by Skye Jordan
She pressed her lips together and dropped her gaze to the counter. Pain radiated through her chest, the same way it had when her parents had brushed her off when she was no longer a shining athlete, the way Duncan had brushed her aside when she had nothing left to give him. Now Noah was brushing her off because her truth didn’t fit with his fantasy.
Managing a nod, she turned and pulled open the drawer closest to the back door. She dragged out the file of information and set it on the counter. “Just in case you’re ever interested or even curious about the why behind what I did.”
She wanted to tell him she was sorry. That she hoped he owned Snowmass. That she would pray her fears were indeed unfounded and he lived out a long, happy healthy life on the slopes. But the words caught in her throat, and tears rushed her eyes.
All she managed was a soft “Good luck” before she turned for the stairs, with thoughts of returning to San Francisco alone filling her head, and tears blurring her vision.
Noah sat at his kitchen table, feet up, a beer in his hand, his gaze staring at Julia’s Uggs still sitting by the back door five days after she’d left.
Finn waved a hand in front of Noah’s face. “Dude, you’re starting to worry me. We’re leaving in six hours. Your ass is going to be on the slopes of Snowmass in ten. And you’re as unfocused now as the day she left.” When Noah didn’t respond, Finn followed Noah’s gaze to the boots. “She hasn’t even called to ask you to send them to her? Those things are expensive.”
“Nope.” He hadn’t heard one word from Julia since she’d walked away. Which he knew was for the best. Of course, it didn’t feel like the best, but…
“Did you ever take a look at the research she did?” Finn asked.
“Nope.”
“Aren’t you just a fucking myna bird tonight?”
“I’m focusing.”
“Ha. Good one.” He finished off his second beer, while Noah hadn’t even started his first. “Well, you’re just too much fun for me. I’ll be back to pick you up for the airport.” He stood, picked up the folder Julia had left on the counter a week ago, and tossed it onto the table in front of Noah. “Browse this while you’re killing time. I checked it out last night, and as your friend and your teammate, I suggest you read it.” He smacked Noah upside the head. “Later, loser.”
Noah reached out and nailed Finn with a side punch. His friend laughed his way from the house. Then Noah was enclosed in silence again. The damned silence that had been eating at him for days.
He took a sip from the bottle and winced as the hoppy flavor coated his mouth. God, he didn’t even like beer anymore. He didn’t want sex or junk food either. She’d ruined everything for him.
He slammed the bottle on the table, and the damn thing foamed over, spilling down the sides and creeping toward the file. He picked it up and cut off the spill with a kitchen towel. Now that he had the information he’d been avoiding in his hands, he may as well read it. He had six hours to kill and nothing else to do.
Staring at the manila folder, he ran his fingers over the edges, where Julia’s hands had touched.
Damn, he missed her.
He let out a heavy sigh, set the folder down, and opened it to the first article. “Fuckin’ Julia.”
Julia stood poised to catch Gina, a seventy-five-year-old stroke patient at Sunrise Manor, as she worked on her balance. She’d been making steady strides toward getting her strength and coordination back before Julia had left for Tahoe but seemed to have taken a hard backslide since.
Now, the frail woman tried and tried to strike the simple stork position by lifting one foot off the floor and finding her balance on the other, but she was definitely struggling today.
Julia was struggling too. She’d walked out of Noah’s home seven days ago now and hadn’t stopped thinking about him for a minute.
“Let’s try again,” Julia said, hands hovering on either side of Gina. “Find your center, use your core to stabilize, focus on something still across the room…” As soon as the woman lifted her toe off the ground, Julia counted. “One…two…three…”
Gina wavered and set her foot down again. “Dagnabit.”
Julia sighed, straightened, and patted Gina’s thin shoulder. “Take a rest. We’ll try again in a few.”
She wandered toward Kit, Harold, Jerry, Dorothy, and Mable where they were working on the stability balls…or chatting, whichever seemed more interesting. At the moment, chatting was their exercise of choice.
Instead of bitching at them, she slid her hands into the pockets of her scrubs and lifted her gaze to the television, where Julia had designated the fifty-two-inch flat screen hands-off for the nine hours she was on duty.
“They recapped yesterday’s runs,” Harold said, using his feet to push the ball in small circles. “But they say today’s probably a bust. They’ve got whiteout conditions.”
She wondered what Noah was doing today in the whiteout. Then her mind drifted to what he’d been doing in the last whiteout—with her.
“This just in,” a newscaster reported on the television. “We’ve got a scratch for the men’s SuperPipe. Though it looks like that run will be postponed until this front blows through, we’ve received notice that Noah Hunt has been scratched from the competition.”
Julia sucked in an audible breath, her mind pinging and spinning. Panic chased alarm across her shoulders. She searched her pockets for her phone. She needed to call Drake. Needed to make sure Noah was okay.
“Honey, what are you doing?” Mable asked.
“M-my phone. I need my—” She found it in the lower pocket of her cargo scrubs, and her hands shook when she tapped into the contacts to find Drake’s number.
“Julia.” Kit’s voice distracted her, making her hit the wrong number. “Isn’t that your man?”
No, Noah wasn’t her man, but she was still worried about him. Drake’s voice mail answered.
“Shit.” She closed her eyes and waited for the tone, forcing her mind to rationalize—he was probably sore from his previous runs, all of which he’d nailed. Maybe he caught a flu bug—she knew he wouldn’t be taking care of himself…
“This is a real surprise,” one sportscaster commented, “considering Hunt has smoked every competition so far.”
“But he is coming back from a serious talus fracture…” another reporter continued.
Julia plugged her free ear as her panic mounted. Finally, the beep came, and Julia’s words poured out. “Drake, it’s Julia. Why did Noah scratch? Is he okay? Is he hurt? If you tell me the problem, I can talk you through some therapy.” Babble, babble, babble. “Okay, just…please call me back to let me know he’s okay. Thanks.”
And she disconnected, closed her eyes, and rubbed her temple. Calm the hell down, you freak.
“Julia,” Mable said. “Isn’t this the young man you’re worried about?”
She lifted her head and looked at Mable, but she wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on anything until she heard back from Drake. “What are you talking…” She scanned the faces of the residents all clustered in the rec room now. “What’s going on?”
“I can tell you the problem.” The deep, familiar voice behind her nearly jerked her heart from her body. She jumped and swiveled, and found herself facing Noah. Noah. “And I have an idea of what kind of therapy I need too.”
Julia had her hands curled under her chin. One rose to her mouth but froze on the way as her brain came back online and the panic ramped up. “Shit, what…? Are you…?” Her gaze scanned him head to toe—he was standing level, his posture solid, his expression free of pain. “Why did you scratch? You’ve been doing so well. Is everything okay?”
“Julia, honey,” Mable said. “Slow down. Let the boy answer one question at a time.”
Noah’s smile was guarded. “Can we talk…privately, I mean?”
“Go on now, everyone.” Clara came in and shooed the patients back to their activities. “Let these two have a few minutes.”
Noah thanked Clara, but Julia couldn’t take her eyes off him. It felt so amazing just to see him in person…so handsome, so full of life…
“Hey,” he said quietly. “You okay?”
“No. I’m…confused.” She bounced out of the strange mental place. “First, just tell me, are you okay?”
“Physically, I’m perfectly fine.”
Her breath whooshed free, and relief flooded in. “Thank God.”
“Emotionally, I’m seriously screwed up.”
Her gaze sharpened on his, and all the guilt she’d been holding in seeped to the surface. “Look, I’m really sorry for the way I handled things at the end. I should never have gone to the doctor without you. I see that now. At the time, I was too close, too worried, I cared too much. But it was wrong, and I handled it badly and—”
“Julia.” Noah gripped her face with both hands. “Did you give the money back?”
“Wh-what money?”
“The money Epic promised you. Drake just told me they promised you more money to stay to the end, but you returned it. Is that true?”
Hurt twisted the knife in her heart. Tears pooled along her lower lashes. “Is that all that matters to you? Money?” She pushed his hands away, a sour pain developing in her gut. “Yes, I returned the second half of the money, okay?”
“Why?” His gaze was fiercely intense. “You got me to Snowmass. Why’d you give it back?”
She crossed her arms as if that could protect her from more hurt. “Because that wasn’t the deal.” She lowered her gaze. “The deal was that I stay until the end, and I walked away.”
When he didn’t respond, she lifted her gaze to his face and saw the Noah she knew, his expression open, his blue eyes bright and filled with regret. He pushed a hand through his hair, and she caught a glimmer of wetness on his lashes. “Jesus Christ.”
“Noah, why’d you scratch? Why are you here? What’s—”
He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers in a rough kiss. She stiffened, gripped his arms, and made a noise that was muffled by his mouth. But, oh God, he felt heavenly.
After a long moment of silence, he pulled back, and a smile quivered on his lips before disappearing. “I didn’t know how else to get you to shut up.”
She closed her fingers on his arms. “Please tell me what this is about.”
He took a breath and held it a second. “I scratched because I was standing up on that launch pad waiting for the snow to clear so I could ride, when Drake gets a call from Epic to tell him you sent the check back.”
He said it all in a rush and paused to suck air and rub his face.
Julia hugged herself, waiting for all the information to pour out of him, tortured by his distress.
“And I…I…I realized, at the worst possible moment, that it wasn’t about the money for you. That you really did care about me first. And I…I…didn’t see it because no one but Drake and Finn have ever cared about me more than the money or the fame. And, I just…had to see you. Had to tell you that I handled that situation with the doctor just as badly as you think you did, and I know now that you were trying to take care of me, trying to look at the big picture while I was microfocused on the Games, and…Jesus…I’m just so sorry…”
“Okay. Okay.” She curled her fingers into his jacket with emotion swelling, making her ache. “I hear you. It’s all okay. We’re good. But you have to get back to the Games, Noah. You’ve got to clear that scratch. You’re risking your future here.”
He lifted his hands and cupped her face, his gaze direct and suddenly calm, confident, and clear. “Without you, I’m risking my sanity. And I see my future right in front of my eyes.”
Her heart beat hard, fast, and chaotic. Her belly tingled. “Noah—”
“I bought the Zephyr Academy.” He spoke over her. “The week you left, I knew you were right about the school, so I bought it. I want to start the adventure center we talked about, and expand it to include other types of activities and vacation options. Finn’s an expert white-water rafter and rock climber and can run tours in the off-season. I don’t know where we’ll go from there, but that’s a start.
“And I think it’s a perfect location for you to run your own physical therapy service. The people who come for the extreme vacations might need therapy, and with all the athletes who live there or vacation there, you could have a nice regular clientele. Plus, a lot of locals ski and need therapy, and—”
She pressed her lips to his, cutting off his ramble. Then wrapped her arms around his neck and took the kiss deeper. He opened to her and dragged her body against his. The moment their tongues touched, he groaned and dug one hand into her hair.
When she broke for air, she said, “You had me at ‘Can we talk?’”
Relief eased his big shoulders. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against hers. “I love you so much. I didn’t know what I was going to do if you said no.”
She kissed him. “I love you too.” She kissed him again. “So much.” She kissed him again. “And if you want to finish out the Games or the season or even the next ten years, I’ll be at the bottom of every hill waiting for you, no matter what.”
He grinned, brushed her hair off her face, and lowered his mouth to hers, whispering, “I knew you were worth the risk.”
Julia stood at the front of the platform along the sidelines designated for family members of X Game athletes, shifting from foot to foot.
“Jesus,” Finn said from his spot next to her. “Would you hold still? You’re making me crazy.”
She couldn’t pull her eyes from the red-and-yellow jumpsuits on the rescue workers carrying out the stretcher of the last boarder down the run—the run Noah would board next. “You think he’s okay up there? Remember how it messed with his head when he saw Braunhauf crash on TV? I should have gone to the top with Drake and Rafe…”
“You told Noah you’d be at the end of every run for him,” Finn said. “You’re right where you belong. And he’s going to be fine. This is his signature competition.”
“I know, but I’ve also seen the shit he plans to do, and it freaked me out when he was doing it in a padded room with a trampoline to save his ass.”
Since Noah had made it back to the Games before the whiteout cleared, he’d been able to cancel the scratch and compete in the SuperPipe, which he’d aced. If he won the gold on this Big Air competition, the last competition in this year’s Games, Noah would set a world record for most golds taken in any one winter here. Drake already had the endorsement contracts negotiated and typed up. A few signatures, and Noah would be set financially for the rest of his ever-loving life. He even had a new offer from Ben & Jerry’s for another ice-cream flavor for charity. They’d already proposed the name Air-maggedon for the new concoction, though individual flavors had yet to be determined.
But all Julia cared about was Noah walking away from this last run with all his physical structures intact. And now that Noah’s surgeon had received Julia’s messages and returned her calls from his volunteer stint overseas, she knew Noah’s chances of recovering even stronger than before the accident were high.
As it turned out, both Julia and McMillan had been partially correct about Noah’s condition. Julia had accurately identified a weakness in the compound. It turned out that there was a likelihood of shattering the bone if another severe injury occurred before the cement cured. But that risk dropped with every day that passed. And since Noah’s recovery had progressed normally, as overseen by McMillan, the chance of Noah incurring more problems if he reinjured himself now had dropped to twenty percent.
In Julia’s heart, that risk was still too high, especially considering it didn’t take into account the insanity Noah had planned for this event. But she understood his need to take the risk—she’d fallen in love with an adrenaline junkie. And, as Noah liked to say, wasn’t life itself a risk?
“There he is,” Finn said.
Julia followed Finn’s gaze up to the starting platform where N
oah stepped onto the deck, one hand holding the pipe of the cage behind him, the other fist-bumping Drake and Rafe, where the other men stood off to the side.
“Put out good vibes, Jules,” Finn said. “No negativity, no worries. Just raw juice.”
“Got it. On it.” She wrung her gloved hands and pressed them against the knot spreading pain through her abdomen. “Exuding raw juice.”
“That’a girl.”
The announcer called Noah’s name, and the crowd went wild. Excitement and pride and joy surged inside Julia, and her smile felt like it took up her entire face. She fisted her hands overhead and jumped on her toes, screaming for him.
Then he took off—no flourish, no fanfare, just a hop and a twist and he was sliding down the slope. Julia’s breath caught, and she clasped her hands beneath her chin, her focus intensely homed in on Noah.
He started off big, sliding sideways to catch quick speed. The run seemed to whiz by yet crawl at the same time. The announcers called out his every move, but their voices drowned in Julia’s own thoughts as Noah skidded up one of the walls covered in sponsor logos, then sprang off the top edge, flipping twice before landing in front of the rails.
“Fucking A,” Finn screamed. “When the hell did he decide to do that?”
Julia didn’t answer. She was watching Noah slide sideways down the metal rail, then take off over a smooth downhill course, building speed for the biggest of his three huge jumps.
Down, down, down, he hit the lowest point, then shot up the steep slope and hit the air. Julia sucked a breath and held it. Flashbulbs lit the audience like sparkling confetti while Noah grabbed his board and flipped end over end over end over end. The crowd roared their applause before he ever hit the ground, and when he ended the move in a smooth glide toward the next jump, they exploded with excitement.
“Nailed it!” Finn screamed in Julia’s ear, but she barely heard over the crowd.
She took a moment to breathe, then sucked more air as Noah lifted off his second jump. And as he turned and twisted in crazy acrobatic moves midair, Julia suddenly had the sensation of this one damn run lasting for-freaking-ever.