“Her name was Celeste.”
Jack didn’t dare look at her. If he did, he might lose his nerve and clam up. Staring straight ahead made it easier to say what needed to be said. He could keep his composure instead of shutting down the way he wanted to or filling the space with words he didn’t need to say.
“We were together for about a year and a half. A good year and a half. I had a ring picked out. Hadn’t bought it yet, but I knew what I wanted and what she would want.” He paused.
“We met my last year of college. She came to a cross-country event with a friend, and we hit it off. When I started training for the 50K, thinking I might be able to make that work, she moved with me for coaching. She was always there, supporting me and loving me. She was the first person I looked for when I crossed the finish line, and her smile never disappointed me.”
His chest tightened at the memory of Celeste’s smile, how she’d throw her arms up and call his name, the sound gentler than it had any right to be.
“There was a race. One that probably should’ve been called because of the weather. Ithought about not going, but the rest of the team was still competing so I rode up with them, but she needed to drive herself. About halfway, we all knew going had been a mistake, but we were committed by then. The roads were too bad. It was too slick. Too dangerous. Once we got there, I called Celeste and told her not to come. Told her not to risk it.”
Jack swallowed the lump in his throat. “She told me she’d stay at the hotel. That she’d see me when I got back, and she’d be cheering the entire time, even if she wasn’t there.”
He heard Steph’s breath shift slightly.
“I don’t know what changed, if she planned to come up and surprise me at the finish line, to be there like she always was, or...I don’t know. Maybe she intended to drive up the entire time and just told me what she thought I needed to hear. Supporting me was important to her. That was who she was. That was Celeste. That was how she was built.” Jack swallowed and cleared his throat. “She slid off the road. She didn’t survive the crash.”
The wind moved through the tops of the trees above them, and snow came down in thin curtains from the branches and settled onto the ground.
“I told her to stay at the hotel. To wait there, where it was warm and safe. She didn’t. I’ve been living with that for a long time.”
He hadn’t said any of that out loud in years. Not to Liam, who knew the story through mutual friends. Not to anyone. Time had changed the hurt, but not enough. Her death was the main reason he’d changed from the Nordic 50K to the biathlon. Skiing was still hard and built around Celeste’s memories, but at least he didn’t look for her at the finish line. Not always, anyway.
After his shoulder injury and knowing he’d never be the kind of competitor needed to make the Olympics, he thought moving to Wyoming would give him a fresh start. Maybe a way to think of Celeste less.
“When you came back for me, all I could think of was Celeste. You walked toward something dangerous because that’s who you are. Every calculation you made, every reason it was the right call, none of that is what I saw.” He turned his head and looked at her directly. “What I saw was Celeste.”
Steph was looking at him. Her expression was not what he’d expected. Not sympathetic, exactly. Something morecareful than that, the look of someone taking in information and sitting with it before they decided what to do with it.
“I overreacted. What you did was skilled and brave, and it worked. You were right, and I was wrong. I knew it before I finished saying the words, and I said them anyway because the fear was already out and I couldn’t pull it back. That’s not an excuse. It’s what happened.”
She dropped her gaze. Jack’s heart dropped along with it. He told her why he did what he did, but that didn’t make it any better. That didn’t take the sting of the words away.
He turned back to the trees. Telling her was still the right thing to do. The truth was out there now, and he couldn’t change that, not that he wanted to.
“I’ve been telling myself for years that the careful life was working,” he said, looking back at her. “No room for anyone. No risk of it. Keep everything simple.” He exhaled slowly. “Then I pulled you off a street in Irma and you looked up at me from the sidewalk, and something changed. Something I couldn’t put words to then, but I’m starting to understand now.”
She lifted her gaze, and he caught something in it. Something brief and unreadable.
“You are not Celeste. I know that. I knew it when I was freaking out, but it didn’t change anything. All I could think of was, here I was again, Jack Swisher putting a woman he cared for in danger. But knowing and feeling aren’t the same thing, and I’m still working on how they are different.”
He paused and let out a sigh. “You deserved better than what I gave you out there. You saved my life, and Ithanked you by calling you careless. That was wrong. I’m sorry.”
Steph held his gaze. Even in the dark, the night’s wear showed on her, wind-burned skin, exhaustion, along with that sharp focus. She was beautiful. Breathtakingly so.
She didn’t say anything.
He didn’t push it. He’d said what needed saying, and the rest was hers to do with what she would. He turned back to the tree line and brought the rifle back up, watching the timber and the open snow between the trees and the approach from every direction he could cover.
The machine sounds stayed distant. The night sky was beginning to lighten. It wouldn’t be long before darkness gave way. The sun might bring welcome warmth, but it’d also make things far more dangerous if they were still out there, still hiding.
None of that mattered right now. What mattered was that his wrapped feet were holding their heat, his fingers were wrapped, his wrists were bandaged, and he was crouched among the rocks in the Wyoming wilderness with Steph Pierce, with the most honest thing he’d said in years hanging in the cold air between them.
Chapter 35
Steph
Steph recalled reading something about loss in Jack’s past when she was researching him, but the details had been vague. College girlfriend died in a car accident. She didn’t read anything about the guilt that stuck with Jack or how he blamed himself.
