For a long moment, her heart simply slammed against her ribs, watching him. Seeing his grace on the snow, making it look effortless. As he slid, snow cascaded from the top in a shower, sending bullets and a wave of powder in his wake.
Follow my line.
She eased herself forward with a shift in her hips, bounced along to start movement, then found his trail, a beautiful thick crease in the snow. She spread her arms, found her balance, took a full breath.
She refused to glance down, but kept her gaze on the line, glancing at him, some thirty feet ahead. He seemed to be taking it slow, glancing back at her occasionally but setting a steady pace.
His course was easy, wide, no sharp turns, a beautiful rhythm as they rode down the spine into the wild blue yonder. Heat suffused her body as it warmed up to the dance, the swish of the snow like a whisper under her board.
He finally paused in a spray of white when they reached the first chute. She caught up to him, breathing harder than she wanted to admit.
She stared at the chute, trying not to let her breath catch.
The chute spanned maybe twenty feet but dropped down two hundred feet between two thick runnels of granite. It ended at an outcropping of granite, where it disappeared into white space.
She knew from looking at the map and his video that the first fall was nearly forty feet.
“Why are you stopping?”
“There’s another chute, a little further down the ridge. It’s wider, and longer, and no jump.”
She glanced at him, wished she could read his eyes through his goggles. “Won’t that take us off course?”
His mouth tightened in an affirmative nonverbal.
“Why would we do that?”
He looked at her then, a little bit of “really?” in his expression.
And that just added a swirl of heat to her chest. “No. I can do this, Gage. Don’t go slower, don’t pull back because of me.”
His mouth tightened in a tight bud of frustration. “Fine. We’ll stop right above the ledge, just ski under control.”
“In your line,” she said.
His jaw clenched, but he edged forward, the tip of his board over the edge, into air. Seemed to consider his route.
She held her breath. It felt a little like waiting for the needle in a doctor’s office.
With a hop, he lifted off the edge and into the chute.
She watched him go, powder curling up behind his turns like a wave. He moved as if he were dancing, smooth, no hesitation as he caught air off a rise, circling his arms for balance, then landed in a graceful puff of snow. He continued down, and she couldn’t move, caught in the sight of him.
Gage Watson belonged to freeriding. Or rather, freeriding belonged to him. He flew down angles most men—and women—would cling to, terrified.
He caught another jump and this time tucked for a second, and she knew he’d let a part of himself hearken back to the days before the fame. Back to the time when he simply rode powder for the fun of it.
He stopped above the ledge, a tiny prick of gray against the vast white.
She still didn’t move. Because although he’d carved a wide, easy route—probably the easiest through the chute’s jagged rocks—all of a sudden, the what-ifs paralyzed her.
Not unlike the moment when she saw Gage sitting in the hearing and she knew that someone’s life was about to be dismantled. But by then it had gone too far for her to step away.
Please, God, don’t let anyone get hurt.
With a cry that echoed through the chambers of the mountain, she eased forward and launched herself into the white.
He’d made a nice wide arc down the mountain, but she adjusted a little too late, took her leading turn too wide. The next, a countering turn, she anticipated too early, cut it shallow.
Following a line meant staying in the safe zone. Especially on a mountain like Heaven’s Peak that obscured drop-offs and crevasses. And Gage was an artist when it came to creating a line. He looked for ridges and rises, the flow of the snow around landmarks, the chutes that led to air. And air led to flair.
But today, his art was all about staying in the safety zone, and she adjusted her speed as she came up to the first jump. She made the turn, shifted her weight back, then centered it above the board as she lifted off.
Her stomach stayed, but her body soared, and she held her arms out for balance. She hit too soon, surprising herself that she stayed up, found her balance, and curved into the next turn.
She didn’t look at Gage, simply the thick, beautiful line he’d created for her to follow. She squatted into the next turn, rising fast to unweight herself, and turned. His familiar technique rushed back to her. Easy carving in the heavy powder, with pumping turns in the tighter, rolling sections of the run, a quick dart up to a jump, air, and then a sweet, tufted landing.