A Matter of Trust Page 5

  A waitress arrived with the cocoa, and he took it, then handed it to her. He wrapped her hands around the mug, holding his on top. “Take it slow.”

  She took a sip of the cocoa, let it soothe her raw throat.

  “Better?”

  She nodded, and he let go of her hands and rested one muscular arm along the top of the sofa, his wet jeans dripping onto the leather. Every once in a while, a shiver rippled through him, although he didn’t in the least acknowledge it. But she felt like an idiot now, remembering the panic that took her, the way she’d thrashed. In fact . . .

  She spied a welt on his cheek. “Did I hit you?”

  “I’ve had worse,” he said, and winked. “But you did pack a wallop.”

  “I panicked.”

  “Yes. Yes, you did.” He grinned, though, a pretty smirk. He had such enchanting eyes, and for a second she simply forgot where she was.

  Until.

  “So, what did you want to see me about? It seemed like a pretty desperate note—something about life or death?” His gaze trailed over her. “I’m hoping that wasn’t a suicide attempt.”

  “No—no.” And now she just wanted to crawl away. Why was she always so dramatic? “I was . . . I’m here to ask you for a favor.”

  “A favor. Really.” He raised a shoulder. “Okay, I’m game. Shoot it at me.”

  “Please don’t ski Terminator Wall.”

  His smile dimmed. A frown dipped across his forehead. “Uh . . . you know that’s why I’m here, right? There’d be a horde of disappointed people, not to mention my sponsors, a few magazines, and a couple hundred thousand YouTube subscribers if I didn’t shred the Terminator. So, maybe you could give me a good reason why I should decimate my entire career?”

  When he put it like that . . .

  “Because you want to save a life?”

  He considered her a long moment, his lips curling up one side.

  “Whose life? Because if it’s yours—”

  “Dylan McMahon.”

  His smile dimmed. “Oh. Him.” He scraped his hair back from his head. “Don’t tell me he’s your boyfriend.”

  “What—no! No. He’s just a friend. Actually . . . I put the stupid idea in his head, and now . . . I just know that if you go, he’ll go and—”

  He held up his hand. “Pump the brakes. I’m not letting Dylan McMahon follow me down the T-wall, so just take a breath, okay? He’s not ready. And I don’t need anyone getting killed following my line.”

  She probably blew out a breath of visible relief because another smile lit his face, his eyes.

  Oh, those eyes.

  “Thank you. Thank you so much. You can’t believe what this means to me.” She knew she sounded over the top. But she’d just nearly drowned, and sitting here, wrapped up in Gage Watson’s presence—yes, she might have lost her mind a little.

  “Okay. Anytime. What was your name again?”

  “Ella. Ella Blair.”

  “Okay, Ella Blair. Gage Watson.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said.

  “I’m sort of curious,” he said, leaning toward her. “How much does it mean to you?”

  Oh. Um . . .

  He raised an eyebrow.

  She stared at her cocoa. “I don’t think—”

  “Oh no. Wait. That sort of came out wrong,” he said suddenly, and for a second, when she looked up, all the suave had vanished, leaving behind someone real, someone not quite as polished.

  Someone endearing. And slightly reddening at his awkward statement.

  “I just meant, well, I was trying to figure out a smooth way to ask you if you might want to hit the slopes with me tomorrow. I mean, you are a skier, right?”

  The way he bobbled around his words, it made his invitation sound sweet and innocent and had her heart doing all sorts of leaps.

  “Actually, a snowboarder.”

  “Really,” he said, warmth in his eyes.

  “Yeah. And I’d love to ski with you tomorrow. If you promise not to take me anywhere I could get killed.”

  Her towel had loosened, and he reached out and tucked it back around her, his hands strong as he cocooned her in heat.

  “I promise to keep you safe.” He gave her a wink. “Because, you know, I’m all about saving lives.”

  4

  GAGE HAD SOME EPIC FALLS IN HIS CAREER, the kind that made viewers wince, the yard sale crashes that became six-second Vines on the net. He’d broken a leg, dislocated his shoulder, emerged with his face so bloody the sports networks attached a viewer warning to it before the replay. He still bore the bump of his broken nose, a sort of freeriding badge of honor.

  And while he longed to rewind the tape, maybe choose a different line, none of his mayhem crashes made him wish to go back to the beginning and throw his snowboard across the room. Wish all of it away—his fame, his laurels, the joy of carving his own trail.

  Until a punk teenager in a dinosaur costume looked at him with stars in his eyes. “I have all your videos, that descent down the Broken River face off Craigieburn—that . . . that was over the top.” Gage wanted to smack his hand over Oliver’s mouth, keep the memories from surfacing. Keep his exploits from finding root in his brain and tearing open the wounds of regret.

  Just when he thought he might carve out a new line for his life.

  Gage threw his board on the rack on top of his Mustang, then opened the door.

  “You missed a call,” Ty said from the passenger seat. He already had his board latched on top, his boots off and cowboy boots on.

  Gage slid onto the driver’s bucket seat, his feet still outside the door, and started unlatching his boots. He slid one off, slipped his foot into a hiking boot, then picked up his phone from the dash and took a look.

  “Two missed calls from my mom.” He dropped the phone into the cup holder, then unlatched his other boot. He laced on his hiking boot, then threw the two snowboard boots into the backseat.

  His mom. He checked his watch. Maybe he should stop by . . . especially if her voicemail betrayed a slur in her voice.

  Gage headed out of the parking lot, the itch of the fight with Oliver still under his skin. “He did a 1080 front flip off a 150-foot face—”

  He should write to Xtreme Energy, ask them to take his videos down. After all, they’d dropped him.

  Keeping them up just inspired more idiocy from kids like Oliver Blair.

  Or Dylan McMahon.

  Gage loosened his whitened hold on the steering wheel as he reached a light and turned on his radio.

  Of course, Ben King’s sultry country voice crooned through the speakers—it seemed he was the only artist playing on their local country station. The entire town had a love affair going with Ben King and the fact that he’d moved his studio here, healed his past, and restarted his life to the wild applause of his fans.

  Yeah, well, it didn’t happen that way for everyone. And too many people paid the price when it didn’t. They’d all be better off if the fame of “Watts” Watson were wiped from all memory.

  “Maybe I’ll swing by and see what my mom wants.” He glanced at Ty. “Do you mind?”

  “I’ll order us a couple pizzas to pick up,” Ty said, already pulling out his phone. “Although my bet is that Sierra will have fresh-baked cookies at HQ. Everyone’s getting together for the show tonight.”

  Sierra Rose, their dispatcher, PEAK team administrator, and all-around big sister. Although, he had to wonder if Sierra would be there, especially if Ian planned to show up. It seemed that the gulf between them had widened after the mysterious call from Esme Shaw, Ian’s missing niece, confirming she was still alive. Sierra seemed to think that Ian should heed his niece’s request not to look for her.

  Ian never heeded anyone’s request. Maybe his billions of dollars told him he didn’t have to.

  That’s what money did—made people belligerent. Stupid.

  Reckless.

  If the entire team was there, it also meant that Jess and Pete would be in th
e same room, playacting the too-bright courtesy between them. Gage still remembered the cryptic conversation with Pete from last summer, when Pete had asked Gage’s advice about women.

  Or, as Gage deduced later, one woman.

  “So, what if,” Pete had asked, “hypothetically—you had a friend who you liked, but you weren’t sure she liked you back—what would you do? Go for it?”

  Gage had guessed, only after he advised Pete to go out with Tallie Kennedy—not their coworker, Jess Tagg—that Pete had wanted a different answer. Or rather, maybe Jess wanted a different answer, found out about Tallie, and put the kibosh on anything they had going between them.

  Then again, maybe Pete had gone for it and . . .

  Naw. Jess wasn’t the type of girl to be wooed by Pete Brooks and his lazy smile, that country-boy charm.

  Whatever the case, spending the evening with his less-than-bonded team seemed only slightly better than watching reruns on Ty’s extra-large flat screen he’d purchased for their duplex. No, er, Ty’s duplex, one in which he so generously let Gage rent a room at a reduced cost.

  Ty was ordering a couple large supreme pizzas, and Gage didn’t bother to remind him to keep off the mushrooms. He wasn’t hungry anyway.

  He turned through the little town of Whitefish, past the quaint shops, then out to the highway, before looping back along Whitefish Lake to his parents’ home, one that the two doctors rarely spent time in.

  They’d barely missed him when Gage started spending every hour on the slopes. Then again, they were probably thankful he wasn’t getting into trouble with “that crowd,” a group of people his orthopedic surgeon father had met plenty of. But Gage had never been on the slopes to party.

  “Do something with your life. Make it matter.” Only, his dad had probably meant that he should follow in the family footsteps and go to medical school. Spend summers working with Doctors Without Borders or donating his hours in some small-town clinic.

  Not becoming the poster boy for harrowing mountain runs.

  “I’ll wait in the car,” Ty said as Gage pulled up to his parents’ home, a beautiful yet not ostentatious rambler set back under towering lodgepole pines overlooking the lake.

  Gage nodded, got out, and headed through the garage inside.

  “Ma?” He stood in the kitchen. Granite countertops, stainless steel, hardwood flooring, and the two-story attached great room that opened to a view of not only Whitefish Lake but also the glittering lights of Blackbear Mountain.

  Gage turned away from it. Called again.

  The silence had his gut clenching, and he headed for his mother’s office, located at the end of the hall in one of the former bedrooms and across from his own.

  A light shone out from the bottom of the door, and he knocked.

  “It’s open,” his mother said, and he pushed the door in to see her sitting at her desk, her laptop computer open, her reading glasses down on her nose. She’d freshly dyed her dark hair, washing away the white, and still wore her hospital administrator attire of a pair of soft wool pants and a cashmere sweater, looking every inch the award-winning neurosurgeon she’d once been.

  Still could be, if she found the right case. But she’d seemed to lose her fire back when he’d returned home, defeat in his wake.

  Now, she only took the most selective of cases, and aside from a few consults, she sat on the board of the hospital and tried to keep it in the black.

  His gaze fell on a glass, mostly drained, of her daily cognac, and he hoped it was just the first.

  She looked up from her work. “Gage,” she said, and he noticed a softening around the consonants. That, and her smile, not forced but a little wobbly. Nope, not her first glass.

  “I was on the mountain. Sorry I missed your call—thought I’d check in on my way home.”

  “So nice of you,” she said and pushed her chair away from the desk. “I wanted to ask you if you’d stop by the hospital.”

  Gage’s eyes darted to a bottle of acetaminophen near the computer. Must have been a rough day fighting bureaucracy.

  “Why?”

  His mother picked up her drink. “That boy you brought in, Hunter? Guess what—he’s a fan. Couldn’t stop talking about the fact that you saved him.” Her eyes shone, and Gage wished he could attribute it to the drink.

  Oh Mom, please don’t live in the past.

  “I came down to check on your father’s schedule, and he was just prepping the boy for surgery. I told him you’d stop by later, cheer him up.”

  Gage winced. “He’s going to be out of it for a while—”

  “Tomorrow then. Think of how happy he’ll be to meet his hero!”

  “I’m hardly his hero—”

  “Gage. Of course you are.” She got up then, and he noticed her hand steadying herself on her desk.

  He grabbed her elbow.

  “You’re still an inspiration.”

  “Maybe you should lie down for a bit, Ma.” He eased the near-empty glass from her hand.

  “I do have a little headache.” She pressed her hand to her head.

  He led her to her sofa. “I’ll get you a drink of water,” he said and scooped the acetaminophen into his pocket as he walked away.

  Only as he walked past his old room did he see the door ajar, and on his old desk, his scrapbook open.

  He went inside and instantly regretted it. No matter how many times he packed away his trophies, his medals, even that stupid Xtreme Energy poster, they still migrated back to his shelves, freshly dusted, the poster repinned to the wall.

  He backed out, shut the door.

  Headed to the kitchen for a glass of water.

  His mother was asleep by the time he returned. He put the glass down on her desk, kissed her forehead. She roused at his touch. Caught his hand. “Thanks for stopping by.”

  “Anytime, Ma.”

  Ty was scanning stations when Gage returned to the Mustang. “If I have to listen to one more Ben King song . . .”

  Gage laughed and queued up his iPod. Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling” coursed through the speakers.

  “Okay, I surrender. Ben King it is,” Ty said. He flipped back to the station. “What did your mom want?”

  Gage shook his head as he pulled out. “Hunter, that kid who fell from the chair today, wants an autograph.”

  “From the ski patrol who saved him?”

  Gage shot Ty a look.

  “What?”

  “I’m still a thing to fifteen-year-old wannabe freeriders, apparently.”

  Ty grinned. “I’m in the presence of snowboard royalty.”

  “You can walk home.”

  “No, really, Gage. Stop by the hospital. Cheer the kid up.”

  “The last thing he needs is to be encouraged by a guy who screwed up.” Gage turned on 40, bypassing the hospital. “And the last thing I need is to revisit the guy I used to be. He’s gone, and I’m trying to put it behind me.” He shook his head. “It would help if my mother stopped living in the past.”

  “What, and join ranks with your father? ‘Gage, get a real job. Do something with your life.’” Ty’s imitation felt too raw, and Gage clenched his jaw.

  “Maybe just leave me alone along with the rest of the world. Let the past die. The last thing I need to do is resurrect some version of that stupid, cocky kid and parade him around to offer false inspiration. What I should be doing is wearing a sign that says ‘cautionary tale.’”

  Now Ty went quiet, as if embarrassed by Gage’s tirade.

  Well, nobody liked the truth anymore, it seemed.

  “Sorry. I’m just in a rotten mood after chasing down that stupid kid in the dinosaur costume.”

  “Dude. You wear your mistakes like a brand on your forehead. You need to get over it.”

  “You’re one to talk. I don’t see you getting back in the simulator. Are you ever going to fly a chopper again?”

  Ty drew in a long breath, his jaw tight as he looked away.

  G
age probably shouldn’t have said that. “Ty, I’m—”

  “Leave it, Gage,” Ty said quietly. He stared out the window. “Don’t forget to stop by the pizza place.”

  “Please don’t tell me you ordered from the Griz—last time we ordered from there, we all got sick.”

  “Fear not. I put an order in at Glacier Pizza.”

  They rode in silence until they pulled up to the pizza place. Ty ran in.

  He returned in a moment with a couple of steaming pizzas and set them on his lap.

  “No mushrooms?”

  “I remembered,” Ty said.

  “Thanks,” Gage said. But see, that was the problem. When it came to Gage Watson, they all remembered.

  In all the years Ty had known Gage, and even admired him a little from afar, he’d never agreed with the press, the destruction of his career, or the rumors that said Gage had possessed an ego that led the way to his destruction.

  Until tonight. “Are you ever going to fly a chopper again?”

  The question, more defense than actual inquiry, replayed in Ty’s ears as he got out of the silent Mustang and headed up to the two-story ranch house that formed the headquarters for the PEAK Rescue team. Their eleven-person team consisted of three EMTs—Gage, Pete, and Jess—their chopper pilot Kacey Fairing, their administrative assistant Sierra Rose, team incident commander Miles Dafoe, country crooner Ben King, and his father, Chet, who started the team way back with its founder, Ian Shaw, and their sheriff department liaison, Sam Brooks. Only Ty was the one without any formal duties. A former helicopter pilot, he now did his rescue duty as a dispatcher, sometimes searcher, all-around pizza delivery guy.

  A real asset to the team.

  Not that his busted knee didn’t give him legitimate excuse to cut back his hours, but frankly, if he wasn’t going to sit in the copilot’s seat or at the helm, he might as well make coffee and run inventory on the supplies. He didn’t have a medical degree like Jess, didn’t understand the logistic operations like Sam, couldn’t helm a search like Miles or even Pete, who’d recently gotten certified in the government’s FEMA rescue services. He couldn’t even make cookies like Sierra.

  Frankly, he felt about as useful as Jubal, Chet’s lab. Maybe less so—at least Jubal knew when to plop down at a guy’s feet with a sigh and make him feel like he belonged.