But Maya's fingers are threaded through mine and I understand, with the clarity that only comes after you've stopped thinking and started knowing, that this is not temporary.
This is real.
28
JACE
The snowmobile sounds like the world clearing its throat.
I twist the throttle and the engine barks, loud and alive, vibrating through my legs and up my spine. We need to get one of this.
I rev it again. Just because.
"Quit playing." Owen's voice, flat, measured, arriving from somewhere behind me where he's straddling his own rental. "Have you read the last email with the deal conditions? Do you have any objections?"
I kill the throttle. The engine settles to an idle, ticking in the cold. The rental lot in Briarhaven is mostly empty, just the three of us and a kid behind the counter who looked half-asleep when we picked up the keys. The sun is low, throwing everything gold, and the mountains behind town are already going blue at the base.
"I read it," I say.
"And?"
I look at Owen. Then at Reid, who's adjusting the mirrors on his machine with the methodical attention he brings to everything, including, apparently, rental snowmobiles that will be returned in four hours.
The deal. The True North buyout. Six months of negotiations that ran through Owen's desk and kept him up past midnight more nights than I could count. The investment fund came back with a final offer last week and I've been sitting with it, turning it over the way I turn over terrain maps before a new route, looking for the drop-off, the hidden crevasse, the thing that looks stable and isn't.
I didn't find one.
They agreed to what matters. Brand direction stays with us. Quality standards are non-negotiable. Production stays national. We keep our roles. Plus board seats. A plan for expansion that doesn't gut what we built to scale it. Owen structured this. And the result is a deal that doesn't ask us to become something we're not. It asks us to become more of what we already are.
Six months ago, I would have fought it. I would have seen the buyout as a leash. As someone else's hand on the throttle.
But six months ago, I didn't have a reason to care about what stays. About what lasts. About building something with a foundation that goes deeper than the next trip.
"I'm on board," I say. "I'm in favor."
I look at Reid. He meets my eyes and nods once, slow, the full weight of the decision in the gesture.
"Done," Owen says. Simply. "I'll contact them on Monday. Lawyers will draw up the paperwork."
Things are changing. The business expanding, and at home a woman that somehow became the center of everything. This past week has been the best week of my life and I don't say that lightly because I've had some exceptional weeks. I've summited ridgesin Alaska and run white water in British Columbia and stood on the edge of a glacial field in Patagonia and felt the kind of freedom that makes your blood sing.
None of it compares to Tuesday morning, when Maya threw a dish towel at my head because I stole the last piece of bacon and Reid laughed, the deep unguarded kind.
We gear up. Helmets, goggles, gloves. The machines are solid, not top-end but well-maintained, and they move clean through the first stretch of packed trail out of town. The three of us in formation. Reid in front, Owen to my left, me on the right with the open line toward the mountain. The last week of March, and the snow is still deep at elevation but soft in the valley, the kind of transitional pack that won't last another two weeks. We don't have much more time to do this. Soon it'll be mud and meltwater and the sleds will go back to wherever rental sleds go when winter ends.
The trail opens up and we climb.
The snow goes from white to gold to copper as the light drops, and the shadows of the pines stretch long and blue across the trail. The air is cold enough to burn the inside of my nose but the machine runs warm between my legs and the vibration is steady and hypnotic.
We crest the ridge and the cabin comes into view below, the lights on, smoke from the chimney.
We ride down. Cut the engines in the driveway.
Maya appears at the door. Sweater, jeans, her hair piled up, a pencil still tucked in her hair bun where she forgot about it. She looks at the three snowmobiles and her eyebrows lift. I am off the sled and crossing the gravel before the engine has fully stopped ticking.
I pick her up. She makes a sound that's half surprise and half the laugh I live for, the involuntary one. I kiss her because she's here and I don't need a better reason than that.
Reid passes us on the steps. "Go put on something warm," he tells her, already heading inside. "Extra layers. We've got a surprise."
