A Matter of Trust

by Susan May Warren

  “Which is why I stayed at home, studying,” Ella said, laughing. “But my mother always said, to whom much is given, much is expected, and I was given a lot.”

  “Yeah, well, you were a good influence, even if I hate to admit it,” Brette said.

  “I wish I were a good influence on my brother.” Ella signaled the waitress. She came over, looking frazzled. “Can we get a basket of cheesy fries?”

  The woman nodded before Ella even finished speaking.

  “He’ll come around. Not everyone can be as focused and brilliant as you.” Brette’s eyes seemed to follow a tall cowboy with dark hair threading his way through the crowd. “But if you don’t run, then I need myself a hot new story. And what are you going to do? Should we be practicing saying ‘Yes, your honor’?”

  “No. I have no desire to be a judge.” Although if she had her druthers, she’d rather find a way to make things truly fair instead of the legal wrangling that went on behind the scenes. Sometimes the law felt more like a game of poker, with the smartest legal whiz at the table taking home the prize instead of true justice winning out.

  She’d seen that up close and personal.

  “Then you have decided to run again?”

  “Put the microphone away. I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t want to think about it.” She took another sip of cocoa, her stomach cheering when the waitress zipped by and dropped off a basket of fries. “I think I’ve lost my edge, anyway.”

  “What edge? Oh, you mean your ability to talk anyone into anything?”

  Ella gave her a look.

  “What? You’re incredibly good at getting people to see your point of view.” Brette untangled a fry from the gooey cheese.

  “That’s another way of saying I pester people until they give in.”

  Brette grinned. “That’s my superpower—spin.”

  The country crooner on stage ended his song, and as the cheering died, she heard voices lift from the end of the room.

  “Leave them alone!”

  It piqued her lawyer ears, and she couldn’t help but glance around, find the source.

  Her breath wheezed out in a sigh when she spotted her brother, his dinosaur hood pushed back and his red hair on end as he stood up to some ski patroller.

  “What has he done now?” She let the words escape even as she found her feet. Brette slid out of the booth beside her.

  The crowd around them stood two and three people thick, but her brother was tall and animated, his face betraying surprise as he talked with the local law.

  The ski patrol had his back to her and now pulled off his helmet.

  Brown curly hair hanging behind his ears to the scruff of his neck.

  Wide shoulders, a stance that said he didn’t back down from trouble.

  Oh no.

  She froze. Drew back from the altercation.

  But the crowd had stilled, apparently listening to the confrontation. And then she heard it.

  “Gage Watson, that guy from Outlaw.”

  She pressed a hand to her stomach. Ground her jaw to Gage’s words about people getting killed. About him knowing that better than anyone.

  She wanted to cringe.

  Yes, yes he did.

  But she could have cheered when he ordered Ollie and Bradley off the slopes.

  Then he turned, ready to charge through the crowd.

  She whirled around, her back to him. Just in case he hadn’t forgotten her.

  The thought took her by the throat. Like he ever would.

  Hard to forget the woman who betrayed you.

  “You okay?” Brette said. “You look—”

  “Is he gone?”

  “Is who—”

  “The ski patrol.”

  Brette glanced in Gage’s exit direction. “Yeah. He’s gone. He’s standing by the door with his other ski patrol pal. Now they’re leaving.”

  “Good.” Ella turned back around and headed for Ollie.

  “Ella, what’s going on?”

  But she didn’t stop to explain. Could barely speak past the fist in her throat. Still, she muscled past it and managed to find words for her reckless brother.

  “Ollie!”

  Her voice arrested his attention, and he winced as he spied her pushing through the crowd toward him.

  “Just calm down, sis. It’s no biggie. I’ll get another pass—”

  “What did you do this time?”

  “Nothing—he’s just—I mean, he’s one to talk.” Ollie picked up one of the beers and brought it to his mouth, and Ella grabbed it away.

  “Last time I checked, you weren’t old enough to drink.”

  She said it loudly enough that the girls in the booth snickered.

  Ollie turned red. “Thanks for that.”

  “No problem.”

  “What’s the deal with the whole world turning to hypocrites? Hello, I remember you chasing your own powder a few years ago. You’re the one who introduced me to freeriding. In fact—wait, did you see who that was?”

  Ella didn’t answer him.

  “Who who was?” Brette said behind him.

  “That ski patrol,” Bradley said, “Ollie recognized him. It was Gage Watson. Don’t you remember—the guy who skied Terminator Wall on the backside of Outlaw three years ago? His partner was killed following his line?”

  “It wasn’t his partner,” Ella said and instantly regretted it. But she was already too far in. “It was a punk kid from Vermont named Dylan McMahon. And he should have never been up there in the first place.”

  And now she’d said way too much because Brette turned to her, investigator’s eyes shining. “Really?”

  “I can’t say anything else, except that Dylan didn’t have the experience to freeride the Terminator. And Gage knew it.”

  Brette raised an eyebrow. Ella could practically hear her journalist mind ignite.

  “Which was why the press took him apart,” Ollie said. “He was sued by the family and pretty much ousted from all freeriding competitions. Lost his sponsorships and everything. Brutal.”

  And that wasn’t the half of it. But the law kept her from saying more.

  Instead, she turned to Ollie. “What you call hypocrisy is me saying ‘learn from your elders.’ Gage Watson is right—freeriding is dangerous, and you could get someone killed out there. So yeah, you’re done, bro. Time to go home.”

  Ollie’s mouth closed, but Ella wasn’t moving.

  “I’ll grab our cheesy fries,” Brette said quietly.

  Ollie’s jaw tightened. Ella glanced at the girls in the booth.

  Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t just grab him by the ear and march him home like she once had.

  “I’ll see you back at the condo, Ollie,” Ella said finally. She left him there and headed over to the booth. Brette was boxing up the fries. She glanced up at Ella, eyes narrowed, then looked back to the fries.

  “What?”

  “I’m digging through my memories, but . . . didn’t you have a poster of Gage Watson once upon a time in your room at college?”

  “Let’s go.” She reached for her jacket and helmet.

  “You did!”

  “I did. It was just a crush.”

  “Wait a second. I remember—”

  “Brette, don’t—”

  “That’s why you went to Outlaw. You were hoping to meet him.”

  “I went because of Dylan. To stop him from skiing Terminator Wall.”

  “Did you actually end up meeting Watson?”

  Ella sifted her way through the crowd, Brette hot on her trail. They emerged into the lobby. Thankfully, no ski patrol jackets to be seen.

  “Wait—didn’t you work on Dylan’s lawsuit? I thought that name sounded familiar.”

  “Yeah. Sort of. I was an associate, and his case came to us.”

  “Right.” Brette fell into step with her as they pushed through the doors to the outside. The lights gleamed on their snowboards propped in the snow. “It was one of your first big cases.”


  “I don’t want to talk about this, Brette.” Ella pulled her board from the snow.

  “Why?”

  Ella rounded on her. “Because I’m the reason Gage Watson lost everything, okay? It’s my fault he’s a has-been, working ski patrol, chasing down hooligans like my brother instead of winning national championships.” Her voice dropped. “I wrecked his life.”

  She turned and headed toward the bridge that led to their on-slope condos. The floodlights lit the night an eerie yellow.

  Brette caught up, her boots crunching through the snow. “Hardly. If I remember correctly, he took a novice snowboarder up on one of the most dangerous runs in the world with the promise he’d get him down safely.”

  “Dylan wasn’t a novice by any stretch of the imagination.” And she wasn’t giving anything away—anyone who watched the tapes could plainly see that Dylan knew how to cut, carve, shred, and follow Gage’s line. “He just shouldn’t have been out there that day.”

  But see, now she was treading too close to the border.

  “Why?”

  Especially with Brette.

  Ella sighed, came out to the path that led to the back door to their condo, and found an easy truth. “Dylan was a party animal. I’d seen him out a couple nights before that, good and soused, bragging about the double flip he was going to do off a cliff on Terminator Wall.”

  The cliff that got him killed.

  “If he was drunk, Watson shouldn’t have taken him out.”

  “He wasn’t drunk. Listen, all I know is that maybe we shouldn’t point fingers at an accident in a sport that has a painfully high mortality rate. If not from jumps and cliffs, then avalanches.”

  They reached the condo, and Ella set her board on the rack and unlocked the door. Brette followed her into the warmth of the entryway and sat beside Ella, taking off her boots.

  “Sounds like you’re on his side.”

  “I’m not on anyone’s side.”

  “Not even Dylan’s family?”

  Ella got up and walked in her stocking feet to the stairway to the main floor. “Not anymore. Now I’m a politician.” She flashed her a wan smile.

  Brette beat her to the stairs and braced her arm on the railing, cutting her off. “Ella, what aren’t you telling me?”

  Ella closed her eyes.

  But Brette was like a bulldog when she sniffed out a story.

  “Fine. But you can’t tell anyone. Promise me.”

  Brette held up three fingers, Girl-Scout style.

  “Okay. C’mon.” She headed up the stairs, to the kitchen for some warm milk.

  “I’ll order some pizza,” Brette said. “You talk.”

  Ella opened the refrigerator. “It all started when I heard that Gage was going to attempt Terminator Wall, and I mentioned it at our family’s annual New Year’s Eve party. Dylan and his family were there, of course, and I knew he was a snowboarder, so I thought he’d be interested. I never dreamed that three weeks later he’d call me from British Columbia with his crazy plan to get Gage to take him with him. I felt like it was my fault, and that someone had to talk him out of it, so . . . I hopped on a plane . . .”

  3

  THREE YEARS AGO

  Ella had three days to find Gage Watson and talk him into saving Dylan’s life.

  All he had to do was say no. She might be overreacting, underestimating Dylan’s freeriding abilities, but she knew in her gut that if the kid died on the mountain, she would be at least partly to blame.

  Her and her big mouth, waxing on about Gage Watson and his freeriding fame. Not that anyone would truly blame her if Dylan got hurt—after all, he made his own impulsive decisions. But she’d been a little unimpressed by Dylan’s bragging, so she’d sort of put him in his place.

  Which she realized had completely backfired when he told her he was road-tripping to Canada.

  She should have predicted it—after all, she’d seen the look in Dylan’s eyes when she’d pulled up one of Watson’s YouTube videos.

  Even she felt the tug of adrenaline, the hot whirr of danger stirring inside when Watson aimed his board downhill, off the lip of a treacherous, powder-fresh mountain face, a tail of snow, not unlike that of a peacock, flaring behind him.

  Gage Watson had style and sheer guts.

  Whereas Dylan possessed more wannabe than brains or skill, and she dearly hoped her freshly minted trial lawyer skills could convince Gage to walk away from Dylan’s no doubt financially enticing offer.

  That’s what happened when your family ran one of the largest maple-syrup plantations in all of Vermont. All that sugar went straight to the maple prince’s head.

  Probably her own too, because what on earth had possessed her to think she could don a swimsuit in the middle of January, hang out by the steaming pool at the Outlaw Resort, at the base of the best powder in Canada, and somehow attract Gage’s attention?

  Yes, she’d left a message for him at the desk, described herself, and asked him to meet her by the pool. But she hadn’t counted on the level of spring break crazy.

  The resort had built a long chute of snow, and now the snowboarders and skiers alike, dressed in board shorts and stocking caps, wearing their ski gear, raced down the slope and onto the two-story ramp, executing flips and twists before splashing down into the massive pool. Spectators packed three and four deep cheered them on. Country music thrummed against the twilight, girls and guys alike dancing on top of tables, wearing swimsuits, UGGs, and stocking caps. Barbecue ribs sizzling on two huge pits set up in the snow stirred the area with the aroma of celebration.

  The pre-party to the Outlaw Freeriding Championships.

  Ella stood next to the pool, scanning the crowd, then the jumpers, for any sign of Gage Watson.

  Occasionally, her gaze landed on the door. She’d worn a flannel shirt over her one-piece, along with a pair of fuzzy sheepskin UGGs, and had never felt more ridiculous.

  A boarder dressed in a furry Russian-style shopka and long johns bumped into her, sloshing his beverage over her. The liquid, cold and bracing on her skin, made her jump away.

  “Sorry, sweetie,” he said and actually looked like he might lift his hand and wipe it across her legs.

  She caught his reach. “Not your sweetie.”

  He rolled his eyes, bounced away.

  Even if Gage were here, she could bet he wouldn’t be in the mood to have a serious conversation with her. She should simply call up the front desk, maybe order a pizza sent to his room with an offer to meet her, platonically, in the lounge for a conversation.

  She was very good at conversations. This party angle—not her best strategy.

  She started to move through the crowd, working her way out of traffic, when she heard the yell.

  Off to her left, a scream, more like a war whoop, raised the hairs on her neck as she turned to find the source.

  A mass of boarders fresh out of the giant hot tub, dashing for the pool.

  The sound gave her a millisecond of warning, however, enough to lift her arms in protection before the horde hit.

  They rushed past her, turned her around, and she stumbled.

  “Hey!”

  An elbow smashed into her face, and in a flash of pain she fell back, arms windmilling.

  She hit the water on her back. Her feet crested over her head, and suddenly she was head-down in the water.

  Feet kicked her, bodies trapped her, hands pushed her under.

  Breathe!

  She punched out, connected with a body, and managed to get her feet under her.

  Clawed for the surface.

  A foot bashed her in the side and she gasped, her mouth opening.

  She sucked water, hard, into her lungs. She doubled over, the world turning white even as she fought, pushing—

  She found the surface, began to cough, trying to sight the edge of the pool, but another random kick pushed her under.

  Panic made her rabid. She fought for air amidst the bodies.

  At once,
an arm curled around her waist like a vise. She clawed at it, but her rescuer kicked hard, lifting her.

  Her face broke the surface, and she hauled in air. But she coughed it out, retching as her rescuer hauled her to the edge of the pool.

  Hands pulled her up and out, and she sat on the deck, gulping air.

  “Give her room!” someone yelled a second before a man crouched in front of her. He cut his voice low. “You’re okay. Just breathe.”

  Water dripped from his brown, curly hair, which was nearly shoulder length and pushed back from his forehead. He was in his jeans and wore a dark shirt that was now plastered to his lean torso, outlining his sculpted shoulders. A platinum snowboarder pendant hung gleaming from his neck, the Freeriding World Championship logo imprinted on the front.

  And if that wasn’t the first clue, the layer of brown whiskers that outlined those enticing lips, the dark brown eyes, filled with mystery and danger, and the tiny cut over his left eyebrow told her exactly who’d rescued her.

  Gage Watson.

  She couldn’t speak, and Gage took her hands in his. “You’re shaking.”

  More than that, her entire body trembled, so violently it shook her grip right out of his.

  He somehow procured a towel, wrapped it around her.

  Then, he didn’t even ask before he bent down and simply picked her up.

  Just like that. Holding her against his sopping chest as he headed through the deck doors toward the two-story fireplace of the Outlaw lounge.

  Now, she really couldn’t breathe. Because she’d harbored a crazy fan crush on Gage Watson since he’d taken that run down Heaven’s Peak, posted it on YouTube, landed on the cover of Snowboarder magazine, and with those brown eyes and renegade smile pretty much cajoled her heart right out of her chest and around his little finger.

  He set her down on a worn leather sofa, tucked the towel in around her, and motioned to someone nearby. “Can we get some hot cocoa here?”

  Then he turned back to her and smiled. “Are you going to live?”

  With the warmth igniting inside her? Um, probably. She swallowed, her hand on her chest, finally able to nod.

  “I was looking for you when I saw you go in the water,” he said. “I’m sorry I was late. I got your note but had a little trouble finding you in the crowd.”