Page 50 of Mountain Trial

I’m also not giving you any excuse to run away.

“I don’t know what to say, Luc.”

“You don’t need to say anything. Let’s enjoy the evening―we can speak about this later.”

Kat nodded quickly, taking a nervous sip of her wine. Luc didn’t want to scare her, but he needed her to know he was serious. If she didn’t see herself with him, that was something she was going to have to decide for herself.

They made their way around the enormous ballroom, which had been decked out in red, green and gold for the occasion. Fragrant flower arrangements peered out from every available surface. Above them, enormous crystal chandeliers glimmered, bathing the room in the softest light.

As time went on, most people started gathering closer to the kitchen, eager to sample the delicious trays of food being passed around by the waiters. Luc and Kat settled in the area in the middle of the ballroom, where the stage had been set up.

A beautiful young woman dressed in an emerald green gown walked by. Kat’s eyes lit up with happiness.

“Tess! You look amazing!” She turned to him again. “Luc, this is my friend, Tess. She helped me choose my dress.”

“She’s got great taste, then,” Luc said, laughing.

“And you've already met her husband, Damien,” Kat said, pointing towards the man coming up behind them.

Like Kat, it was clear the man was working tonight. His eyes roamed the room, never staying in the same place for long.

He offered his hand to Luc and shook it firmly. “Luc, a pleasure to see you again."

“The speeches will be starting soon. Will you be speaking tonight?” Tess asked Luc.

Luc laughed, shaking his head. “Only the two winners get to go up on stage and hold up the check. Second and third-place checks are sent by mail.”

He wasn’t about to tell them he’d be donating his check right back to ABL International, to support their work.

Kat’s smile dimmed a bit. One of the winners was of course her ex-boyfriend, Jacques Peres. It was difficult to keep thinking about him as Helmet, now that he’d apologized to Kat, but the man still repelled him. It made him ill to imagine a man hitting any woman, but the thought that somebody had done that to Kat ―

His gut roiled.

Kat seemed to sense it and grabbed his hand, subtly bringing Luc back to the present.

“My friend Scott will be speaking. He’s funnier than me―he’ll do a better job.”

“I hate speeches,” Damien grumbled under his breath.

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” his wife chided him, smiling.

Half an hour later, Luc had to side with Damien. So far, two people had spoken: the mayor of Chamonix, followed by a lady from ABL International whose name or title Luc couldn’t remember. She’d been the one to hand Jacques and Scott one of those large checks you usually only see on TV. Both men had been on stage for thirty seconds altogether, then ushered down quickly.

Luc was gratified to see Jacques’s embarrassed expression as he walked away with the giant piece of cardboard. Scott, on the other hand, seemed to be having the time of his life.

Next up was Mrs. Larsen. She was a tall, slim woman with ash-blond hair―she looked to be in her early forties, but knowing what he knew about her and her husband, Luc would bet she was closer to sixty. Her voice, when she started speaking, was soft, her English flawless except for a slight rolling of her r’s.

In a matter of seconds, all chatter in the room stopped. She spoke eloquently and calmly about the car accident that had left her teenage son tetraplegic―and about the way the boy had, six months later, taken his own life.

Soon there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

“I can’t go back and change that day―Stian is gone, and that’s set in the resin of time. The only thing my husband and I can do, and we do it out of selfishness, is to keep campaigning for better support for young people going through a life-altering spinal cord injury, so nobody will have to go through what Stian did. My husband unfortunately wasn’t able to make it tonight, but if he were here, he would tell you the same thing I’m telling you―that if we can make a single young person realize that they can live a full, rewarding life after a spinal cord injury, then our efforts will not have been in vain.”

As the woman went on, Luc thought of his own parents. In those first few weeks, when the physical and psychological pain had seemed nearly unmanageable, the thought of ending his own life had crossed his mind once or twice. Thinking now of what it would have done to his parents made his own eyes fill with tears.

Luc looked around the room in an attempt to distance himself from the woman’s words. As he did so, his eye was caught by three waiters standing by the main doors. As he watched, three more came in from the direction of the kitchen. What struck Luc most, in that moment, was the fact that none of them had anything in their hands―there wasn’t a tray or bottle in sight. Luc had been a waiter―though not a particularly good one―for several summers, and if there was one thing he’d learned, it was that waiters never went to or came from the kitchen empty-handed.

That curious fact made him look at the men more closely than he might otherwise have. They were all big, bulky men―not a teenager in sight. But it wasn’t their bulk that worried Luc―it was the hyperaware, flat look in their eyes as they took in the room.