But this didn’t deter people from finding the place. Weekend Warriors, as the locals called them, left their cities in droves to claim the mountain as theirs. But crowded or not, Tahoe was still the most gorgeous view on the planet as far as Levi was concerned.
But after a few hours with his family, he’d lost it and made his escape to the only place he’d ever been truly happy here—on the slopes. A few black diamond runs that he knew better than the back of his hand would settle him.
Not being here would’ve settled him even more, but family was family, and he was their go-to fix-it guy. His mom hadn’t yet told him what was wrong, but he’d handle whatever needed handling—soon as he got his head screwed on straight.
He sat back on the gondola bench and looked out the window at the winter wonderland before him as it lifted him high in the air toward the top. The snow-covered peaks of jagged mountains stretched as far as the eye could see. Then he caught a glimpse of Lake Tahoe, the waters so blue, so deep and pure, you could see a dinner plate three hundred feet beneath the surface.
One of his favorite science facts, and he had many, was if by some cataclysmic event the entire lake tipped, the spillage would cover California under fourteen inches of water.
That was a shit ton of water. As a kid he’d wanted to see that happen. As an adult, he liked the water where it was.
Face pressed to the window, he took in the wilderness, the stunning beauty, and felt his blood pressure lower. A relief. Being here could still heal him, even though he’d convinced himself he was totally healed, inside and out.
Almost at the top now, the gondola rose up and over a line of towering pine trees coated in thick, powdery snow, swaying in the wind, resembling two-hundred-foot ghosts.
The gondola, built for sturdiness, swayed in the wind like the trees, almost dizzyingly. But being in the business of knowing risks and algorithms, Levi knew the chances of dying in a gondola were nearly nil.
On the other hand, the risk of dying while skiing was a different game altogether.
But after two hours in his mom’s kitchen, being drilled by his mom and his older sister, Cass, about why he hadn’t been in a serious relationship since Amy had died, he was willing to take his chances on the slopes.
The snow came down hard and fast now, thick and heavy, slanting sideways thanks to a strong headwind. He might spend most of his time on a computer these days, creating computer solutions to fix the unfixable problems, but he’d grown up here. He’d spent his teen years working on this very mountain on the weekends. As he knew all too well, anything could happen in a blink of an eye.
This wasn’t good.
Even as he thought it, the gondola jostled in the wind, hard enough to rattle his teeth, and he reassessed the sanity of skiing in this. This heavy storm hadn’t been in the forecast, but he wasn’t going to be the stupid guy who didn’t pay attention to his surroundings and ended up splat, face-first into a tree and having to be rescued by his friends on the search-and-rescue team. He’d never live that down.
The gondola peaked the top ridge and slowed as it slid toward the protective cover. A lift operator opened the door and gave him a stay-seated gesture.
The kid was maybe seventeen. Levi had held that very same job when he’d been that age. “Let me guess,” he said. “Ski straight down, do not pass Go! The resort is closing.”
“Closed already,” the kid said. “Sorry sir, we just got word, right after you boarded.”
“No problem.” Levi had been there, with his job on the line as he told belligerent tourists that no, as a matter of fact they couldn’t risk their lives on the mountain. “Do you need any help clearing people out?”
The kid shook his head. “We’ve been sending guests back down and got almost everyone off the mountain. The three cars in front of you are empty. We’re just waiting on one more employee.”
And then presumably that someone appeared in the opening and stopped. The woman slowly stared down at the few inches of gap between the platform she stood on and the tram floor, and then gulped audibly before clasping her necklace in one fist like a talisman. Finally, she hopped over the gap the same way that his six-year-old niece, Peyton, did when getting onto an airplane.
The woman darted right past Levi to the opposite bench, as close to the window as she could get, and even though they were the only two people on the whole thing, she didn’t acknowledge his existence. Instead, she closed her eyes and began to mumble to herself, something about how ironic it was to have “survived a whole bunch of bullshit only to die in the storm of the century while inside a tin can hanging by a hook on a mountainside.”
The gondola bounced and she gasped, flinging her hands out in front of her like one of Levi’s mom’s rescue cats trying to gain traction on linoleum.
She was covered from head to toe in heavy winter gear: jacket, ski pants, boots, and gloves. The only things visible were the long strands of her wavy dark red hair not covered by her ski cap. He eyed the royal blue down jacket with the North Diamond patch on her sleeve. She was the employee they’d been waiting on.
As the gondola made the turn and began heading down the mountain, she brought her legs up on the bench and dropped her head to her knees.
“Careful,” he warned. “My niece Peyton sat like that on her first gondola and when there was a bump, she nearly jammed her knee up her nose. Didn’t break it, but got an impressive nosebleed.”
She sighed.
“You okay?”
“Absolutely. Just very busy having a freak-out here.”
“About?”
“About leaving a triple-decker peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my locker back on the mountain. I don’t want to die on an empty stomach.”
“We’re not going to die. At least not today.”
She didn’t look like she believed him.
And he had to admit, it was a doozy of a storm. It’d muted nearly all daylight and the snow resembled white lines slashing through the air like spears. It was stunning. He looked over at his companion and found her head down, eyes shut.
“It’s actually far less scary if you watch,” he said.
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” she said to her knees. “We’re like a million feet up; it’s too high up to look.”
“Five hundred and fifty feet.”
“What?”
“It’s not a million feet up, it’s five hundred and fifty feet. Five and a half stories. The height of a roller coaster ride, or at least a good one—”
She whipped around, slamming him with some seriously jade green eyes. “Why would you tell me that?”
“Sometimes, when you’re afraid of something like heights, knowing all the facts help.”
She stared at him as if he’d grown a second head, but her shoulders squared. “Do I look like I’m afraid of heights?”
“Well—”
The gondola jerked so hard that she gasped slash mini-screamed and grabbed for the oh-holy-shit bars on the side closest to her.
“Nope, you’re right,” he said with no sarcasm at all. “You’re clearly not afraid of heights at all.”
She tightened her grip on the bar. “Hey. For your information, I’m just not good with tight, enclosed spaces. And it’s not nice to point out when someone’s acting like a big baby.”