Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Noah stared at me from the doorway. It wasn’t just hurt in his blue eyes; it was the systematic dismantling of trust, and I watched it happen in real time.
“Noah,” I whispered, rising halfway from my chair.
But even as I spoke, I watched him retreat back behind his walls.
His jaw, that telltale muscle that ticked when he was annoyed, now clenched with the force of someone who’d learned to swallow pain without flinching.
The way he stood in that doorway, perfectly still except for the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest.
“I can explain.”
“Don’t bother.” What struck me wasn’t his anger; it was his sudden, terrible calm. “I get it now. All of it.”
“No, you don’t.” But even as I said it, I saw Noah Barrett cutting his losses.
Clean. Quick. Final.
“Just business.” I watched him survey the room, taking in Victoria’s calculating expression, Marcus’s curious smile, Maya’s uncomfortable avoidance of eye contact.
When his gaze finally returned to me, it was like he’d been waiting for this exact thing to happen, and now that it had, he could finally relax. “Actually, this makes perfect sense.”
He glanced down at his carefully chosen outfit, the button-down shirt instead of flannel, the loafers instead of hiking boots.
“Even this.” His tone was both casual and devastating.
“I’m probably going to end up as a before-and-after story, aren’t I?
‘How I Turned the Grumpy Mountain Man into Spa-Date Material.’”
“Noah, please.”
“Congratulations on your career move, Miss Li. Hope it was worth it.” He turned and left.
I half-stood, torn between chasing after him and remaining in my corporate-assigned seat, playing the role I’d just reaffirmed.
“Noah, wait ...” I called after him, but he was already gone, nothing left but the faint scent of pine trees and coffee, which was quickly overwhelmed by the chemical pine scent pumped in through the air vents.
The conference room door drifted closed with a soft click that somehow sounded more final than if he’d slammed it. I sank back into my chair, aware of Marcus’s satisfied smirk, of Victoria’s calculating gaze, of Maya’s poorly concealed sympathy, of Parker’s awkward bewilderment.
“Well, that’s settled then,” Marcus said, as if we’d just concluded a routine budget meeting instead of witnessing the destruction of everything that mattered.
I’d spent my adult life building a career around pretending to have things I never earned, to be someone that I wasn’t. And when finally given the chance to be someone real, my first real test of authentic living, I’d chosen to pretend.
Marcus and Victoria started talking about implementation timelines and rollout strategies, but their words washed over me like white noise.
All I could think about was the look in Noah’s eyes.
Not anger, which I could have handled, but disappointment.
I’d worked so hard to earn his respect. And I’d thrown it away for a contract with people who’d been using me just as surely as I was using them.
“I have to go after him.”
Victoria paused mid-speech, her rant about unfiltered mountain air triggering allergies fading into silence. All eyes turned to me.
“Excuse me?” Victoria’s eyebrows glowered on her face.
“I have to go after him. I have to talk to Noah.”
“Samantha, think about your contract,” said Marcus.
But I was already out of my chair and heading for the door. For the first time since arriving in Colorado, I knew exactly what I wanted, what I needed, what mattered most. And I’d just watched him disappear down the hallway, believing I’d played him for a fool.
Likes or love.
I made my choice.
I burst out of the conference room. The hallway stretched before me, empty except for a bewildered resort worker who jumped aside as I barreled past.
“Noah!” I called down the empty hallway. “Noah, wait!”
Barreling into the lobby, I saw a maze of potted ferns and overstuffed leather chairs, but no grumpy mountain man in sight. Just pampered tourists in pristine mountain gear that had never seen an actual mountain.
I spun in a circle, searching for any sign of him, a glimpse of those broad shoulders, that confident stride, even the scowl I’d grown oddly fond of.
Nothing.
“Sam?” Maya’s voice came from behind me, slightly breathless. She’d chased after me.
“I have to find him,” I pleaded. “I have to explain.”
“He probably went back to the Adventure Center.” Maya placed a gentle hand on my arm.
“I bet you’ll find him there.” She glanced back toward the conference room, lowering her voice.
“Marcus is pissed. He started yelling something about contract termination and blacklisting you from every luxury brand on three continents.”
“I don’t care.” And remarkably, I didn’t. The thought of never photographing another overpriced organic facial cream or saltwater infinity pool didn’t bother me half as much as the memory of Noah’s face when he’d heard me reduce everything between us to “just business.”
“You really like him, don’t you?”
“I …” The words stuck in my throat.
Did I like Noah Barrett?
The man who’d abandoned me at the airport, but then turned around and came back.
The man who made fun of my hiking boots, but then gave me new ones to protect my feet.
The man who made me raft down a raging river, then saved me when I fell in.
Did I like Noah Barrett?
The man who baked huckleberry muffins with orange zest.
The man who let me win at axe-throwing.
The man who, when he held me, made me wish he’d never let go.
“Yes,” I said. “I like him. But I think it’s even more than that.”
Maya dug into her pocket, pressing a lump of jangled keys with a LuxeLife logo keychain in my palm. I recognized them as the ones that operated the resort’s four-wheel-drive golf carts.
“Take the service road,” Maya said. “It’s faster than the main drive, and Victoria won’t see you leave.”
“But you’ll get in trouble …”
“Some things are worth getting in trouble for.” She gave me a gentle push toward the back entrance. “Now go. Tell that stubborn mountain man how you really feel before he disappears into the wilderness for good.”
“What if he doesn’t want to hear it? What if I’m too late?”
“Sam.” Maya planted her hands on my shoulders, looking me straight in the eyes. “I’ve known Noah Barrett for a long time. Trust me when I say that man has never looked at anyone the way he looks at you.”
Something warm bloomed in my chest, pushing back against the icy dread that had settled there in the conference room. “I’m going to find him. And then I’m going to tell him ...” I paused, searching for the right words. “Tell him everything.”
With one last grateful look at Maya, I turned and headed for the service entrance, keys clutched in hand. If there was one thing Colorado had taught me, it was that real adventure, the kind worth having, never followed a perfectly curated path.
As I rushed through the back doors of the LuxeLife Resort service exit, I nearly collided with the same bellhop who’d witnessed my mud-splattered arrival earlier. He must have been used to my usual state of dishevelment, because he didn’t even blink. He leaned against a wall, smoking a cigarette.
“Miss Li.” He smiled. “You’re still alive.”
“More than ever,” I answered. “Where are the four-wheelers?”
He pointed toward a row of gleaming black vehicles parked under a cedar awning.
“But we don’t allow guests to…” He stopped himself mid-sentence.
Probably saw the fire in my eyes and decided he didn’t want to tangle with the kind of person who’d survived whatever I’d been through.
He took another long, slow drag on his cigarette.
“The one at the end got some modifications.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
The bellhop smiled. “Means you might want to wear a helmet.”
The four-wheel-drive golf cart launched airborne as I crested the top of a small hill, then bounced back down the dirt and gravel road toward the Adventure Center. I jammed down on the accelerator, the electric motor whining in protest.
The vehicle handled with all the control and stability of a shopping cart with a wobbly wheel in the slick gravel.
Yanking the steering wheel back and forth, I bounced over a series of ruts, each jolt sending shocks through my wilderness-battered body.
But physical discomfort was nothing compared to the ache in my chest, the desperate need to fix what I’d broken.
Whipping around the turn from the service road to the main road, the golf cart tipped sideways onto two wheels, Dukes of Hazard style.
I threw my weight in the opposite direction and the vehicle rebalanced, all four wheels making solid contact with the ground.
It should have been a warning sign to slow down.
I stomped down on the accelerator even harder. Pine trees flashed past in a blur of green as I pushed the vehicle to its battery-powered limits.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I said to myself, slamming my palm against the steering wheel. “I’m an idiot,” I announced to a particularly judgmental-looking boulder as I swerved around it. “A complete and total idiot.”
The cart bounced over another pothole, sending me airborne again for another heart-stopping moment before I crashed back down onto the seat. Luckily my butt was numb, already tenderized by a day and a half of saddle torture.
“Please let him be there,” I whispered to the universe, to the mountains, to whatever forest spirits might be spying on me, plotting their next catastrophe. “Please let me fix this.”
I glanced one last time in the rearview mirror. Behind me, the resort receded into the distance, the infinity pools, the spa treatments, the perfectly curated luxury that had once seemed so important. Ahead lay something far less certain but infinitely more valuable.
If I was lucky, a second chance with the grumpiest, most authentic man I’d ever met.
The golf cart rattled down the mountain path, tires spitting gravel as I took each curve like I was a stunt double in Fast and Furious: Colorado Drift. The trail narrowed as it descended toward the lodge’s outer grounds.
Aspen trees blurred past, their white trunks a strobe effect in my peripheral vision, the afternoon sun filtering through leafy branches in dappled patterns across the dirt road.
The cart’s tires skidded on loose gravel as I took another turn, the back end fishtailing dangerously close to a steep drop-off.
My mind raced faster than the golf cart, replaying every moment.
“What if I’m too late?” The thought sent a chill through me despite the sweat beading over multiple parts of my body.
What if he’d already disappeared into the wilderness, swearing off civilization forever, leaving nothing but mountain and memory between us? What if …
A blur of motion snapped me back to reality. There in the middle of the path stood a plump, mottled bird, strutting back and forth, bouncing rhythmically. Its feathers formed a ridiculous mohawk-like crown, and its expression could only be described as aggressively observant.
The disco chicken.
Time slowed as my brain attempted to process the absurdity before me. The very creature I’d encountered on my first night, performing its bizarre mating dance in the darkness.
“MOVE!” I screamed, twisting the wheel hard to the right. The creature stood its ground, wings spreading in what appeared to be a territorial display, completely unmoved by the impending collision with two hundred pounds of pimped-out golf cart and one slow-reacting driver.
The cart lurched sideways, tires losing their grip on the gravel path. I skidded, the world tilting at an impossible angle as the vehicle left the trail entirely. Pine branches slapped against the windshield, needles raining down as I careened between tree trunks.
“Oh no. No, no, no, no …”
The front tire caught on a rock, and the cart pitched forward. Through the windshield, I could see nothing but air and the yawning mouth of a steep drainage ditch.
Pure instinct took over. I flung myself sideways, tumbling from the vehicle an instant before it flipped. I hit the ground with bone-jarring force, rolling through pine needles and dirt, roots and branches scraping my skin as I tumbled downhill.
A thunderous crash echoed through the forest as the cart landed upside down in the ditch, electronic motor wheezing, wheels spinning in the air like the legs of an overturned beetle.
“Ouch.” I lay sprawled among the pine needles, staring up at the trees. Branches swayed gently in the breeze, forming a natural cathedral ceiling against the perfect Colorado blue sky. At least it was a beautiful place to die.
I tried to sit up. Pain bloomed in various parts of my body, sharp in my left ankle, dull and throbbing across my ribcage, hot and wet along my forehead from a cut above my eyebrow.
“This is it,” I said to a nearby chipmunk, who paused its acorn-gathering to stare at me, pity in its beady little eyes. “I hope you and your woodland friends enjoy the feast. Just wait until I’m gone before you start eating me, okay? Professional courtesy.”
The chipmunk twitched its nose.
I imagined my obituary. “Here lies Sam Li, social media influencer and failed human being. Betrayer of mountain men. Disappointer of parents. Abandoner of authentic experiences. She died as she lived, in over her head and making questionable life choices.”
My vision began to blur, the pain and probable concussion taking their toll.
“If I die here,” I told the chipmunk, too battered to even name him. “Tell Noah I’m sorry. Tell him it wasn’t just business. Tell him ...” The world began to fade, darkness creeping in from the corners of my vision. “Tell him I was falling in love with him.”
The trees melted into a swirling kaleidoscope of green and blue.
My life didn’t exactly flash before my eyes, more like a blooper reel of my most embarrassing moments: spilling coffee on Noah at the airport, spilling coffee on Noah at the resort, Noah fishing me out of the river, Noah rescuing me as I dangled from the climbing wall.
A sharp rustling in the nearby bushes snapped me back to reality. My eyes flew open, head whipping toward the sound, sending fresh jabs of pain shooting through my temples.
“Hello?” My voice came out as a croak. “Is someone there?”
The rustling grew louder, branches parting as something pushed its way through the underbrush. My mind raced through the wildlife catalog Noah had drilled into me. Was it a bear? Mountain lion? Something worse?
My fingers scrabbled in the dirt, searching for a stick, a rock, anything I could use as a weapon against whatever was about to emerge from those bushes and finish what the golf cart crash had started.
The branches parted.
I held my breath.
Waiting for Death to appear in a form full of claws and teeth.