “It’s not a thing that happens very often,” he finally said.

  This time she was the one who reached over and touched his leg. “I can go.”

  “No.” He looked at her. “Seriously. No.”

  “Good.” Sam sat back, satisfied. By the time Austin parked the truck, they were holding hands across the front seat. It shouldn’t have put Austin at ease. But it did.

  “Where are we?” Sam asked.

  “Sue and Jesse own Mack Daddy’s—you know, the Dipper.”

  Sam looked out the window. “Uh-huh.”

  “Jesse’s got something I want to borrow.”

  Sam pointed to the snowmobile sitting out in the driveway, by Jesse’s truck. “You don’t mean—”

  Austin grinned. “What do you say?”

  Sam opened the door and hopped out. “Coming?” she called to him. He turned off the ignition and pocketed the key, laughing at her. He should have known better than to think she wouldn’t want to go.

  They walked up the front steps of the house and knocked on the door. Jesse and Sue were in their sixties and had been living in Gold Mountain for the last thirty years. They’d been among the first to welcome Austin when he moved in, and he borrowed Jesse’s snowmobile more than a few times every year.

  “Of course,” Jesse said when Austin introduced Sam and asked if he could take it for a spin. “You going to Pine Points?”

  “You guessed it.” Austin grinned then turned to Sam. “You need a snowmobile to get to a lot of the mountain passes when everything’s snowed in. I only go out when the snow’s deep enough to protect the topsoil, though, and Jesse’s got a good silencer so the engine won’t disturb the wildlife.”

  “Not many roads around here,” Jesse added. “But that’s all about to change.” He sighed.

  They were sitting in the kitchen, drinking a fresh pot of coffee Jesse had put on. Austin wasn’t sure he needed any more caffeine, but he wouldn’t say no to Jesse’s offer. Sue was down in Bellingham grocery shopping, and Austin knew the man was lonely, semiretired and not sure what to do when it was too snowy to tinker in the yard.

  “What’s about to change?” Sam asked, stirring her coffee with a spoon.

  “You must have heard how Kane Enterprises is coming in here.”

  “Sure,” Sam said. She blew on the coffee and glanced at Austin as she took a sip.

  “Sam’s probably heard more about the Kanes than she ever wanted to.”

  Jesse chuckled. “They still after you?”

  “I know you had reasons to sell, and I’m okay with that,” Austin said. “But you know me.” He shrugged. “I just can’t.”

  “I hear you. It’s such a shame when you think of how much this whole place is going to be paved.”

  “Surely it’s not going to be the whole place,” Sam said.

  “A damn lot of it. They’re buying the plot from here up to the mountain, then down to the Points”—he gestured vaguely south—“and over to the Cascade Loop.” He took a noisy sip. “And that’s only part of it.”

  Once Jesse got going, he could talk forever. Austin hoped Sam wouldn’t mind, but she was leaning forward, rapt, asking him more questions about what was going to happen to the land.

  “Now me and Sue, we got the promise of a fat check from the Kanes if this deal goes through. We’re supposed to hear as soon as something’s signed with the management up at Gold, and the Hendersons—” He leaned over toward Sam to explain, “That’s one of the families who own a lot of the land up here. There are a few who are in on the sale.” Sam nodded, following along. “Well, once that goes through we’ll sell the Dipper. Everything’s going to go.”

  “But why are you selling if you don’t want to?” Sam asked.

  “What am I going to do? The Kanes can outlast me. They can build around me. They can do anything to push me out. And the size of that check.” He whistled. “I know it’s nothing to them, but how can I say no to that? Austin here can tell them where to put their millions, but I’ve got a boy just out of college, a daughter at UW studying to be a nurse. They’ve got bills, loans. How am I supposed to say no when this can help my kids?”

  “Then maybe it’s not such a bad thing that the Kanes are coming in,” Sam suggested.

  But Jesse shook his head, as Austin knew he would. “Just because I’m taking their money doesn’t mean I support what they do. Just because I know it’ll help my kids doesn’t mean I don’t wish there were some other way.” He raised his chin toward Austin. “I admire this guy. He’s got principles, and he sticks with them. I only wish it made a difference in the long run.”

  He sighed into his empty mug. Austin could feel the weight that lay over Jesse, the same weight that had settled over all of them since they learned the talk they’d heard about for years was actually going through.

  “Sam’s just up for a few days, and I wanted to show her some of the land. Take her out before so much of it changes,” Austin said.

  Jesse brightened. “It looks like the clouds are lifting and it’ll be nothing but blue by the time you get out. You got everything you need? You have warm gloves, honey? It gets cold in the wind.”

  Sam assured him she was fully outfitted. They thanked him for the coffee and set out.

  Austin had always thought he had everything he needed—a team to coach, tracks to ski, good friends, and a loyal dog for company. He didn’t need his life to change. And yet something felt different when he was with Sam. As they settled onto Jesse’s snowmobile, her arms around his chest felt so right, he wondered how he’d managed to take this ride so many times without realizing how alone he had been.

  “You ever ridden one of these?” he asked.

  Sam shook her head against his back. “It feels like being on a Jet Ski, though.”

  “You’ve been jet skiing?”

  “In the San Juans.”

  Of course. Her family probably took all sorts of summer vacations together, too.

  “A little warmer than this,” he said.

  Sam laughed. “Anything is warmer than this.” She burrowed closer to his back.

  “Don’t forget to hold on,” Austin said, even though it wasn’t like she needed the reminder. He felt her thighs clench around him.

  “I’m not letting go,” she whispered in his ear, and Austin was right back in the kitchen that morning, his fingers sliding up her thighs. Why had he wanted to do something that involved bundling up in so many layers when they could have been back home taking all those layers off?

  But as soon as he pulled the throttle and eased them toward the trail, he knew. If Sam wanted to get a sense of why he loved this land, why everyone who lived here did, this was what she had to see. He didn’t know what her life was like in Seattle, what meetings and appointments and corporate whatever took up her time. But she was here now, and this was what home meant to him.

  The trail headed back toward the woods then climbed steadily to one of the ridges that linked up to the peak of Gold Mountain and extended to the spine of mountains beyond. He shifted his weight forward as the slope pitched, and she responded with him, so that even out here, fully clothed, separated by all the layers between them, it still felt like they moved as one, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, her legs firm around his. As the slope evened out, he reached a hand behind and rubbed along the inside of her thigh, feeling her breath quicken in his ear.

  And then they were climbing again, up s
teady switchbacks along the eastern face of the mountain that rose as though a mirror to Gold Mountain, the two peaks facing each other across the valley between.

  Austin pulled back on the throttle and asked Sam, “How high do you want to go?”

  Her response didn’t surprise him. “How high can we go?”

  “We can go all the way,” he said, and she squeezed his waist. He revved the engine and plowed up, so fast she had to cling tight to him.

  He brought the snowmobile to a stop above the tree line but below the final crest of the peak, where it grew too steep to safely take it the rest of the way. This was why he’d outfitted them with chains on the bottom of their boots, metal loops that made an X over the sole and kept them from sliding back.

  Sam climbed off the snowmobile, her scarf wrapped tight around her neck, Austin’s spare pair of goggles oversize on her face. She stood uncertainly, as though she didn’t trust the chains to hold her.

  “Let’s go,” he said, before she had time to get too cold standing around and psych herself out.

  “Where?”

  He pointed up. Sam looked at him as though he were crazy. “You want to climb the rest of the way?”

  “It’s not far,” he promised.

  Sam squinted up, evaluating. “I’m not sure what that means in Austin skispeak,” she said.

  “It means you climb until you think you can’t make it, and right when your legs are about to give out—ta-da! You’re there.”

  “Great,” she said. “It’s not like I spent yesterday on a mogul run, so my legs aren’t sore at all.”

  “You’re sore?” he asked.

  “I haven’t skied in years, and in case you forgot, I was the one doing the work last night.” She reached for his hips, and he had a flash of her body arched over him, her thighs wrapped around his face. His cock stirred at the hope it wasn’t only a memory of the past but a promise of more to come. He wanted her right there, buried in the snow. But as incredible as the view was from here, it was only going to get better. And that was what he wanted Sam to see.

  Austin pulled on the low braid hanging out from under Sam’s hat and brought his lips close to her ear. “I haven’t forgotten a thing.” He swung the braid over her shoulder. “You might want to unzip your jacket a little. Things are about to heat up.”