Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Dean
Pausing at the top of the mogul field, I took in the panoramic view below me.
The Swiss Alps stretched out in every direction, their peaks still crowned with snow. The morning sun caught the ridges and turned them gold, casting long purple shadows across the slopes.
Pine forests climbed the lower elevations, dark green against the white. The air was crisp and thin, sharp in my lungs.
“Tell me that’s not the most breathtaking thing you’ve ever seen,” my friend Alina said beside me.
I chuckled and nodded amiably, because she was just making conversation. No point in telling her this was definitely not the most breathtaking thing I’d seen, despite the fact that it was incredibly beautiful.
That title belonged to something back in Colorado. Someone.
I pushed off, my board hitting the moguls. A sense of calm overtook me. Up here, there was nothing but the mountain, the sky, and the quiet hum of the wind. I could’ve been anyone, just a traveler with no past and no worries about the future.
When we reached the bottom of the slope, I lifted my goggles and unsnapped one boot from the board. Alina did the same. Her tanned face appeared, surrounded by wisps of pale blonde hair.
“Another run?” I asked.
“We could. Unless…” She smiled in a way that probably worked on most guys. Alina rarely left alone at the end of a night of drinking with our fellow resort instructors.
It was also a smile she’d given me plenty of times, to no effect. But it looked like she was giving it one last go.
“Unless you want to call it a day early,” she said in faintly accented English. “Do something else for fun before you leave.”
Fuck. This was awkward.
It had been a great season here at Verbier. But now that it was late spring and the crowds were waning, it was about time to get moving again. Something I’d done pretty much every season since that longer stint I’d spent in Colorado.
I’d learned my lesson. These days, four months in one place was long enough.
“I can’t,” I said apologetically. “Though that’s a very tempting offer.”
Alina shrugged off my rejection. “All winter, I’ve never seen you with anyone. There’s someone else? Maybe back in the States?” She nudged my arm. “Come on. You never talk about yourself.”
Someone else.
How could I explain that there was no one waiting for me, not in the way she meant? No one I could ever be with, anyway.
It was easier just to agree. Easier on Alina’s ego, which probably didn’t need that much help if we were being honest. But also easier on me. I’d never enjoyed confessing my secrets.
“Yes. Someone else.”
“Just a drink then?” she offered. “If you wanna talk about it.” When I hesitated, she added, “Or another run would be lovely too.”
I grinned. “Another run.”
As expected, the snow didn’t hold out long, and by the late afternoon we found ourselves at the preferred watering hole of the seasonal instructors.
We were an international crew. Alina was a local, while Lars was Swedish. Matteo had come from Italy, and Yuki from Japan.
“So where’s everyone headed next?” Lars asked, leaning back in his chair with a beer in hand.
“Got a line on some hotel work in Mykonos for the summer,” Matteo said. “Sunny days, wild nights.”
“I didn’t think your nights could get any wilder,” Yuki joked.
There were backslaps and playful nudges around the table.
They were all grown adults in their twenties and thirties, but acted like teenagers.
I wouldn’t claim to have all my shit together, but sometimes I felt like the boring older brother. At thirty-six, I was set in my ways.
“What about you, Dean?” Yuki asked. “Where are you heading?”
“Don’t know yet.”
Lars guffawed. “But aren’t you taking off tomorrow morning?”
“I guess I’ll decide by then.”
Yuki shook her head, smirking. “So mysterious.” She tipped back her drink, then thunked it on the table. “I think Dean sprang fully formed into the world one day, jumped onto a snowboard, and never looked back.”
I laughed. “That’s pretty much it.”
“I’d say that works well with the ladies,” Lars said, “but you never take advantage there.” He nodded toward Alina, who was dancing with some new face.
“Or with guys,” Matteo added. “Haven’t seen you with any of them either.”
I pushed my hair back from my face. It had grown out almost to my shoulders, and I’d tied it back, but it never wanted to stay in place. “Why are you all so curious about me?”
“We might have a betting pool going,” Lars admitted.
I took another sip of my whiskey, the ice clinking against the glass. “You need to get out more. Promise I’m not very interesting.”
“That’s exactly what someone interesting would say,” Matteo pointed out. “Especially one who wears a bullet around his neck. Is that some strange American custom we don’t know about?”
I was certainly not answering that question. Just smiled instead.
Soon the conversation veered away from me, thankfully, and as the night wore on, some people decided to call it and head home, while others found hookups.
I headed back to the flat I shared with Lars and a couple others. They were still out, so I had the place to myself to pack before my train in the morning.
I preferred to keep my life simple. I could fit most of my possessions in a duffel and a cardboard box or two, plus an oversized bag for my equipment.
My Rossignol skis and Burton snowboard were my prized possessions.
Top-of-the-line gear that I maintained meticulously, the one indulgence I allowed myself.
Back when I was a Marine, my life had been equally mobile, if far less under my own control. My most prized possession had been something very different.
I touched the pendant hanging from the cord around my neck. A reminder that always calmed me when I thought about those days.
The smell of gunpowder and metal and machine oil…
I gripped the round on the cord tighter, shaking off those thoughts.
That’s not my life now, and it will never be again. That’s not me.
Peace was a choice I made, every single day. Freedom. Maybe I couldn’t ever make up for the things I’d done, but I could find a way to live with myself. And hopefully bring a smile to someone else’s day. Give more than I took, even if it meant denying myself anything more.
Where-to next? That was the question. I liked to keep things up in the air, especially for the summers. Just seeing where the wind took me. Where inspiration might lead.
There was always a voice in the back of my mind whispering Hart County, Colorado, but I knew that was a bad idea.
My best friend Owen constantly gave me shit about it. When are you going to get back here? Not like I miss you that much, but you do stir up a nice old-fashioned.
As I grabbed a book from my shelf, a folded piece of paper fell out. Already knowing what it was, I bent to pick it up. Unfolded it.
I’d printed out this photo at some point during a moment of weakness. In the image, Keira and I were standing with our heads together. Smiling.
I stared at it for a long moment, memories flooding my mind.
After tucking the paper inside the book and packing it away, I took out my phone and opened the photos app. There were other pictures I’d kept and only let myself look at on occasions like this, when I was transitioning from one place to another. When I let myself wonder…what if?
In one, Keira was making a face at the camera on the summit of a fourteener we’d hiked. Her dark eyes were bright with laughter, genuine and unguarded.
The way she’d looked at me before I’d ruined everything.
But I’d had to ruin it. I’d had no other choice. I’d stayed way too long in Hart County, telling myself it was because of Owen and the other friends I’d made there. Genevieve, Aiden, Jessi. Trace and Scarlett. Cole and Brynn.
When really, the whole time it had been her.
An awful, empty ache started in the pit of my stomach and spread outward. Two years, and it hadn’t faded. Two years, and I still saw her face when I closed my eyes.
That’s enough, I told myself. No more. No fucking more.
Ireland, I decided. It was incredible this time of year, based on my previous visits, and I’d probably be able to find enough work to occupy myself. A cash-only job that paid under the table. I’d already perfected my skill at pouring a Guinness.
Now that I’d decided, and the temptation of Hart County was past, I exhaled.
Forcing myself to close the photo app, I noticed a missed call. It was from Owen. Worst possible timing, given where my head was at.
Then I noticed there were two missed calls. From hours ago. He must’ve called when it was the middle of the night there. Dread made me go still.
I hit Owen’s name in the call log. Listened to it ring.
“Dean.” His voice was tight. There was noise in the background, like he was in a busy place. “Hey.”
“Owen, what’s up? Everything okay?”
“I’m sorry to call like this.”
That just freaked me out more. My pulse kicked up. “Did something happen?”
There was a pause that seemed to last a lifetime. Every instinct I had screamed that something was very wrong.
That everything was about to change.
“It’s Keira. She was attacked last night. She’s in the hospital.”
As he gave me a few more details, my back hit the bedroom wall, my knees going weak. “Who?” I managed to choke out.
That one question pulsed with the vein at my temple.
Fucking who had done this?
“We don’t know yet,” Owen said. “We’re going to find out. She’s in stable condition. I just wanted to let you know. Figured…” There was a hell of a lot in that silence.
“Yeah,” I managed to say. “I gotta go.”
My phone dropped to the floor. I grabbed for the cord around my neck. The rifle bullet bit into my palm. I squeezed it so hard the point dug into my skin, giving me something to focus on. But it wasn’t enough. Not like it usually was.
The rage built and built until I couldn’t take it anymore, and I exploded.
I twisted my body and drove my fist into the wall, hearing a scream of agony that could only have come from myself.
Fuck.
My knuckles were bloody, and there was a hole in the drywall. Some rational part of my mind said I’d have to explain to my roommates. Leave money to cover the repair. I felt shitty about making a mess for them, which was not the kind of thing I liked to do.
But I had to go.
I had to find the first flight that would take me back to Colorado.