“That’s the problem. What if I don’t want guarantees? What if I’d rather not know every day will be perfect?” she blurted out, cringing at her ridiculous line of thinking. Who wouldn’t want to know they’d be happy? Yet a tectonic shift had rocked her foundation when she’d glimpsed the picture. It shook her notion that familiar was better.
Mason closed his eyes. His chest rose and fell as he breathed. “I’ve worked hard to give you the life—and the love—you deserve. Don’t you love me, Julie?”
When his lids lifted, she met his tortured gaze. She was looking at a stranger. One she’d known all her life. How odd, but there it was. She’d grown up with the bright, optimistic boy who’d followed her to school on his bike every day to make sure she arrived safely. Had met him, anew, when he’d returned from medical school as a confident, assured young man. Stable. Ready to put down roots. Everything she’d desired at the time, only...now that she had seen the picture—physical, tangible proof of the life they’d planned—she wasn’t sure she wanted it, after all.
“Julie? Do you love me?” he repeated, his voice husky and heavy, as though he spoke underwater.
She backed away, her hand on the railing, ruffling the lighted garland wrapped around it. “I’m sorry, Mason. I don’t know about anything right now. I’m a mess.” A sucking feeling filled her chest, like water draining.
He reached for her, then dropped his arms, hands swinging at the wrists like deadweight. “You’re confused. Under pressure. Just tell me what you want. Anything.”
“Space. Time. I—” She glanced behind her at the stairs leading down to the parking lot. “I need to get away. Okay?”
Mason’s shoulders sagged. She’d never seen him look so frightened. The hot spot of pain in her chest expanded. She’d hurt him and she hated that, but it was important to figure out what she wanted before she hurt a good man even more.
“Okay.” He shrugged off his jacket and handed it to her along with his cell phone and car keys. “Take care of yourself. Precious cargo.” His strained voice distorted their old joke.
“I will.” On impulse, she kissed his cheek, her gut aching, before racing down the stairs and into the dark. Time to start taking care of herself. Make her own decisions. Had this first one been a colossal mistake?
She jogged to his Saab, then stopped. Sitting in his car wasn’t the distance she really needed. She paused, thinking hard.
“Julie?”
At the familiar voice, she turned and nearly dropped the cell phone. Austin. Twice in one day. Under the replica gaslights, shadows pooled beneath his high cheekbones. His slanted brows knitted as he gazed steadily down at her.
“Are you okay? I saw you up on the deck.” His eyes dropped and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “You looked upset, so I thought I’d wait and make sure.”
“Yes. Fine. Peachy. Couldn’t be—”
He pressed a finger to her mouth, stopping her hysterical torrent.
“No you’re not. Who can I get for you?”
Julie imagined her mother and father, confused and worried when Mason returned without her. They adored him. Would only talk over her until she gave up again and let others call the shots in her life.
Claire?
Julie could knock on her friend’s door but knew Claire had put her overexcited daughter to bed early.
If only Alexis hadn’t missed her plane. She knew Julie better than anyone...the person who’d battled her doubts and overcame some of them while at college. Where had that version of herself gone? It’d been too easy to give up the fight once she’d returned home and retreated into the comfort of her old, predictable life.
Austin cupped her chin and lifted it, the feel of his strong hand calming the aftershocks trembling through her.
“What can I do for you?”
“Nothing. Please go.” She raced into the ground-floor lobby and stopped at the front desk with no real plan in mind.
Noelle slipped on her coat as another clerk took her place behind the counter.
“Would you ring room 22B and tell my, I mean, tell Mason Stanton that his coat and phone are down here?”
The young male clerk stared at Julie until Noelle brushed by him and efficiently bundled the items and set them on the counter behind her. “Is there anything else we can do for you?”
At the woman’s kind expression, Julie’s eyes grew damp. “Please tell my mother I’ll be back soon.”
“You’re not going out without a jacket,” exclaimed Noelle. She pulled open a door behind her, then returned with a long wool coat. “This has been in the lost and found for over a year. Take it.”
“Thank you.” Grateful, Julie slid her arms in the sleeves, buttoned up and stepped outside, unsure how far she’d get in her heels. Still, the crisp air revived her. Slowed her racing heart. Maybe she’d just circle the facility until she was sure her parents and Mason had given up and gone to bed.
Two steps out the door and Austin was beside her.
“You’re still here,” she exclaimed.
Austin let out a long breath. “Can’t think why.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Doesn’t look that way to me.”
Her stomach grumbled and suddenly she knew what he could do for her. They’d been apart eight years. Surely, like her, he didn’t harbor old feelings...
“Do you know where the nearest fast-food place is?”
His lopsided smile appeared as he took in her fancy attire. “You’re a little underdressed, but I’ll take you. I’m headed in that direction anyway—I need to reset the alarm at the luge facility. Come along if you like.”
There it was. A choice. She could go back to her red rice cake, jazz music and lovely Mason, or join the man who’d once broken her heart and gorge on an artery-clogging meal.
She hesitated.
Before she finished considering, the answer leapfrogged over her doubts. A jump into the unknown. At last.
“Yes.”
AUSTIN ENDED HIS call with Security, resisting the urge to look back at the warming shed, where he’d left Julie. He peered up at the steep luge run, a chilly gust stinging his cheeks. In the sky, the enormous moon hung white and luminous. The visibility assured him nothing haunted the track but the wind. It whistled along the white pipe that wound from the top of snow-covered Mount Van Hoevenberg and ended at the spot where he sometimes crouched, radar gun in hand.
With the world championships coming up in a couple of months, the team had been pushing hard. Their world was measured in minuscule increments that amounted to monumental variations. A hundredth of a second meant the difference between international acclaim and obscurity. And he wanted each of the lugers to earn that chance.
But life guaranteed nothing.
Most of all, love. His nightstand drawer had once guarded an engagement ring and a nearly memorized proposal speech. Each time Julie promised to join him in Switzerland, he’d removed both. When she gave another excuse, he returned them to the darkness of their hiding place, his hopes banished with them—until finally they left him altogether.
Yet he’d never stop taking risks when it came to the rest of his life. Would always throw himself