“Not pointing that out at all. But if you moved to the middle of the bench, away from the windows, you’ll feel better,” he suggested.
This got him a vehement shake of her head. “I’ve got to be at the window, so I don’t miss the crash.” She held up a hand. “Don’t try to make sense of it, you’ll just hurt yourself.”
“Hey. Hey,” he repeated softly, waiting until she looked at him. “It’s going to be okay.”
Shooting him a look that said get real, she gritted her teeth through the next gust—which had to clock in at nearly seventy mph. Not that he was going to tell her that. Everything in the gondola flew to one side and she went with it.
Shit. He helped her to her feet and immediately sat her down on the bench, keeping a hold of her as he sat too. “You okay?”
This won him a look of sheer disbelief. “Am I okay?” she repeated. “Are you kidding me? We’re an inch from falling and dying, and I don’t know about you, but I had things to do today. Like, live.”
“A gondola fall is extremely unlikely. Maybe one in a million.”
They rocked again and she drew a deep, shaky breath. “Math is not exactly a comfort right now.”
“It’s not math, it’s science.”
When they continued to rock, she closed her eyes. “Fuck me.” She shook her head. “Sorry. I usually save the good swearing for traffic.”
“Listen, we’re still on the cable. It didn’t break. That gondola in front of us either hit something on the track that the wind brought it, knocking it off, or there was a malfunction in the grip—”
“Oh my God,” she murmured. “Not helping.” She opened her eyes. “Please. Please maybe you could just stop talking.”
He laughed, because having come from a family of talkers, he was often mocked for being the silent one. He’d only been talking because it seemed to irritate her, and he knew that when you were irritated, it was almost impossible to maintain fear.
Another hard gust slammed into the gondola and knocked them both off their benches and into each other on the floor. On their knees, swinging wildly, they turned in unison to look out the window just in time to see . . .
The gondola in front of them vanish.
She gasped in horror. “Oh my God! Did that gondola just . . . ?”
“Yeah,” he said grimly. “Hold on.”
Even as he said it, their gondola came to a sudden stuttering halt, leaving them swinging wildly back and forth, flinging them and all their stuff far and wide. He went one way, face-planting against the window, kissing the cold glass. Something hit him in the back.
His pack.
And then a softer something.
The woman. She hurriedly scrambled clear of him to stare out the window ahead of them, at the gaping chasm where the previous gondola used to be. Her gasp was sheer horror.
So was his.
“Ohmigod,” she whispered, pressing her face to the window as if that could help her see past the thick, swirling, all-encompassing snow. “Was anyone in it?”
“No, the three cars in front of us were empty,” he said.
The woman leveled him with those amazing eyes. “So much for a gondola fall being one in a million!” She yanked out her phone and stared down at it. “Dammit. Dead.”
“Cell batteries also go fast in this cold weather,” he said. “But don’t worry. They’ll know what happened at base. They’ll come for us.”
She swiped beneath her eyes. “I can’t believe I wore mascara to work today. I could’ve spent those five extra minutes stopping for a breakfast burrito. I mean that’s what a girl needs on the day she’s going to die. A solid breakfast burrito to hold her over to the ever after—with sour cream, and not the fake stuff either.” She moaned, apparently at the thought of said breakfast burrito, though it sounded like she was having an orgasm.
“Everyone knows that calories don’t count on the day you’re going to die,” she said, voice quiet enough, but there was definitely some rising hysteria in her eyes as she looked into his.
“I like breakfast burritos,” he said, calm and steady, trying to keep her the same.
But the truth was, they were in trouble. They weren’t moving now, no forward or reverse motion at all, nothing except the relentless swinging in the wind. He didn’t know what had caused the gondola lift to fall, but if theirs did the same, the odds of them walking away from this were slim to none. He mentally calculated the balance and weight needed to stabilize their gondola and keep it from swinging in every little breeze. “Hey, think you can get all the way into that back corner there?”
She blinked but didn’t question him, just did as he asked, moving quietly and efficiently while he moved into the opposite corner.
“You do realize that only works if we weigh the same,” she said, clearly having figured out what he was doing.
“We’re going to use our gear to even things out.” His backpack was at his feet. “What do you have with you?”
She lifted her hands out to her sides. “Just what you see.”
“You came up on the mountain with nothing on you, no snacks, no water, no emergency gear or equipment?”
“Didn’t say that.” She emptied out her many pockets. Steel water bottle, a power bar, a pack of gum, and . . . She pulled out and waved a small first aid kit at him. “Safety first!”
He eyed the medical patch across the back of her jacket. “Ski patrol?”
“RN,” she said. “I’m a traveling nurse, working a rotation at the four urgent care medical clinics on north shore. Today, obviously, I was up on North Dimond’s mid-mountain clinic.” She once again waved her first aid kit. “So I’m qualified to save people’s lives—even if I can’t manage to get my own together.”
He started to laugh, but another hard gust of wind hit and they spun like a toy, also swinging—so hard they just about went topsy-turvy. There was a sound of metal giving way—the shelf above his head for passenger belongings—a startled scream, and Levi lunged to throw himself over the top of her, shielding her body with his.
Everything flew in the air like they were in orbit, and for a single long heartbeat, gravity seemed to vanish. Levi was wrapped tight around his companion, her head tucked into his chest, when something hit his head.
And then it was lights out.
Praise for Jill Shalvis
“Believable, realistic characters are at the heart of this novel. Shalvis will immediately grab the reader’s attention with a strong heroine and caring connection between two wounded souls.”
—Publishers Weekly on Almost Just Friends
“Fans of the TV drama series This Is Us as well as love stories ripe with secrets waiting to be spilled will devour Shalvis’s latest in the series.”
—Library Journal on Almost Just Friends
“Sisterhood takes center stage in this utterly absorbing novel. Jill Shalvis balances her trademark sunny optimism and humor with unforgettable real-life drama. A book to savor—and share.”
—Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author, on The Lemon Sisters
“Jill Shalvis’s books are funny, warm, charming, and unforgettable.”