Free Fall

by Jill Shalvis

  “Don’t worry, I’ll radio them.”

  When she’d gone, Lily used her phone to get the latest weather report, then stood up and addressed her staff. “Okay, listen up. The highways are still closed, including the 80 from the summit to Verdi. Snow’s still coming down, obviously, thick and wet. Sierra cement, our favorite. According to the radar, we should get a break in an hour or so for a while, enough to open the 80 for a bit, anyway.” She looked at Logan, and he knew she was thinking about him getting to the airport. “At that time, people will be able to get out, and the new guests in. Expect mass confusion and grumpiness from all corners.”

  “Even yours?”

  Lily lifted a brow at Chris. “Want a double shift?”

  “Jeez, just kidding.” Chris lowered his cap and went back to shoveling in food.

  Lily pushed away her untouched tray and moved to leave, but Logan grabbed her hand. “Come on, sit down and eat.”

  “I’m too busy—”

  “Eat.” Not taking no for an answer, he tugged her down next to him and put her tray back in front of her.

  On the pretense of stroking back a strand of hair, he outlined her ear with his finger. She’d run a Sno-Cat today, operated a huge snowblower and shoveled as much snow as he had. “You’re pushing yourself pretty hard.”

  A shoulder jerked. “Not really.”

  “Lily.”

  Her eyes closed a moment, and then she looked at him, really looked at him, and he saw what he’d been looking for. A devastating flash of emotion that would have brought him to his knees if he’d been standing. “Ah, Lily—”

  “Don’t,” she whispered furiously. “Damn it, don’t say a word or I’ll lose it. I mean it.” She shoved another bite in and looked straight ahead as she chewed, chasing the food down with his water. Then she shoved the tray back and stood. “Let’s go, ace. We have more snow removal to do.”

  He figured that was the only invitation he was going to get to stick close. Together they took one of the Sno-Cats and worked on clearing the closed section of the entrance road. Inside the cat, they were high above the ground, in two bucket seats, surrounded by controls that he knew nothing about but that Lily worked as if she’d been born to it. The air was warm and close, the heater blasting, the windows half-fogged. They stripped out of their jackets and gloves, then Lily went back to working the controls with the same quiet, fierce intensity with which she’d made love to him only hours before.

  “You know, much as you keep clearing, it’s going to keep falling,” he said lightly, hoping for a smile.

  She just shot him a long glance before going back to clearing as if her life depended on it. They’d already rescued no less than six stranded cars and were working on clearing the parking lot to unstrand a whole bunch more when the radio chirped with word that the 80 had just opened and wasn’t expected to stay that way for long.

  “This is your chance to get out,” she said to the window.

  Outside, the snow had stopped falling, for now, but everything around them—the roads, the trees, the signs—was a solid, frozen white wonderland, clear and ice-cold. Lily pulled to a hut in the parking lot, and though she hit the brake, she did not turn off the cat. “Better hurry.” There was a hint of impatience in her voice.

  He looked at her, astonished. “You want me to hurry and leave?”

  “You have a flight, damn it. You need to go. Now. I cleared a path for your rental car.”

  “So this whole damn thing, the whole last six hours of mind-numbing work and effort, was so that you could get me out?”

  “Yes.”

  He was stunned.

  “Well, what’s so strange about that? You have to go.”

  “Yeah, I do. You know, I figure there’s two possible reasons for this. You’re either tired of me…” She didn’t move, didn’t even blink. “…or you’re more terrified of what we’ve shared than I thought.”

  She stared at him for another beat, then turned straight ahead again, giving away nothing except the fact she was chewing on her lower lip. “This is a bad time to discuss this.”

  “Scared,” he decided, lifting a brow when she whipped her head to him, piercing him with a look.

  “I’m not.” She said this through her teeth. “I’ve told you, nothing scares me.”

  Uh-huh. Except, he was guessing, anything that even remotely resembled matters of the heart. Well, welcome to the club, sweetheart. He hadn’t been lonely before he’d met her, and hadn’t felt particularly unfulfilled.

  But even after just a week with this woman, he knew he’d been changed forever. “Something this good isn’t worth doing only halfway, Lily.” The words and the intent behind them no longer surprised him. Having feelings for someone didn’t have to be a burden.

  Not with someone like Lily.

  “Tell me you haven’t forgotten this was just for fun,” she said.

  “Why? So you can walk away from this, no regrets? Just chalk it up to another fun time had by all?”

  “Logan…what choice do we have?”

  “There are always choices. Always,” he said softly, looking right at her, through her, to the scared woman inside. “All you have to do is want it bad enough. Deep down you know that, you’ve lived like that. Lily.” Squeezing her fingers with his, he reached up and touched her face with his free hand. “I don’t want to let this go.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. “It’s only been a week.”

  “Exactly. I want more. Let’s go with this thing, see where it takes us.”

  “You’re going back to Ohio. Avery long way away.”

  “That’s not a good enough reason to walk away.”

  “It is for me.” And she hopped out of the cat.

  LILY TOOK TWO STEPS OUT OF the cat, sank deep into the snow up to her thighs, swore lavishly, then got back into the machine and met Logan’s gaze. He didn’t want to let this go, she thought in panic. Oh, my God, he really didn’t. “This is crazy. Stupid.”

  She marveled at that for a moment as she warmed back up. She’d let him see the real her this week. She’d let him because she hadn’t seen the danger in it. And now he’d seen her, faults and all, and he still wanted her. The unbelievable draw of that began to lure her in, and her breath hitched. “This isn’t a nice joke.”

  “It’s not a joke at all. I know what’s eating you.”

  “Do you? Do you really?”

  “You think you have to keep everything fun and light. You think you have to fight all emotional ties because they bind, they restrict. But I don’t want to hold you back or tell you what you should and shouldn’t do. You’re a grown woman, a beautiful, smart, incredible woman, and I want you just the way you are.”

  “Why?”

  He blinked. “Why?”

  “You’ve told me yourself you don’t do deep relationships. After raising your siblings and then doing the sort of work you do, having someone want you on a daily basis is too much like a burden.”

  “I didn’t say that,” he said. “I never called love a burden.”

  “It was implied.”

  “Okay, I’ll agree, it can be, if it’s done one-sided. I’ve seen too much of that, Lily. Too many of my close friends burned because of unrealistic expectations. But that’s not what I’m interested in here. I want a strong, independent woman who has her own goals and dreams, ones that don’t depend on mine but can mesh with them.”

  “My life wouldn’t mesh with anyone’s.”

  “It would if you wanted it to.”

  And wasn’t that just the crux. Her heart was beating hard and unnaturally heavy. “I’ve never wanted it to.”

  “Me, either. Before you.”

  Oh, God. The oddest feeling came over her, as if someone was dangling this big, fat, beautiful carrot in front of her, close enough to reach.

  But what if it was poisonous? What if it grew teeth and bit her?

  Then he capped her panic. “I think I’m falling in love with you,
Lily.”

  Her mouth fell open. But it was the oddest thing, she still couldn’t breathe.

  “I wasn’t looking for you, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I found you.”

  Her throat burned and she shook her head, trying one last time to reason with him. “Easy words.”

  “You think so?” His eyes glittered with temper now. “You think they’re just flying out of my mouth?”

  “Okay, maybe easy was the wrong word. Dangerous.”

  “No, my job is dangerous. Your job is dangerous. That’s just a fact. What I’m feeling for you has nothing to do with any of that. You can’t die from it.”

  Then why did her heart ache so badly she felt as though she was going to?

  “Look, Lily, I came here feeling restless. Like maybe I was floundering a bit, but I didn’t know why. I know now.”

  He was killing her slowly. Torturously. Doing exactly what he’d said he wouldn’t. She covered her face with her hands. He was hurting her. “It’s only been six nights. Seven days.” And a thousand memories.

  “Long enough. Something was missing in me before. The most important part. The heart. You, Lily. You were missing.”

  “I don’t want this responsibility.” She had too much already.

  “My feelings aren’t your responsibility, and you know it. Stop finding excuses.”

  She dropped her hands from her face. “What happened? Why couldn’t we keep it light and easy and fun like we wanted?”

  He lifted a shoulder. A guy’s response.

  “This is asinine.”

  “Not exactly the reaction I was going for.”

  “I know that,” she said to his grim face. “I’m sorry. Give me a minute, my heart is in my throat.”

  But before she got her minute, her radio squawked.

  Sara’s voice filled the compartment. “Lily. Oh, my God, Lily. Matt’s missing.”

  “What?”

  There were panicked tears in Sara’s voice. “He and Debbie went out on snowmobiles. Debbie came back for lunch, thinking Matt was right behind her, but he didn’t show up. No one’s seen him, and he’s not answering his radio.”

  “We’ll be right there.” Lily shoved the cat into gear for the short journey to the lodge entrance, not realizing until she put her foot on the accelerator that she’d automatically united her and Logan as a unit by saying “we.”

  15

  LILY COULD HARDLY DRIVE THE Sno-Cat, and it had nothing to do with the fact that more snow had fallen in a single twelve-hour period then she’d ever seen, or that it was still snowing.

  It had everything to do with a few little, harmless words that when strung together equaled terror. Logan thought he was falling in love with her. Love. The weight of that felt too heavy, far too heavy a load for her to carry.

  The snow was coming down harder now and Matt was out there in it. She figured Sara was overreacting as usual, that he could be back already, but she searched the area for him anyway, as she drove toward the front of the lodge. She glanced over at Logan. Did he really almost love her? She couldn’t stop the words from repeating themselves in her head, or the low but thoroughly riveting tone in his voice when he’d said them.

  Utter confidence. Complete belief.

  Her heart hadn’t stopped pounding since. What if she was falling, too? She couldn’t think of anything worse because love would ruin everything. No matter what he’d promised, there’d be expectations, frustration. Hurt.

  As she pulled up to the front of the lodge, Sara raced down the stone steps toward her. Only a narrow strip had been shoveled, and Lily nearly swallowed her heart at how quickly and carelessly Sara moved on the slick path, without a coat or a hat, or even the right boots. Lily hopped out and jammed her own beanie on her sister’s head. “Are you crazy?” She wrapped her nice and toasty jacket around Sara, as well. “And you call me irresponsible.”

  “He’s hurt, I just know it.”

  “Okay, take it easy. Who did Debbie leave him up there with?”

  “Himself.” This from Debbie as she came down the steps. Unlike Sara, she was dressed for the weather, but her eyes, usually cool and sardonic, were filled with worry.

  “Damn it,” Lily said. “It’s against the rules to be up there alone.”

  “Since when do you care about the rules?” Sara cried. “Just find him.”

  The words felt like a hard one-two punch to the stomach. Since when do you care about the rules? How many damn years had she been respectable, responsible, and still, still she got no credit for it? She’d brood over that good and hard, but it would have to be later, when Matt was back safe and sound, when Logan was out of her heart and she was alone to lick her wounds in private.

  Sara covered her own face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  “Forget it.”

  “No, I won’t. I can’t. I’m just so damn scared.” Reaching out, she hugged Lily hard. “I know you’ve changed. I know it drives you crazy when we treat you like a baby. I do it all the time, and yet here I am asking you to save my life.”

  “Matt’s.”

  “He is my life.” A sob escaped her and Lily felt her heart crack.

  “We’ll find him.”

  “I love him ridiculously, Lily. Just like I love you. Go save my foolish husband for me. Like only you can.”

  “Tell me what you know,” Lily said to Debbie.

  “I wanted to ride before I left,” Debbie said. “No one else could take me out, you were all busy.”

  “Working,” Lily said. “You might want to try it sometime.”

  Debbie stared at her, then nodded in silent acknowledgement of the barb hitting home. “He took me to the top. He wanted to go down Sunrise Row to see how great the powder skiing would be for tomorrow, or whenever you got the lifts going again. But he didn’t come back.”

  “And now I can’t get him on the radio.” Sara’s teeth were chattering. “What are we going to do?”

  “You’re going to go back inside,” Lily said. “I’m going up there to go look for him. Get on the radio and pull staff in from snow removal to get on the search, as well. Tell them what you told me about where he was last seen, and that he was solo.” She glared at Debbie, who shocked her by looking so miserable that Lily didn’t say what was on her mind but instead turned away.

  Debbie grabbed her wrist. “Tell me you can find him.”

  “I can find him.”

  “I’m sorry, Lily.”

  “Just go get warm.”

  Lily wasn’t surprised when Logan followed her to the garage and got on a snowmobile next to her. He slid his helmet on and smiled grimly. “Looks like it’s still an us thing.”

  “Looks that way.” She started her snowmobile and thought, And it feels good. Scary good.

  So much to think about. Too much for now. The snow was like a thick, blinding curtain that she wished she could shove out of her way. Their window between snowfalls had turned out to be much shorter than expected. It was late afternoon now, not that she could tell given how dull the daylight was. White, white, white everywhere, and depth perception was long gone. But she knew this mountain like the back of her hand, and took the first hill, pausing at the top.

  “There!” Logan had to shout over the roar of the engines when he stopped next to her. “See those faint tracks?”

  “The snowfall is taking them out.”

  “We’ll have to hurry,” he agreed.

  They climbed the next hill, higher now. With the lifts still and nobody around, things seemed strangely alien. Lily looked around, and at the lack of any tracks or sign of Matt, at the snow falling, dumping, she felt a building frustration, and a fear. Debbie had turned around here—they could just make out her tracks going back down.

  So where was Matt? He knew how hormonal Sara was, and even befuddled by those hormones, he always catered to her feelings and respected them.

  That he hadn’t been in touch was a bad sign. “Okay, down Sunrise Row. Debbie said that was
his plan. He’s not big on plans, but maybe this time he stuck to his.”

  “Wait.” Logan reached out and grabbed her arm when she would have gone on. “There. See? I think he went up higher here, not down.”

  She studied the ground and saw what she’d missed. Sunken tracks nearly completely hidden by fresh snowfall to their left, a trail that would have taken Matt around and up the next hill.

  “Come on.” Logan let go of her arm and steered his snowmobile after the tracks. It was tough going with so much powder. The snowmobiles were forced to work extra hard, and it took all Lily’s concentration not to get stuck. At the top of the next hill, the highest accessible point of the mountain, there were indeed faint tracks.

  The incline was sharp and slippery here. Dangerous. If they stayed on one of the high drifts, they could get bogged down in all the powder and end up stuck, something Lily knew from experience could take forever to dig out of. But if they stayed on the sides where the snow hadn’t stuck to the packed ice, they faced a slide.

  By mutual consent, they risked the drifts. After a few moments, they came close to a jutting peak, not too far from where they’d rescued Pete. Logan gestured to Lily to stay back, then veered toward it himself. “Logan, no!”

  But he was gone.

  “Damn it.” She leaped off her snowmobile and sank into snow nearly up to her thighs. Swearing, she climbed back on and took it as close to the edge as she dared, sagging with relief when she saw Logan still on his snowmobile, about fifteen feet ahead and down the lip of the face. Only feet from the sharp drop-off. “Logan, careful!”

  He couldn’t possibly hear her over the roar of the engines and the helmet on his head. Heart in her throat, she went after him, praying the snowmobiles held their traction.

  Ahead of her, Logan slowed his, then came to a stop. Leaping off, he sank into the snow.

  She hopped off, too, practically had to swim through the thick powder toward him.

  “He drove along the ridge far ahead,” he said. “See?”

  “But that’s suicide.”

  “It is to you, because you know the terrain and you know how unstable and dangerous the snow and ice are. But Matt isn’t a ski patroller. He’s not out here every day. He doesn’t know.”