Chapter 17 Juliana
JULIANA
Juliana should’ve known something was up the moment Gideon told her to “wear something you can run in” and then refused to elaborate. That’s generally code for exercise, humiliation, or both.
“Okay, mister. Define run,” she said as Ethel climbed the narrow service road toward a rust-red ridge that looked like it had been painted into the sky. The air had a sharp, clean bite that made her lungs feel brand-new.
“You know,” he said, a little too casually, “the thing you do when you move your legs faster than walking.”
“Cute,” she muttered, tightening her scarf to ward off the slight chill in the early morning air. “If this involves bears, I’m out.”
“No bears,” he promised, eyes sparkling. “Just wings.”
Wings? She had no idea if he was serious or not, but clearly it was no use trying to get Gideon to spill his secrets. She spent the rest of the drive contemplating what he meant.
Ten minutes later, she was standing on a shoulder of the mountain, boots crunching on the lingering frost, staring at a crescent of bright fabric unfurled across the ground.
Gideon was carefully spreading it out as he explained he was taking her paragliding.
She’d heard the word before but had filed the term under “things other people do on purpose.”
Gideon had traded his flannel for a thick thermal quarter-zip and a harness that looked simultaneously very technical and very much like an adult-sized baby carrier. Her pulse tapped a staccato little drumline in her neck.
“You brought me up here to jump off a mountain,” she said, aiming for aloof and landing somewhere around squeaky.
He grinned. “We won’t jump. We’ll be pulled. Big difference.”
“Enormous,” she deadpanned. “Honestly though, that sounds way worse.”
He paused what he was doing and came to stand in front of her, hands warm on her elbows.
“Jules, listen. We only go if you want to. But I got up this morning and the weather and wind is absolutely perfect. I wanted to glide today, and I really wanted you to come with me so you could experience the pure joy of it. But I’m not in the business of scaring you. ”
Pure joy. The two words knocked against that wary place in her chest.
“I’m not scared,” she lied, very convincingly, she was sure.
He tipped his head, amused. “You’re vibrating like a hummingbird.”
“Fine,” she said on an exhale. “I’m terrified. But I also hate being left out. So, congratulations, you’ve trapped me with peer pressure.”
He laughed softly and brushed a loose wisp of hair behind her ear. “You won’t be alone. This is tandem. I’ve got you. I do all the work. You just enjoy the ride.”
The words sank through every brittle, over-planned layer she’d wrapped around herself for years. I’ve got you.
“Okay,” she said, because the alternative was running back down the mountain, and if she was going to run today, it may as well be in a direction that wasn’t backward.
He moved into confident and patient tour guide mode, a combination that was dangerously attractive.
He talked her through the harness as if he’d been born with webbing and carabiners attached.
“Arms through here. Step in. Good. I’m behind you,” he said, settling close and clipping them together.
“The wing will come up. We’ll run directly into it.
When I say sit, you’ll jump and lift your feet, sit back and the seat will catch you.
You’ll want to adjust it when we’re in the air, and move your arms behind these risers.
Then, your job is to breathe and look at pretty things. ”
“Noted,” she said, trying to ignore how intimate all of this was: his chest at her back, the steady rise and fall of his breath, the way the click of each buckle sounded suspiciously like trust.
A gust teased the fabric, lifting it like a living thing, then letting it sigh back to the ground. The world narrowed to the soft drum of the wind and the thrum of her heartbeat and Gideon’s voice near her ear.
“We’ll wait for a clean cycle,” he murmured. “See the streamers? When they lift and hold, we go.”
Juliana studied the little ribbons he’d clearly tied to a pole ages ago. They fluttered, drooped, lifted, flirted. Apparently, even the wind on this mountain enjoyed being dramatic.
“While we’re waiting,” he said lightly, “tell me your safe word.”
“My what?”
“For if you decide you don’t want to go at the last second. You yell it, we stop. If we’re in the air, I’ll get you down as soon as possible.”
She considered, then lifted a corner of her cheek. “Spreadsheet.”
He snorted. “Of course.”
“It’s comforting,” she said cheekily.
His chuckle warmed the back of her neck. “All right, Ms. Spreadsheet. Ready?”
She stared down the gentle slope. Somewhere far below, the Triple R Chapel’s glass wall was a slice of mirror against the valley.
The barn, where she’d just danced under a thousand strings of lights, looked like a toy.
The pastures stitched the land in soft greens and golds, and a thin ribbon of creek flashed silver as it curved around a stand of cottonwoods.
“Ready,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t give away the part of her that wanted to run in exactly the opposite direction forever.
“Wing up,” Gideon called, and the fabric surged above them with a rustle like a thousand silk skirts. “Run.”
They ran into the wind, up the slope of the ridgeline.
The harness tightened. Lines hummed. The ground tilted and then—impossibly, unbelievably—simply . . . fell away as they were tugged backward, the ground letting go. They were flying.
“Sit back,” he said, and she did, because her legs did not seem interested in participating in terrestrial life anymore, and then the seat caught her.
Flying.
All the air she’d been hoarding in her lungs snapped free in a laugh she didn’t recognize as her own.
The valley opened like a book. The ridges unrolled, layer after layer, each one softened with dusted snow and winter light.
The town tucked itself in like a secret.
She could see everything at once. She could see where they’d been, where they were going, the crisscross of trails he guided, the long gravel lane to the lodge, even the narrow cut of the road where she’d crawled out of his truck to escape digestive disaster.
From up here, even that was small. A ridiculous story with a punchline.
“Hey, Jules,” Gideon said softly. “Look right.”
She turned her head and the wing whispered as they shifted, gliding along a shelf of air that felt as solid as a hand. A hawk traced a lazy circle below them.
“I can’t—” she tried, and had to start over. “This is . . .”
“Better than a spreadsheet?” he offered.
“Blasphemy,” she said, but the word came out on a laugh.
The harness held her. Gideon’s presence steadied her. Juliana’s hands settled on the risers just where he told her. “Want to steer?” he asked.
She made a strangled sound. “That seems like a job for someone with a pilot’s license and fewer control issues.”
“You won’t break us,” he promised. “Lean your hips left. Just a little. I’ve got the rest.”
She did it tentatively, and the wing answered like it had been listening to her the whole time. They arced, smooth as exhaling. A squeak—fine, an undignified squeal—escaped before she could trap it.
“There she is,” he said, approval low and pleased. “Natural.”
For endless suspended minutes, Juliana forgot to be the woman who planned her joy in thirty-minute increments.
She forgot about Leo and the ruined wedding and the smug Paris video.
She forgot about the barn dance and the way her heart had thudded when an old acquaintance offered a job that six months ago would have made her dizzy with ambition.
She let go of everything except the cold bite on her cheeks, the heat of Gideon’s chest, the way the world unfurled obediently under a fabric wing and a bit of faith.
She closed her eyes. Not to miss it, but to mark it.
Lord, I don’t know what You’re doing with my life, she prayed, words moving silently through the wind.
But I want to trust You with it. I want to be the kind of person who can sit in a seat I didn’t plan, held up by something I can’t control, and still believe I’m safe.
“Talk to me,” Gideon said after a while. Not pushing. Just there.
“I’m . . .” She searched for the right word. “Weightless.”
He made a satisfied sound. “Good.”
“How many times have you done this?” she asked, opening her eyes.
“Tandem? Couple hundred. Solo?” He tipped them into a gentle turn, air cradling them like a palm as they spiraled over the open pastures. “Lost count.”
Of course he had. If adventure had a poster child, his dimples would be on it.
They drifted over the chapel again, its glass reflecting winter sun in a long bright line. Gideon’s chin brushed the top of her helmet as he pointed. “Christmas Eve service,” he said. “That view? You’re going to love it.”
“I already do,” she said, surprising herself with how true it felt.
They floated silently for what could have been hours. That kind of quiet didn’t demand to be filled. She’d spent years trying to create peace with schedules and control. Somehow, the absence of ground did it in ten minutes.
“All right,” he said at last, regret in his voice. “Time to land, Mrs. Reynolds.”
Goose bumps everywhere. “You cannot call me that right before putting me back on the unforgiving earth.”
He laughed. “Fair. Legs up at the end. I’ll release this side of the wing, and we’ll run to the left for a few steps.” He tapped her left shoulder, as though she didn’t know what direction left was. It seemed like a good call.
The pasture they’d been circling slowly rose to meet them.
The wing stood them upright at the last second.
Her boots skidded. His hands came around her, strong and sure after he tugged something on the right.
He pulled her two steps left, and then the harness relented and the world became gravity again.
She wobbled and turned automatically into him, fingers finding the zipper of his jacket like that was a thing she’d always done.
They were still clipped together, chest to back, and he didn’t move, didn’t rush, just let her decide how long she needed to stay right there.
Maybe thirty seconds. Maybe a small eternity.
“I didn’t die,” she announced into his shoulder.
“I promised you wouldn’t,” he said into her hair.
The wing settled in a soft sigh. He unhooked them one buckle at a time, hands steady, gaze flicking to hers like he was checking the edges for cracks.
“I have helmet hair,” she said, uncomfortable with his perusal.
“You look stunning,” he corrected, dead serious, which was rude when she was trying to be flippant.
They shrugged into puffy jackets, and he produced, like a magician, a thermos of steaming cocoa from the ATV he’d left parked nearby. They sat on the tailgate, ankles knocking.
“So?” he asked, tipping his cup toward her.
She considered her answer, then set her cup down and looked at him straight on. “It was . . . the best.”
His smile went slow and pleased. “Good.”
“I don’t like admitting you’re right,” she added.
“That’s why I brought cocoa,” he said. “To soften the blow.”
A comfortable silence settled. It would’ve once made her fidget and reach for a planner. She just sipped cocoa and watched a cloud drag its shadow over the far pasture and felt, absurdly, like her insides were fully attached to her body for the first time in months.
“You know,” he said after a while, spinning his cup between his palms, “I keep trying to think of ways to show you this place the way I feel it. It’s not just the views. It’s . . . how small the noise gets out there. How big the right things feel.”
Juliana glanced at him, the corners of his eyes creased by sun and smiles and more kindness than she knew what to do with. “Mission accomplished.”
He nodded, then looked out across the slope.
“The slope we launched from? I think it might be a perfect launch for an official tandem tour someday. It’s dumb, maybe, but I keep imagining making this part of the ranch.
Letting people who think they can’t . . .
find out that they can. I love that about mountain biking, but this is even further outside most comfort zones.
I’m in a club that meets over at Grand Mesa, but I want to make this a part of the ranch. ”
Her chest pulled tight as he shared his dream. “It’s not dumb.”
He flicked her a glance, surprised at the conviction in her voice. She shrugged. “I like seeing you dream,” she said. She immediately wanted to take the words back because they were dangerously honest.
“Yeah?” His voice went low on the single word, like he was afraid to scare it off.
“Yeah.” Apparently, she was telling the truth today. “It suits you.”
A gust tugged at a strand of her hair and he reached to tame it, but stopped. She wished he hadn’t.
The urge to ask him about what his family had talked about at dinner was there, but she ignored it. Gideon would tell her in his own time.
They packed the gear together. He coiled lines while she folded fabric. A team like the barn dance, but with him in charge this time. It was a nice change, even though she had limited practice in surrendering control.
“Thank you,” she said as they slid the last of the wing into its bag. The words were simple and completely inadequate.
Gideon drummed a rhythm on the steering wheel and didn’t push to fill the quiet as he took the ATV up the same path they’d driven earlier.
She could’ve said a hundred things. That she was scared, that she was braver than she thought, that he made both of those truths feel okay.
She could’ve told him how the way his arms around her in the air had felt so much like the thing she’d been praying for that she had almost cried into the wind.
Instead, she said, “For the record, this was not on my trip itinerary.”
He smiled sideways. “How about we start a new list?”
Juliana rolled her eyes. “Of what? More Things I Let a Reckless Man Talk Me Into?”
“Close,” he said. “Things That End Up Being Worth It.”
She looked up at the slope they’d launched from. Her heart did that hopeful thump it had been doing ever since a man with a ridiculous grin and a pocket dictionary mispronounced thank you on an island two thousand miles away.
“Okay,” she said softly, mostly to herself. “Let’s see where that list goes.”