Chapter 10
Jack
Jack had been waiting in his truck for twenty minutes. Driving up, he had an irrational fear that he would miss her, that the road conditions would slow him down and be an issue. As if she didn’t need to take the same snow-packed roads.
When he arrived and didn’t see her SUV, he’d relaxed a little until a new worry cropped up. What if she had a second vehicle? He was looking for the one she’d used to tow the trailer at last weekend’s Jingle Run, but maybe she had something else as a daily driver.
Each time someone returned to their car from playing in the snow, he let out a sigh of relief. He’d been watching a young family sled down a hill near the lot, following them as they made their way back to their crossover. As he watched, lights appeared on the highway.
He held his breath until the vehicle came into view. A wide smile spread across his face when he realized it was a full-size SUV, the same color as Steph’s rig.
“Showtime,” he muttered to himself as he stepped out of his truck and started getting his gear together.
Take it slow, he told himself. Give her time to get parked and do her thing. Then fake surprise. And play it cool.
He moved the trekking poles from his left hand to his right and looked down the road like a man who was simply enjoying the scenery and not at all watching for a specific vehicle. For a specific person.
It hadn’t taken much. After the Jingle Run, after she’d mentioned the overnight training run and then gone quiet about it, he’d gone back to the videos he’d found before.
There were several of them—interviews, club updates, a short documentary someone had done on the Basin County Running Club two years back.
He’d watched them before, for business reasons, but this time, he paid attention to different things.
The way she talked about preparation. The routes she favored.
What she said about mimicking race conditions as closely as possible.
One video wasn’t about her specifically, but about winter endurance racers in general.
Steph had been interviewed about how she trained.
Then he’d found the coffee shop owned by Brooke Davies, who worked the registration table at the Jingle Run.
Steph had mentioned Brooke owned Irma Brew and was running an ultra in a few months.
She’d used Brooke as a specific example for not starting serious training too soon.
That was when Jack realized Steph had no idea he was registered for The Frozen Divide.
Early Wednesday morning, he drove into Irma from Elkridge and stopped by the coffee shop. Brooke hadn’t been there. A woman named Becky had, and Becky was the kind of person who enjoyed a conversation with a stranger.
By the time he’d finished his cappuccino and scone, she’d told him about the running club, about Steph’s training plans, which were apparently something of a legend not only among club members but with the town of Irma, and how she’d talked to Steph just the day before about her plans to head up to Silver Mane’s Lodge on Saturday for a nighttime run.
Small-town living made information gathering considerably easier than he was used to. Too easy, maybe.
It was also the kind of thing worth paying attention to from a security standpoint.
If he could walk into a coffee shop and learn someone’s weekend plans, so could someone else.
He figured that was one of the reasons the recent issues in Basin County had been so easy to pull off. People loved to talk.
He pushed that thought aside and focused on the SUV. The driver was still inside, so he couldn’t be sure it was Steph, though the racing of his heart told him it had to be.
Why he was there, waiting by his car in the cold, was simple: he felt an irrational, unwelcome need to make sure Steph didn’t head into the dark alone.
Things had been too weird lately for her to be out there alone in the middle of the night. The timing of the run meant none of her usual running group was available to join her, and as Becky said, most of them weren’t cut out for a nighttime run in the snow.
“She’s a winter warrior,” Becky had said. “There aren’t many like her.”
Jack figured that since he was also signed up for The Frozen Divide, he was the most likely person to be out there and could prevent her from running alone. He told himself that was the only reason.
He was still telling himself that when the driver’s door opened.
Jack fiddled with the waist belt of his pack, focusing on it much longer than necessary, his heart pounding even harder.
When he looked up, she was staring at him.
He raised a hand. “Hey.”
She didn’t move toward him, just stood next to her SUV with her hand still on the door, eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
“Trail run.” He gestured toward the barricade across the road. “You know, I’ve heard about this place and have been wanting to get out here before the season gets too far along. It’s supposed to be amazing. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. Is it? Amazing, I mean?”
Smooth, Swisher.
“You’ve been wanting to get out here?”
“Yeah.”
“To run in the snow?”
“Well . . . yeah.”
“And this is the place you decided to show up?” She gestured with her arm. “At the end of the day?”
“It seemed like it would meet my needs.”
“Mm-hmm. And it’s only a coincidence that we’re both here at the same time?”
“Basin County’s not that big.”
“No, it isn’t.” She didn’t look convinced.
He tried for something more natural. “I read about using this area for winter training. Made sense to check it out.”
“You read about it.”
“Yeah. Saw videos too. And I thought, why not?”
She held his gaze for a moment, and he had the uncomfortable feeling she could see more than he was showing her. The sigh she released was loud enough for him to hear. She dropped her shoulders and shook her head as she went to the trunk of the SUV and popped it open.
Steph pulled a fully loaded, tarped sled out of the back. She crouched to check the tow bar connections, rocked the sled to test its balance, and seemed satisfied before tucking a pair of folded poles into the sled.
He should let her go first, give her space. That was the reasonable thing. “Since we’re both here . . . ” he said.
She turned and stared at him, eyes still narrowed and lips pursed. Jack should’ve expected this. Should’ve known that she’d be less than impressed to see him there.
He smiled. “Makes sense to go together.” He said it like it had just occurred to him. “We could keep each other company.”
She considered him for a long moment. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but he kept his face as neutral as he could manage and waited. Her gaze shifted to the bed of his truck, where his sled sat.
Steph shook her head. “I set the pace.”
“You bet.” His heart sped up. She was going to allow it, to let him stay with her.
“And I choose the route.”
“Understood.”
Another pause. The wind moved through the trees at the edge of the lot. The light was still good but wouldn’t stay that way. They had maybe an hour and a half before it’d turn dark.
She bent to clip into her sled harness and adjusted the fit across her hips, and he adjusted his backpack and then moved his sled from his truck.
“You going to wear the pack?” she asked, motioning toward him.
“Uh, yeah? You think I shouldn’t?”
“You can. Or you could put it on your sled. I always take a pack in case I need to dump the sled, but it usually rides.” She pointed to her sled and an obvious bulge. “That pack will get heavier the farther you go. Especially if you’re doing, say . . . a hundred miles.”
Jack swallowed. The implication was clear. She’d done her own research on him and knew he was doing The Frozen Divide. “Thanks. Give me a minute?”
She shrugged. “Might want to put the trekking poles on the sled too.” She pointed to where she tucked hers. “Free your hands up. Do they fold?”
“Um . . . no? I usually use them for snowshoeing. Should I bring my snowshoes?” He motioned to the back of the truck.
“I don’t use them, but I do have running crampons that hook onto my trail shoes.”
“Got those.” He motioned to his backpack. He glanced at Steph’s feet. She was wearing running shoes with a wide toe box and obvious traction. Jack glanced at his own feet. He’d chosen a cross between a shoe and a boot that he hadn’t properly broken in yet.
Jack fumbled with the tarp around his gear.
He’d packed the sled with things he thought he would need for several hours in the cold, plus what he had of the required gear for the race.
He understood mimicking race conditions could be helpful.
Steph had said that more than once in the videos he watched of her.
It took him only a couple of minutes before he determined he was ready to go. Both of them attached their sleds. She wore a harness and he a waist belt. Jack made a mental note that the harness was probably a better idea.
They moved toward the barricade without further discussion, their breath steaming in the cold air, their footsteps crunching in the snow.
Jack kept pace with her and didn’t say a word. He tried not to think about the fact that he’d driven over an hour and staged a coincidence and was currently walking into a winter wilderness with a woman who didn’t entirely believe his story and had agreed to his company anyway.
Liam was never going to hear about this.