He tilted his head. “Pretty rough.”
“Same.”
“Wanna sit?” He scooted over on the seat enough to allow her room.
“Gina said I have to ride back in the toboggan,” she said as she moved to the seat next to him.
“Yep. Me too. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”
For a moment, neither of them said anything. It was the good kind of silence, the kind they’d found somewhere during the training run and when the poachers tried to kill them and they were hiding out, the kind that didn’t require filling.
“I was wrong,” she said.
He turned his head to look at her.
“I realize now, when you were upset—”
“Steph— ”
“No, wait. I’m trying to say, I understand why you were upset. After you told me about Celeste, it made sense. You had every right to be upset. I’ll admit, I wish you had handled it differently, but I get it. And with the way things were and how you were exhausted...”
“It’s no excuse for yelling at you the way I did.” He reached for her hand, his touch sending a jolt of electricity through her, even through their gloves. “I’ll do better...if you’ll give me a chance.”
“I’d like that.” Her stomach did a little flip-flop.
He was quiet for a moment before saying, “I spent years building a life that didn’t require anything from anyone. Told myself it was simpler.” He looked straight ahead. “Simpler isn’t the same as better. I’ve understood that for a while. I just needed to say it.”
He turned toward her fully. Something had settled in his face, the look of a man who had made a decision and was living inside it now rather than approaching it. “I want to plan a race with you.”
She held his gaze, unsure of what to say.
“Something real. A proper event, the kind you’ve been trying to build, in whatever location you choose. I’m not going to ask Liam for the money. I’ll figure out another way. This one should be yours, the way it was supposed to be. I just want to help build it.”
She opened her mouth.
“Maybe our survival story gets out.” Something shifted on his face that was the closest thing to a grin she’d seen from him in the last several hours. “We might make a mint on a book deal.”
She laughed. The sound of it surprised her a little, loose and genuine, the kind of laugh that came from somewhere real. “I actually know just the person for that.”
“Yeah?”
“Joe Monroe. He’s a journalist and writes for several outlets. He told the story when some of my running club members were held captive in Bearwater. He told Brooke’s story, too, when she nearly died. He’s good at telling the stories that matter. Maybe not a book deal, but something. He’d know what to do with it.”
“I know Monroe. He interviewed me.”
“Besides,” she said, and she could hear something in her own voice that she wasn’t quite ready to examine out loud but was done hiding from herself, “I have some money put aside for something else. Maybe I won’t need it for that after all.”
He looked at her with the attentive stillness she’d come to recognize, the quality of a man who heard more than the words and was waiting to understand what the more was.
She didn’t explain it. Not yet. There were things that needed to happen in the right order, and this wasn’t the moment for all of it. If this worked—and sitting here beside Jack, she let herself believe it might—then the clock she’d been listening to for years had somewhere real to go.
Not alone. Not the careful, single-handed version of the future she’d been planning.
With him.
She wasn’t giving anything up. That was the part she’d been wrong about for months...years, even. Choosing Jack didn’t cost her the running club or the college or the races or the independent life she’d built and was proud of. He was part of the same world. He understood it from the inside. He’d match her pace and follow her line and trust her read and be there when the terrain got hard.
She’d been so certain that letting someone matter meant losing something, losing a part of herself. She’d almost married Chris, but had called it off because that’s how it would’ve been with him. Not because of who Chris was, he was a good guy and perfect in many ways, but because of whoshewas. As good as Chris was, he wasn’t the right guy for Steph.
