“I know,” Sierra said. She slid off the stool. “I was there.”
She didn’t offer more, just walked away, and Brette looked at Ty. He pursed his lips, then leaned down, pitching his voice low. “Sierra used to be his personal assistant.”
Oh. Interesting. Brette turned back to her soup. “So, besides the flood rescue, the grizzly attacks, and the search for lost kids in the park, what other epic adventures has this team had?”
Ty just kept wiping the counter and didn’t answer her.
“Ty?”
He glanced over at her, shook his head. “I can’t think of any more.”
She frowned. His tone was just . . . off.
And that’s when the door opened, sweeping the weather into the room along with a wide-shouldered blond, his hair in strings around his face. He wore a gray jacket, a pair of snow-crusted pants.
“Hey, guys. I just got a call from Jess. We have a family whose Caravan went off the road. She was driving by when she saw it and is wondering if we can get them out of the ditch. Jess is already there—it’s not far from the ski hill.”
He stood in the doorway, just a little larger than life. Thor, in the flesh. And he had the grim, one-sided smile to go with it.
“That’s Pete Brooks,” Ty said quietly.
Pete Brooks. The guy who had rescued the kids from a grizzly bear—she remembered Ty mentioning that.
Here, maybe, was a man with a story.
“I’ll go. We can take my truck,” Ben offered and got up and pushed past Pete, heading outside.
“You need more help?” Ty asked.
“We got this,” Pete said, glancing at him. Something in his expression . . . Brette couldn’t read it, but it was definitely there. A chill, perhaps. A glancing blow of dismissal.
“Stay here and wait to hear from Gage,” Kacey said to Ty. She got up and followed Ben out.
Ty nodded, glanced away. And something in his expression definitely said he’d been benched.
“I was the main pilot before Kacey got here.”
She couldn’t erase the sense that the greatest story of all had something to do with handsome yet quiet Ty Remington. The only question was . . . how to get him to tell it.
The sky had turned pewter gray, and the clouds were low and oppressive as icy snow flew from the sky and whirled into the back of Ella’s jacket and down her neck as she fought to stay in Gage’s line.
Two hard hours of skiing and she wanted to weep with the pain in her legs, the way they trembled. Sweat lined her helmet, and when she spied Gage waiting for her in the alcove of a wall of granite, she wanted to cry out in relief.
Collapse in a heap.
She’d never skied so hard in her entire life. She couldn’t bear to ask if Gage was pulling back or going easy on her.
She pulled up to him, breathing hard, the snow falling so thick around him that it accumulated on his jacket collar, turning his dark whiskers into a fine film of ice.
“The tracks are disappearing and it’s starting to get dangerous,” he said as he pulled off his goggles. Snowflakes caught in his lashes. “Even if I flick on my head lamp, I can’t find a good line. I need to see farther down the hill. I think we need to stop.”
“But we’re not at the cave.”
“I know. We’re still a good hour away, probably. And between us and the cave is the Weeping Wall. We can’t take that in the dead of night. The day is dropping away fast—I need to set up camp.”
She looked at him, then around. “Where, here?”
“We’re on a little ledge, protected from the wind. This is a good place.”
“Did you bring a tent?”
“I have a two-man bivvy. It’ll be cozy, but it’s an expedition tent, made for high-altitude camping. And I’ll anchor us into the rock.”
She’d promised to trust him, but oh, how she’d hoped to spend the night in a cozy cave instead of anchored to the side of a cliff. “What do you want me to do?”
“Hold my pack while I pitch camp.” Gage took it off as she clicked out of her bindings, set up her board, and hunkered down to hold his pack. He put on a headlamp and shined light on his progress as he used her shovel to dig out a foundation for them. Then he pulled out the tent contained in a tiny five-pound pack. It snapped open as he released it, and he set it in to the area, tacking down the snow stakes deep into the pack. Then he zipped open the door.
“I’ll secure our boards and the tent, you get inside, unpack, and get some snow melting. There’s a stove in my pack.”
She threw his pack in, then sat at the edge of the tent and pulled off her boots, bringing them inside with her. Her feet ached, and she rubbed them as he closed the door.